trialsrfun Posted November 15, 2015 Report Share Posted November 15, 2015 A nice classic bike can be used while maintaining a value, how many 2015/2016 bikes will acheive that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
japes1275 Posted November 15, 2015 Report Share Posted November 15, 2015 That is very true, if you'd spent £6k building your trick Cub in 2010 you'd have made a much better investment than buying a new 2010 Gas Gas! (Though you'd probably have had to spend a lot more fettling time!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laird387 Posted November 15, 2015 Report Share Posted November 15, 2015 You could always have the Gas Gas gold-plated - but then it would probably be ridden even less than the so-called pre-65 bikes. One point that did get well and truly lost over the years - by greedy people trying to gain commercial advantage by bending the rules to the limits - was that replica parts could be fitted in order to maintain the machine in safe rideable condition. But the definition that I and the other machine eligibility examiners relied upon was that a 'replica' was a part that was dimensionally identical to the original it was replacing - and we emphasised that weight was a dimension.......... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hewson Posted November 15, 2015 Report Share Posted November 15, 2015 Here is my Drayton framed Bantam build , took 2 years and its near finished , steel hub's , turned gears , i sourced all parts myself . did a few deals here and there , but it can be done on a budget with time ....Around £3000 at this stage 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie prescott Posted November 15, 2015 Report Share Posted November 15, 2015 Hi Guy's. Yes very nice New Bantam first class in fact, But the only parts that I can see that are Pre 65 are the two hubs and they are probably later. Its just that Name again that grates me "Pre 65". It is a very nice New "Britshock" but not a machine that was built before 1965. The MZ forks do look period though I think is the term. and I do like the greenhouse down spout bend. There are enough of these Drayton "Britshock" Bantams now built to warrant a class just for this machine in most trials. Regards Charlie. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon v8 Posted November 15, 2015 Report Share Posted November 15, 2015 Well Charlie, after riding the last of the Miller series today it would seem a lightweight Bantam/Cub/James is the way to go.Judging by the talk I heard today it seems that any rigid or pre unit bikes are not really catered for anymore,or sidecars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hewson Posted November 15, 2015 Report Share Posted November 15, 2015 Get with it Charlie , a Bantam is a Bantam , today or yesterday ..... Stop thinking about Britshock , modern engineering would of brought any bike on back in the day ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie prescott Posted November 16, 2015 Report Share Posted November 16, 2015 Hi Guy's. Hewson. Look I have NO problem with your bike, and don't forget I have one the same ? but not with a NEW frame. The Problem I have is that this Class of bike Is Not a Pre 65 Machine. It is a Special that I call "Britshock" which is a better description . A Bantam is not just a Bantam if your bike has four gears it is after 1965, and that is a fact. You are not the only one that has built a bike like this claiming it is Pre 65 because most of the builders do. and the frame kit is probably sold as a Pre 65 bike. But you and I know it is not, it is simply a Newly built trials BSA Bantam. you can use the name BSA because the engine cases are from that breed. I must admit that the cases and the frame and the rear hub are all there are in my Bantam build, that can be called BSA. So you must see that these newly built BSA Bantam machines should have a class in a trial for this type of machine and the prefix Pre 65 be dropped. Regards Charlie. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laird387 Posted November 16, 2015 Report Share Posted November 16, 2015 Hi, It seems to me that the nub of the problem is that people no longer have any idea why the term 'pre-65' was chosen, and what it actually meant. Since I am the guilty party that created the term and therefore was the first to ever use it in a trial that I was organising, let me set the ground rules all over again. We were faced with trying to organise trials for people who couldn't afford a brand new Spanish machine - and they were so new there were no second-hand ones to buy. So we looked for terminology to explain to would be riders just what we were trying to do. How do you describe, accurately, an old fashioned type of trial. The starting point is that we could easily sort the rigid framed machines, we could differentiate between telefork/rigids and girder-forked/rigids, then as more joined it we split it into twostroke and fourstroke divisions of the rigids. But where to divide the springers? Well the very last single cylinder over-350cc machine to be catalogued by a manufacturer were the AJS and Matchless trials models in the 1964 catalogue, they didn't appear in the 1965 catalogue. Triumph had gone to the Cub, Enfield to the Crusader and BSA to the C15T. So that seemed a natural class for the over 350cc sprung-frame machines, 'Pre-65' was the definition. The Cub, C15 and Crusader were classed as 'unit' machines and for the same reason as above placed in a 'Pre-70' class. We ran a series of events, developed it into a national championship, called the Sammy Miller series and it lasted successfully in that format for fourteen years. Anybody who had a bike that didn't quite fit into any of the specifications was welcomed to ride in the 'specials' class - and I found awards for them in the annual championship. So all the present argument as to whether a BSA Bantam is 'pre-65' is a modern, and to my mind totally pointless, complication. Revert to the original classifications, stop calling all the other classes pre-65 when they are not and let the enjoyment of just riding your bikes for the sheer pleasure and enjoyment that it can bring. