Trials and all that!
July 19, 2011Recently returned from the centenary event of the Scottish Six Day Trial at Fort William and the pre-1965 two-day event for older machines.
What a week! Compounded by the most fantastic weather possible.
Highlights including watching legend Sammy Miller on his famous Ariel 500 and Gordon Jackson on his ‘one dab win’ works A.J.S. lead the Sunday parade of competitors through Fort William High Street and, and observing Emma Bristow performing on a new advanced design Spanish OSSA 250 in the main event.
Emma Bristow
She is a talented young rider with a smooth determined riding style and finished in the upper quarter of the results’ table overall.
To tackle some of the fearsome rock sections involved this year required high levels of skill, balance and throttle control combined with an attacking style, careful choice of line and, above all, courage. Several competitors were forced out of the trial due to injury including ex-world champion Dougie Lampkin.
In order to spectate and to park easily near to the observed sections, some of which are adjacent to single track roads, travel by motorcycle is almost mandatory.
This year I decided that a light agile machine was required and opted for my recently acquired 1989 MZ 300cc two-stroke. Most spectators use a wide variety of trail bikes of all vintages and sizes adding to the interest of spectating.
The MZ proved to be ideal on the winding Highland byways, especially so for the two days spent in Ardgour, Moidart and Ardnamurchan (the most westerly point of the British mainland) accessed by the Corran Ferry 8 miles south of Fort William. Scenery here was so incredible that concentration on the switchback, snaking single track routes alongside sea lochs and over mountain ranges through spectacularly scenic villages was continuously and dangerously distracting. A southerly single track route runs to a short ferry crossing to Mull at Lochaline and northwards the road joins the main Mallaig road near Glenfinnan at Harry Potters’ railway viaduct and Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s 1745 raising of the standard monument etc. as tourist attractions. En route we glimpsed soaring eagles and playful seals and I rediscovered my long-forgotten two-stroke riding techniques involving much more use of rear brake and early squirting out of corners.
Lack of engine braking on gravel surfaces requires a very pressure-sensitive right boot!
Three weeks prior to the trial event I had attended an MZ riders’ club meeting at St. Mary’s Loch on the Moffat to Selkirk route and met with an interesting and diverse crew of about two dozen from all over central and southern Scotland riding a mix of well-used practical transport, immaculately restored models and some lightly modified.
In the latter category was a lurid yellow early leading-link forked 250 model expertly transformed by the fitment of a water-cooled diesel engine with auto-transmission and fuel consumption figures estimated of at least 120 m.p.g.
The East German MZ factory based in Zschopau post-second world war occupied the premises previously used by D.K.W. who manufactured inter-cooled supercharged two stroke racing machines pre-war and held some world speed records.
D.K.W. was relocated in the western sector and eventually combined with Auto Union to become a group including Audi cars hence their present car badge logo.
MZ however was part of the I.F.A. group including Trabant cars, providing basic transport needs.
However the competition success of MZ far surpassed their tiny resources materially and economically. The factory has a fascinating history and heritage stretching far beyond the confines of the Berlin Wall with competition success of world-beating standard. In the I.S.D.T. – the equivalent of today’s International Six Days’ Enduro during the 1960s, and in Grand Prix racing of the same period mainly due to the genius of scientist and development engineer Walter Kaaden, the world authority on two-stroke design and tuning of his time.
His previous employers, the Nazi party, had used his talents to develop the pulse-jet engines of the V1 rocket or doodlebug!
Combined with the racing talents of a certain Council worker from Cumbria and involving exploits and plots that would not be out of place in the world of James Bond, Walter Kaaden’s story and contribution to the world of Grand Prix racing was as influential as it was exciting!
Ducati Group visit the Buccleuch Arms Hotel in Moffat
All will be revealed in the next blog and my next trip will be to revisit the Alpine passes of France, Switzerland and Italy from a base in Chamonix aboard a certain F8005 B.M.W.
