There are plenty of old motorcycles in the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu that have a decent story behind them. This Rudge has a particularly good one.
Words + Photos: Rich Orriss
The dark horse with the number 57 on its race plate is the machine Graham Walker rode to one of the most important victories of his career – the 1928 Ulster Grand Prix.
And it wasn’t just an important race for Walker. What happened in Ireland helped give Rudge one of its most famous road-going motorcycles.
Walker was already an experienced racer by the time he joined Rudge. He had been competing in the TT since 1920, initially with Norton and later with Sunbeam, and had built a reputation as a fast and versatile rider. By 1928 he was working with Rudge, combining his racing with a role in the company’s Sales Department.
The 1928 Rudge was serious racing machinery. A 499cc four-valve overhead-valve single, it was part of Rudge’s increasingly sophisticated racing programme. The works bikes were fitted with saddle tanks and internal expanding brakes, and the factory was pushing the performance of its four-valve engines hard. The machine at Beaulieu is recorded as having achieved a top speed of around 105mph.
Walker had already come painfully close to a major TT victory that year.
In the 1928 Senior TT he was leading on the Rudge and looked to have the race in his hands. With the finish approaching, however, the machine suffered a mechanical problem and Walker was forced to retire. Some accounts describe the problem as an oil-flow failure, while others refer to a big-end failure. Either way, the result was the same: a race that looked like it was his disappeared in the closing stages.
A few weeks later, he had another chance. This time it was the Ulster Grand Prix.
Walker and Charlie Dodson fought for the lead for more than two hours. By the finish Walker had won, averaging 80.78mph over the 210-mile race. That made him the first rider to win an international road race at an average speed above 80mph.
It was a serious bit of riding… and Rudge knew exactly what it had.
The following year the company introduced the Rudge Ulster, named after Walker’s victory. The production machine took its name directly from the race that had put Rudge and Walker into the headlines, turning a works racing success into something customers could actually buy. The 1929 Rudge Ulster was priced at £69.
Walker carried on winning on Rudges too. He won the Ulster Grand Prix again in 1929 and continued to be a major part of the factory’s racing effort.
The 1930 TT was another big year for Rudge. The marque dominated the meeting, with Rudge riders taking first, second and third in the Junior TT and first and second in the Senior. Wal Handley won the Senior, with Graham Walker finishing second at an average of 74.1mph. Walker also finished third in the Junior.
Then, in 1931, Walker finally got his TT win.
It came in the Lightweight TT, riding a 250cc Rudge. He completed the seven-lap race at an average of 68.98mph, finishing ahead of fellow Rudge rider Henry Tyrell-Smith. It remained Walker’s only TT victory, despite the number of times he had come close over his long career.
His Rudge career continued for several more years. He raced the marque in the TT through to 1934 and also enjoyed success away from the Island, including winning the 350cc class at the 1931 North West 200. He was also a successful trials rider and was part of the British team that won the International Six Days’ Trial in 1928.
And there is another reason this particular Rudge feels at home at Beaulieu. Graham Walker’s career didn’t end when he stopped racing.
He became a broadcaster and journalist, working for the BBC and later becoming editor of Motor Cycling magazine. He was l heavily involved with the Montagu Motor Museum and helped develop its motorcycle collection. The motorcycle section at Beaulieu opened in 1956, and Walker became an important figure in preserving the machines and stories of the sport in which he had spent so much of his life.
His son Murray would later become famous for a rather different sort of motorcycle and motor racing commentary, but Graham had already established himself as a racer, journalist and historian in his own right.
Which brings us back to the Rudge sitting behind the rope at Beaulieu.
It is easy to look at an old racing motorcycle and see the polished paint, the number boards and the fantastically advanced four-valve engine.
But this one was there when Graham Walker was doing more than 80mph around the roads of Northern Ireland, fighting Charlie Dodson for the lead and putting Rudge into the history books.
an article by The Girder Club
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