Chesterfield is a large market town in Derbyshire, England, and was home to trials and motocross rider Chris Milner, born on 1^st January 1952, a quiet, extremely modest man who let his performances on a motorcycle speak for him. Chris passed away after a long battle with cancer on 25^th September 2017, but before he succumbed to the disease he made some notes to enable his story in motorcycle sport to be told and recorded for the benefit of his family. This showed the courage of the individual and his desire to record his life as a sporting motorcycle rider for his children and grandchildren. His widow Ann Milner agreed to have his notes released to a wider audience, those who are motorcycle enthusiasts and the friends he made when competing in trials and motocross events over the years.

Words: John Moffat and the late Chris Milner

Photos: Colin Bullock

In the beginning:

“My interest in motorcycles started by my Dad taking me to scrambles almost every weekend since I was ten years old; I really wanted to be a scrambler. When I was 12 years old he bought me a 197 DOT to ride in our local wood. The DOT made way for an almost new Triumph Tiger Cub which we bought for £98. I started riding in trials from the age of 14 and managed to get a Saturday job with the then Ossa importer Eric Housley at his Clay Cross workshop. I sold the Triumph to buy a new Cotton 32A, and started getting results in the local club and centre trials.  Mick Andrews worked at Eric Housley’s and started to take me practising, and my results really improved. When the Ossas arrived I was given the use of a demonstrator model and really enjoyed the extra power. In 1969 I started to do a few nationals, and Eric entered me in to the Scottish Six Days Trial and the Hurst Cup Trial in Northern Ireland. Dave Thorpe left Triumph and started riding an Ossa for Housley; he lived locally and offered to take me to Scotland. This was to be a very interesting trip – two motorcycles in the back of Hillman Imp van with the back doors open all the way to Edinburgh!”

Romance:

Chris met his wife Ann by chance the same year, when he was 17 and Ann was 16 years old. Accompanied by a friend, Ann went to the Chesterfield supporting riders’ meetings to socialise. After a few meetings Chris eventually asked Ann out on a date but trials riding was still the main priority.

“In 1969 Dave Thorpe had a much earlier number than I did for the SSDT, so he arranged for me to go to the start at Gorgie Market with John Hemingway. Unfortunately my riding gear was in Stephanie Wood’s van and she had left to follow Dave over the Forth Bridge so I was left at the start with no riding gear or tools.  Luckily, other riders came to my rescue with their spare gear although some did not fit me very well. I somehow managed to finish the first day in second place behind Don Smith. The next job was to find my riding gear! I managed to track it down to the Station Hotel where a lot of the Yorkshire lads were staying. They bought me a few pints to celebrate my first day’s result, but I was not used to drinking. I was a bit rough the next day and my results slumped down to around 13^th place, I ended up finishing the week in 50^th position. I rode the Ossa again the next year in Scotland, finishing in 48^th position. Around this time I also got to ride in my first scramble on an Ossa; unfortunately it ended badly, with me waking up in Darley Dale Hospital. When I eventually managed to persuade my dad to let me have another go, we bought a new 250 Greeves while still riding the Ossa in trials. Then Eric Housley lost the Ossa importership to Peter Fletcher and Alan Kimber, who had set up OSSA MOTO UK. I had to sell the Greeves as I had decided to concentrate on trials and so bought a new 250 Bultaco.”

“I began to get some good results in the nationals, which was when Comerfords got in touch and gave me a 325 Bultaco with sponsorship through Barrie Rodgers’ Derby motorcycle dealership.”

“In 1975 I was lying in fourth place in the Scottish on the Friday when, going up the very steep ‘Caillich’, I fell and broke a bone in my left hand. Somehow, I managed to get the Bultaco down the hill and onto the Mamore road to ride back to Fort William. Jock Wilson took me to the hospital in Fort William, and they confirmed it was broken and put a pot on it. I took the pot off in the morning and managed to ride the machine back to the finish in Edinburgh but unfortunately dropped down to sixth place.”

Kawasaki Offer:

“The next year I was offered a Kawasaki. I was promised a machine the same as Don Smith but I only received the standard KT250 machine. I soon realised it was a big mistake, so I contacted Comerfords a week before the ‘Scottish’ and they agreed to give me a 250 Sherpa for the SSDT and I came home in 15^th place. They followed that up with another 325 Sherpa after Scotland. Comerfords were incredibly good to me and gave me a new machine every six months; I also got a bonus payment for good results, funded by Shell, and I had my entry fee paid along with some expenses.”

