From the archive
An event with over a century of history – here’s just a few notable points we picked out from its life over the years.
In this 60th anniversary year of ‘The Dab' we have a look at the 1961 SSDT and a few others too.
Since Edinburgh and District Motorcycle Club launched their Scottish Six Days Trial in the years before the First World War, the event has changed considerably in format, style and actual running of the whole thing. There's been a variety of starting and finishing points, with Edinburgh and Fort William the two longest serving of these; the move to Fort William enforced by a gathering of the clans taking up all room in the city's hotels in the late Seventies.
It is likely a change to a Fort William start and finish would have happened sooner rather than later, even if there hadn't been hotel space issues. Trials bikes were no longer viewed as everyday transport and covering the 150 miles from Edinburgh to Fort William and back again at the end of the week was becoming soul destroying on motorcycles with increasingly lower overall gearing and minimal comfort. Once super sticky soft tyres were introduced, tyres unlikely to survive the heat from miles on the road, the Edinburgh start would have been impractical.
Words and descriptions familiar to us in 2021 would be equally familiar to riders in the early part of the last century, when not only was the sport new but also the concept of petrol powered personal transport to do it on. So we blithely describe as ‘sections' those bits of a course where an eagle-eyed official records an attempt to negotiate difficult terrain and riders strive for a ‘clean' as they go through them.
In the Scottish of 110 years ago, riders would be advised as they set out on the trial that there would be ‘sections' of the course which would be of varying severity and some of these ‘sections' would be ‘observed' and a rider's score would be counted as part of his or hers final tally – trials has always been an inclusive sport.
Such sections wouldn't be the rocky gullies and streams familiar to SSDT riders today, but a hill forming part of the regular road system of the time. The scoring system would be ‘clean' for an unblemished climb of said ‘hill' and failure which would add penalty points to the rider's score.
I did try to determine when the failure score was settled on as ‘five' but it isn't actually clear and may have been in use alongside other scores. What is clear though is the number of cleans determined whether a rider finished on gold, silver or bronze medal level. This carried on until the Thirties, 1931 to be exact, when the more modern approach of
scoring was adopted for the Scottish. Riders would now have a point between a clean climb and a fail and the contest took on new interest for the press and public as there would be a clear winner rather than so many on gold, so many on silver, and so on.
This carried on until the introduction of ‘star' hills or sections when a ‘1' was introduced for these sections alone, and a jolly good thing too for the first and main reason for this archive piece being about the SSDT. Had it not been introduced ‘Jackson's Dab' may well have been ‘Jackson's Three' which doesn't have the same ring to it. This ‘star' marking became the norm for all sections in the Scottish – other trials too – and made for closer results which increased interest in the trial. A further refinement came as the Seventies dawned and a ‘2' was introduced to the marking system.
However, the Seventies are a bit ahead for this point of the feature and it is the 60th anniversary of Gordon Leonard Jackson's one dab win of the 1961 SSDT which is celebrated here. We're having a nod to other momentous points in the trial's history too, but first, the historic win. It is all the more notable for Gordon's dab to be caught on camera by Peter Howdle and there is an arguable case to say the picture of the dab is more famous than the dab itself.
As Gordon headed to Edinburgh for the weighin of the 1961 SSDT he was certainly one of the favourites to win, a three-time winner he'd won the year before and this alone had press and enthusiasts putting an asterisk next to his name in the programme. The view of AMC had changed slightly and the idea their works team should ride what the company sold was losing out a little to the idea of the amount of publicity a win brings. Their spat with UK press had restricted access to test machines through the Fifties but had sort of healed as the Sixties dawned, but it was still an odd time as their publicity department creatively tried to mask differences between works machines and production bikes.
One of the biggest problems for them was Gordon Jackson liked, and could use, a machine whose power was, on the face of it, all wrong for trials, and while the comp department tried their best to accommodate his needs, it was clear Gordon's machines were not quite production ones. Yes, it was understood by the public a factory had to try things, but the fear always was if a rider won on something then this was what the public wanted… Arguably, with the opposition in the form of Miller having few restrictions on what he did to his Ariel thanks to the cessation of four-strokes from Selly Oak the previous year, AMC realised providing Jackson with something a bit special was probably okay.
What was provided proved awe inspiring and prompted Wally Wyatt – the lad responsible for building 187 BLF – to announce he knew the trial was won before the start. Lighter, lower, higher and with subtle engine and gearbox positioning
matching suspension alterations allied to the sort of power Gordon enjoyed meant the psychological battle had been won and the competition looked on enviously at the latest works machine. There was still the trial to do though.
Six days on a trials bike taking in the toughest of tracks, the slimiest of rocks in the wettest of streams, while keeping your feet firmly on the rests and maintaining forward motion, takes a certain type of temperament. Not everyone can keep concentrating for so long and it can be the simplest of things which break the rhythm and lead to marks lost. A slight hiccup from the engine perhaps casts a doubt in the rider's mind, when instead of their attention being totally on the obstacle, part of it is on the engine.
