From Motorcycle Sport, November 1968

Here’s part of a letter from W.S.W. (clearly a traditional enthusiast) of Beckenham, Kent, published in Motorcycle Sport, November 1968:

I have ridden the same machine (350 A.J.S. production trials model), with minor modifications, in trials, scrambles, road trials and semi-sporting trials as well as riding it to work and on touring trips.

On various occasions I met with scorn, ridicule and off-handedness from other so-called motorcyclists. At one scramble it took several minutes to persuade the man at the paddock entrance that I was not just trying to gain free admission but had actually ridden my mount to the meeting.

I was once told at a group trials by a competitor of several seasons that he wouldn’t ride his bike on the road, never mind to a meeting. Try turning up at some dinner/dances (or even just normal club nights) on a bike and see what sort of reception you get.

No, the ‘good old days’ are gone, and to try and revive them would only be folly. You’re not going to get all the car-driving ‘motorcyclists’ to give up their bean cans or the new cult of weekend riders to ride their freak machines in any other than their chosen sphere.

And here’s One Track, MCS’s sage columnist, in the same issue, talking about the old enthusiast and the then-new BSA/ Triumph three-cylinder 750s, Britain’s heavyweight roadburners. The BSA and Triumph versions had different frames and differently angled engines, but were otherwise quite similar:

No enthusiasts (Note: One Track means long-established enthusiasts) will buy the Trident or the Rocket 3, of course. When it comes on to the home market I doubt if one in 1,000 will buy it to be their only machine, ridden to work in all weathers; used for trips to Wales, Cornwall or the Lake District in the holidays; sprinted and raced at the weekends; seen in the car park (car park?) at the Hutch (Note: the annual Hutchinson 100 road race, sponsored by the Hutchinson Tyre Company) in summer; and following some trial in winter or competing in the M.C.C. winter classics (Note: a series of trials).

This is the true faith, at least it was a few years ago.

Anyone who imagines it (Note: I think

One Track means that True Faith) still exists, and tries to design and sell machines to satisfy it, is doomed to failure. Before you all write in and tell me you all do these things on the same bike, promise to tell me two things.

First, are you under 30? Second, have you had your machine for fewer than five years and are you looking for a new bike?

If the answer is no in both cases it means that you are in a group generally without the spare cash or the fickleness to support an industry.

It (Note: One Track means the BSA/ Triumph triple) will be sold to the new enthusiast who buys a machine for one purpose only, and is not willing to accept any compromise in the design which reduces its effectiveness for that chosen purpose.

Hence the proliferation of mass-produced goodies. Hence the number of new makes in the trials and scrambles world. Hence the new makes which are bound to appear on the tracks in the next five years.

Instead of writing this at this very moment, I should be working on the plans for my garage extension so I can accommodate more ‘horses for courses’.

It is only when I get on my vintage machine I know that I am on something suitable for all types of going, and nearly all moods. It’s a delightful bus, but I’d never dream of suggesting that we build a modern equivalent. Which brings me to my next point.

Talk of events for normal road machines is a load of bunkum because normal road bikes don’t sell to the sort we are talking about. Even the little terror down the road on his Sellotaped C15 is aping the tonuppers who are aping the racers. (Note: a C15 was a 250cc BSA single, generally not highly regarded [Forgive me, C15s Forever! Club]).

Get him into a club and entered for a production trial and he’ll modify and modify so much that it will defeat the object (Note: violate the spirit of the production event).