Wedding bells:

Chris and Ann married in 1976 after a two-year engagement.

“I started racing again and bought a new 250 Bultaco Pursang from Comerfords, and gained expert status in the East Midlands centre. In those days there was a meeting within a 60-mile radius of home every weekend, and the prize money was rather good too. I decided I need something a bit quicker and so I bought a 400 Maico. I was still riding for Comerfords in trials and they noticed I was winning a few centre meetings and so they sent me an ex-Vaughan Semmens 360 Pursang. It was a quick motorcycle but not as good as the Maico, but it was almost new with free spares thrown in.”

“In 1978 I decided to have a go at the East Midlands Championship in both trials and scrambles – luckily the meetings did not clash – and I won both that year. I managed a 15^th position in the Scottish also the same year. I really enjoyed the Scott Trial, finishing 12^th one year. I won four Scott spoons and was immensely proud to have finished both the Scottish and Scott Trials every time I entered.”

Patter of tiny feet

Ann gave birth to their first child, Karen, in 1978, followed by Debbie in 1980 and then Alison in 1987. “By 1978, Comerfords was importing KTM motocross and enduro machines and they arranged a sponsorship deal for me through P&S Motorcycles. I rode the KTMs for about four years, still with a deal through P&S. I rode Bultacos for about seven years for Comerfords then gave up scrambling to concentrate on trials.” 

Chris was now receiving support through a local dealer on Fantics in 1982 and he rode the SSDT on the 200 model in 1982, coming home in 35^th place, and then the new 240 Fantic.

“I then bought a Tiger Cub with the Pre-65 Scottish in mind. The first time I competed was in 1990 and I finished third, with Mick Andrews and Dave Thorpe on zero marks; I lost one dab on Pipeline. I entered most years from 1990 but unfortunately I did not have much luck in the dreaded ballot! I rode my last in 2016 and finished in 50^th position, as I was not very fit after being in hospital for a month with Sepsis prior to the trial.”

Grandchildren:

Chris and Ann were blessed with seven grandchildren, four girls and three boys. Their grandson, Jack, showed a keen interest in motorcycles from a young age. For Jack’s third birthday Chris bought him an electric OSET, which he loved. As Jack got older he often went cycling and attended the trials events with Chris. None of the girls really took an interest in motorcycles but they did enjoy supporting him whenever he rode. The couple’s last grandson was born in May 2017 and Chris was fortunate enough to have seen him for a few months before he died at the age of 65.

Results Do the Talking:

In a riding career that spanned almost five decades, Chris Milner won five Nationals trials including best performance and tied with Martin Lampkin at the ACU Inter Centre Team Trial. He competed 12 times in the Scottish Six Days Trial; twice on an Ossa, seven times on a Bultaco, twice on a Fantic and lastly on a mono-shock Yamaha TY250R. He came sixth overall in the British round of the World Championship at Congresbury, Bristol, in 1978. Chris is the only rider ever to have won the East Midlands Champion Trials and Scrambles in the same year – 1978.

Adrian Clarke 1979 British Trials Sidecar Champion and four-time British Experts sidecar winner 1977–80: “Chris was already a competitor in trials when I started road-based trials in 1969 on an Ossa Pennine. Ralph Venables dubbed him the next Sammy Miller. He had some very strong early results and he was also an incredibly good scrambler, and was the only person to win East Midlands trials and scrambles championships in the same year. Chris was a sheet metal worker and an excellent car body repairer. He was self-employed most of his working life. He used his fabrication and engineering skills to build some extremely competitive motorcycles over the years. He just seemed to be always around, riding locally when he stopped doing the big national events. A true enthusiast, a very nice guy, and it was a pleasure to have known him.”

