Talmag Trophy Trial

If you go down in the words today you probably won’t get a surprise. But if you’d been in the woods in Hampshire in January you might just have tripped over Simon Read and, armed with a camera, Ian Thoburn, tracking down the Talmag.

The Talmag Trophy Trial – commonly known, of course, as just ‘the Talmag’ – is one of the best-known pre-65 trials in the South East and its forced cancellation last year was a disappointment to riders and spectators alike. But fear not, for as the world struggles into the light once more, so the Talmag was, to everyone’s joy, back where it should be on the last Sunday of January this year.

The Territorial Army (London) Motorcycle Club has been running a Trophy Trial since 1946, but this year’s event was the 66th. Of course, it should have been the 67th but we all know what happened there… These days the club goes by the considerably less wordy title of the Talmag MCC, a name it adopted around the same time as the Trophy Trial and which was actually the name of the club’s newsletter. It’s also a lot easier to get on to regalia!

This year that Sunday dawned bright if chilly, which is about the very best you can hope for from an English January day. Spectators always turn out in their hordes for the Talmag but a spot of sunshine seemed to have encouraged even more people out. There had been well over 200 entries for the event but, with life, bike breakdowns and positive Covid tests getting in the way, just under 200 riders took to the course on a variety of machines. Obviously, all bikes have to be pre-1965, but the

Talmag is not only open to just four-stroke motorcycles but also requires that bikes have to appear as close as possible to those that were originally produced by each respective factory and which would have been used in competition up to 1965.

Missing this year from the Girder Fork class was Holger Schönknecht and his 1925 Indian Scout, the only non-European machine I can remember competing in the Talmag, and who was immensely popular with spectators. In fact, a couple of MV Agustas were, I think, the only non-British motorcycles taking part in the event and this year, unlike in previous years, the only entrants to have come from ‘overseas’ were two from the Isle of Man. Well, the Isle of Man is over a sea…

These restrictions mean that the Talmag harks back to the trials I remember as a child with wide and long sections set out specifically for larger motorcycles, the sections you saw before smaller and more lithe two-stroke machines came to dominate the sport. There is also something very natural about the Talmag course, and indeed, held on Ministry of Defence land at Hungry Hill near Aldershot, natural it is. All too often these days trials events feel the need – often justified by topographical concerns – to introduce artificial elements and features. While some riders, especially the younger chaps, opt for bright riding gear in stretchy materials, many entrants looked just as their dads or even grandads might have done when riding their motorcycles around a wood.

Even with garish coloured

Spandex and new-fangled machines, trials is a curiously old-fashioned motor sport and none more so than pre-65 trials. And believe me, it’s none the worse for that.

Get yourself to 2023’s Talmag to watch and you might just be back for the 68th Trophy Trial to compete!

A pensive Mr Wright on his 1959 AJS 16MS.

Isn’t that a grand sight? Take away the modern helmet and this could be just about any time in the last 60 years!

G Barton riding a 1957 500cc Ariel HT5.

Neil Langworth relaxing on his 1961 BSA B40.

This 1957 Ariel HT5 sidecar outfit belongs to Paul Fishlock with, on this occasion, Pete Pesterfield in the passenger seat. They won the sidecar class.

Steve Allen doing a little fettling on his Matchless G3LC; it worked, as he went on to win the Over 300cc Rigid class.

That’ll keep it done up for a while!

K Jarvis riding and B Chapman in the chair of this 1958 Ariel HT 500cc combination.

J Stanley and L Gillie wrestling their BSA B40 sidecar outfit into shape.

P Cottrell and his Norton Big Four are regulars at the Trophy Trial, travelling down from Buxton.

Other than a couple of dabs and one 5, it was feet up all the way for Ian Hayward on his 1954 AJS 16C.

Steve Blanchard’s 1949 AJS 18C.

From Northallerton, T Bell on his 1964 BSA B40.

Michael Smallshaw aboard his very pretty 1964 BSA B40.

This Drayton Triumph 3TA came all the way from North Wales.

The car park always throws up some treasures, such as this Calthorpe and sidecar.

The indefatigable George Greenland’s Wasp BSA C15. George is 89 years old.