When you say it fouls, do you mean it stops the bike or misfires. I had three 4RTs and they always ran very black plugs but this never caused misfiring/or poor running.
As I understand it, the injection system is virtually infallible, certainly the bikes have excellent reputations. Are you looking at the plug because you want to or because you need to?
I said to Paul when it was too late (Sunday night) he should have given me a call to take over the drive, I'm sure I could still have got it round. Missed a real opportunity there.
Well done, I would love to have a go again.
In fact I had a very brief ride on Lee Granby's outfit on Sunday night, and I can still handle one.
Hi, Rappers here. Haven't looked at the column much this week, but glad to see there have been a few replies. It's Saturday night as I type this (Auguest 30) and I've just written tomorrow's column, the 81st I have completed for Trials Central.l By gum, it's hard work!!
Anyway, back to last week's column and the pig huts.
I don't know the year but it will have been in the early 'eighties when I rode sidecars with Mannix Devlin. The last sidecar section of the trial was in the car park behind the Palace Lido and consisted of three corrugated iron pig huts. Over the first, over the second, over the third! Easy eh? Nooooooooo.
Over the first, starting as far to the right as possible as the ridges seemed to pull the chair to the left; drop off (and it was a steep drop off), then with nothing more than a bike length to find drive, force up the second. By this point the chair was REALLY pulling the outfit left and if you were still aboard, drop off the second (still a mega steep drop). By this time we would have lost all sense of direction, but again force up the third pig hut, the sidecar wheel is hanging off the left hand side; passenger is a shade too heavy and we ended up with the biggest endo crash, bike over chair you have ever seen. What a way to end the Manx!
That was the pig huts - hope they are in a field now - with pigs!
Thanks also to Stickinthemud for telling me about my results in the 1968 trial and reminiscing about that trial. Read this week's column and reminisce a bit more.
Feedback is very welcome, it makes it all worthwhile.
There is a change to the direction of the Blackwater loop on Friday as far as I can tell in that riders do the loop anti-clockwise this year, from the top of Pipeline. Several of the sections have different names from recent years, but where they are or what they are, don't know. Which brings us back to "Buy a Programme" - sorry can't be of more help.
A great trial lap length about 10 miles I suppose (or that's what it seems), take your usual stuff, or if like me, nothing!! Sensible trial, missed it last year but going this year and looking forward to it.
Please remember, I had to write my column 24 hours BEFORE the trial took place, which I explained, therefore did not have the benefit of hindsight that everyone else has enjoyed.
I could have taken the easy route and not written about the world trial at all, but those that know me, also know that I'm more than happy to put my head above the parapet. Inevitably, everything that's written is my opinion, how I see it. I don't say it's right, or indeed wrong, simply how I see it at the time I write it.
Nothing to do with my column, but damned glad I didn't enter the Jack Wood!!!!!!
Bernie Schreiber, Martin Lampkin with John Reynolds and Malcolm Rathmell, 1979. I think they were taken on Saturday, on Ben Nevis in the left hand gully on the sections near the top of the gully. It was the year Mart and Malc battled for the win and Mart lost the trial when he fived one of the middle subs on the Ben.
YOU WILL NOT be pubbing, drinking, breakfasting, telly watching, snoozing, staying dry, you WILL be out at the crack of dawn like me. Scotland is not a holiday, you have to work at it to be a conscientious spectator, so let me tell you that now Gizza.
They are all over 40, whilst I don't know their exact age I guess one to be early forties, one mid forties and one late forties. Does this help? PS sorry I forgot to include a headline this week!
So why did the Dabster lose 22 marks, only eight fewer than the Class F winner, and not win his class and lose a dozen more than the Pre 75 winner? Jim Royle's remark is best suited I believe!
I've just posted out the programmes for next week's Angela Redford Trial and though we put a limit on the entry of 125, we have exceeded that and there are 145 names on the programme. It has been said that clubs should stick to the cut off number, but when the event is obviously popular, it's a recognition of the club, the trial, the section plotters and the organisation, so we've taken riders until the final closing date. As Diggler has already said, all 20 sections will have one route only, blue marker on the left, red on the right, simple as that. All sections will be rideable by all classes - in fact it's a traditional trial, just like the title of the series.
Even though I'm a columnist on this website, I can't manage to originate a thread, so have added to this thread which is the nearest I can get.
For those interested in the Traditional Trials Series, don't forget that the Angela Redford is on March 15, 2008, which is the third round of the series. Entries close on March 8 and already the number is up on last year, but we don't want to turn anybody away who wants to ride. So, the meassage is to get that last minute entry into Mike Rapley asap. It will be a superb trial with lots more land coming into use this year, and having been out marking out, it really will be well worth a ride.
I remember Trevor Woods as well, but can't be sure from when and where. If anybody knows of his whereabouts, get him to look at this website and let us know what he's doing. I've got a memory that he and I went to the same school, but I could be VERY wrong. Mike Rapley
In reply to Stu's post, in 1964 I was 17 years old.
