Part of the success of our sport is the relationship built up over the years with the local people whose areas we happily ride over time and time again. We need to respect these friends particularly like the Halton Gill Ladies group, pictured below, who each year put on a magnificent spread to support the riders and all the officials in the Allan Jefferies trial.
The photo shows part of the spread of home cooking provided by the ladies for this year's event, the group is, L to R, Marilyn Roberts, RichardTaylor, Mary Myers, Freda Brook, Carol Horner and Brian Ayrton.
It is already in ORRe-44, so anybody interested can get the information there - and remember my motto, Never forget, if you need facts you have to look in the right place..........
Spotted in action at last weekend's Allan Jefferies trial, Anthony Ayrton's Montesa Honda 2RT creation after a total revamp of his original ploy of fitting a 315r two stroke engine into a Montesa 4Rt frame.
The precision engineer from Barnoldswick bought the 4Rt with a blown engine. The result of being submerged whilst still running. Anthony set about building what he calls a 2RT. He reckons the 315 two stroke is bullet proof and a total overhaul costs less than £500 - top to bottom. Many of vital brackets accepted the engine and also radiator connections and fittings. The machine was built last winter and rode and handled well so it was stripped and given the Saville Row bespoke job cosmetic and engineering and now resembles a factory bike. Bling up to the eyeballs but all for a purpose. Handling of a 4Rt and the weight of a 315 - the way to go?
By way of explanation for other members, as a result of my earlier posts within an hour seven other forum members emailed to say they would be interested. The article is about a thousand words, with two diagrams and a photograph, so I decided to type it all out once and put it in issue 44 of ORRe, knowing there were likely to be other members who hadn't read the posts yet!
I was pleasantly surprised by the number of responses by email to my earlier posting, so there is an illustrated article in ORRe-44 (due out shortly, exclusively from 'tc' - select the 'ORRe' button on the home page).
The modification that was first used to win the Scott trial on a Villiers twostroke by Arthur Shutt was relatively simple and simply involved adding the Villiers lighting coil (already in the flywheel) to the ignition circuit. Email me at Offroadrevue@gmail.com and I will give you instructions on how to do it.
I did it on all the Villiers models that I rode over the years (Dot, Greeves, Cotton and James) and the modification was standard fit on all the works Francis-Barnett bikes.
If there is sufficient demand I will publish details in our digital magazine, ORRe.
If you would like to see more current classic Bultaco action shots (as well as Montesa, SWM, Fantic, Gori, Ossa, etrc.,) then look at our photoreports of current classic events in our digital Magazine ORRe (just select the ORRe button on the home page).
Red Rose Classic events, like the one featured in smelling's posts above, are regularly featured, indeed here is a shot of Stuart in action taken from a recent issue. In the magazine there are no distracting watermarks, and the images are clear and cropped to maximise detail of the machines.
The Walsden trial organised by Red Rose Classic is featured in the next issue - with more Bultacos in action.
The very first trial organised specifically to cater for those of us who owned older British bikes and couldn't afford to buy one of the wonderful new Spanish machines that were flooding in was not actually labelled as a pre-65 trial, that definition came some months later in my column in TMX when I was answering a question as to how one could define this different sort of trial.
That first trial was jointly organised by John Smith, Derek Lord and myself as a Rochdale club trial. It was held on the moorland that Rochdale regularly used above the 'Red Lion' pub in Shawforth in August 1972 and attracted no less than fifty-three entries. We called it the Bigger Banger trial and it was won by Arthur Lampkin riding one of his rigid ex-works Gold Stars. At the time my trials bike was an Ajay and John Smith's was his uncle Ted Ogden's ex-works Norton 500T. During the trial Stan Pitts of my other club, West Leeds, riding across the rough moorland between sections, said "They should call this the Shawforth Shake", which we promptly did for the 1973 event onwards.
Nowadays there is an excellent choice of classic trials around the country, many of which are ignored in the commercial press but reported in 'TC's unique digital magazine for classic enthusiasts (ORRe) in exclusive photoreports, again a format not seen in the commercial press, but acclaimed by people wanting to understand which machines are acceptable and what are the events actually like - for example the next major event in the classic calendar is the Scarborough Two-day, which will have a comprehensive photoreport.
PS. Why was the term pre-65 selected in the first place? Because 1964 was the last year that any manufacturer included a pre-unit construction competition machine in its catalogue and sales literature - the company? AMC in their AJS and Matchless catalogues.
You could always splash out £12 for a subscription to our digital classic magazine, ORRe. That would give you instant access to around 2500 pages (because all the back issues are included with no extra charge) of classic offroad sport, every page pure information, not a single page wasted on advertising - many pages full page side-on machine photos to give you, hopefully, inspiration as to what is possible.
