Off-Road and Racing enthusiasts throughout Europe will be heading to Telford, Shropshire for their annual pilgrimage to the Classic Dirt Bike Show at the International Centre on Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st of February.
Originally run by super-enthusiast, midlander Alan Wright, the show was bought by Morton’s Group in 2014 after many years run by Wrighty and his immediate family. Wright is still involved as a consultant, thus preserving the original ‘feel’.
For 2016 the show has a new sponsor, Hagon Shocks of Essex. Many of the show-goers are riders and ex-riders who spend as much time catching up with old friends as taking in the exhibits, listening to the speakers and hearing the bike start ups. Oh yes, they also buy stuff at the autojumble and from the variety of stall-holders!
This is the pre-season place to buy just about anything for a pre’65 or twin-shock trials or motocross (or should I also say scrambles) machine!
Special guest include top motocross rider, Scot, Jimmy Aird who rode for CZ; AJS and CCM, Nick Jefferies who rode for Honda in trials and was an accomplished road-racer, speedway legend Barry Briggs and Channel Island star Wayne Le Marquand.
On display will be Alan ‘Sid’ Lampkin’s works BSA C15T 748MOE which is the last British four-stroke to win the Scottish Six Days Trial 50 years ago in 1966.
This machine will be ridden in this year’s Pre’65 Scottish Trial in April by Alan’s son, James Lampkin. Take a close look at it at Telford.
Gates open: 10 am to 5 pm both days with early autojumble from 9 am.
Prices are £11 adult advance booking (£13 on the gate), with under 12’s free entry. Early bird advance £14.
Link to Telford Show 2016
Many thanks to all the trial enthusiasts, world-wide for tuning in to Trials Guru over the festive period. It was noticeable that many of you were catching up with the following pages: Bultaco – Spain; Scottish Six Days; Jimmy Young Archive; Iain Lawrie Collection; Rainer Heise Trials in Germany; Claudio Pictures of Trial; Recalled by Rappers plus many more. Also the following articles on HRC/Honda RTL; Walther Luft at 70; Jock Wilson and many, many more.
Our Index page was used extensively, which shows there is a lot of interest in our archive material, free to use at any time. We pride ourselves at Trials Guru in that we don’t manage forums which distract from the real meaning of Trials Guru, to preserve trial history and celebrate all the great riders and events from all over the planet.
We run without subscription and income from adverts. All the businesses featured on Trials Guru are featured here only by personal recommendation and they pay no advertising charges for space on our Useful Links page. That is the unique way we work for the true trial enthusiast.
We hope to bring you more photos, more articles, more facts about the great sport of motorcycle trial here on Trials Guru throughout the year.
Guru – The syllable ‘gu’ means darkness, the syllable ‘ru’, he who dispels them,
Because of the power to dispel darkness, the guru is thus named.
Back in 1977, having previously acquired the tooling and stock of the BSA competition shop at Small Heath, Alan Clews decided to create a trials machine. It is believed that Sammy Miller had already approached Clews to supply him with BSA motors to power a trials machine of Millers own design. Clews’ CCM (Clews Competition Machines) brand was by then already well established, having risen from the original ‘Clew-Stroka’ motocross concept from 1971, by using BSA B50 motors as the power-plant, but with the capacity increased from 498cc to 600cc.
Clews had built a reputation of making high quality motocross machinery which performed as well as they looked. In the hands of Lancastrian, Bob Wright; Cumbrian Mick Barnes and later Vic Eastwood and Scot, Vic Allan, the CCM was a serious racing motorcycle.
Based in Bolton, Lancashire, England the company had grown considerably from modest beginnings. Mike Eatough made the frames, before setting up his own venture called EMC.
There seemed to be a market for a four-stroke trials machine and Clews was eager to fill the void and to produce one, Made in Britain! Honda had already launched their TL125 and for the US market, the TL250 trials models, developed with the help of Sammy Miller and the company’s ‘Bials for Trials’ programme.
The eventual CCM production run of their 350T machine was very modest, with just over 100 machines ever produced by the factory. It utilised a variant of the BSA B40 – 343cc unit single, which CCM claimed the capacity as 345cc by using a bore of 79.25 mm and stroke of 70 mm, with compression ratio as 6.2:1.
Quality components were sourced from European manufacturers, From Italy, Marzocchi supplied both front forks and remote reservoir rear shocks, German ‘Magura’ controls, the Italian, ‘Grimeca’ hubs and brakes and gold anodised Spanish ‘Akront’ wheel rims. With American-made Preston Petty motocross red plastic mudguards also fitted front and rear. This particular combination, with the chromed chassis made for a ‘good looking’ machine, this in itself did not make a 100% competitive trials machine however.
