Some interesting research from Christian Gyde in Denmark

Our thanks goes out to Christian Gyde who has sent us some great research about the Stevens marque. Apparently Stevens` were exported to Denmark and we now have some newspaper cuttings and a photograph from there.

The first item is a photograph of a Danish soldier astride his Stevens. It looks to be a model HP6, the high pipe 500 cc bike which was introduced in 1935. Christian suggests that the photograph is probably post-war as the soldier is wearing a Danish uniform based on the Standard British battledress uniform, and which was introduced soon after the war.

According to Christian, local rider Viggo Thomsen is mentioned in the article from the huge scramble at Volk Molle in Denmark in 1937. He is reported to have ridden a "Steewens" and can be seen on his motorbike in the bottom left picture of the article. It is difficult to be absolutely sure that this is a Stevens but it `ticks a lot of boxes` and is just the sort of machine that was sold by the Stevens Bros. for this type of competition. His name was actually Viggo Thomadsen and his son-in-law Carsten Kyhl is a big name in classic scrambles for his knowledge of, and his stock of reproduction parts for, AJS/Matchless competition machines. Apparently, again according to Christian, Viggo collected more than 400 bikes which he picked up from scrapheaps in the 60`ies.
Christian then goes on to say that he suggests that the soldiers bike and the bike ridden by Viggo may even be one and the same. The picture of the soldier was obtained less than 30 km from Volk and where Viggo Thomadsen lived. The number plate also reveals that the bike belonged to the same area.

  

 more from Christian.......

 

..... after searching the scrapbooks of the gentleman who was the source of the  previous information, they have found another article on Viggo. The photograph  shows him astride his Stevens with a look of someone who knows how good he is, and also how good his machine is ! This was taken at the big pre-war scramble at Volk Molle where he achieved the best lap of the day, and as Christian points out, this was 13 / 14 years into his racing career so it is fairly certain that he was fully aware of what was needed to be competitive, in other words his choice of Stevens was not coincidental.
He was also member No.2 of the  Danish Veteran / Vintage Motorcycle Club, which shows his lifelong contribution to the scene.

Once again, many thanks to Christian for this invaluable insight into his regions history of the Stevens Bros. marque.