An interesting notice regarding this event as the club always host really good Trials.
Richmond Motor Club is at Coverdale.
CANCELLED
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO LACK OF RIDERS
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Yesterday we posted pics about small two Stroke Trials models, and it prompted me to think about the current trend in machinery – With the demise of the big British 4 bangers – a smaller crop of 200 Triumphs and some 250 BSA models started to appear, but of course the Sammy Miller /Bultaco era took over after that. – Moving on to what we could call the Toni Bou/Honda years – Most European factories were put under the gun to go all “Four stroke” – an FIM decision very much influenced by Honda ( according to rumors) –
The sudden announcement of having the bikes all four stroke by 2005 – had all the small factories really behind the 8 ball. – Sherco quickly rushed their 320cc 4 stroke onto the market to meet the deadline, while Gas Gas had a side valve Prototype in development.-Beta were in a better position with a 4 stroke model. – But in the end all this ill thought out ruling by the FIM got put on hold, and only Honda carried on promoting the Four Cycle Trials model, at World FIM level. – However, the Beta Evo 4T appears to have a lot of fans, especially SSDT riders, and Ray Peters in the USA has been mounted on one of these now for many years. In Canada, Bob Clark had quite a lot of success on the Beta 4T.
The 2005 Sherco 320cc model was as reported earlier a bit of a disaster, mainly due to the rushed design and a bike that was really difficult to start. – ( the 2008 bike was much better after some mods) Meanwhile, Beta had both a 250 and a 300cc 4 banger, both of which had reasonable sales, and as we show in the following pics – we enjoyed some good times riding both these models.
The Sherco -was fun to ride with gobs of power. – but getting this 2005 model 320 started was a huge problem. Jim Corkle and myself spent the best part of 6 months playing with that first one – our six page analysis, was sent to Sherco and Andreu Codena sent us a nice letter thanking us for the input. – they did improve the bike before they brought out the 2008 model ( That is what Pete is riding)
Here is a pic I took of Pete on his Sherco 2008 320 4T .
Below is from a day out exploring East of Cherryville with Matt, on a Beta Evo 300 4T – wonderful bike and we have sold a few of those.
All is not lost for the old style mainly British Thumpers, as they have proved to be very popular in the booming Vintage Trials now all showing huge oversubscribed entry lists.
The Pre 65 Scottish started by Sammy Miller, always sees a large entry of 4T models – Here is Sam showing how on his Ariel back when the event first started ( no helmets required then)
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The bottom line of course is that not everybody likes the same type of bike or engine, so as our old buddy Walt Healy used to say – “It’s whatever turns you on”
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