Never meet your heroes
There is a well flaunted myth that states: ‘you should never meet your heroes’. The reason being is that they may not meet your expectations. I have been fortunate to meet quite a number of mine over the years, as most came from the world of motorcycle sport and I was in a privileged position to not only meet them, but to count some of them as personal friends.
One such hero of mine was Rob Edwards. My late father knew Bob Edwards, his father, and eventually through that connection alone I got to know Rob, a rider who I admired when I watched him compete at the 1970 Scottish Six Days on the factory Montesa Cota 247. The fact I admired about Rob was that he seemed to take the time to chat to spectators when he was inspecting the section then walk back to his machine, fire it up and invariably clean said hazard in a smooth, controlled manner.
In 1976, I was observing at Callart Falls during the SSDT and Rob was on the factory Montesa. He was going very well, but suddenly near the ends cards he faltered, got off line and stopped — albeit momentarily, but still enough for me to mark the sheet as a five. He stopped at the ends cards, looked back at me and asked what he had got. I held up my left hand indicating the maximum penalty. He simply smiled, shouted: “OK, see you”, waved and rode off. There was no argument, no harsh words, he accepted the score and didn’t make me feel bad about it.
Years later, in 2014, I was delighted to discover that Rob regularly read through my then new website on his computer. Rob, and his lovely wife, Bev, attended the Scott Trial that October, an event Rob had won 40 years previously. We had a long chat in the marquee and eventually agreed that his story should be put on the website. At first, his modesty shone through: “Oh John, nobody would be interested in my story”. Bev insisted we should do it! At first we serialised it and after completion put it all together as one article on Trials Guru. The views and hits increased as the news spread. To this day, enthusiasts still thank me for allowing his story to be told.
Rob Edwards was a popular subject, the trials enthusiasts loved him. When Gordon Blakeway, former Triumph and AJS factory rider, phoned to give me the bad news on Sunday afternoon, 6th October, that Rob had passed away it occurred to me that Gordon was actually Rob’s trials riding hero when he was a youth and they too had become great friends.
You see, sometimes it is a good thing to meet your heroes – another myth explodes.