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As the century of ISDT approaches I would like to launch an appeal to gather as much of the lost information, photos and stories as we can gather to be exhibited in the public domain to help the riders, the families of riders, the industry and social historians to see how the technology changed as new influences impacted on the motorcycle industry and associated sport. Back in 1913 a group of British Motorcycle enthusiasts backed by the British Motorcycle Industry set otu an event over 6 days in which riders had to navigate around a series of day long courses in a test not only about the abilities of the Rider to ride a motorbike but also for maintenance and to test the bikes reliability. This Blog / Website keenly follows the history of that event from this beginning…
Photo of riders and motorcycle typical of the times , and just 1 year before the outbreak of World War 1
to this
Photo of a rider in a scene typical of its time which is the ISDT 1980. With the development of event specific motorcycles and equipment some of the rules had been adpated to suit the increased off road nature of the trial. The event changed its name from ISDT to ISDE the following year although few rules changed and the format was very much similar
As a Great Britain based website we would of course welcome any countries or riders stories of the event but we are especially hoping to get copies of the programmes, photos, start sheets or result books of the home GB based events held under the auspices of the Auto Cycle Union. Even if you are a collector wishing to keep your paper collection we would encourage you to think if you could scan to provide low resolution (but readable) printed materials or photos. The website is a tool much used by collectors to identify materials and possibly helping raise the value of those original documents held.
The GB based events we would especially like to see material from are:
- ISDT 1913 – England
- ISDT 1925 – England
- ISDT 1926 – England
- ISDT 1927 – England
- ISDT 1928 – England
- ISDT 1933 – Wales
- ISDT 1937 – Wales
- ISDT 1938 – Wales
- ISDT 1949 – Wales
- ISDT 1950 – Wales
- ISDT 1954 – Wales
- ISDT 1961 – Wales
- ISDT 1965 – Isle of Man
- ISDT 1971 – Isle of Man
- ISDT 1975 – Isle of Man
Please feel free to message us here if you have any documents you would be willing to let us have access to for this site. Thank you for reading this and if you can post a link and comment on this request to any forums or web pages you frequent where others who may be able to help me can get to learn about this quest over the next 12 months leading up to the centenary.
Speed Track Tales 
The Greeves Riders Association have just released a DVD set of photos of the ISDT events from 1958 to 1965 that Greeves Motorcycles participated in and is available for sale. Colour photos were taken by Bert Greeves himself and comes with his hand written descriptions of the event, year and rider. The Greeves archive picture discs are available from Don Heath, 17 Church Lane, Etchinghill, Rugeley, Staffs, WS15 2TH.
Regards Paul
ps I am restoring a 1965 Greeves Challenger ISDT that was at the IoM. BTW Great website.
If you would like a dedicated review on the blog if you can provide copy or a press release and some sample images I would be pleased to give it a feature.