Winners all
...at past winners
So, the pandemic called a halt to sport, but with pages to fill we thought “let’s look back at past winners of the Pre-65 Scottish and see if there’s a theme…”
Normally in the issue of CDB immediately after the Pre-65 Scottish Two Day Trial, we’d feature the winning bike, detailing all the ins and outs of the machine plus a little about the winner’s ride too. In 2020 we’re unable to do this, as along with many other sporting events the trial fell victim to the Covid-19 pandemic sweeping the world. So, instead of the 2020 winner here’s a look back at past winners we’ve featured and a reminder of what went into their build as we look forward to whatever kind of normality will be in 2021.
As the Pre-65 Scottish Trial was conceived as a way to celebrate the traditional trials motorcycles falling in the Pre-1965 era of the Scottish Six Days Trial, it could be expected the winners of the two-day would reflect the winners of the six-day trial.a machine being as light as possible, with as much ground clearance as practical and being easily steered, does reflect the bikes which were successful in both events. There it ends though, as the Pre-65 trial didn’t start until 1984, by which time the Pre-65 movement was well established and the one-day classic was far removed from the mammoth six day trial it celebrated.
With little need for high road speed or vast fuel tanks the Pre-65 motorcycle could be much more delicate than a machine which would be expected to cover hundreds more miles and may well have been ridden to the start too.
Technology too had changed, and thanks to the work of Don Morley pinning down former factory riders and engineers, some of the secrets kept from the public were becoming known. With the factories no longer in existence in many cases there was no need for the comp shop men to hold their tongues for fear of vengeance from management. Don was a regular contributor to the classic press with features on trials bikes used by the factories, features which resulted in the book Classic British Trials Bikes.
If we take a look at the Scottish from just after the Second World War, which by and large is the period represented by the Pre-65 movement, it is clear the machines doing the winning of the six days are not fully represented in the list of machines winning the classic trial, be it the one or two day. By far the biggest winning make in the Pre-65 trial is Triumph, with 20 wins, yet in the six days there was only Roy Peplow’s solitary win in 1959, on a Cub.
The biggest winning maker for the classic period six days is AMC – sorry for lumping AJS and Matchless together – with 10 wins, yet in the Pre-65 there’s only Stig Karlsson’s 2000 win on a 500 Matchless. While the bulk of the wins in the SSDT have been on big bikes – for the purposes of this feature regarded as pre unit construction four strokes – the ‘big bike’ versus ‘little bike’ thing in the Pre-65 is pretty much 50/50, though this lumps the unit Triumph twins and 340 BSA singles in the big bike category… it’s only complicated if you want it to be.
Paul Heys’ Cub
One of the first bikes featured belonged to Paul Heys who won in 2009, it set a precedent whereby we collared the winner after the presentation and asked to visit and have a ride on the bike. Generally buoyed up with euphoria from all the hoo-ha the winner agrees to be subjected to our scrutiny.
Every time we feature a winning Triumph Tiger Cub we refer to Roy Peplow’s 1959 winning ride and while a notable achievement it is unfair to compare the two machines, Peplow’s machine would be covering over 1000 miles in the week of the trial, whereas the Pre-65 is around 25 miles each day, so 50 years apart the requirements were much different.
So, Paul’s Cub, is it super trick or bog standard? The answer is not as trick as might be thought but not standard either, while meeting the specific regulations the event organisers have. It is a mix of proprietary parts such as Renthal handlebars, Domino controls and electronic ignition – PVL – plus refining of parts to make them more suitable for the modern classic trials scene.
Starting with the engine, a Cub is 199cc in standard form but there are modern pistons which will reasonably easily take the capacity out a little more. A Honda one is used here which gives 225cc, a useful increase. Though belt drives are available Paul uses a standard Cub set-up and it’s mated to a wide ratio gear cluster.
Moving on to the frame, modern thinking says the rear wheel spindle, swinging arm pivot and gearbox mainshaft should be in line when the rider climbs aboard. To do this means lowering the swinging arm pivot, not easy as it is a fixed casting but it’s been done.
