Trials Australia Forums

ie Why pre-65 in the 1st place? Why was that cut-off date originally chosen? For what purpose(s)?

That question was posed at Conondale & before, & nobody seems to have the definitive answer.

Here’s the answer straight from the horse’s mouth. Noted author & trials enthusiast, Derek Wylde (from Trials & Motocross News) was not only there, he was one of the main instigators, & he coined the phrase "pre-65".

Firstly from the book in ’91 ("The Pre-65 Yearbook 1990-91"), under the chapter “Why Pre-65? How it all began":

“The photograph of Tommy Robinson & the Norton 500T, high above Whitworth in Lancashire is particularly evocative of the pre-65 trials movement for several reasons. The relaxed riding wear & the age of the rider are so typical of the pre-65 scene. More than that, the machine itself & the actual section are historically linked to the very roots of the sport. Let me explain.

“When in Dec 1964, Sammy Miller astounded the trials world by selling his all-conquering Ariel & swapping to the unproven & virtually unknown Bultaco, it signaled a complete transformation of the British trials scene.

“The change had been gathering momentum since petrol was rationed for the Suez crisis [1956ff], forcing clubs to drop trials on the road & adopt the “pocket handkerchief” courses. The events were physically far easier to set out & many clubs stayed with multi-lap trials long after the rationing finished.

“Many British manufacturers responded & introduced suitable machinery; Triumph’s Tiger Cub,* swiftly followed by the BSA C15T, Royal Enfield Crusader & various Villiers-based two-strokes. Organisers “read” the surge of interest & set sections to suit. Nadgery became tighter, climbs up very sharp banks were included, rock steps became larger – or so it seemed.

“Keen privateers, trade-supported riders & works teams soon swapped to the lightweights. In 1964 AMC alone continued to offer a “big” single & they didn’t sell.

“Many young clubmen still rode the traditional big singles. Funding a growing family as well as a new trialer was rarely possible & there were plenty of bargain big bikes around as the more affluent bought the new lightweights.

“That was definitely so in the case of John Smith, who was riding the Norton 500T shown in the photograph, at the time. Joan Smith had given up her job to start a family & the expense absorbed all (John's) wages. Riding was possible solely because his uncle, ex-works Norton star Ted Ogden, loaned him the 500T.

“The sections that the organizers set to tax the nimble lightweights proved impossible for riders on the older style machines & many drifted away from active competition. By the late ‘60s the lightweight domination was complete.

“I worked with John at the time & during an impromptu comparison session between the old Norton & my Ariel HT had an idea to organise a trial for the growing band of riders excluded from trials by virtue of their unfashionable old machines. It was classic lateral thinking, we would simply set old fashioned sections to suit the machines.

“John took the idea to the Rochdale Club & on the last Sunday in May 1971, the very first trial specifically for old machines was organised on the Shawforth moors above Whitworth & won by Arthur Lampkin riding a Norton 500T loaned to him. For 1972 the name “The Shawforth Shake” ** was adopted & continues to this day.

“The photograph shows Tommy, a lifelong member of the Rochdale Club riding one of the two machines which prompted the evolution of pre-65 sport, the Ted Ogden 500T, in the 1988 “Shake” – the event from which the entire pre-65 scene developed.” [tho it wasn't called "pre-65" then]


* He notes later; “Regarded by many as the machine which ultimately resulted in the disappearance of such models as the Ariel HT, AJS 16C & Enfiled Bullet is the Triumph Tiger Cub”. Mike Estall (in Tiger Cub Bible) agrees: "In the UK the Cub's real forte was in trials event... In trials it was a water-shed model, seeing the demise of the big four stroke single and setting a trend towards the lightweight four stroke machine, only pushed out of prominence by later foreign two-strokes." So does Don Morley (in Classic British Trials Bikes) after Jim Alves success on a Cub: "all and sundry were now following Alves example and building their own four stroke lightweights". He notes the Cub was soon "to become the people's trials bike".

** The original trial in '71 was called "The Bigger Banger Trial", but from '72 onwards was called "The Shawforth Shake"


more to come from Wylde

Is the question about pre65 in Australia or UK.
In Australia the first classic trials was pre63 I believe it was setup to align with the classic road race class Period 3. The people involved realised that the bikes built up to 65 didn't seem to be much different so the cut date was move up to the end of 64.

The question was about the original source of Pre-65


Here's more from Deryk Wylde, from the web (TC forum) in Oct 2012, in the context of a discussion that true pre65 trials no longer exist in UK, (ie most current machines should be in the Specials class):

“The thought that there are no (longer) such entities as 'Pre-65 trials' is entirely correct - and I should know because I am guilty of the heinous crime of having coined the term!!!

"Trouble is, time goes by, and with its passage memories fail and, more importantly, many of those actually involved at the time are no longer with us.

"The reason for the creation of the term 'pre-65' was not some puritanical dream to maintain a superior 'status quo' for those lucky enough to own a genuine classic British motorcycle, but because many of us were working chaps, often with young families, who could never hope to own a brand new competition machine. We loved our sport and rode in trials as often as we could, at whatever level we could achieve.

"Then Sammy Miller swopped his faith from the British industry and took over the Bultaco Sherpa in late 1964. Suddenly organisers had to rethink their ideas on course plotting as the trials world followed suit.

"The new breed could turn on a sixpence and had controllable power from tickover that meant you could lift the front end over obstacles, sections became narrower, tighter, steeper. Suddenly the riders of the old British bikes found they could no longer even wheel the machines round the sections, let alone ride them!

"That left two possibilities - create trials that the older bikes could cope with or go try some other sport.

