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More excellent photos from the camera of Rainer Heise for your enjoyment.
Exclusive to Trials Guru – only for the sport!
Rainer Heise – Trials in Germany
Coming soon on Trials Guru, the Edgar Brothers from Edinburgh.
We are always trying to bring you something different and unusual from the sport of motorcycle trials. Here we have a specially commissioned trophy, presented annually for the oldest rider at the Pre’65 Scottish Trial.
Commisioned by Mrs Isobel Mitchell of Portlethen, near Aberdeen in memory of her husband, Peter Mitchell a long time rider and member of the Bon Accord MCC and was a well known competitor in Scottish trials and latterly at the Pre’65 Scottish.
It was made by Inverness based artisan, Richi Foss who runs a fabrication and welding business at Dochfour, just outside the Highlands capital city.
Foss: ” The trophy was commissioned by Peter Mitchell’s wife in his memory and presented to the oldest rider to complete the Scottish pre 65 trials. It was slightly overshadowed at the time by a rather large steel Eagle I was also making at the same time which is now on a roundabout near the Police headquarters. It’s hard to believe that this actually took more time to make and brought me far more enjoyment”.
“To top it all, the first winner of the award was a boyhood hero of mine, Mick Grant”
Richi Foss produces much one-off work and is a motorcyclist himself owning a rather unique Norton ‘flat-tracker’ which won an award many years ago at the Kent Custom show.
Foss Fabrication and Welding can be contacted on 07761 286112 and is based at The Old Sawmill, Dochfour, By Inverness, IV3 8JG.
Photos Courtesy of Foss Fabrication & Welding, Inverness & Mrs Isobel Mitchell, Portlethen.
Article on Peter Mitchell in ‘Great Scots’ on Trials Guru: HERE
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Special thanks are due to our photographers who continue to allow Trials Guru to make use of their images from the sport of trial.
Many thanks to all of you:
John Hulme / Trials Media; Eric Kitchen; Barry Robinson; Neil Sturgeon; Jaxx Lawson of JOATS Imagery; Sarah Turner; Hilary Little; Studio Six Creative; Heather Mead; Justyn Norek; Jimmy Young; Iain Lawrie; Rainer Heise; Jeremy Whittet; Kimages/Kim Ferguson; Iain Lawrie
Dedicated to the hardest motorcycle trial riders can take part in, the Scott is regarded as an annual classic. One route for all, fastest rider sets standard time. All in the Swaledale, North Yorkshire.
So, This is Yorkshire!
The Scott Trial page is now live on Trials Guru
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of a true character of the sport of motorcycle trials, “Buttons” or John Button as he was known.
Buttons attended the Scottish Six Days Trial many times in his capacity as a mechanic, whose training went back to the days of the Bultaco tuning wizard, Reg May of Comerfords.
During the 2015 Scottish, Buttons popped in almost daily to visit the Outside Broadcasts of Nevis Radio where he kept listeners and the radio presenters in stitches with his quick wit and humour during the week.
Buttons had battled with cancer for some years and had planned to spectate at the recent Scott Trial, but illness prevented him from doing so.
Trials Guru conveys sincere condolences to his family at this difficult time.
Funeral Arrangements: The funeral service for Alfred John Button (Buttons) will held on Thursday 12th November 2015 at 12.30pm at Rainsbrook Crematorium. Ash Lawn Road. Rugby. Warwickshire. CV22 5ET. please no flowers, donations to Macmillan nurses are welcome.
Alfred John ‘Buttons’ Button 1955 – 2015
Mike Ransom: “I’ve been riding motorcycles for sixty years now and enjoyed every minute of it.
I never rode in the International Six Days, but I did ride my Francis Barnett in France at Rochepaule at Claude Coutard’s place where I won the Pre’65 event. From memory there were over three hundred riders there with all the various classes. I lost three marks on the last section on the second day. It was a fabulous event and a lovely journey to get to it.
My first Scottish Six Days was in 1957, when I received a Special First class award. I managed to win a Special First in every Scottish I rode in.
In 1999 I won the 250cc cup at the Pre’65 Scottish Trial, the same award I won thirty-six years previously in the Scottish in 1962 on the same machine – 307AKV.