Betor units take care of the suspension at the rear and the same make are up at the front too, though Suzuki sliders sit in the Triumph ones. Wheel hubs are to Triumph Cub pattern and rather than machined from billet alloy are cast from patterns produced by Paul’s dad Max – a pattern maker by trade.
“The local foundries grumble when I come along for small batches, but they do it,” he grins. They’re designed to take off-the-shelf alloy spindles from a modern Montesa laced into alloy rims, where the popular IRC rear/michelin front tyre combination is used to provide the grip.
A little mod used by a lot of Cub builders is a central box in the exhaust system which smoothes out the power delivery, also aiding power delivery is a modern 22mm Amal Concentric carburettor. The oil tank is alloy, the seat came from Sammy Miller Equipment, the mudguards are plastic and the petrol tank is glass fibre. “What about the name?” I asked. “Hah, the bike’s all black, like Jeff Smith’s factory Beezers sometimes were,” grin both Heys lads, “lad at our first trial quipped ‘what’s that? A Stealth bomber?’ which we thought was funny so Stealth it has been ever since.”
Pete Yeadon’s Ariel
There was a time in the Pre-65 Scottish when accepted wisdom went ‘the day of the big bike is over’. However, it seems no one mentioned this to Davy Morewood when he won in 2012 aboard Pete Yeadon’s Ariel. Not only did he win and beat all the smaller bikes, he won by going clean all weekend. Now, it is fair to say most of the Ariels used in Pre-65 trials owe more to Sammy Miller’s vision of what the HT5 could/ should have been, than Ariel’s production model. Yet within this brief there is quite a bit of difference between models used.
In his mission to lighten what was originally billed as the lightest production 500 trials bike, Miller jettisoned all sorts of things deemed unnecessary. Things such as an oil tank… not needed when there’s all these frame tubes quite capable of holding a pint or three of oil. Because of this the majority of Ariels in use are oil-in-frame. Pete told us at the time his frame was made for him and mostly follows Ariel dimensions, but had the steering head tucked in a touch.
He picked up a set of OSSA Betor forks and slipped their sliders inside Norton Roadholder ones and admitted the Betors were old hat for the front, but Davy likes them. Holding them in the frame are yokes from Alan Whitton who also supplied the hubs.
Like most of the trials world, the bike wears alloy rims. Betor units were also on the rear and of higher spec than the front forks. Thanks to the passing of years there is quite a bit of information out there on building an Ariel engine up. Pete’s bike reflects this, as rather than start with a 500 and alter it his is an amalgamation of 350 and 500 Ariel bits. The basis is a 350 bottom end and a 500 top end with a 350 Yamaha piston in. A sticking point was the 500 has more barrel studs than the 350…” Yeah… it was a bit of work to mate them together…”
Less problematical was the Burman gearbox, Ariel used Burman too but Pete’s bike has a Mick Ash cluster inside. Thanks to the better spread of ratios it is possible to use second gear for some sections and still move at a decent rate on the roadwork bits and the moors. Inside the primary case is a belt drive and at the time of testing – 2012 – was a road racing one with a wide belt. There were plans to reduce the width a bit and allow the fabricated primary case to be pulled in.
Firing the plug is a PAL magneto, it sucks fuel through a modern Amal, has a side pull twistgrip and dog-leg levers from an autojumble stand and the whole bike worked, allowing Davy to show the day of the big bike was not over.
Rob Bowyer’s Triumph Twin
How many times have you heard the phrase ‘everyone knows…’ or ‘common knowledge…’ in reference to perceived wisdom? Quite a few times I guess, it’s the same in the Pre-65 trials world as everyone knows a winning bike must be very trick and some possibly are, though Rob Bowyer’s Triumph twin isn’t one of them.
It actually epitomises another phrase ‘standard but well put together’ and is not all that trick. As standard, the wheelbase of a Triumph unit twin is pretty close to modern dimensions so this is a good starting point. Rob’s frame is an early to mid-sixties 3TA brazed and lugged one, but with a Cub sub-frame fitted to slim down the rear end a little. Such a mod isn’t a bolt-on one as the Cub item attaches at the swinging arm pivot point while the 3TA one bolts on at the bottom of the frame, still, welding and tubes are available… Yokes too are Triumph and I made the assumption Team Bowyer would have fitted modern internals to the forks.
