laird387

Hi, Another interesting pic for the enthoosers, Enjoy.

Hi, Another picture from my offroadarchive, just to help several recent Saracen queries, it shows Jack Galloway n his works Saracen in the 1971 SSDT. The full article on the Saracen models that I wrote and published in my Motorcycle Competition - Reference Library Vol. 2. - will shortly be available on the offroadarchive website. Enjoy the picture.

Hi Ross, I understand your concern, but like so many Scots, I believe you fail to understand just how attractive the thoughts of riding amongst real mountains and proving yourself on sections that have been used for many years by ALL the famous names is when you live in most of England - where, don't forget, there isn't a single Munro to be found anywhere. Yes, only coming for one day of riding might be a limitation, but in my experience most of them stay on for the modern SSDT anyway - indeed many bring bikes for both events. I also helped resuscitate the Arbuthnot Trial, an event that had been 'lost' to the calendar after the 1929 event. That was only one day, moreover it was only for rigid machines, yet it was always oversubscribed - and we had entrants from as far away as Scotland and South Africa. Anyway - let's see if anyone else has any thoughts. regards Deryk

Hi, Charlie, et al., One factor about 'the Pre 65 Scottish thing', as you call it is that when it first started, way back in the 1980s, the Edinboro' organising club believed there would be nobody with an old bike that was registered, insured and road legal - so it was based on the schoolyard at Kinlochleven, and run on what was really a pocket handkerchief course, keeping well off the roads. They attracted entries of between fifty and eighty riders. I campaigned long, hard and boringly trying to persuade them to take the Pre 65 back on the roads and use some of the old favourite sections like 'Coal-scuttle'. They argued back - no road legal bikes. At the time I was well into running my 'British Bike Championship' series of trials, ten trials per annum, all on the road, all based on famous old sections and routes - and attrating no less than four hundred and seventy-two riders to the series. The penny dropped in Edinboro' - they took the Pre 65 out on the road, and were amazed by a potential entry of over two hundred riders. Sadly part of the road use in Scottish trials is the authorisation by the RAC - which limited them to 120 riders. Now here's the rub. There are still as many potential riders, but still the limit of 120 - but why not split the trial in two halves, an experts day on the Friday with 120 experts and a clubman's day on the Saturday, with 120 different riders. No need to do any extra route marking, leave the sections the same, no need for extra marshals or observers - but then two hundred and forty riders of classic machinery could get a chance to ride those famous rocks and burns - just a thought for the future development of a growing sport......... Regards. Deryk

Hi, As 'OTF' so rightly said, things have moved on. One of the main 'things' that have moved on has been the laxity of some organisers to deal with the land problem, and restrict themselves to the use of pocket handkerchief courses. Riding on a real course that would prove the reliability of the machines - as well as proving that they are a practical form of transport - would certain change your mind about changing the saddle, for example, don't forget Scott was riding the bike in trials every weekend that had average laps of close on seventy miles - I know because I was riding in many of the trials with him. And before anyone tells me that it was 'easier' then to get permission to use land way back then please bear in mind that I was a member of national ACU and AMCA committees specifically formed to fight the motorcyclists corner to retain access to land for recreational use - so I know both sides of the story.

Hi, The sporty invalid chair at the SSDT was Derry Preston-Cobb, Sales Manager of Invacar Ltd of Thundersley, Essex, who also manufactured, as a side-line, a motorcycle named after the factory owner - Bert GREEVES. The motor in Derry's invalid chair was set-up by Brian Stonebridge, among others and was more closely based on the 246cc scrambles motor, used so successfully by Brian and then latterly, by Dave Bickers. Brian Stonebridge, sadly, is rarely accorded the acclaim for what he achieved for small twostroke motorcycles. I was lucky to be a marshall at Hawkstone Park, when Stonebridge was chosen to represent Great Britain in the international team contest, and asked to ride a Matchless 500 scrambler, he said he preferred his own bike, and opted out of the official team to ride as a privateer in the races. He was incredibly fast around the circuit and ended up as the best placed Briton, beating riders like Jeff Smith on his works Gold Star - and remember Jeff and the BSA team regularly had bike set-up and practice days on the works Goldies at Hawkstone. In recognition of Brian's performance that day the Greeves scrambles models were immediately renamed the Greeves 'Hawkstone'. Another year Brian Stonebridge was very successful with a Greeves sidecar outfit in the SSDT when there was a sidecar class - but that's another story. Whatever you ride, enjoy!