Dave Thorpe on Chris Milner: “He was an exceptionally talented trials and motocross rider and I had to be on my game to try and beat him. We travelled to events quite a few times together, one particular time we travelled to the Scottish Six Days, when it started in Edinburgh. We stayed in a bed and breakfast where the landlady came across as being very prim and proper, but she took a shine to young Chris. The next morning at breakfast, which was a cooked ‘full English’, Chris had been given a rather runny egg. He said, “I cannot eat this”. I said “well, you’ll have to, or she will be offended!” Chris then opened a drawer and tipped the egg inside it! Another time we travelled to Ireland for the Hurst Cup, leaving our van at Liverpool. On the way to the boat I lost him but got on the boat with all the other riders, assuming Chris must have got on as well. During the journey I was called to the radio room; it was Chris. He had managed to get on the wrong boat and was on his way to Heysham!”

Steve Wilson on Chris Milner: “Everything Chris did, he did well; everyone he met, he treated well; simply one of the nicest people you could ever wish to meet.”

We are left with fond memories of a quiet, unassuming man from Chesterfield that excelled at his chosen sports in off-road motorcycling, his results certainly spoke for him.

Copyright: John Moffat/Trials Guru 2021.

Apart from ‘Fair Dealing’ for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, no part of this article may be copied, reproduced, stored in any form of retrieval system, electronic or otherwise or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, mechanical, optical, chemical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author as stated above. This article is not being published for any monetary reward or monetisation, be that online or in print.

The name Sunter in the world of motorcycle trials covers five decades of competition, which started with Richard and carries on into the present era with his two sons Mark, John and daughter Katy. Residing from what many term the home of trials, North Yorkshire, the farm at Healaugh is situated close to Reeth and is in the heart of Scott Trial country. It was this event back in 1968 that we first witnessed Richard’s name in the awards of this world famous event. Married to the sister of former Scott Trial winner, Philip Alderson and with daughter Katy married to Dan Thorpe, it’s certainly created a Yorkshire trials dynasty.

Words: Trials Guru; Richard J. Sunter

Pictures: Reiner Heise; Barry Robinson’s Estate with permission; Walker Brothers Archive; Kim Ferguson/Kimages.

Born in 1951 into a farming family which had no real interest in the sport, Richard J. Sunter, later to be known to all as either ‘Ritchie’ or ‘Sunt’ was to break the family mould at aged twelve when his Dad bought him a 150cc James three-speeder for four pounds and a replacement tyre which cost eight pounds, double the price of the motorcycle.

Richard was the first of his family to have a trials machine and has lived his whole life in the North Yorkshire Village of Healaugh, moving only a few hundred yards, “from one end to the other”.

Living on the back-door step of the Scott Trial, the event grabbed his attention as a young boy and he had to have a trials machine.

His first real trials motorcycle was in 1968, the Otley built Dalesman with the Austrian Puch 125cc four-speed motor, supplied by The Kart House at Darlington.

Richard Sunter: “I didn’t really like it that much, my Dalesman had those spindly front forks from a Puch moped and to be honest Ray Sayer had a six speeder and it went much better than my model. I eventually bought the 250cc Cotton with the Villiers motor and got on much better with that, riding my first Scott in 1968”.

The Cotton was replaced by the 170cc Minarelli powered model, which was developed for the factory by Rob Edwards.

With Montesa making in-roads into the UK trials market in the late 1960s, it was inevitable that Sunter would sample the 247 Cota and really liked it. Rider/dealer, Norman Crooks at Northallerton supplied such a model and Richard was happy to remain on the marque for two years before obtaining support from Len Thwaites of TT Leathers on an Ossa MAR in 1972.

Richard rode the 1972 Scottish on the Ossa and finished in a very creditable fifteenth position and best newcomer, losing 115 marks and took home the Albert Memorial Trophy for his efforts.

Sunter: “That was when the Scottish started and finished in Edinburgh, it was a long haul on the road back then on the first and last days”.

Sunt became friends with Michael Alderson from Woodhall, near Askrigg. “Michael was a handy trials rider and keen to do nationals and we were good friends. I got to know his younger sister Angela, we started courting in 1976 and we got married in 1978. We all knew each other through trials, farming and the Aldersons being agricultural engineers”.

Richard and Angela Sunter have three children, John Richard who was born in 1980; Mark born the year later, and Katy who arrived in 1984. All three followed in their father’s footsteps by becoming trials riders in their own right. Katy of course married Dan Thorpe in 2015. This effectively created a trials dynasty in North Yorkshire with Angela’s younger brother, Philip Alderson part of the extended family of well-known trials riders.

