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Answer to the last quiz – Joan Pons on the Beta – Harlow, Brett and Bob got it.
Quiz today. – Difficult – -Who is this? and who is his wife’s famous brother?
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I saw this pic and had a flashback to the 1973 Moose Mountain Cross Country – I was on my 2nd 50 mile loop, and came across a guy sitting on the tank of his bike which was sunk in the muskeg ! He was yelling for me to help him !! Nope sorry buddy I needed all my energy and Trials skill to make it through myself. ( They got him and a few others out of the bush the next day)
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I’m sure many of our bloggers have seen these adverts over the past few years – but did you know that the guy who runs these Trials Tours in Spain, is from Wales? Yes and Taff knows him.
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EDITORIAL.
As everybody knows, the recent announcement by KTM that they are closing the Gas Gas factory in Spain, and moving the Trials bike production to Austria plus dropping their support for World Trials – has been getting lots of comments.
Also, I think everybody knows, that KTM is still in deep trouble in spite of all the Indian money being spent to bail them out. – ( The Indian Money people have no interest in Trials)
So lets wind back the clock a bit – back to when Gas Gas ( stupid name in my opinion) came on the market. – They had a pretty good product, ( We sold them from 1993-2005) and with smart guys like Andreu Cordina as the World Sales Manager, they became quite successful. – so what happened ? – well a lot happened!! – the owners ( so we are told) took too much money out of the company, which left them cash poor. – following this the market started to stagnate – maybe too many manufacturers and a lot of other sports for the young generation to get involved with.
– Now remember the Japanese also got this wrong, with sales a fraction of what had been forecast, so you would have thought the small enthusiastic Spanish would have learned from this. – Perhaps they were still basking in the memories of Bultaco, Ossa and Montesa –
Well fast forward, along comes KTM buying up everything, ( they wanted to buy Beta but the family turned them down) – You have to wonder who was making the decisions in that Austrian boardroom, because I’m sure it was not somebody who understood the Trials market.
What is truly hard to understand, is why this went downhill so fast, or why it was kept from shareholders -Why did they keep on buying? after all KTM had already been in receivership once before, but got bailed out by the Deutcher bank.
Obviously all this is very sad for the motorcycle Industry, but don’t forget the British went down because they refused to see the problem, with the Japanese coming into the market !! ( Plus the Trials enthusiasts, all followed Sammy Miller and bought Spanish)
We have mentioned many times, that Trials riding is a participant sport rather than a spectator sport – and while the Americans soon realized that, the FIM has continued to Promote this as an Indoor Circus Show, which while very clever, and good to watch – It does absolutely nothing to promote the sale of Trials bikes – ( It might be said that the first nail in the coffin, came when they took the seats off the new bikes!!)
( Remember my story about my time with Yamaha, when I told them only about 40% of all the TY’s sold- would ever be used in competition?? – the rest would be used as Trail bikes)
At the end of the day, the sport will survive, although a lot of dealers may not, – The Classic scene is booming in Spain, with hundreds of people signing up for events like the Costa Brava. -The Scottish Six Day Trial is also sold out every year.
In North America the Trials market, is still mainly controlled by Mom & Pop operations – and maybe, THAT is how it should be.?
AND remember it was Vancouver based Japanese guy Dougie Tanaka who said. ” GO BIG-GO BLOKE”
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