old trials fanatic

Agreed but I wouldn't have either I would have as big as possible considering space available a alloy fabricated air box with a proper modern replaceable filter element fitted. Could still be made to look period but why oh why would you want to fit that awful bellmouth to a Classic bike that has had so much spent on it? spoil the ship for a haporth of tar ?Then again it's your bike so you do as you like.

Makes you proud to be a European. Perhaps Dabster is right and that's why Trials is and always has been bigger in Europe than the US ?

BIG JOHN

I am interested in both the Mick Mar and the D18 too does anybody have any more info or pictures ? interesting bikes by the sound of it. Reminds me of the Scott trials bike. So sad none of these Great British Trials bikes ever made it to production

Thanks guys i'll make a note of it and nip down the local suppliers

Hi just wondering if anybody knows the size of taper roller bearings that will be required to fit an Ossa Mar 1977 ish ? thanks

Oh boy whatever happened to throttle control and weight distribution ? Oh sorry those were skills weren't they

In your earlier post you stated " if I put the choke on when warm the problem almost disappears." So I think you have answered your own question. Good luck sorting it out. Let us have some piccys sometime too.

Some trials venues always, despite the course setters efforts, seem to turn out more challenging than others and Bracken Rock is most definitely one of those . Last Sundays event Rd 10 of the Peak Classic Trials Clubs 2013 Club Championship was much harder than intended but still provided some great battles in all the classes on all the routes. One of the facts of life with harder courses is that the cream always rises to the top and on this occasion it was Mark Weston on his Montesa that took overall honours in the Expert Twinshock class with a superb ride in very challenging conditions to lose just 10 marks ahead of Local farmer Rob Carson who due to the demands of running a farm nowadays doesn’t give him as much time as he used to have to ride trials but he secured a credible second place on his TY250 Yamaha with a loss of 15. It was nice to get a couple of entries in the Air cooled mono class for a change and Bob Gent on his TR34 Beta had a good ride on 18 marks followed in second place by ex works rider and stalwart of the East Midlands Centre Chris Milner on his Yamaha “special” which features a 4 stroke Yamaha serrow motor in a TY250 monoshock chassis. Chris mainly did the modification as he is struggling to kick start a bike nowadays and the Serrow engines electric start makes life a lot more bearable for him nowadays. He did well to keep his score to a very respectable 35 marks. Perhaps Yamaha missed the boat and should have sold a bike like this ? Peter Carson had his usual classy ride to take Classic Expert British Bike honours ahead of Rob Spencer on his Ariel which was quite a handful on the slippery terrain but he kept going and finished second. Well done Rob a display of true grit. Nice to see Simon Bown, Fantic, have a good ride to take the win in the Classic Expert Twinshock class with a loss of just 25 from second placed rider Bob Sherras on his Bultaco who lost 32 and with another Bultaco mounted rider finishing off the top three namely Robert Mycock on 44 it could have gone either way so well done all of you. David Pattison led the Intermediate Twinshock riders home with a typical polished performance on his Bultaco and only managed to lose 14 marks in the process with second placed Nick Burton on his Fantic and third placed Mark Kearsley, Yamaha, astounded at how he managed to find grip where seemingly there was none. Well done David. A much closer battle took place in Classic Intermediate Twinshock with John Morley on his Honda just pipping Steve Fletcher, Yamaha, to the win John losing 42 to Steve’s 43 oh if only LOL. Nice to see Cliff Bradley on his Yamaha take third place on 50 from an unlucky Tony Shaw, Bultaco who just missed out on the top three with a loss of 53. Still some very good performances lads of which you can all be proud. This leads us to the final battles for top honours in the Clubman classes and none tighter than in British Bike Clubman. As has been the case all year it was nip and tuck with the battle going right to the wire and this time 12 year old Harry Lyons on his Bantam just managed to keep evergreen Arthur Tomkinson on his Greeves Scottish back in second. We wont mention Arthurs age but he can give more than 60 years to young Harry and only finished the one mark behind him at the end. Superb this is what Classic trials is ALL about guys. While we are talking about close battles another one took place between Michael Fletcher riding in his first season of trials on his Yamaha and Glyn Ridgeway making a comeback to trials after many years away doing other things, kite surfing being just one of them, on his faithful Ossa. Michael may be amazed to find he only lost 68 marks to Glyns 70 to keep current Clubman Championship leader Glyn in second place. So great to see some young blood coming into the sport of classic trials and making the rest of us lift our game. Our next event will be the final round of the 2013 season and with many Championship placings still to be decided it should be a good one. So hopefully see you at Burycliffe Quarry on Sunday 22nd December. Expert Twinshock 1st Mark Weston Montesa 10 marks 2nd Robert Carson Yamaha 15 marks Expert air Cooled Mono 1st Bob Gent Beta 18 marks 2nd Chris Millner Yamaha 35 marks Classic Expert British Bike 1st Peter Carson Bantam 8 marks 2nd Rob Spencer Ariel 78 marks Classic Expert Twinshock 1st Simon Bown Fantic 25 marks 2nd Bob Sherras Bultaco 32 marks 3rd Robert Mycock Bultaco 44 marks Classic Expert Air Cooled Mono 1st Gary Martin Yamaha 73 marks Intermediate British Bike 1st Colin Fray Dot 70 marks Intermediate Twinshock 1st David Pattison Bultaco 14 marks 2nd Nick Burton Fantic 44 marks 3rd Mark Kearsley Yamaha 61 marks Classic Intermediate British Bike 1st Peter Elvidge Bantam 56 marks 2nd Paul Beswick James 63 marks Classic Intermediate Twinshock 1st John Morley Honda 42 marks 2nd Steve Fletcher Yamaha 43 marks 3rd Cliff Bradley Yamaha 50 marks Clubman British Bike 1st Harry Lyons Bantam 41 marks 2nd Arthur Tomkinson Greeves 42 marks Clubman Twinshock 1st Michael Fletcher Yamaha 68 marks 2nd Glyn Ridgeway Ossa 70 marks 3rd Tony Fray Yamaha 105 marks