In Gordon Jackson's case the superbly finished AJS never missed a beat all week and Gordon has admitted to me in all his Scottishes machine trouble never concerned him, which is one less worry. Just as well as the weather didn't play fair all week though the famous Peter Howdle photo of Gordon's dab was taken in sunshine, making it doubly remarkable for Peter capturing ‘the' dab and the only bit of sunshine…
As the entry wended their way north, the weather became increasingly worse and the retirements started early with BSA man Tom Ellis barely making it out of Edinburgh before his C15's big end gave up. Another notable fist day retirement was Royal Enfield man Johnny Brittain, also with big end issues.
By Monday evening, as the score cards had been checked, there were six riders on clean for the day, a list which included the favourites behind them on one and two marks were top privateers and a works man or two.
Tuesday promised more weather… and the longest of the days at 162 miles which included Grey Mare's Ridge high above Kinlochleven. A tricky climb made up of seven sub-sections – out of the riders who made the start only four cleans came from the whole hill. The trickiest part of the hill was at the very top and this is where Gordon Jackson put his only foot wrong in the trial. Like most experienced riders he took full use of the dab and kept his foot on the ground until he'd steadied things up nicely as there's no point in dabbing quickly and maybe having to dab again a few inches later.
Gordon recovered and went on his way to the next sections. After the day's lunch stop came the tiring track from Meall Glas, taking riders from Rannoch to Fersit and described as ‘23 miles by 18in' but we're sure it's not 18in wide all the way as 18in seems a touch generous. At the end of the day, positions one/two/three were filled by riders on one, two and three marks, being Jackson, Arthur Lampkin and Miller; the rest of the entry were increasing the gap between the top three. Lampkin and Miller would hang on to joint second on three marks from Wednesday to Friday when Arthur had a disastrous day adding 12 marks to his score while Miller frugally added just two… Jackson though seemed disinclined to take his feet off the rests once under way.
Though the trial could be classed as all but won on the Friday, in those days there were no observed sections on Saturday's run to Edinburgh, hence it being 146 miles to the 150 of the first day, but until a bike is handed in and scrutineered at the finish the trial isn't over.
Once again the weather played a hand in the results.
Riders enjoyed a pleasant day of sunshine on Friday and hoped it would continue on the way to the finish… er… no!
Riding into the teeth of a gale-lashed rainstorm with howling winds preventing riders hearing their engines giving warning notes of impending trouble, Arthur Lampkin's C15 expired with big end trouble, so preventing his likely third place happening.
Others struggled with petrol consumption problems brought on by head winds; John Harris in the BSA team ran his tank dry, Sammy Miller stopped, provided a splash of fuel allowing John to carry on, then Sammy's tank ran dry but within sight of a garage.
As Edinburgh came ever closer, nerves were stretched as the remaining riders checked their bikes for real or imagined noises in the last few miles to the stop/start test at Blackford Hill on the outskirts of the city, before making their way to the finish. Once there, the final scrutineering could change the outcome of the trial, but not for Gordon Jackson who was the winner and fulfilled Wally Wyatt's prediction of a week earlier. As well as the JR Alexander Trophy for best performance, Gordon also gained the Best 350 cup and was part of the winning team, unofficially he set a ‘most wins' record of four which would stand to 1968.
The winning machine
Elsewhere in this issue we have a colour feature on 187 BLF after its restoration in Sammy Miller's museum, but in the days after the trial Motorcycle arranged a test of the winning machine and the
opportunity for their chaps to ride it on some rockery was eagerly grasped. First problem was to find some rockery in the south but some was sourced eventually and AMC'S comp boss Hugh Viney – himself a three-time SSDT winner – brought along this ultimate expression of the trials rider's art and let loose George Wilson and Peter Fraser so see if they managed all obstacles feet-up.
The test feature in 1961 began with some fairly typical observations on the attributes a trials bike needs – low weight and centre of gravity which aren't always compatible – there needs to be a reasonable amount of power but not too much that it hurls the rider out of a section or digs the rear wheel in, the motorcycle needs to turn easily yet remain straight when the rider needs it to.
Then of course there needs to be room for the rider to move about on the bike, weight distribution to ensure grip is found or so directional changes can be made quickly. It's not a good idea for the rider to have to stretch too far to reach the bars, so the riding position needs to be right. A production machine is built to be okay for a range of riders and there is always room for improvement.
When the AMC factory finally admitted their star man's AJS could deviate from the standard model it
also realised the funds were not really available to build a super trick one-off which would be tailored to their rider. With the best will in the world AMC didn't have the resources of BSA. What they did have was talented people in the comp shop and a determination to win. There would be free access to whatever was in the factory of course and with Elektron castings being made for the road race models there was a chance to cast some engine parts from this lightweight alloy. Frame making was easy enough as Reynolds 531 tube was in stock and everything else was detail.
In this rare magazine test of an actual winning AMC machine, there is still a little nervousness in the writing and while both journalists were handy off-road and not likely to be intimidated by factory bosses, so things we know 60 years after the win were hedged around rather than spoken about. For instance now it is known Gordon had a short stroke motor with a lot of zip to it but what was in the