Where else, for example, can you see a captioned image of every competitor that rode in the 2015 Pre-65 Scottish, and all the interesting machines from both sides.
Hope that helps - but whatever you do - enjoy yourself.
My wife found out that our dog (a Schnauzer) could hardly hear, so she took it to the vet, who found that the problem was hair in the dog's ears.
He cleaned both ears, and the dog could then hear fine. The vet then proceeded to tell Andrea that, if she wanted to keep this from recurring, she should go to the pharmacy and get some "Nair" hair remover and rub it in the dog's ears once a month. Andrea went to the store and bought some "Nair" hair remover. As she paid, the pharmacist told her, "If you're going to use this under your arms, don't use deodorant for a few days." Andrea said, "I'm not using it under my arms." The pharmacist said, "If you're using it on your legs, don't use body lotion for a couple of days."
Andrea replied, "I'm not using it on my legs either. If you must know, I'm using it on my Schnauzer." The pharmacist said, "Well, stay off your bicycle for at least a week.
The photograph is of the Harkers, brother and sister who farm at Booze! The family connection with the Scott Trial goes back to
1950, which I calculate means for two-thirds of the Scott trial's history - but to find their connection I'm afraid you will need to read our digital magazine, ORRe, where it is told in the forthcoming issue 43..........
When Dunlop stopped producing the 4.00 x 19 Trials Universal, which was standard fit on all the British pre-unit bikes, if my memory serves me right in the mid-1990s, we first tried another similar tread patterned tyre which was a Speedway tyre, like Stan Wellback described, hard sidewalls and next to no real grip. That was the stage that we swopped to the 4.00 x 18 Trials Universal, which was close to the same diameter as the original 19 inch, and was universal fit on most of the two-stroke trials, such as Greeves, as well as the other current British bikes, such as C15T.
The image in the early posting looks like a Speedway tyre to me, so I would get the rear wheel spoked into an 18 inch rim and fit a modern trials tyre, that way you'll have a fighting chance if you ever get on to the rough.
One very interesting factor with the C15T came to light when discussing the performance with the Lampkins and Johnny Draper when they were first issued with their works bikes. They all agreed that they had found they got best results on hills by setting the throttle to give steady mid-range revs, then limiting the speed of the climb by leaning forwards or backwards to vary the amount of grip and keep the revs up by spinning the rear wheel slightly. They all agreed that if you throttled back to get grip the motor usually just died.........
They were universal in agreeing that the works were far more interested in promoting the scrambles variants - because success on the tracks definitely sold more road bikes.............
Chester says to Earl "I'll send my dog out to see if there are any ducks out in the pond.If there aren't many ducks out there, I'm not going hunting". So he sends the dog out to the pond. The dog comes back and barks twice.
Chester says "Well I'm not going to go out. He only saw two ducks out there".
Earl says "You're going to take the dog's barks for the truth?" Earl doesn't believe it, so he goes to look for himself. When he gets back he says "I don't believe it. There really are only two ducks out there! Where did you get that dog?"
Chester says "Well, I got him from the breeder up the road. If you want one, you can get one from him". So Earl goes to the breeder and says he wants a dog like the one his friend Chester has. The breeder obliges and Earl brings the dog home, tells it to go out and look for ducks.
Minutes later the dog returns shaking its head with a stick in its mouth, and starts humping Earl's leg..
Outraged, Earl takes the dog back to the breeder saying "This dog is a fraud. I want my money back!" The breeder asks Earl what the dog did.
So Earl tells him that when he sent the dog out to look for ducks, it came back shaking its head with a stick in its mouth, and started humping his leg.
The breeder said "Earl, dogs can't talk. He was trying to tell you there are more f****ing ducks out there than you can shake a stick at".
Sorry to be the one thinking laterally, but studying a whole load of images of various machines in action in the Pre-65 Scottish to decide which selection to include in the latest ORRe, I was struck by the seemingly endless tendency to aviate the front wheel unexpectedly and cast the rider off ignominiously.........
Then I realised that most younger riders have seemingly infinite faith in electronic ignition, whereas I as a qualified electronics engineer have less than perfect faith, having seen the poor quality of many of the components fitted........
But the fact that hit me between the eyes, as it were, is that on steep climbs with poor grip, be it dry because of loose rocks/stones or wet grass, we ALWAYS used to knock the ignition back a notch towards retard just to soften the power delivery and keep the front wheel lift controllable. We had power to spare anyway, so softening it was not a compromise.
