Ron And Doug "masters"

[charlie prescott]

Hi Guy

Edited December 27, 2007 by charlie prescott

[scorpa3]

Thanks for sharing this with us Charlie, I'll pass your story onto Ron and see if he remembers the event.

Pete

[cvgmmartin]

Hi Charlie, I am new to this site so my response may be a little late, but in answer to your posting, the trial was the "Good Companions Trial" organized by the Leamington Victory Motorcycle Club and the trial was usually held in mid January. I last rode in that trial when I was about 18yrs old and rode a B40 engine in a Firefly frame (the one by John Lee). Although I didn't see Ron Langston go up King John's Lane I did see Scott Ellis, Jeff Smith, and Dave Langston on their works BSAs and Ray Round on his 441 sidecar outfit go up the hill. Scott was flat out in third but Jeff was a little more restained, lesser creatures legged their way up. This was almost the last section of the trial and was meant to provide spectator entertainment. There were always crowds on the banks either side of the lane. If you couldn't get up it was a very long ride out at the bottom and round the roads back to the quarry.

I notice you are from Banbury, I rode in a few Banbury club trials , the last being at Shennington. I think John Gleed was riding his B40. One year (1969 I think) I won the Banbury club's Big Banger trophy since Frank Night didn't ride his 500 Triumph that year and I was the only one with a bike over 250cc. I was 18 and weighed about 160 lbs, the B40 was way too heavy for me and seemed to get an awful lot of fives. I now ride vintage trials in Canada with a 500 Triumph and a 250 BSA. We don't have many true vintage bikes over here so we allow anyone to ride in our events. Typically we get about 20 riders with a mixture of monoshocks, twin shock TY Yamahas, a couple of cubs, and a 500 Triumph. We certainly don't have the trick cubs /BSAs and I have never even seen a B40 over here.

[charlie prescott]

Hi Guy's

Hi Martin.

You must remember some of the other NOBAC boys and clerk of the coarse Roy Steel. Frank Knight used to work at the Alcan Alloy factory in Banbury. in the research department and fitted the alloy swinging arm to the Triumph Trophy as a project. He also built a swinging arm out of old Ford Popular axle traction arms. Another of his projects was a trailer made out of alloy section and an old Ford or Morris axle, single bike would you know, and no suspension. Well Nobby Clements and I got a entry for the Knut trial down in the west country. First time out with the Goldie outfit. "Borrow my trailer" said Frank, "OK" so Nobby fitted a draw bar To his Austin A 35, in the time we should have been working on tractors, but bikes came first didn't they, well until the foreman caught us. Well have you tried getting a heavy old outfit onto a single bike trailer. and traveling it with no springing, and a 3/8 bolt as a draw bar pin. and a car that couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding. Then setting off on a wet autumn day on all them twisty roads down west. Riding for the first time with a powerful old outfit, looping it several times and the having to travel all the way back up with the bikes back wheel hitting the ground on every bump because the backbone of the trailer frame had cracked. One hell of a learning curve I can tell you. Incidentally I was talking to Douge at the Sam Cooper trial and he remembered the King's John's lane ride and said their only mistake was that they nearly rammed the back of Ray Rounds outfit at the top, as the speed they were carrying around the bend nearly cannoned them into to it with the brakes locked up.

Regard's Charlie.

[charlie prescott]

Hi Guy'

Wow, did I really write that way back then.

Well It was chatting about this incident that set us thinking ,that it would be brilliant to try and recreate this sort of atmosphere at an event, It was then that we came up with the idea of the "Classic Trials Show".

It has taken a while as you can see, but it is now going to happen, and if you guy's would like to come along and help recreate this sort of sixties spirit, where all riders were happy, and talked to each other, you are more than welcome.

We intend to enjoy ourselves.

Regards Charlie.

[pete_scorpa3]

With plans for the 2012 Classic Show well underway, here's a shot of Rons bike I took at the 2009 show.

Edited November 4, 2011 by Pete_Scorpa3

[charlie prescott]

Hi Guy's.

Thanks for the photo Pete.

Nothing like getting the youngsters involved early on.