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winchman Posted January 4, 2016 Report Share Posted January 4, 2016 Now being new to all this I do wonder if its going the same way as many other motor sports and pricing people out of it? My son is currently building a C15 Bobber for a school project but once its all over he would like to turn it back in to a trials machine, but already the costs are spiralling out of control before we have bought any of the trials bits. So what class would it fall in to? Its a 1965/66 not certain which as we are waiting for the documents. Or should we just build it around the 1958 donor frame we have and claim its a 58????? As an outsider looking in many of the machines I see are just built of various bits so I find it all a bit confusing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old trials fanatic Posted January 4, 2016 Report Share Posted January 4, 2016 I know of people using 2015 frames hubs etc who enter as 1954 cos that's what their log book says. Twinshock is no better as some people will always put down the earliest theoretical year of manufacture. Why? Well some clubs I know of have a tiebreaker on the age of the machine PMSL. More sensible ones have tiebreaker on the age of the rider preference given to the oldest rider. IMHO we should drop the abused misnomer pre65 and instead just have British Bike with sub classes. Oh one other thing please stop trying to use the words cheap and Motorsport in the same sentence. Never gonna happen get used to it. Cheapest way to enjoy trials is buy a 10 year old well looked after bike. Loads about for the price of a Bantam motor. Just ride and enjoy. No depreciation, somebody else paid for that, great value and loads of choice. Cheap as chips. As soon as you introduce classes the competition starts and costs escalate. I'm not saying don't build a classic just don't delude yourself it's going to be anything but very costly. After all they don't make them anymore....... or do they? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laird387 Posted January 5, 2016 Report Share Posted January 5, 2016 (edited) I know of people using 2015 frames hubs etc who enter as 1954 cos that's what their log book says. Twinshock is no better as some people will always put down the earliest theoretical year of manufacture. Why? Well some clubs I know of have a tiebreaker on the age of the machine PMSL. More sensible ones have tiebreaker on the age of the rider preference given to the oldest rider. IMHO we should drop the abused misnomer pre65 and instead just have British Bike with sub classes. Oh one other thing please stop trying to use the words cheap and Motorsport in the same sentence. Never gonna happen get used to it. Cheapest way to enjoy trials is buy a 10 year old well looked after bike. Loads about for the price of a Bantam motor. Just ride and enjoy. No depreciation, somebody else paid for that, great value and loads of choice. Cheap as chips. As soon as you introduce classes the competition starts and costs escalate. I'm not saying don't build a classic just don't delude yourself it's going to be anything but very costly. After all they don't make them anymore....... or do they? Hi otf, Sadly it has taken me just over forty years to realise where I went wrong when I coined the term PRE-65 in relation to the British Bike trials that we had created when John Smith, Derek Lord and myself created the first ever Bigger Banger Trial in 1972 on the ground behind the Red Lion at Shawforth in Lancashire, that was renamed the Shawforth Shake in 1973 and I coined the term 'pre-65' in my column in TMX in the lead-in description to that event. We all knew that we were talking about having the SECTIONS set to the same severity as they had been BEFORE 1965 - we merely chose 1965 as the cut off point because that was the first year that NO British manufacturers included any pre-unit trials models in their catalogue.......and it was the year that Sammy appeared on his Bultaco Sherpa - 'the bike that could walk on water' - and made most of the classic sections look like main roads............... WITHOUT EXCEPTION you are totally correct when you say that the early 'classic' trials used the older rider wins as a tie-break, simply because very few clubs, even then, had members able to correctly evaluate the actual age of manufacture of the various components of the motorcycles so that could not be used.... And yes, it is meant to be a relaxing enjoyable sport for the fun of it - not a financial empire building enterprise for the 'special' parts (fiddle we used to call them) manufacturers - so buy an old nail, and then find the sheer pleasure in losing less marks than somebody who has just spent many thousands on a 'new' old bike Edited January 5, 2016 by laird387 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winchman Posted January 5, 2016 Report Share Posted January 5, 2016 And yes, it is meant to be a relaxing enjoyable sport for the fun of it - not a financial empire building enterprise for the 'special' parts (fiddle we used to call them) manufacturers - so buy an old nail, and then find the sheer pleasure in losing less marks than somebody who has just spent many thousands on a 'new' old bike Well said I have just spent another £50. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trialsrfun Posted January 5, 2016 Report Share Posted January 5, 2016 We all knew that we were talking about having the SECTIONS set to the same severity as they had been BEFORE 1965 - we merely chose 1965 as the cut off point because that was the first year that NO British manufacturers included any pre-unit trials models in their catalogue.......and it was the year that Sammy appeared on his Bultaco Sherpa - 'the bike that could walk on water' - and made most of the classic sections look like main roads............... Hi Deryk, Was Sammy Miller so far ahead of the rest because of the bike or was he using his riding ability to the full spurred on by the new challenge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
japes1275 Posted January 5, 2016 Report Share Posted January 5, 2016 Yes well said from me as well. I did a trial on my fairly genuine pre 65 C15T last month and was most suprised to come 1st in the Clubmans class against about a dozen twin shock bikes. I even managed to lose less marks than a lot of riders on modern bikes that were riding non competetively. That was really satisfying in itself but even more so knowing that my bike hasn't been tricked up to the max like so many old bikes. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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