ISDT 1961: Official Programme for Llandrindod Wells, Wales

24 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by Highwayman in Enduro, Europe, Gelände Sport, International Six Day Trial, Internationale Sechs Tagefahrt, ISDT, Magazine, Media, Motorcycling, Motorsport, Regolarità, Sei Giorni Motociclistica Internazionale, Six Jours Internationaux, UK, Wales

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ISDT 1961, Programme

I am grateful to Bill Kershaw one of our home nation welsh riders in the ISDT 1961 who has loaned me his copy of the event programme which we now have scanned and added to our online library over at issuu.com

Image – scanned cover of Official Programme ISDT 1961 (Courtesy Kershaw Collection)

You can read the program by following the link to our library at issuu.com

(at present due to changes at Issuu and standards in use at WordPress it is not presently to add new embedded copies of Issuu documents in WordPress pages and you will need access this file by the above link .The file requires a user to have a flash plug-in so will not work with a number of digital devices including iPad and iPhone, we are sorry for the nuisance this causes and hope it is fixed soon)

The programme includes an image gallery of each years ISDT event from ISDT 1948 in Italy through to the ISDT 1960 Austria. I have included the photos from that set below.

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ISDT 1961: Sketches by Gordon Horner

06 Thursday Feb 2014

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Art, Gordon Horner, ISDT 1961, Robert Kinsey

A copy of ‘the Motor Cycle‘ of 19th October 1961 was keenly opened for the first time today to find a collection of interesting post ISDT 1961 event notes which will appear in a future blog. But of a greater interest to me where a series of sketches made of the event by Gordon Horner. Those not familiar with the man who was a well respected artist and lived 1915 to 2008 and was the last of the major artists working for ‘Autocar‘. I was particularly pleased and surprised to find these drawings and would love to see the originals if they still exist, probably hung framed on the walls of the family of ex-staffer at the old magazine or its publishers and today quite a collectible item.

The motorcycle artists still exist with painters like Robert Kinsey actively covering the motocross scene on canvas mostly for commissioned works by the industry but in the media the use of the artist has largely vanished to be replaced by CAD and 3D design.

Dont forget like with all our blogs clicking on the image will provide a larger image

image - scanned art work by Gordon Horner - 'the Motor Cycle' ISDT 1961

image – scanned art work by artist Gordon Horner – ‘the Motor Cycle‘ ISDT 1961

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1968: ACU Revolutionary proposals for pepping up the International Six Days Trial

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by Highwayman in Enduro, England, Europe, Gelände Sport, International Six Day Trial, Internationale Sechs Tagefahrt, ISDT, Magazine, Motorcycling, Motorsport, Poland, Regolarità, Sei Giorni Motociclistica Internazionale, Six Jours Internationaux, UK

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Olga Kevelos was one of the foremost and often admired of the women riders of the ISDT very forceful and singleminded when needed which as a rider gave perfect qualities to compete against and beat men with skill rather than brute strength. However she was know to throw the odd curved ball once in a while in her passion to seek change and improvement in motor cycle sport.

A recent trip to the museum of eBay found an old copy of the tabloid format edition of British weekly ‘Motor Cycle incorporating Motor Cycling‘ of the 14th of February 1968 with a headline “Six Days Scramble Plan – Olga demands ISDT Shake-up”

Photo – Front page of ‘Motor Cycle‘ 14th February 1968 on proposals to change the ISDT rules.

I was able to glean the following information of a radical proposal to restructure the ISDT being put forward by Olga Kevelos on behalf of the Midland Centre of the ACU.

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ISDT 1961: Event report Das Motorrad – 21 October 1961

03 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by Highwayman in Enduro, Europe, Gelände Sport, International Six Day Trial, Internationale Sechs Tagefahrt, ISDT, Magazine, Motorcycling, Photography, Regolarità, Sei Giorni Motociclistica Internazionale, Six Jours Internationaux, Wales

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Das Motorrad, ISDT 1961

I was pleased to discover a copy of Das Motorrad covering the ISDT of 1961 in Wales. As much as I am a fan of the quality British Bike Magazines of the period ‘the Motor Cycle‘ and ‘Motor Cycling‘ both of which provided quality detailed reporting and opinion on the events with good journalists. I have also found ‘Das Motorrad‘, even despite my non existent German language skills, provides a superior standard of Quality in a magazine whilst is surprisingly devoid of much of the advertising and classified that fills so much of the English magazines.

image – cover of ‘Das Motorrad‘ #22 25 Oct 1961

I’m going to try to get the article translated and made available via our Issuu library but for now here are the images of the article with their German captions, and my comments in English as appropriate.. many of these images will not have been seen in Britain before.