"The answers came from a meeting of the minds (in ’71) between yours truly, John Smith of the Rochdale club and Derek Lord whilst we were practising on our bikes, me on my Ariel HT5, John on his Norton 500T and Derek riding whichever one was free at the minute. We decided to create a trial to suit our machines and chose a favourite old bit of trials ground at Shawforth above the Red Lion pub. We called it the 'Bigger Banger Trial' with two classes, rigid and sprung. 56 hardy souls entered from the Lancashire/Yorkshire borders and the winner was Arthur Lampkin riding his ex-works rigid BSA B33 Gold Star.

"I duly reported the event in my column in Trials and Motocross News and received all sorts of queries from various places around the country, including invitations to 'come and ride' in various trials to advise them how to create similar events.

"We soon decided that an eligibility format was needed and the simplistic route was to say that machines could be created using any components that were generally available in catalogues of the British manufacturers (this was for the “British Bike Series”), and since the last manufacturer to offer a pre-unit trials model in their catalogue were AMC at Plumstead with their AJS and Matchless models in the 1964 catalogue, the simple definition 'pre-65' seemed easy to understand at the time. In its day it was useful as a guiding template for clubs - but then life continued and the world moved on.”


Seems like Pre-65 trials today, at least in the UK, bears little resemblance to what it was created for.

One element of the evolution of the class that he seemed to view favourably (rightly or wrongly) is regarding 2-stroke eligibility. In 1991, defending a hybrid James using some late-‘60s parts, he noted: “The eligibility for the two-stroke class in most competitions is 1970”. That may have been a consequence of the very popular “Brit Bike” series which began in 1989, but it is also inherent in Don Morley’s books on “Classic British Trials Bikes” – the four-stroke one is pre-1965 but the two-stroke one extends to 1970. And Morley’s 2-stroke book, published in 1987, pre-dates the “Brit Bike” series.

But he has a plenty to say, unfavourably, about trick machines & section severity:

As far back as ’91 he lamented “the vast numbers of machines bearing the very latest ‘trick’ equipment”, so that by then the class already “tended to ever more developed trials machinery bearing little or no resemblance to anything ridden before 1965 and, sadly, the increasing use of ever more difficult sections to tax the riders of such over-competitive models.”

Such machines are called “fiddle” bikes or “modernized machines” elsewhere in the book: “There is always a tendency to allow modernized machines to enter, then set the sections to select a winner from riders of such machines, making life very hard for the other(s)”.

“There has been a tendency for events to be swamped by entries comprising lightweight machines & specialized replicas of doubtful technical authenticity. Trials are, after all, competitions & it comes as no surprise to find that riders will explore every potential competitive advantage to the full.”

“The net result is the selection of sections to give such machines a competitive ride & the virtual exclusion of standard machinery.” Seems like he intended the class for “standard machinery”.

Of one club, he notes, “Unintentionally the club has developed a reputation for setting very competitive trials which resulted in virtual dominance of their events by the nimble lightweights. In a repeat of the confrontation which resulted in the creation of pre-65 events, the bigger machines had all but disappeared.” (Then he commends the club for seeing the problem & doing something to rectify it.)


Regarding eligibility; parts & replacement parts “that were readily available on general sale to the public in Britain before 31 Dec 1964” were eligible, as are non-british bikes:

“By the way, machines from anywhere, east or west, would be acceptable, the only reason my original series was termed the 'British Bike' championship was because I was writing for 'British Bike Magazine' at the time, and Tim Holmes stumped up the cash for some of the silverware”

So, to summarize the instigator of the class, “pre-65” was originally intended to:

i) have a class where pre-unit/heavyweights were still competitive, with sections to suit
ii) include the last of the heavyweights on sale to the public in 1964
iii) include lightweights to that point, with the cut-off date for the two-strokes class much later
iv) include bikes from any country of origin (the ”Brit Bike Series” was an exception)
v) mandate parts that were “readily on sale to the general public before 1 Jan 1965”

He also has this interesting comment about getting the rules right: “Dick (Mann, in USA) is proving a real asset to the sport because of his thoroughly pragmatic insistence on getting the ground rules right.”

I've had some correspondance w Deryk to clarify why UK competitions commonly allow pre70 for 2-strokes - how that developed. Here's his response:

"As with most things in life, 'things' were developing as we went along, mainly as a result of various riders keen to join in the pre-65 trials that were being created in various parts of the country who had various current (we are talking about the early 1970's) new British bikes - but not actually pre-65.

"Finding ways of accommodating these riders varied around the country - sad to say generally along the natural affluence boundaries - in the (more affluent) south eastern areas many clubs wanted to adopt an 'anything British' goes attitude - whereas in the north of england most clubs preferred to create three basic divisions along the lines that I favoured, which were:

1. Rigid construction class.

2. Pre-unit construction class (pre-65)

3. Unit construction class (pre-70)"


Also, one of his recent posts on TC clarifies the place of specials in his thinking for pre-65. He laments "modernized" bikes in pre65, but is favourable to "genuine" specials or hybrids from back in the day & always intended to allow them in pre65, endeavouring to write the regulations accordingly.

Here's his post:

"Sadly that is the one aspect of the Kinlochleven scene that offends me the most (ie modernized bikes) - yes, there were plenty of 'specials' around before 1965 - I had my own share of them, and when the time came to create pre-65 trials, tried to frame the eligibility rules in such a way as to accommodate all those genuine specials - whilst excluding those cunning types wanting to incorporate more recent - but more importantly - more efficient modifications. It was not difficult we merely added the words 'replacement parts fitted must have been on sale to the public and generally available by the eligibility date.'