Richard Sunter hasn’t changed much over the years and still sports an all year round tanned face due to his continued working on the farm, out in all weathers. He is a very modest individual who points out that he never won a national trial. However, the reader needs to appreciate that Ritchie rode against the very best riders in the world, at the top of their game and any number of twenty riders were capable of winning a national trial week in, week out.

Sunter: “I was approached by Team Kawasaki Trials manager, the late Don Smith who was also their development rider. The first machine I had off Kawasaki was the 450 model, which was quite honestly a beast of a thing to ride. When I signed for Kawasaki, they had no motorcycles available for me to ride, so I rode my Ossa in the meantime and my expenses were paid by Kawasaki. I was never paid a salary, I was still earning a living from farming and they covered my travel expenses to nationals and European Championship rounds”.

The lime green coloured Kawasaki KT prototypes arrived three days before the 1973 Scottish Six Days and like most experimental machines, they required careful preparation for what was the toughest trial in the world. The team were still fettling them at the Gorgie Market on the Sunday weigh-in in Edinburgh on the cobbled roadways that intersected the market. His team mates were Mark Kemp and paratrooper, Jack Galloway.

‘Sunt’ posted a twentieth place overall in the 1973 Scottish, losing 137 marks and took home the best over 350cc award for his efforts, wrestling with the big bore machine and was the best performer of the Kawasaki team that year.

With production planned of the KT ‘Kawasaki Trials’ model, Richard received his pre-production 250cc machine from the factory in August 1973. Two months later, on October 2^nd, he came home in second place in the Scott Trial, this was to be his best Scott result finishing second behind Bultaco’s Malcolm Rathmell.

Richard enjoyed riding the Montesa Ulf Karlson Replica 247 model which appeared in 1975 after the he left the Kawasaki factory team having enjoyed two seasons on the ‘green-meanie’. The Montesa was provided by Jim Sandiford, the Montesa importer and this relationship lasted up until 1977, by then Richard was riding the 348 model for Sandifords. This was the year of the inaugural World Trials Championship and Sunter took part.

At the early season Hurst Cup, he posted a seventeenth place and in that years’ Scottish a nineteenth place.

Richard Sunter is listed for posterity as winning fifteen Scott Silver spoons and is classified as a top spoon winner with other famous names in the trials world.

With farming being an all-consuming occupation, time came at a premium for the Sunters and trials riding had to take a back seat from 1977 onwards, such were the pressures of being self-employed.

Sunter: “I didn’t give up completely, back in 1971 I did a bit of scrambling on a 1969 side-pipe CZ that I traded for a trials machine for a bit of the fast stuff, which I enjoyed when time allowed. I still have the CZ and Mark has ridden it a few times in classic scrambling. I recall racing it at Pickering and one of the North East events near Doddington, but trials were my true love really, I still like to do my bit as it were”.

Richard has indeed maintained a strong interest in the sport by helping the Richmond Motor Club and in particular their Scott and Reeth Three Days events. His favourite piece of ground for marking out is beyond By-Pass and for many years was in charge of route-marking the Scott onto the moors there.

Sunter: “I usually inherit Katy’s cast off Gas Gas machines which allowed me to get some bike-time in which I still enjoy”.

Richard Sunter was one of those riders who competed with the very best of that era, which included the Lampkins, Rathmell, Hemingway, Edwards, Andrews, Shepherd and just about anyone else who made up the who’s who of trials in the days when British riders were the force to be reckoned with in European and then World class events. His place in the history of trials is assured.

‘Richard Sunter’ is copyright: John Moffat/Trials Guru 2024

Photographic Copyright: is retained by the photographers named in captions above.

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Apart from ‘Fair Dealing’ for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, no part of this article may be copied, reproduced, stored in any form of retrieval system, electronic or otherwise or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, mechanical, optical, chemical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author as stated above. This article is not being published for any monetary reward or monetisation, be that online or in print.

Mount: “It was a tension-filled day, I can tell you! Ernie wanted to be Scottish Champion as he had won a Scottish Scrambles Championship a few years before and this would have made him the only Scotsman to win both Scrambles and Trials titles, but I was riding well and wasn’t going to give in.”

Read all about one of the finest Scottish trials riders to come from Fort William, here on Trials Guru – Dedicated To The Sport.

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