When surfing the web and reading some of the posts in this forum, there seems to be a tendency for contributers to return to the thorny issue of machine eligibility for "classic" and/or "pre 65" trials.  Being just a little too young to qualify as "pre 65" myself, I was  interested to find the programme and the results for the 1965 Hurst Cup trial on the Knock Motorcycle Club web site,  and thought I'd share it here (http://www.knockmotorcycleclub.co.uk/ClubHistory/Hurst1965Program.pdf and  http://www.knockmotorcycleclub.co.uk/ClubHistory/Hurst1965Results.pdf).

 

"The Hurst" is one of the longest standing trials in Northern Ireland.  Having first been held in 1930 it became a British National round in 1947, it was an FIM European championship round from 1970 to 1974,  and was a FIM world round from 1975 to 1981.  Given its standing there is an illustrious list of winners including; Stanley Woods, Fred Rist,  Billy Nicholson, Johnny Brittain, Sammy Miller (13 times, 8 on GOV 132), Mick Andrews, Martin Lampkin, Yrjo Vesterinen, Bernie Schriber, and Eddie Lejeune.

 

According to the 1965 programme there were 59 entries.  Given the loss of its British National standing these were mostly local riders, but there are some names that would be recognised more widely including Mr S H Miller, and an entry from BSA Birmingham.  The surprising thing for me was that more than two thirds of the field were riding two strokes or lightweights, with less than 10 entries on what I would have naively thought of as the usual "pre 65" bike, i.e. a 350 or 500cc pre-unit 4 stroke heavyweight. 

 

With that in mind, it would suggest that many of todays largest "pre 65" events, and perhaps the classic scene, are actually favouring the heavyweight 4 strokes more than they deserve, and perhaps there should be more recognition of the number of lightweights that were actually competing at the time.  I do however note that while there were plenty of entries riding Greeves, Dot, and smaller BSAs and Triumphs, but there were no "James" entries... 

 

At the risk of becoming all "thought for today"...  Perhaps my point is that if we want to promote "classic" trials then we need to move the discussion away from eligibility dates, and to accept that those wishing to be competitive will enter a lightweight.  This will of course mean that that courses will be set to challenge the lightweight machines, making it more difficult for mortals that still choose to enter a heavyweight.  But if we want to continue to see traditional heavyweight bikes used in anger then we need to encourage and support clubs and championships that include a "pre unit" class and set more traditional sections.

Todays Pre 65 / Classic trials is just history repeating itself.. won t be to long before you won t be able to give a decent Fantic away and everybody will be after Mono Yam's.. you wait...