Unlike many of my contemporaries, I have kept riding, I will be 80 in June and two years ago I bought a modern bike, a Montesa 4RT.
In 2012 I rode in the Relaince trial on the clubman’s route as it was fifty years from when I rode it on the Barnett which was brand new at the time. I finished runner up to Bob Baker by one mark”.
Mike’s modifications:
“My Francis Barnett is virtually original, it has the original hubs and they haven’t been skimmed. I was permitted to modify it it in 1964 to the specification it is now.
I altered the steering head angle to the magic 67 degrees, to do this I had to add 0.75 of an inch to the top frame tube. I did various modifications in 1964. I lifted the bottom tube, moved the motor back in the frame and narrowed the rear . I then took the two tubes that run under the tank and triangulated it with one.
At one stage ,I removed 0.75 of an inch out of the swinging arm, but immediately replaced it as it wasn’t successful.
At the time, the factory wasn’t keen on any modifications from standard, their policy was for bits to come from the shelves at AMC. I think the writing was on the wall financially as they went bust in 1966. They must have thought something of me, as they offered me the bike for just the purchase tax payment.
I do all my own welding and I am fairly proud to say that nothing has moved since 1964!
By comparison to the modern frames in T45 tubing, it weighs about forty five pounds more and I find that this hampers the machine somewhat.
I know that I made these modifications before anyone else and there are more James and Barnetts now than ever before!”
Trials Interest:
“My interest in trials started with push-bikes as children. We started a club called Old Park Hammers. Alan Morewood and Philip Beal were original members. My Hercules was very second hand, but I thought it was the bee’s knees when I put a big sprocket on the Sturmey-Archer.
We also competed round the Sheffield area riding Cycle Speedway using the old bomb sites which had been spread into red ash. I started motorcycling on a Cyclemaster which of course fitted into the Hercules frame. My mother entered me into a competition which I won at sixteen years of age.
My next bike was a model 18 Norton with girder forks on which I passed my driving test. This was followed by a BSA Gold Star B34 trials which weighed in at a whopping three hundred and eight pounds.
The Gold Star had a mere six inches of ground clearance and I ran it in going to the Motor Cycle show in London. On the way back I opened her up and shut her back down at 92 mph on the A1. That was on standard trials gearing!
I was at this time about 18 and I rode this all over Yorkshire you recall we rode to trials and back to Sheffield using ‘bobby dodgers’. I broke three pistons in it, taking the bottom plate off then scooping the bits out, before carrying on or home Otley, Ilkley, Bradford and Halifax were many miles from home. We had no other means or could not afford any alternative. I later found out that Goldstar pistons did not have split skirts, my local rebore chap kept using Hepolite split skirts which gave up”.
Competition:
“My first club was the Sheffield and Hallamshire, we were affiliated to the Yorkshire Centre. At the time there was perhaps 16 South Yorkshire Group Clubs such as Woksop, Doncaster putting on trials which included an South Yorkshire championship which I won quite a few times. Major trials were usually Centre status events where we did the long distances.
Centre trials in Yorkshire were around 60 miles one lap events and always included miles of moorland, something the modern rider would not comprehend; riding to the trials would be another. Trials were essentially a winter event and we took to Scrambling in the summer, I was Yorkshire centre champion in the late fifties riding my Enfield.
I did ride for Yorkshire three times in the Inter Centre Team Trial in the late fifties. At one event at Honiton Tom Ellis was team manager and he booked us in to a Temperance Hotel and I have recollections of Artie Ratcliffe, Peter Fletcher and Arthur Lampkin bringing crates of beer into the hotel lounge.
Tom Ellis was a bit upset, not about the beer but the noise the clinking of the bottles was making, we may have been chucked out. One weekend I did ride in the West of England trial at Newton Abbot on the Saturday a trade supported event to which I got seven pounds and ten shillings expenses, that was the standard rate.
We then had to travel the next day to Brecon to ride in the inter centre team trial. We then came back to Sheffield to be at work Monday morning and remember no M4 etc”.
Scrambles:
“I did win the 500 final at our club scramble one year on my HT Ariel, but the Scrambles circuit was more like the Scott Trial (I have about 6 silver spoons) in those days and on that day the course was very hard and suited me. Of all the South Yorkshire Trials clubs that existed only two now put on trials.
