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As I thought about it, this little
homely bike seemed to be begging
me to take it home. Please, please,
please it begged and begged, take
me home to Vermont!

I thought about it and gave in, and
asked Frank if he would kindly hold
the Nimbus for me for 30 minutes
while I collected the cash to buy it,
and arranged for transport home;
Frank agreed! When I returned 30
minutes later, I had cash in hand,
and to my amazement, a line of
admirers had gathered around this
bike, staring at “My” Nimbus! It
was lucky timing, because that
machine would have been gone to
someone else. Frank was a man of
his word, and although he could
have gotten a higher price by the
time I returned, he took our agre- The arrow points out the high-tension lead from the remote coil
ed upon price, I paid him and the
Nimbus was mine. in his trailer, and watched him lea- Not knowing a single thing about
ve for Vermont. That was April, Nimbus Motorcycles (I had certain-
Then I asked Frank, “Does it run?” 2005. ly never heard of Fisker and Niel-
Frank’s response, “It used to, when sen) I decided to do a little rese-
I first got it,” was actually the Five months went by. The Nimbus arch “on line” before picking up a
beginning of a wonderful new sat patiently in Ben’s leaky, humid, wrench and trying to start it. Sear-
adventure, creating my passion for musty trailer all that time, which ching on-line, I found a website
the Nimbus, and best of all, highly didn’t do it much good. In mid entitled “Nimbus Motorcycles were
valued friendships worldwide. August, we were able to hitch up built by Fisker and Nielsen of Den-
Frank said the bike had been sit- Pat’s horse trailer to make the trip mark”. I enjoyed the detail there
ting for over 20 years and I over to Rutland to pick up the Nim- but for some reason I needed
thought to myself that it was a bus. When Ben unlocked the trailer more, so I wrote and asked the
small detail, and a weekend of the bike was covered with conden- contact at “mcnimbus@gmail.com
work would be an easy and simple sation: soaking wet. We rolled it “ “Dear sir, I have just bought a
fix. I made a similar mistake with a out of Ben’s trailer and into ours. I Nimbus motorcycle, and I wonde-
player piano once; nothing could looked it over, and wiped it down; red if a parts manual might be
have been farther from the truth! at least no major rust had set in available”…
yet. Soon we were off to Hartland,
I pushed the black Nimbus over to Nimbelle’s new home. Next day, I received a dozen pages
Ben’s booth, helped him load it up of email from a Mr. Lars Persson
about all the ins and outs of
waking up a dead Nimbus, starting
procedures and specifications: plus
he mailed me an official JC Nimbus
parts manual that arrived 10 days
later. That tiny, hard to read
manual became my bible as Lars
and I worked on that Nimbus over
daily e-mails. He “held my hand”
through each and every disas-
sembly, and guided me through
every process and procedure
necessary to bring that very dead
bike back to life.

As with all old bikes, we had our
share of surprises. Lars kept insis-
ting that the conrod halves had
shims in between them for adjus-
ting the clearance, and I kept tel-
ling him mine did not. We finally
realized mine had been converted
to shell type, modern con rod

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