As you Know? George Prescott (one year three months old), Now owns John Drapers C15/B40. This bike could be at the Classic Show,

If George will lend it to me! And It will be at the "Classic Trials Show" 2012, If you guys give me the support to organize the event again?? Check out the "Classic Trials Show" web site. www.classictrialsshow.com. :thumbup:

Regards Charlie.

[charlie prescott]

Hi Guy's.

George, Testing his "John Draper" BSA.

[axulsuv]

Beautiful bike ! But shouldn't George grow just a little so he can turn better without the "tiller" top yoke ????

Glenn

Edited November 6, 2011 by axulsuv

[charlie prescott]

Hi Guy's.

 

Today  I am seventy years of age.

 

 And I have seen to much of this faffing about  around a tree and down and up and down again to last me.

 

 And have had a Mail from Deryk today to say that it is time to start a NEW campaign.

 

 

 He coined the phrase "PRE 65" for a very good cause back then, but it has been abused ever since .

 

 So the New campaign is to try and get clubs here in the UK and elsewhere  in the trials universe.

 

To use this Phrase "Pre 65 "to mean the sections and not the machine.

 

 Perhaps we can suss out the old sections used in the day,and see if they are still available for use today.

 

 Or if not find sections that are similar.

 

 I for one am now on a mission to see if any of the Banbury NOBAC old "Pre 65" sections are still available like "King Johns Lane".

 

 To bring the passion and Glory back into "Pre 65" Trials, this is what we need.

 

 Sod, the around the tree type section, What we need is long blasts, like from the past. 

 

 To give the Meaning "Pre65 " back to where it came.

 

 Read the first listing in this page and then tell me that this is not what we want for Real Pre 65?

 

Happy Birthday to Me.

 

Regards Charlie.

 

 

 

[laird387]

Hi Charlie, et al,

 

The stimulation for my thoughts about the precarious nature of the classic trials scene is the constant bickering that one sees in these columns, coupled by the regular disappointing reports from clubs around the country that are finding the entrants on the heavier old genuine classic bikes are decreasing at an alarming rate.

 

When I query "where have all the bigger bikes gone" I am frequently told that the sections are so tight in many cases that you can no longer persuade a genuine old lump around them!  

 

Then I am, frankly, astonished to find that there is almost an industry of mechanics busily taking Ariel 500 motors apart and converting them at considerable expense to short stroke variants and query the reasoning behind this I am told "You want to try getting an HT5 round a modern pre-65 section - the power is far too harsh........"

 

But that was precisely why John Smith, Derek Lord and myself, as members of the Rochdale club and with guidance from Ted Ogden representing the North-west centre of the A-CU, created, in August 1972, the 'Bigger Banger Trial' on the moors behind the Red Lion pub at Shawforth in Lancashire.  The regulations stipulated that the event was solely for riders of machines manufactured in Great Britain and fifty-three hardy souls turned up to try their hand.  We had intentionally set a route that was almost seven miles round, with two laps and all the sections set invitingly wide - albeit often with a sting in the tail......we did that because the current crop of trials had evolved into crowded crawls in a long queue of riders on pocket handkerchief courses, with sections so tight you often couldn't even wheel a British bike round them on full lock.......

 

The trial was won by Arthur Lampkin who had left his works C15T at home in Silsden and ridden to the trial on his old rigid rear-ended Gold Star, 760 HOH, and he joined the celebrations in the Red Lion after the event. To a man the riders clamoured, "When's your next trial?"

 

We ran the follow up event in 1973 and split the entry into classes that we hoped would make fair competition. They were Pre-unit split into rigid and springer sections, and Unit split into two-stroke and four stroke sections, again British manufacture only and received 174 entries - which was quickly compared to the average 35 to 45 that was being received in local modern trials. I used the description 'Pre-65' to describe the event in my column in TMX - and that name stuck.......

 

Now our intention from the outset was to regenerate the type of trial that was typical before the invasion of the technically far superior Spanish machines.  When all is said and done they were riding machines created for riding in trials, we were riding machines designed as every day ride-to-work bikes converted for the event by fitting competition tyres, giving them a high level exhaust system and possibly wider ratio gears........

