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Special feature

IT’S Northern Soul

Old Bike Mart - Feature Image
Peter Ward gets up a head of steam as he hoists his Cub out of a stream.

With rain, snow and high winds giving the eastern side of the country a very un-spring like feel, it was with great relief and surprise that with the change of the clocks, there was a change of weather to match, and the opening round of the Northern British Bike Championship, for pre-65 trials, supported by Old Bike Mart, Classic Dirt Bike and PJ1 Oils, was held in simply glorious conditions.

The road trial, organised by the AJS and Matchless OC Poachers Section, was based in the farm yard of Mr Smith, in the tiny hamlet of Withcall, just a spit away from Cadwell Park. Mr Smith owns a good deal of Wolds land around the area and is also keen on motorcycle trials, thus is sympathetic to the increasingly difficult problem of where trials can be held and frees up several areas within his estate for the trials to take place.

With upwards of 80 entries from as a far afield as Norfolk, Liverpool, Wigan, Derby and Leicester, they were set off at 10am, in one-minute intervals, so as not to cause a nuisance by hitting the road en masse, and headed off for the first couple of warm up sections, along the disused railway embankment adjacent to the farm before taking a further 24 sections here and there around a 21-mile course. The final few sections saw them returning to the farmyard, for a fuel stop – that’s both machines and riders, the latter courtesy of a very appreciated and very reasonably priced mobile catering van – and then it was off again on another seven-mile lap to tackle a load more sections.

There is a terrific amount of work goes into setting up a trial like this, with much thought and leg work, let along fuel and personal time and the excellent sections – challenging but not overly difficult – are a credit to the efforts of Errol Gowshall and Martin Green, who spent several days sourcing and setting out the numerous sections.

As usual the entry was a mixture of enthusiastic clubmen and experts and the standard of machinery has to be seen to be believed, as some of these trials irons always turn out like they’re fresh from the showroom. A few worthy of note included the first man away, Ian Baker, from Trawden, near Burnley (what time did he have to get up?) who campaigned a beautiful 600cc Big Four side valve Norton, and having dropped 20 marks, on the clubman route, actually won it. Then there was Steve Holt, from up on the Humber banks, with a James that would have passed as brand new, he finished third in the two-stroke class, losing nine marks on the expert route. Barrie Rodgers, on the genuine ex-works Royal Enfield, complete with registration number 250 RE, dropped 12 on the clubman route to take runner-up spot and of course the likes of Neil Gaunt and Mick Grant whose Ariels are always immaculately presented – and took second and first overall.

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