sc1980

Having spent the day at the show in Milan I'd have to say the Ossa was the best new bike I looked at, in comparison to some of the other off road bikes the Ossa was a breath of fresh air. It seems to be a well funded project with some off the wall design ideas on a trials bike, the engineering and components looked high quality and the effort they have spent in promoting the bike in Milan was well done, even the clothing was trick looking and very retro old style Ossa which was good to see. Oh and Scorpa have gone orange quite literally, no guessing what motor is in it!

I have had an email this morning from KTM USA Off Road team manager Antti Kallonen who is with Taddy in the hospital in Seattle. Antti has told me that Taddy is improving following 4 hours of surgery where they have put in 4-5 plates in his face to keep the bones together and in line and Antti confirmed he has had multiple broken bones and fractures in his face. Antti is hoping Taddy will be released from the hospital all being well tomorrow but he is staying in the Seattle area just in case of any complications after release from hospital. I wish him all the very best for a speedy recovery to fitness.

The reason the crash happened is a rope got caught in the back wheel. The route ran up the ramp in the morning and they had a rope to pull up the riders that could not ride up. He was held up for a good few minutes as you can see until they found a knife to cut the rope.

See the Enduro forum there is a direct link to the Hells Gate website and some You Tube stuff. Yes it was a bog stock Sherco four stroke bike with enduro tyres fitted.

With David Knight opting out of competing in this years Hells Gate event to focus on his GNCC preparations it was left to our lads Jarvis, Bolton, Sagar, Evans and Wrayford to put pressure on the young Polish rider. Jarvis almost caused an upset and was applying the pressure on Taddy and at one point in the race was under a minute behind Taddy, but tiredness and leg pain from an earlier accident kicked in towards the end and Taddy pulled away from Jarvis during the fourth and final lap to take the victory. Grahams performance was all the more astounding when he qualified in the top 10 in the morning enduro on a Sherco four banger trials bike with no big tank or comfy seat, it was a bit like the Scott on speed! Taddy took the win with Jarvis second , Bolton third and Sagar fourth an all current and ex trials rider top four? Results and image are on the Hells Gate site Grahams get off on

It runs, they have a big screen TV on the stand showing a film with two bikes running, one of the bikes has a black frame, the other has the red frame. They have several prototype bikes unning around on test. This is still a prototype on show, the bike is scheduled for launch in 2009 according to Gas Gas factory staff at the show, so lets not panic about anything just yet!!!

No surprise but David pulls it off at the weekend. Full report on his website http://www.knighter.net/

The Scorpa site does have a forum on the T-Ride, this does give you some idea of the spec and also a price but you will need to use a web translator French to English to read and understand some of the comments, there are some in English already. It seems people like the bike but not the projected market price! The T-Ride page is as follows, then click on the forum link on the page to read and discuss the T-Ride. http://www.scorpa.fr/actualites.php?actu_id=22

It would be more than my life is worth to divulge spec, I am sworn to secrecy! Sorry I cannot be more helpful.

I have seen the latest prototypes of the bike in the flesh and I know quite a bit about the bike. Start saving your money, it is going to be a great bike, I want one. That is all I am going to say!

I shoot in RAW mode and use an Epson P4000, works great and you can review and delete images on the fly and stores 80GB. When you get back home you can download to PC or external disc drive and then manipulate and print images. If you shoot in Hi-Res Jpeg the P4000 will show images as a slide show so you can show off your days work in the pub and sell a few images for a beer or two! The P4000 is a bit pricey but it is the dogs, check out eBay or any of the good online camera retail sites, there are several other less expensive options that will do a similar job to suit your purpose in Fort William.

Having witnessed the performance of both David and Wayne this weekend I would have to conclude that David is something a bit special, and at this moment in time is the best rider in his chosen field of the sport in the World right now. His composure, execution and mastery of this weekends event was truely out of ths World. I would also like to add that the performance by Wayne was of the highest order. For Wayne to arrive a couple of days before the event and have to prepare and ride a bike on top of the effects of Jet lag truely desreves high praise. These two riders alone proved to American and World what it takes to win such a tough and demanding event.

It says 5 Speed. It also says the following Carb: Mikuni Carb Bore: 77mm Stroke: 53.6mm Compression Ratio: 11.5:1 Displacment: 249.6cc They did not have a spec sheet for the 4 stroke, the 07 range brochure they were handing out to Italian dealers only had the 2 stroke range of trials bikes, Italian product planning and marketing for you!

The Beta four stroke has been launched in Milan today, looks lovely. Here are some shots that I took of it today, better start saving lads? Beta Four Stroke in Milan

Hi Charlie A good find, I have most of the books that are mentioned on the site, I have all the Sammy Miller books by the way which has some good shots of both bikes. I have a pile of information on all both bikes which I was gifted or collected over the years, this makes for some good reading. A good way of telling the GOV / GON bike's apart and you have already spotted this is that GON had the subframe down tubes, it never had the GOV frame mod. If you look at the numerous shots of Sammy riding the Ariel over the years you can start to see differences in the bike on various events, there are some shots of Sammy riding the bike with the GON plate but most are of a bike with the GOV number plate, but are they the same bike! I will let your fertile mind wander to see if you can pick up the changes and or spot the difference, also look at shots of Jock Wilson riding GON for comparison because that is a good comparison test after the Miller era with the bikes!