Now I'm not saying throw the electronic ignition away - getting magnetos restored these days must be a nightmare - but mount the electronic points on a rotatable plate with an advance/retard spring loaded lever, keeping the prime advantage of a king-size spark, but with the added subledty of control of power delivery to suit the conditions.......... and don't tell me that can be achieved in the mapping because it would need an intelligence in the mapping selection to decide whether the rider was just trying to kick start the bike or getting ready for an awkward climb - and remember with an advance/retard lever you could ease it towards smoother delivery for the tricky step then put it back to full advance for the rest of the blast up the hill.
DOT maintained their enviable reputation in the Pre-65 Scottish this year when Richard Allen brought his machine home in tenth spot and took the honour of being the best performance by a machine powered by Villiers! There are photos of Richard in the latest issue of our digital magazine, ORRe, due out in the next few days and also a photofeature on DOT machines in action over the years in both trials and scrambles.
To whet your appetite, here is a photograph taken by Jack Knoops of another DOT rider at Kinlochleven this year, Philip Hodgson.
Tuesday 31 May 2016 marks the Centenary of the loss during the Battle of Jutland in the First World War of Admiral Robert Keith Arbuthnot, Bt., KCB., MVO who went down with his flagship in this largest sea battle of the century.
Also lost was his motorcycle, which, as an Admiral, he was privileged to take on board with him. In his earlier years (he was only 52 years old when he died) as a Lieutenant he had regularly ridden his motorcycle in competitions and, as a recognition of this there was a regularity trial for naval officers created in the 1920s which ran for several years until it was finally abandoned as an event in 1929.
Many years later, whilst negotiating with a farmer for the purchase of a veteran Riley car which was 'recumbent' in a barn, Ian Rennie succeeded on the condition that before he took the car away he arranged to clear all the rubbish out of the barn so that the farmer could have the use of the barn again!
In that rubbish was a trunk with assorted papers, amongst which were a set of route and regulations for the trial for naval officers.......
Ian contacted me, and we spent several years working out exactly where the route had run in the 1920s, long before many of the local roads had been dualled, then converted to modern standards, we needed vastly useful help from the local County Surveyors and Archivists, followed by interesting discussions with the many landowners in the area of the route.
The result was the recreation of that old trial, now known as the Arbuthnot Trial, which has achieved a popularity of its own amongst classic enthusiasts and runs to this day under the welcome stewardship of Mick and Mary Rye of the Salisbury club. I can recommend it as a good day out for the classic enthusiast.
Chris Wallis, ever-helpful member of the Richmond club celebrated her 50th birthday on Friday.
So a surprise party was arranged for the Blue Bar trial on Saturday.
With a cake made by Vera Watson, (right of Chris), the group picture (taken by Barry Robinson) was organised by Steve Lambert and Barry Watson.
As a personal 'thank you' for the Richmond rapid trial results service, Jack Knoops and Barry Robinson organised the card, chocolates and Chris' favourite Bombay Sapphire Gin!
Many trials riders in the Yorkshire area will be aware that Stephanie Wood passed away last week.
Stephanie was one of those indefatigable people for whom nothing was ever too much effort if it helped keep motorcycle sport alive
Not sure if she was the first but she was one of the few female Yorkshire Centre presidents (in 1981). She was also one of the organisers of the first European Trials Rounds in the UK in 1970 which set off from the Sheffield Wednesday Ground in Sheffield and used the area now used by the Jack Wood trial, named in honour of Stephanie's father.
She was also a reporter for motorcycle news and Bikesport news, and also attended the Scottish six days trial every year from 1965 to 1997.
Her funeral is at Grenoside Crematorium in Sheffield on Friday 10th June at 11:45. Donations are to Cancer UK.
The attached photograph, courtesy of her family, is the way many will want to remember Stephanie.
My sincere apologies, I must have been only half awake when I initially responded to your post!
She does look in nice nick - yes it is a Sprite, manufactured, as I'm sure you know, by Frank Hipkin - and if there are many references and images of the various models of Sprites in our digital magazine, ORRe. In particular we tell the story of Dennis Jones, who rode Sprites for Frank, you'll see plenty of photos of what they look like when they are muddy.............
As a starter, here is a photo of John Roberts on a Sprite on the bottom reaches of Hollinsclough.
Our Sport Needs These People
in General Trials Talk
Posted
Part of the success of our sport is the relationship built up over the years with the local people whose areas we happily ride over time and time again. We need to respect these friends particularly like the Halton Gill Ladies group, pictured below, who each year put on a magnificent spread to support the riders and all the officials in the Allan Jefferies trial.
The photo shows part of the spread of home cooking provided by the ladies for this year's event, the group is, L to R, Marilyn Roberts, RichardTaylor, Mary Myers, Freda Brook, Carol Horner and Brian Ayrton.
PHOTO: BARRY ROBINSON