“So,” says I “what fancy stuff have you managed to squeeze into Triumph’s 1¼in forks then?” If you class chrome plating the sliders and hard chrome plating the stanchions as ‘trick’ then fine, otherwise it’s all well-fettled Triumph inside the forks. Okay, they’re matched to Rob’s build, as the rear Falcon shocks were too, but there’s little fancy stuff in them though maybe an Alan Whitton seal holder could be classed as trick.
In fact, the more I touched on aspects of the machine, the less trick stuff was found. The engine is a bearing bottom end rather than a plain bush. It has 5TA pistons, cams and valves, runs with a wide ratio gear cluster and uses modern oil bought from the local garage. In fact the only trick thing on the engine is alloy barrels. Triumph’s unit engine has cast iron barrels as standard, Triumph sanctioned the casting of some alloy barrels for their works riders’ bikes – trials, scrambles and ISDT versions – folklore says 12 sets were made yet genuine ones keep turning up…
There’s a fabricated oil tank holding the oil, a special air filter box too, the petrol tank is clearly a Bultaco one and the bike wears Renthal bars with modern controls on them. Things are a little more busy at the footrest area as Rob prefers his rear brake on the right… where it joins the kick-start and gear lever. As the bike works it is obvious attention to detail will help overcome the big disadvantage of using a Triumph twin… there’s two pistons, two conrods, two sets of valves and a wider crank which all adds up in the weight department.
James Noble’s Ariel
It isn’t often a concours winner can also claim to be a trial winner, but such is the case with James Noble’s Ariel. After an incident in a section close to the end of the 2014 Pre-65 trial, which saw him carted off to hospital with a broken leg, James was back in 2015, determined to make up for the problems the previous year.
The Ariel he rode was originally built by Martyn Adams with a lot of input from Mick Grant and it was to those two we fired our questions on the technical bit, as James freely admits the pressures of running an electrical contracting business leave him little time for anything other than regular fettling of the bikes he rides.
Graham Wilkinson’s Triumph
The basis of the Ariel is one of a batch of frames Norman White built for Mick Grant, it’s oil-in-frame as pioneered by a certain famous Ariel and is of lightweight tube. Front suspension is by Marzocchi and the Roadholder Norton sliders have an extended seal holder to allow a bit more movement; at the rear are Rockshocks.
As the development of the bike was originally by Mick Grant there’s been some serious thought gone into all aspects of the build. A 500cc single cylinder four-stroke engine is a big lump by any standards and this aspect of the build often stalls people. Lifting the engine up to gain ground clearance would move the weight up too, lowering the engine loses ground clearance. Granty reasoned shortening the stroke would achieve both aims so used 350 Ariel bits and boring out the barrel to take an XT350 piston restores the capacity to 500. The extra zip of a short stroke engine is no issue today as tyre technology has moved on since the days when HTS were new.
Martyn Adams was producing different cogs for the Burman gearbox and assembled a cluster with a better spread of ratios for trials while a primary drive based on one for Norton Commandos by Norman White was adapted for the Ariel. Originally Ariel would have used a Lucas Wader magneto but for such machines PAL speedway magnetos were popular and that’s what this one has on for the sparks.
Carburation too is different, the late Peter Gaunt worked out the Villiers carburettor needed only slight modification to make it work better and used such an instrument on many of his bikes, realising a good thing when he saw it, Mick started using them too. So, higher, lower, lighter and well sorted sounds like a winner to us.
Offering your bike to a lad to ride in a major trial, then discovering it has a cracked frame the night before you head a few hundred miles up to the start isn’t an ideal way to start a winning ride, but that’s what happened to Graham Wilkinson’s Triumph. “I’d offered it to Dan Clark to ride and he tried it out in a trial the week before – I washed it and did the basics then noticed the oil leak…” cue a full strip for welding.
Triumph twins have an enviable record in the Pre-65 despite never having done much in the six days even when ridden by Roy Peplow and John Giles. By and large the biggest disadvantage of a twin is negated by modern grippy tyres and the extra poke from the twin engine can actually be an advantage these days. Using one of Paul Jackson’s HT style frames – the legend which is Jackson is local to Graham – Mr Wilkinson built the bike up using a variety of parts such as Suzuki RM80 stanchions in Norton Roadholder sliders and these sit in alloy yokes from Max Heys.