Hi, For the enthusiasts out there, the section official on the extreme left of the Don Smith image, is Ed Stott, who spent many hours with me discussing his thoughts for a book about the history of the SSDT. He had an extensive collection of 35mm slides of the event which he used to give illustrated talks about the history of the Scottish, mainly to various sections of the Vintage Club up and down the country. Sadly he died before we ever got round to physically publishing the book, but he bequeathed his collection of slides and notes on his talks to me. Not wanting all that wealth of information to be lost I set to and wrote the book 'Lochaber Rich Mixture' in his name and published it in my series of 'Rich Mixture' books. I am currently working on converting all the 'Rich Mixture' books and also the 'Scott Trial' book that I published into electronic format that can be downloaded and used on the various tablets, pads and computers. Regards Deryk Wylde

Hi, Sorry - the image was missing from my post above - courtesy of my slow broadband ....... Enjoy

Hi, An inevitable part of this discussion is that Sam the Man had more than one Ariel whilst at Selly Oak, one his 'riding' bike, the other a training or development bike. When Sam went to Bultaco the two Ariels were put up for sale in Comerfords. Here is an image to prove that Sam actually rode bikes with either number on occasions. Here he was pictured by Gordon Francis in the John Douglas trial, we think in 1962. The image is part of my Offroadarchive. Enjoy.

Hi, again, One of the more interesting Greeves images is this one of Don Smith in the 1964 SSDT, where he introduced this new 'lightweight' model, photograph taken from my Offroadarchive. Enjoy

Hi, Dredging back through my memory banks, I find the suggestion that there were 'factory' or even 'factory supported' Gaunt Suzukis, slightly confusing. In those days Peter worked for one of our local dealers, Ray Dell, with shops in Pudsey (near Leeds) and Otley, and the Suzukis were, I believe, insurance recovery victims due for the scrapheap until Peter worked his magic influence on them. It is most likely that Ray would cooperate with some cost price used models for Peter to 'improve' if they had an offer to buy a model. My own preference was one of the twostroke models, with a sort of luminous purple/maroon tank colour that seemed to pull like a train, I think that followed the goldish tanked model. Sadly I have no pictures of them but Barrie Robinson may well have. Regards.

Hi, David, One point that many people miss when looking at gearing is how many slippy, slithery surfaces are you likely to meet? The reason that I ask, is that the larger the rear wheel sprocket (i.e. the closer the chain line to the wheel rim), the greater the tendency for traction to be broken very easily. If you watched Sam the Man on surfaces like that, he would very often find grip that nobody else could, but he would always have a tiny primary drive sprocket and less teeth on the rear than most. It's a simple fact of physics, greater leverage on the circumference of any circular object the closer one applies the force to the rim. That's why we select second to pull away on mud or ice, rather than first which will just spin the wheel. Good luck

Hi, Willie, There was one 'big-bore' Villiers conversion on the market, the brain child of a lad called Burns (sadly my advancing Alzheimer's is hiding his first name from me). He worked at Moto-cross Motors in Oldham and sold his developments as a kit. I bought his own bike from him, in a Cotton framed sidecar outfit, did my own improvement to the ignition and eventually rode it as a solo. It was far more like a fourstroke in power characteristics, pulled like a train when you put it in a higher gear and made it work! I swopped it eventually in a deal for a new Greeves Pathfinder - and that cured me and pushed me back on to fourstrokes in a hurry! Regards

Hi, Always willing to help with an image from my Offroadarchive, this time taken by Barrie Robinson, who at eighty-two years young is still taking photographs for newspapers. It shows Peter riding in the Ilkley club's New Year Trial in 1970. My old mate Ralph Venables called the little bikes 'Clockwork Mice'. As a riding member of the West Leeds club, we watched all the developments of Peter's bikes as he rode them in our club trials (We had at least one a month in those days, plus practice and new rider development evenings at Post Hill.) Happy days.

Hi, Here is an image of what was considered, in its day, to be the ultimate BSA C15T, Scott Ellis with his heavily modified BOK 228C, photographed by Alan Vines in the 1969 Kickham Trial. As ever, enjoy.