Briefly, I first went to trials with my dad from the age of about 11 or 12, events that were held in the South Midland, Southern and South eastern Centres. We went to watch, and as I became older, dad and I observed at quite a few events, but principally those organised by the Wycombe and Farmham Royal clubs. I first rode in a trial in December 1963 on a Tiger Cub and have been riding non-stop ever since. The longest spell out of the saddle was the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic when I didn't ride for 19 weeks, which is the longest spell of inactivity ever.
To save counting on your fingers, I'm 61 years old, a week ago actually, and have ridden trials, sidecar trials, enduros, one scramble and one tarmac hill climb. I've been British Enduro Champion three times, once the clubman overall (1985) and twice the Over 40 champ. I twice finished third overall in the British Sidecar Trials Championship - not bragging (nothing much to brag about) but obviously somebody wanted to know!
Renthal chain certainly is made by Regina. The manufacture of chain is a highly specialised process and the costs of setting up production for a limited range of chain sizes required by the bike market could never be recovered. Renthal looked long and hard at the world's chain manufacturers before deciding to have their product made by Regina. Renthal, probably one of the most conscientious companies ever to have existed, provided the specification to Regina who make the chain to that specification, which is higher than the general specification for chain.
Few people are likely to be aware that Andrew Renshaw, the Ren of Renthal, and one of the two originators of the company, served his engineering apprenticeship with Renold Chain, so he probably knows as much about chain as anybody, therefore, if he is happy to have his product made by Regina (as against any other company), then I assume he knows what he is doing.
Few folks will also be aware that Henry Rosenthal, (the Thal in the Renthal name), who rides a Gas Gas, uses spockets and 428 chain, which is one size smaller than the conventional 520 chain that everybody else uses. He uses 428 chain because the loads on the chain created by a trials bike can NEVER exceed the failure strength of a 428 chain, therefore using 520 chain is simply over-engineering, whilst increasing unsprung weight.
It's easy to be critical of any company, but if you look at the facts with greater circumspect, you would know that when a company like Renthal, who are without doubt the world's biggest manufacturer of handlebars, supply original equipment to the bulk of the world's off-road bike manufacturers, and who have for 35+ years built a reputation for excellence, witnessed by the hundreds of world and national titles won using their products, supplying a product that is inferior in any way is simply unsound business sense.
I know this sounds like an advert for Renthal, but I have no connection with the company, except that I have used their products exclusively for 30 years and have never found them wanting. I also know Henry and Andrew fairly well and it's simply not in their ethos to produce anything (or have anything produced for them) that does not live up to their own exacting standards.
Sometimes folks, you have to accept that they know best!
I'm trying to contact Nick Morgan who rode British Championship enduros from about 1985 through to 1994 and was the first British rider to finish the Dakar Rally. I need his personal phone number to speak to him about an article I'm writing. The phone number I have for him is unobtainable. PM me through Trials Central. Thanks, Mike Rapley
The guy that was killed was probably Malcolm Davis who had a shop in Gloucester. He was a great trials rider, along with his brother Tony, the current organiser of the Victory Trial reunion dinners.,
Malcolm tragically died in the Otter Vale President's Trial, back in 1981ish I think. I was riding in the trial on a Suzuki sidecar outfit and Malcolm died as a result of a RTA - nothing to do with the trial except that he was competing in the event. Sad day that was.
I went all the way over to the Hull area many years ago to test one for TMX - what a waste of a journey, about as competitive as a Aspes Yak, the world's worst ever production trials bike.
Mark, we spoke recently and I thought that you would make this coming year your last, but if that's not to be, then be assured that you will really enjoy the week spectating. There is one big problem with riding - you see nothing except what is happening with the 20 or so riders around you. Go spectating and you can talk for ages with loads of folk that will know you, you get to see several sections each day and you can be a real expert, advising others on the lines etc, etc. You'll love it. Perhaps we can even spend a day together and I can bore you to death with my tales from years past - perhaps not, I'll be busy snatching pictures. I know that you think not riding will be dreadful, but that's not the case, you'll really enjoy spectating, trust me, I'm a blind man!
Don't know if this will get picked up by the classic boys as this thread has died of late, but Lancs County can confirm that next year's Angela Redford Trial will be held on SATURDAY, March 15 the day before Bootle's round of the same ACU Classic Championship.
And the good news is that Lancs County will again be at Brookhouse Brickworks and they've also got a brand new piece of land across the other side of the access road to the start area on the gravel roads below the windfarm. Several members had a look at this new land they've been offered a few days ago and it should prove a superb addition to an already great trial. It has a decent hillside and some really good beck sections, probably 6 or 8 with the remainder on the land used last year, giving two laps of 20 sections as long as 20 observers can be found on a Saturday.
Crossing the road isn't a problem as it's simply a case of crossing, not riding along the road, so taxation/road insurance shouldn't be a problem if you need to push the bike across. Regs will be out in the new year with all last year's riders sent a copy. Entries will be on a first come/late number basis, so be sharp with a maximum of 125 and last year we had 122. Mike Rapley
It's a sidevalve engine - as it was rumoured to be. In the past they have been sluggish and gutless, but with modern technology, who knows. It will certainly reduce weight and lower the centre of gravity.
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Flag Bag's
in General Trials Talk
Posted
The bags that Perce is referring to - the ones in his picture - are made by Daleswear of Ingleton. They make them to order and cost