The Hallamshire is now affiliated to the East Midland centre. It does mean that all that land we used, is now lost. I know where we used to trial and scramble at Rotherham ( Listerdale) is now a huge housing estate.
I had a Royal Enfield 350cc springer, very novel in those days, which I also scrambled; a Tiger Cub and a loan of a 250 BSA. I purchased John Harris’s HT Ariel which I had quite a lot of success with. Winning the National Peaks Trial twice on the trot, and the Hillsborough Jack Wood twice on the trot too.
I got a bit of support from Ariel and rode in two British Experts finishing 16 both times, not bad when you consider we were the best in the world then. Tony Bou eat your heart out, he was not born then.
In one of the British Experts, Roy Peplow and Gordon Blakeway came together, which resulted in a broken leg for Gordon. I then went into the team with Sammy Miller and Ron Langston for that year’s Scott Trial.
Eventually I got a 1961 Barnett with the AMC engine in, it was wide and the motor would not pull second gear. I used to get quite slick at changing down to bottom when the motor died. I trialed that up and down the country locally and Nationally and I must have done well enough for Mr Denton, Sales Manager at Barnetts (then at Coventry) to offer me a ride on the new 37A Villiers motored Barnetts, for the 1962 Scottish.
The first trial was the Reliance a regional restricted event in those days, where I won it, and team members Ian Williamson and Johnny Roberts finished second and third with Eric Adcock on the DOT fourth. So an excellent start and then up to the start in the Market place in Edinburgh the result was the third place on 29 marks, behind Sammy and Gordon Jackson, Gordon having done that fabulous dab the year before 1961″.
Trials Guru: Many thanks to Mike Ransom for sharing his memories and giving us an insight into trials as it used to be. Mike was a skilled and talented rider in his day who kept going after many of his contemporaries had hung up their boots. Mike Ransom regularly rode the Pre’65 Scottish on the same machine that carried him to success in the Scottish Six Days in 1962. It is a pleasure to be able to share his story on this website.
Mike Ransom’s name will forever be associated with the marque, Francis Barnett, the motorcycle manufacturer founded in 1919, by Gordon Inglesby Francis and Arthur Barnett, and based in Lower Ford Street, Coventry, England.
© – Article: Text copyright: Michael Ransom, Sheffield – 2015
© – Photographs Copyright: Iain Lawrie, Kinlochleven, all rights reserved.
© – Photograph Copyright: Jimmy Young, Armadale, all rights reserved.
© – Layout and Publishing: Trials Guru/Moffat Racing/John Moffat 2015
Words: Dave Cole
Photos: Mike Naish
Trials riders, organisers and observers, from both the past and the present, gathered at the Fingle Glen Golf Hotel, Tedburn St.Mary, near Exeter on Friday the 9th October to enjoy the “Up Memory Lane” reunion lunch.
This function is organised once every two years, with this being the 7th edition of the popular get-together, it is organised by the South West Classic Trials Association.
The 102 attendees were met in the reception area and were welcomed by Jeannette Dommett and Jean Squire, two young ladies who have been around our sport long enough to be well known to almost all of the guests as they arrived.
As each competitor signed-on, they were issued with their name badge. This might sound a little unnecessary or over the top but I can assure you that with the majority of guests being involved in the sport during the 1950’s and 1960’s era, some not seeing each other for many years, recognition is sometimes a little difficult. Many have lost a little hair, some have gained, maybe, a little weight, others have possibly become reliant on spectacles etc. All-in-all the badges prove to be a god-send for this type of occasion.
Once old friends are reunited over a drink and a chat all are invited to gather outside for a group photograph, a great way to remember such an occasion, SWCTA Treasurer, Mike Naish, was on hand with his camera.
An enjoyable three course lunch was next on the agenda followed by the Master of Ceremonies, Alan Dommett, officially welcoming everyone and reading out a list of ‘apologies of absence’ that had been received. He then continued by remembering old friends who are sadly no longer with us since our last gathering, two years ago.