True the sections should be laid out so that there is no advantage to hop and bop but stopping with your foot down while you compose yourself for the next hazard is a five simple as that. To make it worse the section was only an easy one anyway so why the prating about? Problem is once you allow this then you have to make the sections even harder and the whole cycle starts again. Classic trials should be run to non stop rules simple if people don't or don't want to ride non stop then get back on their modern bike and ride stop allowed trials. Classic trials are popular BECAUSE they are flowing and attainable to mere mortals lets keep it that way. IMHO of course

Just a note for anybody thinking of supporting the club and riding at this Sundays event the course can only be accessed from the Whatstandwell end of the road NOT the Holloway end as Derbyshire County Council are STILL working on repairing the walls and road and the road is STILL closed just past the entrance to the venue. So no point trying to get there from Cromford traffic lights instead you will have to follow the A6 to Whatstandwell bridge then access that way. I will put arrows from there for Sunday. Please ignore the Road Closed signs at the Whatstandwell end of the road and just drive up to the gate and into the venue. Thank you. See you there.

and with us too if I was observing

One local loony transports his bike and sidecar on the roof of his car. Wish I had taken a photo. I thought I was seeing things.

See what you mean about the "Expert " class more 5's than you could shake a stick at. Simple shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. I mean it's no that it was a hard section or anything.

Looks great. Everybody having fun on their bikes with none of the "attitude" that has come to taint the "modern" events. Long may you continue

Well the Championship is now in the final quarter but there is still all to play for in many of the classes so really important to score points in the remaining rounds and this Sunday sees round 9 at Stathams Farm opposite Matlock Golf Club on the main Tansley to Chesterfield road. Start time is as usual 11.00am and there will be Expert, Classic Expert, Intermediate, Classic Intermediate and Clubman routes along with classes for British Bikes, Pre85 Twinshocks and Pre95 air cooled monos. So come along and join in the fun with the regular Peak Classic Club members. Stathams farm is a good all weather course so the inclement weather of late will not have affected the sections severely so a good ride in the beautiful Derbyshire Peak District is assured. Don't forget the clocks go back on Sunday morning so you even get an extra hours lie in too. See you there.

Biggest difference to me and I was talking about this only the other day was that back then we didn't expect to clean every section. In fact if we cleaned any section then it was like a win. The norm was a 3 or a 1 for a good ride. The aim was not to stop and get a 5. Nowadays everybody just assumes you should clean everything and a 1 or heaven forbid a 3 is deemed a disaster and you might as well load the bike into the van and go home. When asked riders say "oh I had a crap day lost 21" In the day I regularly lost 120 + and still won Novice and Intermediate awards. Yes men were men back then

I think you have already had the two most knowledgeable people on this subject see the bits and advise you. One who developed the thing along with the Majestys and the other who unlike John Shirt actually had the job of getting his hands dirty putting the things together. Don't think you are going to come across anybody more knowledgeable than those two. OK the BS merchants will come out of the bushes telling you what they THINK they know but you've already seen the two who do.

NOT just me then

Thing that always annoys me about the Twinshock Shop, actually lots of things annoy me about the Twinshock Shop LOL, is there are never any prices. Does it just depend on if they've had a good week or if you sound well off or not when you ring ?

Yep 6" Renthals are the highest you can buy that have a proper trials bend. Moto x and endure bars feel bloody awful. Shouldn't need risers but have you thought about dropping the footrests? This would take the weight off your arms and result in a better balance feel in sections.

Yes Westyfield has one and if I see Andy soon I will ask him. The Cheetah frame kits were very popular in the day and were made for Villiers engines and Tiger Cub although Tiger Cub ones are very rare nowadays. Interestingly you could also order the kit c/w a disc front brake but this was way way before the technology improved and was horrendous. Agree with Woody something doesn't look right plus the engine is probably a bitsa as it looks like a Greeves square barrel which is ok but the head looks like a Greeves Challenger which is not so good but easily rectified as square heads are readily available second hand or new. Would need to see better shots of the frame etc but if you look in Don Moreleys book there are plenty of Cheetah shots.

Just been chatting to Mick, he doesn't do e mail btw, but he did say he didn't remember seeing the bike but would be very interested in seeing the motor and verifying it was one of his ex works ones. I will pm you his phone number and you can talk to him. OK ?

You asked what it was worth ? well bit obvious really but it's worth whatever somebody is willing to pay for it. I know Mick is in the process of trying to build a replica of one of his works bikes and to me it would be nice if they were reunited but that's just my opinion.

You may well be right. Over here we tend to average 4 laps of 10 sections on a closed course so that's 40 sections in effect. I can assure you though if I took 40 marks off the winner of each class there wouldn't be any entries at the next Trial so yes I agree the riders over in these parts do seem to want easier trials.I remember when I started trialing in 1967 and all the way through the 70's you regularly dropped 120 marks to win a Novice award and riders just accepted that as the way it was. then again we did all ride just the one route then whether you were Mick Andrews or a complete no hoper like me. Things change people and their aspiration's change too I suppose you just have to know your potential audience and play to their preferences which ever side of the pond you are on