The B40 motor was treated to an Amal MK2 concentric carburettor and a revised primary drive alloy casing, finished in black with the CCM motif in relief, with a novel little oil breather/catch bottle fitted to the nearside crankcase. But at heart it was still a BSA B40 which had been developed from the 1959 C15 design.
Given the more modern riding position, the gear pedal was fitted in such a way that it was accessible by the rider standing up on the foot-pegs. The gear pedal passed behind the kick-start lever.
Backed by Castrol Oils UK, riders of the caliber of Dave Thorpe, (who left Bultaco to ride the CCM prototype) and Nick Jefferies were employed to develop the CCM 350T for the factory.
Jefferies entered the 1978 Scottish Six Days Trial riding number 220 on the 400cc CCM prototype, backed by Castrol, but failed to finish the event.
Thorpe entered the 1979 SSDT on the 360cc CCM factory machine with riding number 250, with Thorpe shadowed most of the week by motocross rider, Dick Clayton whose riding gear had been rumoured to be literally stuffed with spare parts.
Dave Thorpe did finished the 1979 SSDT in 95th position on 397 marks lost, which was not a good day at the office for him, having been 11th position the year before on a Bultaco!
V. R. Moyce from Wickham rode a production CCM 350 in the 1979 SSDT and finished in 190th position on 597 marks lost.
Many of the Bolton built CCMs were bought by private riders who wanted something different.
In 1979 Honda launched their own British built four-stroke trials machine, the TL200E (the ‘E’ stood for ‘England’) made by Colin Seeley in England, but ‘adopted’ by Honda UK as their own model and marketed through their comprehensive motorcycle dealership network.
The frame was made from Reynolds ‘531’ tubing, argon brazed and finished with chrome plating to both frame and swinging arm.
The wheelbase at 51.5 inches followed almost the same dimensions as the Bultaco Sherpa it was designed to beat in competition.
Whist the CCM 350T was never destined to become a trials ‘world beater’, the machines did sell reasonably quickly. They were not produced in significantly high numbers, hence now they command extremely high prices for their rarity value alone.
CCM later became part of the ‘Armstrong-CCM’ brand, but that is another story!
© – All text copyright: Trials Guru / Moffat Racing, John Moffat – 2016
© – Images: World-wide Copyright Jimmy Young, Armadale, UK (All Rights Reserved) – 2016.
© – Images: World-wide Copyright Justyn Norek, Turin, Italy (All Rights Reserved) – 2016.
For a short test of CCM 350T with photographs in Italy by Justyn Norek click: Here
Trials Guru is proud to announce a new page featuring the work of freelance photographer, Claudio from France.
Claudio attended the 2013 Highland Classic Two-Day Trial with his Andorran friend Joan-Pere Santure and enjoyed the experience, meeting Trials Guru representative, John Moffat at the event.
So please have a look at Claudio’s page for some fantastic photographs of people from the sport of trial.
If you haven’t been here before, you are in for a surprise. We have been putting articles, photo collections and information from the world of trials together for about two years now. Trials Guru is free, no subscriptions to pay, no membership fees, it runs for free!
Trials Guru is here to promote the sport of motorcycle trials throughout the world.
It is supported by an enthusiastic band of photographers, these people own the legal rights to these photos, they are not the intellectual property of Trials Guru unless indicated as such. Please be respectful of the photographers copyright which is clearly marked either on the image or in the captions.
No copying of images is allowed for any other website unless permission is sought from the photographer.
Tirials Guru is easy to use, just click on the headline titles which take you to various pages. There is also an ‘Index‘ page which is arranged alphabetically.
Enjoy the sport with Trials Guru.
Merry Christmas to all Trials Guru readers
The festive season is now with us, so why not catch up with Trials Guru? There has been a veritable heap of articles and photos added during 2015 with more to come next year, all being well.
We were very fortunate to secure the services of Germany’s Rainer Heise and the UK’s Mike Rapley during the year, which has brought even more pleasure to trials fans world-wide.
A ‘This is Your Life’ style interview will take place with Pete Edmondson and Jimmy Aird at 11.00 am on 2 January, 2016 at the Crooklands Hotel. Kendal, Junction 36 M6 motorway.
Kirkcaldy born, Jimmy Aird was a multiple Scottish Motocross champion who moved south to live near Barnard Castle and contested the British championships for CZ, AJS, Montesa and CCM when these marques were at their height. He later became a director of TT Leathers with Len Thwaites and set up Scott Leathers which he still runs to this day.
Pete Edmondson is a Yorkshireman who produced the Dalesman motorcycles from a church in Otley. Machines which had the input of world motocross champion, Joel Robert.
Also coming along to join in is journalist Frank Melling to promote his new book, “A Penguin in a Sparrow’s Nest”.
For details, e-mail: premington2@gmail.com
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