 

So the first reversion to classic trials was solely in terms of setting sections as they had been before it was deemed necessary to tighten them up in order to extract marks from the specialised bikes - BUT TODAY WE ARE SEEING PEOPLE MAKING SPECIALISED BIKES THAT COST A FORTUNE TO COPE WITH THE MODERN TIGHTER SECTIONS.  Daft, I calls it - comes under the label "If it ain't broke, then don't fix it!"

 

So here is my call for today.  Let anybody intending to organise a so-called pre-65 or classic trial remember that the basic requirement is to have SECTIONS set wide and inviting, include as many natural obstacles as you can, but set them as you see on the old photographs. Drop all the fancy 'machine silhouette' eligibility and encourage all the old bikes back out un use.  If anyone can find old sections that they know were used years ago that could still be accessed - then use them.

 

If your course plotters have only ever ridden modern bikes, as is usually the case, persuade them to try every section they want to include with somebody perched behind them to see what the section will feel like on a heavy old British bike.  

 

Those of us who rode before 1965 know that all trials comprised just a single route of sections, so TRADITIONAL trials should follow the same example.  They should all be wide enough to allow a sidecar to pass, we need to encourage the charioteers back out again - no club should be granted a Sammy Miller round, for example, unless they include sidecars.  Any particularly interesting old sections that physically could not take a chair may be included as 'Solo only', as long as there is an alternate 'Sidecar only' section included, and it may be preferable to allow the rigid machines to follow the sidecar route - that worked well in the early Sammy Miller series - and just check what the views any of the riders who rode those early trials and still ride the current series are - that could give you a really healthy clue.........

 

So come on, attack your keyboard and tell everybody what YOU think about those ideas - would YOU support such a trial if you had an old bike?  Or if you prefer just to be quiet remember nobody will know whether it would be worth considering changes.............

 

Whatever - enjoy yourselves.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 6, 2016 by laird387

[charlie prescott]

Hi Guy's

 

More like this,I very much think.

 

Ron nearly over-cooked it with the speed on the first part of the climb up "Camp" ,But with the power of the Long stroke Ariel motor, she kept pulling and soon found the revs again,

But Ron has never lost his touch.

A Very Happy Day.

 

Regards Charlie.

Edited January 6, 2016 by charlie prescott

[laird387]

The early responses to my suggestion that pre-65 sections, set wide and inviting and making use of natural hazards have been emails suggesting that I don't really understand the problems and that you must have multiple routes to suit different riding skill levels.  That may be right - although it never was in the past - but it still begs the question as to how come you MUST have multiple routes, when one of the classic trials is constantly oversubscribed, usually with well over double the potential riders and uses sections that have been in constant use since, in the case of the photograph included, 1963......

 

The photo, by Jack Knoops, is of Kendal's Colin Benson with his 350 Trifield in the 2010 Pre-65 Scottish.

Edited January 6, 2016 by laird387

[charlie prescott]

Hi Guy's

Deryk.

 

I think that a Pre65 section trial should be that and not an add on to the current crop of "Multi Trials".

 

I am sure that some clubs with perhaps older members that can remember 1965 and the trials held before that , Could set a current clerk of the course right on what the sections used to be like.

I can't remember more the one route for solos in most National trials, and a lot of the sections were also tackled  by us Barrow Boys.

 

I am sure that there are clubs in the UK that could be persuaded to have a go at one of these proper section trials, just to judge the water.

 

We won't know the response unless we try will we?

 

There is always going to be those with commercial interest ready to put the boot in.

 

But just look at the extra revenue that could be achived by getting the older bike and rider back out of the cobwebs.

 

Boots, jackets, tyres, plugs, head ache tablets, Ibuprofen, bandages, Carburettors, Fuel. ETC.

 

And what a Jolly time we would all have. 

 

Think about it Club members and committees  for the one that tries first will get the greatest reward.

 

Regards Charlie. 

[charlie prescott]

Hi Guy's.

 

I have just been on the Bulto Page.

 

And I am still in shock.

 

Where is that Scottish trial going?

 

And how can they still call it Pre 65?

 

http://www.bsaotter.com/pre_65_sections_trials_clubs.html

 

Regards Charlie.