A glory of ISDT bikes at the Sammy Miller Museum
Exciting news from the Sammy Miller Museum where Sammy and the team have been restoring an Ariel HT5 with a rather special history. XOB 440 was ridden by Ron Langston as part of the Vase A team in the International Six Day Trial in West Germany in 1958, an event in which Ron finished with no marks lost and a gold medal. (Although Ariel ceased production of the HT5 in 1959, one particular example would become legendary – that was, of course, GOV 132, ridden by one Sammy Miller.)
XOB 440 was once part of the Autokraft Collection, which was for a time the largest private collection of vintage racing bikes in Europe but, following a sale of the collection in 1999, it passed through several hands before coming to rest at the Sammy Miller Museum.
As if that wasn’t good news enough, the museum has managed to locate XOB 440’s two ISDT team-mates in the shape of Gordon Blakeway’s XOB 441, while, just a hour away from the New Milton museum, they found Sammy’s mount, XOB 439, which now belongs to Dave Keep. Dave is allowing the museum to borrow his bike so that the bikes, along with Gordon Blakeway, Ron Langston and Sammy himself can be reunited for a unique photo shoot. It promises to be quite a reunion.
But that’s not the end of
ISDT news from the museum. With XOB 440 on the bench in the workshop, the museum received a phone call out of the blue from a gentleman who now owns the 1956 350cc Royal Enfield Bullet that
Sammy had ridden in his first ISDT in Garmisch, southern Germany. That bike didn’t win a gold medal after suffering a broken frame on the fifth day of competition. It’s now in the workshop for a full restoration and the museum crew report that it has all the original documents, correct engine and frame numbers from when Sammy was riding it in the Irish Vase team.
There will be yet another iconic ISDT machine on display at the museum and that is the Greeves campaigned by Mary Driver in the 1964 ISDT. A talented rider, Mary first competed in the ISDT in 1961, winning a silver medal aboard a 250cc BSA C15T, and soon earned the support of the Greeves factory. In the 1963 ISDT she took a bronze medal and in the 1964 event she finished ninth out of 77 competitors. She gave up serious competition in 1966 to become competitions manager at the Auto-Cycle Union, but it wasn’t a total loss to the trials world as she made sure that trials were rightly represented in the ACU. Now her Greeves is being completely refurbished in the museum workshop before going on display and we hear that Mary can’t wait to be reunited with the bike. We hope to bring you photos of that reunion, too. (By the way, with regards to the headline of this piece – we think ‘glory’ is indeed the collective noun for classic ISDT machines!)