For the most part whenever people....OK....me......think of motorcycle sport, it tends to be of the road race variety such as the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy (TT) Race, Mallory Park, Brands Hatch in the US; Assen on the Continent or Daytona in the US.
I love to watch road racing, did so many a time at Silverstone and Mallory as well as my one and only visit to the TT in 1976. Got to see some of the greats there such as Tom Herron, Percy Tait, Mick Grant and John Williams (I Think as I can never remember if it was him or Charlie) who was in the lead in either the Senior or Production race when he ran out of fuel approaching the finish and the win.
Instead of saying a few choice words that anyone could actually hear, he got off the bike and started pushing towards the finish while others went past. Due to this he got a 7th place finish instead of a DNF (Did Not Finish) in the record books.
Anyway, back to the point of this drivel....besides road racing, there are other MC sports out there such as Moto Cross or Scrambles, dirt tracking, drag or sprinting, hill climbing grass and ice racing and of course the one associated with old men....trials.
A few postings on some of the other blogs I read got me to thinking about what I would take part in if I had the time, cash etc and naturally as a kinda getting oldish type of geezer, observed trials has an appeal to me.
First, if you have an older, say before 65, bike, then you can enter Pre-65 trials and can compete with other slightly older geezers; other than the bike, riding gear , some practice and some skill, you don't need to rob a bank to finance it; and as you're going dead slow just about, if you fall over, you shouldn't get injured too badly.
From what I gather, there are various classes to take part in such as novice, amateur, skilled, professional and the like. The better you get, the higher you go in the classes I guess.
Anyway, several years back, even though I'm not a two-stroke fan, I got this desire for a trials machine. Ahhhhhh......but which make???
British was the first and only answer, but then it came up again to....which one? Good question....due to their reputation and following....a Greeves...followed by either a wee Cub or a Bantam. But a Cotton, DOT, James etc wouldn't be ignored either.
There is something about a Greeves
I love to watch road racing, did so many a time at Silverstone and Mallory as well as my one and only visit to the TT in 1976. Got to see some of the greats there such as Tom Herron, Percy Tait, Mick Grant and John Williams (I Think as I can never remember if it was him or Charlie) who was in the lead in either the Senior or Production race when he ran out of fuel approaching the finish and the win.
Instead of saying a few choice words that anyone could actually hear, he got off the bike and started pushing towards the finish while others went past. Due to this he got a 7th place finish instead of a DNF (Did Not Finish) in the record books.
Anyway, back to the point of this drivel....besides road racing, there are other MC sports out there such as Moto Cross or Scrambles, dirt tracking, drag or sprinting, hill climbing grass and ice racing and of course the one associated with old men....trials.
A few postings on some of the other blogs I read got me to thinking about what I would take part in if I had the time, cash etc and naturally as a kinda getting oldish type of geezer, observed trials has an appeal to me.
First, if you have an older, say before 65, bike, then you can enter Pre-65 trials and can compete with other slightly older geezers; other than the bike, riding gear , some practice and some skill, you don't need to rob a bank to finance it; and as you're going dead slow just about, if you fall over, you shouldn't get injured too badly.
From what I gather, there are various classes to take part in such as novice, amateur, skilled, professional and the like. The better you get, the higher you go in the classes I guess.
Anyway, several years back, even though I'm not a two-stroke fan, I got this desire for a trials machine. Ahhhhhh......but which make???
British was the first and only answer, but then it came up again to....which one? Good question....due to their reputation and following....a Greeves...followed by either a wee Cub or a Bantam. But a Cotton, DOT, James etc wouldn't be ignored either.
There is something about a Greeves
that just cries out "Ride me and get me filthy....then do it again."
I personally would love to have one of these and any other British trials bike just to mess around doing the feet up game. Though I love to see classic bikes tearing around on the track, it's not a sport for coffin dodgers or the faint of heart. But trials is something that even a novice can try and even enjoy.
Plus, there's no real age limit that I know off except one's own limitations. Now to find a patch of ground, a nice wee machine and have some fun....and this one the missus can't object to too much now can she?
Yeah, that getting older thing...knees and other parts creaking. I've been thinking of vintage trials for awhile. A guy by the name of Chuck who used to work where I work, was doing modern trials. He was riding an Aprilia, this was before they became known for sports bikes. He used to talk about maybe getting into Vintage Trials. He and his wife used to race sidecars. They ran an outfit powered with a TZ-750 Yamaha motor. Haven't seen him for awhile, he moved to Oregon, but then moved back...so he might be back into racing. Speaking of the Pacific Northwest, that is where the 160-175 Honda guys started their class of vintage road racing. That looks kind of interesting too. Speaking of injuries, Chuck managed to take a small spill in a slow upward section of a trials...and managed to puncture a lung on a sneaky root!! Generally you would think it might be safer than going full-tilt-boogie on a road course or motocross track.I've got about 90 percent of a B-40 BSA. I also have a Cotton that interestingly enough I bought from a fellow who represented Aprilia Trials bikes in the area at the time. Look for those in the future at my blog.Think the Cotton is more an Enduro type machine.A friend of mine's dad raced Greeves. Interesting machines. Flat track always appealed to me too. You were lucky to catch a lot of the old greats in the day. I had to settle with reading about them. I hope to catch some more live racing in the future out here on the Westcoast. And at the very least I plan on having some fun again out on and in the dirt.(Oh yeah, the young kid in the yellow leathers riding a Yamaha in the amateur moto action in the movie "On any Sunday" is Chuck. He's the one that gets centere- punched by a wayward rider)
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasos for thinking about trials riding wsa at such slow speeds, injuries were less likely......but Sods Law has a nasty way of proving ya wrong.
ReplyDeleteAbout 6 years back, I wsa leaving the Postal salt mines on a Saturday which happened to be my day off and was forced to work.
Had gone about 1/4 mile up the road, looked behind me for some reason, and when looked back to the front again, the cars ahead of me in my lane had the brake lights on.
So I proceeded to do the same and it looked like I was going to rear end the last car. But the Gods of Avoidance were smirking that day.
Started to go to the right (was in the left hand lane) and thought all was well.
When I picked myself up off the ground a few seconds later, I discovered that all was NOT well but the fact that my left wrist was hurting like Bejabbers.
I avoided the cars, but I think the brakes locked up throwing me off and causing the damage. And I was only doing around 30mph or less.
Turns out it had broken again for the third, yes, third time.
Ended getting one of those metal cgae deals put on surgically to hold the bones in place.
As it happened off the job, I was told to basically enjoy my time off.....all three months of it!
Trials riding can have it's prang ups too, such as boulders, rocks, trees and other of natures things in the way. But it has to be safer than Scrambles or dirt track, at least I hope it as there is no way I will be a-jumping things at speed or intentionally sliding sideways on a motorcycle.
Will have to find the movie on DVD to catch Chuck in action.