THE DALESMAN
If you’re a Yorkshireman and a motorcycle manufacturer maybe Dalesman is the ideal name for your bike, especially if it’s for off-road, and Pete Edmondson is definitely from Yorkshire. These days Pete is a familiar figure at trials and scrambles with a stall of off-road goodies for the discerning rider, as well as being known as father to enduro champions Paul and Derrick. He was no slouch on a motorcycle himself despite coming late to the sport. “I didn’t really start until I left the Army after national service, I bought a new Ariel HS scrambler,” he recalls as CDB caught up with him at Westmorland scramble.
The catalyst for the Dalesman concern which would ultimately bring bikes like our feature machine to the market, came when Pete happened on a Puch 125cc road bike at the Nottingham HQ of the UK Puch importers.
“I called in to see Pete Bolton,” says Edmondson, “I saw this nice looking 125cc road bike and thought ‘hmm that could make a nice trials bike’ so suggested it to Bolton.” Part of the deal was when Pete had finished converting the bike to trials spec he had to take it to Austria for the parent company to see it.
Not the sort of lad to hang about, Pete got into action and pretty soon had the Puch converted to his ideals and was on his way to Austria with his machine. It seems the Austrians were impressed but unsure about a trials market beginning to be dominated by Spain. They did however, allow Pete access to their parts stocks and he ended up buying what he reckoned were the best bits for his ideal bike, brought them home and had Jim Lee – Mick Grant’s sponsor – build light but strong frames around the engines. “Ignitions were always a problem for trials bikes, the stock one was and is absolutely reliable but not suitable for trials bikes, we put a points ignition on them but left the electronic one on the enduro and MX bikes.”
Sadly for Pete, an initial tie-up with American investors didn’t work out as well as had been hoped and the company struggled on for a year or two without Pete, who’d been voted out in boardroom politics, before finally closing in the mid-1970s, bringing to an end the British Micro bike thing.