Scott Trial 100 Years
Ask any trials rider which is the toughest one day trials competition in the world, the ultimate test and he will immediately say the Scott Trial. The punishment handed out to riders and machines over the Yorkshire moors is legendry, witnessing tears rolling down the eyes of grown men who have pushed themselves to the limits of endurance and beyond. In more recent times we have seen the trial starting at Marske above the old market town of Reeth near Richmond but its roots have always been in Yorkshire when the event was first run on Easter Sunday 1914 inspired by Walter Smith who worked at the Scott motorcycle factory in Shipley in the heart of the Yorkshire trials scene. The prestigious event is proud to celebrate 100 years of competion in 2014.
The history books record no exact date as to when the sport of motorcycle trials was invented. Motorcycles had begun to play a part in the lives of everyday people in the early nineteen hundreds after the great debate as to who invented them. Some say it was in 1884 by Edward Butler just a year before the first motor car was built. His machine used a water cooled internal combustion engine. The Americans say it was Sylvester Howard Roper who invented a two cylinder, steam engine motorcycle in 1867. What is true is that the many new manufacturers wanted a testing ground to prove their new machine over as the age of the motorcycle arrived.
Around the turn of the century in Great Britain the first primitive motorcycles stared to appear on the country’s very first rough and ramshackle roads, many were old cart tracks. The builders wanted a way of putting their machines up against their rivals to prove who the best was as the ‘new’ industry began to take off with British manufactured machines leading the way. Early machine tests would take speed into account with the time recorded that it took for them to cover a measured distance. They also started to understand the need to make the machines reliable which would, in turn, attract the general public to owning and riding motorcycles as they wanted to boost sales.
On the early roads which were littered with loose stones and water crossings, the rider soon started to understand that you had to concentrate and the more time spent with the feet off the ground and on the footrests, the easier the passage of the rutted primitive tracks became. Mastering throttle control was soon recognised as the key element along with balance to get the best out of their performance. Obviously the better you became at controlling the machine the better rider you would become. The ever improving riders would soon start to understand how to ride up gradients and through the many river splashes and over the rocky terrain.
Manufacturer’s owners clubs would soon start to appear and the members would compete against one another over the early type of hazards which