Brittain’s best in ISDT

Johnny Brittain didn’t just make it to the top of the tree in trials, he was probably Britain’s finest ever International Six Days Trial rider. A staggering 13 gold medals picked up over the course of 16 consecutive rides in the event – 15 of them for Royal Enfield – serves to prove the point.

He was a member of the last British team ever to win the ISDT, in Czechoslovakia in 1953, and rode both the factory’s twins and single-cylinder Bullets on his way to racking up that phenomenal medal haul. His first ISDT gave him the first gold, while his final one – the 1964 event held in East Germany – gave him his last, when, aboard a 500 Bullet, he finished unpenalised again. Having retired from top-class trials to concentrate on his growing motorcycle dealership at the end of the previous year, it was a fitting swansong for a man who had become synonymous with Royal Enfield’s off-road competition efforts for 15 years. Appropriately, it proved to be the last time Enfield would field a works team in the event, too. There’s nothing like going out on a high.