At 11am on 11 November 1918, the guns fell silent in Europe. The Great War had come to an end. Since there was no other world war yet, it was still called the Great War - it was only after the 1939-194 war that it became known as the First World War.

Anyway, after the war came the peace conference. The victors - Great Britain, France and the USA sat down with the vanquished - Germany and Austria - and basically rinsed them for every penny they could get. The reparations they asked for - billions and billions of pounds - could never be afforded. The economic hardship that they caused were one of the main reasons why Hitler was able to come to power. Ironically, the big conference that was supposed to be about "Peace" actually sowed the seeds for the next world war, which kicked off about 30 years later.

One of the other terms of the peace deal was that Germany was not allowed to re-arm. This meant that all of the companies who supplied bullets, shells, tanks and stuff like that had to diversify and find other things to manufacture.

There was one fairly sizeable company, only two years old at the time of the peace conference, who produced fantastic engines for aeroplanes. 226 horse power, 19-litre engines. Solid and reliable - just what you need in aircraft, especially when they're being shot at. The peace treaty restricted them to producing 6.5 horse power engines only - nowhere near powerful enough to get a plane in the air.

So the Company wondered what on earth it could do with itself. Who on earth would want a 6.5 horse power engine?

The General Manager, a guy called Franz Josef Popp, knew exactly what to do with a 6.5 horse power engine. He did what any self-respecting engineer would do - he stuck it in a frame and added a couple of wheels. The first BMW motorbike, called the R32, was born.

It's funny how one thing leads on to another. The peace treaty of Versailles in 1919 arguably caused the Second World War. Without the peace treaty, there would have been no BMW motorbikes or cars - they'd have been making aeroplane engines.

So this got me to thinking. The leading engine in aircraft in the world today is Rolls Royce. Like BMW, they also make cars of great quality. I wonder what a Rolls Royce bike would be like. Imagine a gold-plated, diamond-encrusted, oak-panelled Rolls Royce enduro bike with full leather trim being chucked round a field on a Sunday. Now that would be fun.

A guy called Ted McIntyre did exactly this. An Allison Rolls Royce gas turbine inside a motorcycle frame. You can read it here. This thing idles at 20,000 rpm and travels at more than 300mph. Now that is fast - the take-off speed for a fully-loaded Boeing 747 jumbo jet is 200mph. If it had wings, it would fly.

Been learning a lot about engines today, and what size the holes would need to be in order to bore out the AJP PR3 to be 270cc. Or is the XR400 a better bet? Chris Evans (representative of ASO in the UK) goes on and on about the bike you need to build to do Dakar. With each passing day, I am starting to appreciate what this means.

My ageing friend was over tonight, going over bizz-ness stuff and proposals and all sorts of bits and pieces like that. Normally meek and mild, he got all huffy and puffy and blow-your-house-down when I suggested that he may actually not know how a 2-stroke engine works. The boy doth protest too much - his previous convictions for brake caliper bolts stand as everlasting testimony to his mechanical abilities. That one is going to run and run - it's not often that I get the chance to kick his nuts and, boy, am I making sure I get my money's worth.

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