The list of recently lost friends remembered by Alan included Pete Thompson, one of the founders of the “Up Memory Lane” function and a former Devonport and District Club member who competed successfully in trials, scrambles and enduro’s. – Bill Hartnell, the organiser of the reunion for the previous four occasions. Bill was one of the mainstays of the Taunton Club for many years, the Secretary and Treasurer of the South West Classic Trials Association and served the South Western Centre Management Committee in many different positions of trust and honour over the years. – Max King, Trials rider, radio broadcaster, journalist and enthusiast of all forms of motor sport. Max is probably best known for his book ‘Trials Riding’, which was the first book dedicated to our sport ever to be written. – Jim Finlay, an accomplished trials rider who also worked tirelessly for his Otter Vale Club for many years. Jim worked really hard setting out trials, cutting out sections etc and always had a smile and a quiet welcome at the ready.
It was now time to welcome the first of three guest speakers; this honour fell to Mike Hann of the Yeo Vale Club. Mike, as a former technical college teacher, spoke very confidently and amusingly about his interesting 60 years of grass track racing, scrambling and trials riding.
A career that included gaining awards in twelve SSDTs and awards in six Pre’65 Scottish events as well as continuing to the present day, picking up awards on an almost weekly basis.
Mike’s performance was followed by Reg Squire, a former Crediton Club member. Reg, now in his 80’s, told the amazinging story of his 60 odd years long riding career which included scrambling, motocross and trials riding before, at the age of 78, taking up road racing, something which he continues to do. Reg’s race bike, a RS125 Honda, a genuine Grand Prix machine in its day, was also on display at the function.
The final speaker was John Bassett, a former trials rider who spoke of his involvement in the organisation of all forms of motorcycle sport in the Cornwall Centre for more years than most of us can remember. He reminded us of just how diverse the Cornwall Centre events have been over the years with scrambles, trials, grass track, hill climbs, gymkhana’s, speedway and road racing. He also told a tale or two, including the story of how Colin Dommett’s boots got to be thrown off the Tamar Bridge!
All three speakers were sincerely thanked for sharing their tales, all are real gentlemen, they are all quiet and very polite in manner and all have a mass of sporting knowledge behind them combined with bucket loads of experience and a mass of enthusiasm for our sport.
Derek Cheesbrough, a founder of the reunion along with the late Pete Thompson, presented two special awards, one for the furthest travelled to attend the reunion, this went to Richard Baker who had travelled down from Surrey. The second award was for the oldest guest (who had not won the award in previous years) this went to the President of the Devonport & District Motor Cycle Club, 85 year old Ivan Pridham of Plymouth.
Outside on the grass was a small display of period motorcycles. As already mentioned we saw Reg Squire’s RS125 Honda Road Racer, there was also the Ex Pete Thompson 500 Triumph (Roy Peplow replica) twin which is now owned by Ivan Pridham, plus Gary Kinsman’s very smart HT500 replica.
Nick Hunt’s very original looking 1960 Greeves Scottish 201cc plus Clive Causer’s two AJS machines a very original looking 350 rigid and one of the now rare 250AT models produced in 1969.
Also on displayed were just over eighty photographs of local riders from the 1950’s to 1970’s. As most of the pictured riders were in attendance at “Up Memory Lane” there were a great many tales to be told with happy memories rekindled.
Thanks to Jeannette Dommett, the Reunion Secretary, and her helpers most guests thought the event to be the best of these popular functions to date, certainly the attendance numbers seem to keep rising, and all said they looked forward to meeting up again at Fingle Glen, where the venue has already been re-booked for two years time.
See the West Country Trials – UK Page on Trials Guru for more West Country trials
© – Article: Text copyright: David Cole – 2015
© – Images: Mike Naish
© – Layout and Publishing: Trials Guru/Moffat Racing/John Moffat 2015
The BBC TV programme ‘Inside Out – Yorkshire & Lincolnshire’ covered the 2015 Scott Trial with an Outside Broadcast film unit. Paul Rose was the front man who kept up with the action on his new 650 SWM trail bike and it can be caught outside the Yorkshire /Lincolnshire region on the BBC iPlayer media by following this link:
The programme will go out on 26th October and be available outside the Yorkshire/Lincolnshire region on the iPlayer shortly after.
TRIALS GURU - DEDICATED TO TRIAL 