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Pimp My Ride Back In The Day...!


motosinge83
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  • 1 month later...

What year is that last bike 90Kg is pretty light for how old it looks.

are all the trials bikes from that era under 100Kg? I was expecting them all to be well over 100Kg!

By the way. Im not into classics at all, but i did enjoy reading this page

Thanks

Ryan

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I remember seeing that red Steve Wilson Bultaco with the chrome exhaust at Wakelin and Ward and drooling all over it. The shop was only a couple of miles from my house and I used to live in it each Saturday morning when I got hooked on trials (thanks to watching some bloke on a 72 Bultaco riding in our local quarry when we went playing at scrambling on our pushbikes - it was Arthur Browning) Bunny Ward was a real character and a very nice bloke too. Still see his partner Roger Wakelin riding at local events.

At 15 ish, I finally got a 71 Bult. We used to watch Arthur ride and when he'd gone we'd go and try his sections. He then used to bring Steve Wilson with him and Dave Smith would also join them. All of them now on spanking new red Bultos. We'd watch in awe as they made and rode sections and it really gave us something to aim at. It was just after this that his personalised Bulto appeared on show in Wakelin and Ward. At this time I decided to stay on at school for A levels so no money was available for a new trials bike but I did manage to buy a 2 year old 74 Ossa MAR, which is what I'd always wanted.

On Monday afternoons, we always started with a double period of something called current affairs, which was usually some abysmally boring lecture by a fellow pupil or guest speaker on some topical subject or another. It really was gut-wrenchingly dire. One Monday in particular, skiving off was being discussed but this was in the days when teachers patrolled outside the school and checked the local snooker hall and such an offence resulted in being dragged back by the side-burns followed by a fair old thrashing with the cane, so we decided we'd better attend. Imagine my surprise then, when I walked into the hall, to see nothing less than Steve Wilson's Bultaco, the one I'd been looking at in W & W, sitting on a stand at the front of the stage. Steve himself was the guest speaker, talking about motorcycle trials no less. Who had booked him I've no idea as no-one in the entire school knew anything about trials. The only sight they'd ever had of a trials bike was when I sometimes turned up on the Ossa (at 16 - you'd never get away with it now) The talk was excellent, backed up with projector/slide show with lots of pictures and it was very well received. I even got a few nudges - is that what you do. 'Oh yes' said I 'I've been practising with that bloke'. Immediate hero status...

Happy days indeed. Well, until I aborted the pursual of A levels and left school to begin work - this meant selling the Ossa to get a car, bringing a temporary halt to my trials riding. A soon as I could afford it however I got another bike - a 76 Sherpa 325. Below is a picture of me competing on it in a Stratford club trial in pimped up period riding gear

post-71-1136858416.jpg

It was taken in 1978 at Chips quarry, Broadway, just outside Stratford, a venue that was used in the Colmore until the early 90s. I'm sporting my school shirt and jumper, tragically wide jeans (that never caught in the chain) and the ever popular dunlop trials wellies - as is everyone else in the picture. And yes, I majestically cleaned huge rock step that I'm just lining up for, the air in the jeans helped me float up it..

As for the bike it soon gave way to another Ossa. But that wasn't the last I saw of it. About 12/13 years ago I was selling some Bultaco parts and I had a call from some chap, not entirely related to what I was selling but one of those 'do you know where I can get...' type of questions. Anyway it turned out he was passing through our area and he would drop by. He pulled up in a open backed Transit which contained a disassembled trials bike. A 325 Bultaco, but not just any Bultaco, it was OWP 4P, the one in the picture above. Couldn't believe it and neither could he. Showed him some pictures of the bike when I had it and it made his day.

Ah, memories.

Edited by Woody
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