Going against the grain, Graham uses original steel Cub hubs though has sintered linings on the shoes. The lad reverts to more common practice by having alloy rims on the hubs though.
The unit engine is 500cc, has a cast iron barrel and was originally a distributor motor with a plain bush bottom end. This was converted to needle roller, the distributor hole blanked off and an Electrex World ignition system fitted. Inside the gearbox is a slightly modified cluster which has a different set of cogs to allow for a reasonable road speed and still have two gears for sections. Driving it all is a standard clutch though with an extra plate in the basket which gives grip but allows a lighter spring to be used.
The rules of the Pre-65, while tight in some areas are flexible enough to allow Renthal handlebars, Domino controls and modern tyres such as the Michelin front/irc rear which Dan uses. Something which can’t actually be seen but does help with the twin’s power delivery is a special rate-reducer on the throttle cable. For the two works riders Triumph’s comp shop man Henry Vale used to deepen the groove in the twistgrip barrel which allowed a slower action at the bottom end yet when the throttle was whacked open, the urge was there.
Tyler Murphy’s Bantam
Considering at one time BSA were the biggest motorcycle manufacturer in the world they didn’t have a lot of wins in the SSDT to their name in the classic period, and their tally of four wins matches four wins in the Pre-65 too. The SSDT wins were on Gold Stars when John Draper and Jeff Smith won in the Fifties and C15s when Arthur and Alan Lampkin won in the Sixties. The Pre-65 wins have been on 340 B40s and two Bantam wins, the first when Alan Wright won in 1995 and the second when Gary Macdonald borrowed Tyler Murphy’s Bantam and broke the domination of big bikes in 2017. BSA regularly fielded a Bantam in the SSDT but it was more for class representation than to win the event, at least until Dave Rowland was drafted into the team and almost gained a historic win in 1967. Lately in the Pre-65 scene BSA’S Bantam has enjoyed a lot of attention, it being light, easily modified and slipping nicely into a Drayton frame and when handled by a good rider the result is a win.
The late Jim Pickering started developing frames for Pre-65 bikes and has produced a bit of a phenomenon with the machines he created. A Drayton kit is available for almost any British engine and what is supplied is a complete rolling chassis all ready to take an engine. The bike built for Tyler and used by Gary was so supplied and the Bantam engine was sorted with all the latest ideas and nary missed a beat all weekend.
Martin Murphy’s Triumph
After winning the Pre-65 in 2017, Gary Macdonald bucked the trend and went from a tiny Bantampowered machine to a 350 Triumph twin for 2018… same result though, a win for the Kinlochleven lad.
There’s little doubt a Drayton twin is a fine-looking machine and many riders use them to good effect. The spec which comes out from Drayton is of high quality with the frame itself being of a slightly heavier gauge if a twin engine is going in than if, say, a Bantam engine is specified.
At the front are REH forks and GAS rear suspension takes care of the back end. Both are tailored to Gary’s wiry physique. Hubs are to Rickman pattern and laced with alloy rims and an IRC rear tyre – with a tube – provides the grip while a Michelin aids the steering, a popular combination. Topping off the frame is a beautiful tear-drop tank and the most basic of seats.
For engine information it was down to Ian Peberdy who talked us through what turns out to be a pretty basic engine, just well put together. It’s a 3TA so 350 and it is still the plain lead bronze bush bottom end. Just as an aside here, there are lots of horror stories about this set-up but invariably they involve the wrong material – use the correct spec stuff and no problems. A heavy flywheel is fitted to the crank and the standard steel con-rods are fitted – the 500 had alloy ones – which are topped off by 7:1 pistons. Even the cams are standard 3TA, in excellent condition but standard nonetheless. Ian modified the clutch a little but it is still a Triumph one with better plates in.
Nor is there anything fancy in the gearbox with just a standard road cluster, though all bushes and bearings are spot-on. The carburettor is a 22mm one and the sparks are provided by a PVL ignition. So, there you are, more of the ‘standard but well sorted’ in the engine at least.