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Mapping the ISDT: 1965 Isle of Man

01 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by Highwayman in Enduro, Europe, Gelände Sport, International Six Day Trial, Internationale Sechs Tagefahrt, ISDT, Isle of Man, Magazine, Media, Motorcycling, Motorsport, Regolarità, Sei Giorni Motociclistica Internazionale, Six Jours Internationaux, UK

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ISDT 1965

In preparation for the ongoing project to try to map all routes for every ISDT, I’ve acquired a map for the ISDT 1965 from the official Programme. If anybody has any more information about the exact locations of checks etc I would always be grateful to get them for when I turn my attention to this event.

Image – scanned copy of map of event route ISDT 1965 (Speedtracktales archive)

This is a low resolution copy I have a master image scanned at 300dpi and would like to very much thank the generosity of Graham Forsdyke, one time writer for ‘the Motor Cycle‘, ‘Motor Cycling‘ who covered a number of ISDT events and made this copy of the programme available for our further research needs.

ISDT 1937: Images from event report ‘Das Motorrad’ 24 July 1937 Issue 30

19 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by Highwayman in Enduro, Europe, Gelände Sport, International Six Day Trial, Internationale Sechs Tagefahrt, ISDT, Magazine, Motorcycling, Motorsport, Photography, Regolarità, Sei Giorni Motociclistica Internazionale, Six Jours Internationaux, UK, Wales

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Das Motorrad, ISDT 1937, Photography., Photos

‘Need a job done go find a busy man’ so the old maxim goes and like rust we never find time to sleep at Speedtracktales. Just before Xmas as the project of mapping the routes began an original copy of the German Motorcycle Magazine ‘Das Motorrad’ was obtained for the 24th July 1937 which covered the 19th edition of the event held in Wales. Working on it was put on hold until now and whilst we negotiate / await a translation of the article to extend the available knowledge of the 1937 ISDT I have posted the images with the original captions in German, on the basis I have sadly not got the faintest clue what they may be saying. However I have tried my best second guess in the text underneath. it is likely this may be one of the first times these images have been seen in the UK since 1937.

Photo – An einer Kontrolle des 2. Fahrtages. Der deitsche Zündappfahrer Schäfer (nr 215) gibt gerade seine Kontrollkarte zum Stempeln ab. Links neben ihm der englische BSA-fahrer Cartwright ISDT 1937 (Speedtracktales Collection)

At a checkpoint with #214 HD Cartwright 348cc BSA who finished with a gold medal and #215 NSKK entered E Schaeffer on a 493cc Zündapp of the German ‘A’ Vase team that came 3rd in the Silver Vase competition and who also finished with a Gold Medal hands his time card to a checkpoint official.

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ISDT 1939: Day five & six reports as published in ‘Das Motorrad’ magazine

04 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by Highwayman in Austria, Enduro, Europe, Gelände Sport, Germany, International Six Day Trial, Internationale Sechs Tagefahrt, ISDT, Magazine, Motorcycling, Motorsport, Photography, Regolarità, Sei Giorni Motociclistica Internazionale, Six Jours Internationaux

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Bavarian Forest, Braunau am Inn, Das Motorrad, ISDT 1939, Military, Reichenhall, Salzburg, Viechtach

This post is a serialisation of an article that originally appeared over 75 years ago in ‘Das Motorrad’, the popular Motorcycling magazine in the German Language as it covered the proceedings of the 1939 ISDT, an event to finish in controversy and the results eventually annulled by the FIM.

We have recently started mapping the course of the event which can be found on the blog ‘Mapping the 1939 ISDT‘

After Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 we get to Days 5 & 6

**ISDT 1939 – Report from ‘Das Motorrad‘: The 4^th Day**

report by Von Gustav Mueller

The 5^th Day

The Bavarian Forest leg lead far into the Bavarian Forest[1], to the noon time check at Viechtach. There were no special terrain difficulties, but the ordinary bad minor roads of the Bavarian Forest. Only a short 15 kilometre distance before the time check at noon had been full of terrain difficulties. The approach to the Bavarian Forest did pass through the hometown of the Führer, Braunau am Inn, where also a time check had been erected.

