Happy Friday bloggers – and the last week for January 2026
We know quite a few of you have already been out riding – due mainly in the West because of a very mild winter, but some like the Alberta crew – have gone indoors at a local Barn set up – or in the Shuswap taking advantage of the fantastic Indoor facility at Ross Rathbones in Magna Bay . – Ross does not charge for practicing but anybody interested needs to phone ahead.
We saw a video at this location just posted of Emily out on her Outlaw Beta Evo 250, and could not believe how well she has improved since she began riding Trials – really good control. – So a big shout out to Ross for building this Indoor set up. ( I know it wasn’t cheap)
It won’t be long before we will be out on this trail.
Answer to the last quiz – Donato Miglio on an Aprilia – Miglio rode a few different bikes before joining the Beta Factory to become their Competition Manager. – As usual our regular bloggers all got this.
Quiz today. – Guess who on what and where?????
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Last night we clicked onto another of Sammy Millers You Tube videos -Sammy really is an amazing chap, who at 93 years old still goes into his museum and workshop every day – and does a wonderful job explaining the history of his huge collection.
In this one, he talked about the East German 2 stroke MZ road racer, which was so much faster that any of the 4 strokes – Ernst Degner was winning all the lightweight , Championship races, but very unhappy living in the Communist part of Germany, and he eventually made his escape to the West and Japan with all the technical plans of the engine to Suzuki, who then went on to win everything. – Sammy says the Japanese two strokes at that time were “Rubbish” – so this is a really interesting story -( His escape would make a good movie) – we recommend you check it out.
I remember seeing the East German MZ team at the 1981 ISDE in Wales – they were all mounted on small bikes which revved to the moon. – Sammy tells of how anybody riding these early two strokes needed to be very quick with the clutch!! – as they were prone to seizing – in fact top world champion road racer Bill Ivy was killed on an MZ when it seized.
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The Calgary Motorcycle show goes this weekend and Emily will be there on the Mojo Mag booth – we saw a few pics posted but again there appears to be a large focus on the Adventure bikes. – many will recall that when these shows started back in the 70’s -( Carl Bastedo was the main guy) – the local clubs were given free booth space and of course for Trials we always had a great display and competition which was a big attraction – sad to say it appears the shows now appear to be all about making money with high costs for everything – booth space- entry fees etc. – Back in my Yamaha days, we attended all the shows across the Country and got to meet a lot of great industry and competition riders – I recall we had Bob Hannah and Broc Glover at the Calgary show one year signing autographs.
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