Hi, I've hunted another Panther Stroud image from my Offroadarchive. It depicts Bill and Mick Wilkinson's Dad, Dick, riding his Panther Stroud in the Allan Jefferies Trophy Trial in 1952. Enjoy.

Hi, A few Greeves shots from my archive. The first shows Bill Wilkinson in the 1969 British Experts, on his SSDT winning bike, WWC 169F. Photo by Alan Vines. The second is another Alan Vines shot, on the same bike in the 1969 Mitchell trial, based on Merthyr Tydfil, climbing a rocky stream. Enjoy

Hi, Another nice 'Cheetah' shot from my Offroadarchive is this Cecil Bailey pic of Bob Gollner's model, taken in Jan 1967. Enjoy

Hi, for B40rt, I'm sure I've seen Lye on a map of the Dudley/Stourbridge sort of area?

Hi, Andy, Lovely shot - as I would have expected - but the one 'gem' to come out of it is to explain to the world in general that, on the whole, modern cameras are tending to make good trials photography harder to achieve - why? - because YOU STILL HAVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING !!! I know I live in the past, but when I decided to take the plunge and create my own magazine, I was already a keen amateur photographer and Mary, my wife, was keen to join in and proving to be a dab hand with a camera. I decided to update our kit since it was obvious that decent images were going to be the most likely road to success, so off we went to our friendly local photography shop to see what deals could be struck. I opted for Canon kit and the dealer was keen to sell us the very latest innovation, an EOS with Autofocus. I wasn't sure, I had never seen autofocus before, Mary immediately spotted a potential problem; "What if you decide the prime point of focus that you want is not the one the camera chooses?" - "Tough" was the dealer's answer, "but don't worry all the images will always be in focus." We weren't sure, so opted to take a pair of manual focus T90's, and two sets of lenses. They proved to be a near perfect solution. Knowing that many typical sections are in woodland, in dark streams, we immediately added separate flash guns, choosing Metz units with an effective throw of up to 45 feet and the capability to measure the flash intensity off the surface of the film in the camera, so perfect exposure of the main subject matter even when working deep in the woods and on a bleak winter's day. Then we concentrated on watching a few riders through our viewfinders to make sure that we were in a good position to see as much of the bike as possible, as much of the detail of the hazard as possible and, vitally, as much of his face from under the peak of his helmet as possible. When all of that was right, then we could press the shutter. Nowadays with modern digital cameras, most have removed the option of manual operation, there's no cost of film or developing to worry about, and they have marvellous flash built-in - just point and shoot, they say. They don't point out that the tiny built in flash has an effective range of between 8 and 10 feet. They also don't highlight the fact that all the close shrubbery will be highly illuminated, so the automatic exposure will take it's guide from that, and the rider will likely be in the dark murky shadows beyond that, with his face in the shadow of the helmet peak.......... Sorry, but the answer is if you want to take good trials photographs, learn about photography first, then check that you have equipment that let's YOU be in charge of the whole process, then go out and enjoy yourself. Some handy tips? If you want to take 'record' pictures of your machine, the ideal position for the camera is directly at right angles to the bike with the centre of the lens fairly close to the same height as the spark-plug - that way the perspectives will be right and the wheels won't look egg-shaped. Another useful one, action shots work well when you are about three-quarters on to the face. Most important, never, ever, stand in the eye-line of a rider and use flash. Like I said, enjoy your photography and let the rider enjoy his ride.

Hi Charlie et al., As promised, a couple of shots of 'XJO' in the Frank Darrieulat format, two of the photographs featured in an article for 'Classic Bike' that resulted in me never writing another word for any EMAP publication. ( I had made a mistake in a caption and they refused to put in a correction for me - said it would make it appear they didn't know what they were talking about...........) Regaards Deryk

Hi, Another of my period shots from my Offroadarchive shows Sam the Man on his way to winning the Wye Valley Traders Cup trial in April 1965. Another cracking image from Gordon Francis, Cheers Deryk Wylde

Hi, Another 'period' shot to add spice, this is Bristolian Mike Clarke, who owned 'GOV132' for a while, riding it in the 1967 Wye Valley Traders Cup, photo from my Offroadarchive.

Hi, Add an actual period shot - again by my old mate Gordon Francis showing Geoff Chandler on his Wasp in 1967 (I think !)

Hi, and OOPS, SORRY !!!