WIGG’S WORLD

Julian Wigg made his scrambles debut aged 16 at Clipstone, Bedfordshire in 1966. “I’d graduated from field bikes to an old Greeves Hawkstone,” he recalls. “Then I built a TRIBSA – the first bike I built myself , but made the mistake of racing it with a worn-out tyre and ended up with a broken leg.”

After recovering from that, Julian continued with motocross for a while, then gave trials a try. “It was a lot cheaper than scrambling,” he smiles. “Then someone suggested I give grasstrack a go and I bought a Colcham frame kit and slotted a BSA C15 engine into it. That was 1968, I think, and I started winning almost straight away.”

For the following decade he would be one of the UK’S top performers on the grass. He was second in the British 500cc championship in 1971 and third in 1974 and was third in the 250cc class in 1981 too. He also racked up a string of top-three finishes in major meetings including the Wimborne Whoppa and Bewdley Bonanza. And he found time to top the 500cc South Midland Centre Championship in 1971, ’73 and ’86 and the 250cc crown in 1984. In a golden era of British grass track, ‘Big Wigg’ was right up there with the best. He was also successful in Europe – and tackled a few seasons of Australian dirt track in the off season.

“They were good years,” Julian admits, “but I’d eased off racing by 1985 and opened a trials bike shop in Winslow. I’d got back into trials by then – pre-65 – and was back scrambling on classics too. I won the first European Five Nations Classic trials championship the first year it was run. And of course, I was helping out my younger brother Simon. He was a real class act.”

Julian sold the shop in 1988 and established a successful engineering business with his business partner. Since then, he’s found time to support son Alexz on the world championship trials circuit – and he’s never stopped building, restoring and riding classics.