Photo – Here you can see for yourself, whether there was much space for the sidecar outfits! The outfit is the 600cc NSU of #234 NSKK Oberscharführer [comparable to Sergeant] Oettinger. The NSU Team, otherwise belonging to the outmost reliable teams we know in the off road motorcycling, had a lot of trouble with their machines blowing out at the cylinder heads, By the way, only Dunz had been excluded from these damages, as he repeatedly had retightened his cylinder head at the beginning of the event,,,The second man shown is NSKK-Oberscharführer [comparable to Sergeant] Boden from Motorgruppe Sachsen [NSKK Motor Group Saxonia] on DKW 248 cc. ISDT 1939 (das Motorrad)

In the morning, a number of the English participants didn’t show up at the start, as they had been advised by their team leader to go back home. Some of them didn’t follow this procedure, and did start despite all rumors. Amongst those with good nerves, of course, our old friend “Miss Kottelet”[2] had been; also Lieutenant Colonel Bennett, team leader of the English army teams, did let his Army teams start.

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ISDT 1951: George Wilson asks Where do we go from here?

21 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by Highwayman in Enduro, Europe, Gelände Sport, International Six Day Trial, Internationale Sechs Tagefahrt, ISDT, Italy, Magazine, Motorcycling, Motorsport, Photography, Regolarità, Sei Giorni Motociclistica Internazionale, Six Jours Internationaux

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George Wilson, ISDT 1951, Varese

The following article about the ISDT 1951 appeared in the 4th October 1951 issue of ‘the Motor Cycle‘ and in which George asks a number of questions about the venue for the event, the future of the event and the British teams future tactical challenges, and introduces some great new British Talent:

Where do we go from here?

A Backward Glance at the 26th International Six Days’ Trial – and a Thought for the Future.

By GEORGE WILSON

photo - Motor cycles's Deputy Editor, George Wilson on the Royal Enfield Twin ISDT 1951 (Speedtracktales Collection)

photo – ‘Motor Cycle‘ Deputy Editor, George Wilson on the Royal Enfield Twin ISDT 1951 (Speedtracktales Collection)

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Internationally Famous: Royal Enfield at the ISDT 1948 – 1953

20 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by Highwayman in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Enduro, Europe, Gelände Sport, International Six Day Trial, Internationale Sechs Tagefahrt, ISDT, Italy, Magazine, Manufacturers, Motorcycling, Motorsport, Photography, Regolarità, Sei Giorni Motociclistica Internazionale, Six Jours Internationaux, Wales

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Bullet, Don Evnas, ISDT 1948, ISDT 1949, ISDT 1950, ISDT 1951, ISDT 1952, ISDT 1953, Johnny Brittain, Royal Enfield, Ted Stocker, Vic Brittain

“The story of the Royal Enfield in the International Six Days Trial 1948, 1949,1950, 1951, 1952, 1953” is the title of a palm of a hand sized original publication produced by Royal Enfield in 1953 that recently fell into our hands and is of such great interest we reproduce it here. Royal Enfield, who could boast not only great bikes but a factory team that contained some of the sports greatest factory riders of the time including Vic and Johnny Brittain as well as Jack Stocker show how their successful domination of the results sheet at the ISDT meant the commute to work was going to be a lot more successful on a Royal Enfield than it might be on a lesser qualified motor cycle.

image – Royal Enfield booklet front cover (Speedtracktales Collection)

The World’s Toughest Motor-Cycle Event

photo – the victorious ROYAL ENFIELD 1953 team: Johnny Brittain (Trophy) [LWP 424], Don Evans (Vase A) [LWP 423], and Jack Stocker (Trophy) [LWP 422], all mounted on 500 twins – ISDT 1953 (Speedtracktales collection)

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Welcome to the Speedtracktales Library and Shop

16 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by Highwayman in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Enduro, England, Europe, Gelände Sport, Germany, International Six Day Trial, Internationale Sechs Tagefahrt, ISDT, Isle of Man, Italy, Magazine, Manufacturers, Media, Motorcycling, Motorsport, Regolarità, Scrambling, Sei Giorni Motociclistica Internazionale, Six Jours Internationaux, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Trials, UK, USA, Wales, Welsh Borders

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inter war, old motorcycling magazines, pre war, veteran, vintage

When I restarted Taff’s site, all I had to begin with was a website copied to a harddisk drive that I had been able to download in its entirety from his old server. Since then I have been greatly helped by Taff and his friends like ‘STB’ and Brian Catt. Between gifts , loans and acquisitions I have been able to get back to the original hard copy material and started to scan to archive these materials so as to enable people to access and view this material at what ever time and place suits their convenience. Below is an image of some of the material I now control that may be one of the most intact archives of the Event even considering the FIM and National Federations material.