25 Wednesday Sep 2013
We are again indebted to our Euro contributor ‘STB’ who has obtained from the FIM the official results for the ISDT of 1974
Photo of #225 Jim Hollander on a Rokon at ISDT 1974
The above picture is of Jim Hollander as US rider on what looked a futuristic design with Disc brakes, Mag Alloy Wheels, and Automatic Transmission. They even produced 2 wheel drive farm bikes all started by a pull cord like a lawnmower.
You can read the Acrobat PDF version on our report page in the ISDT 1974
23 Monday Sep 2013
Speedtracktales has been aware for a while of an Italian team hoping to prepare a sequel book to the excellent pictorial History of the ISDT1970 by Javier Benito Aguado. The result is ISDT1968, by Roberto Biza and Marcello Grigorov which will go on sale to coincide with the ISDE 2013 in Sardinia.
Image – front cover of ISDT1968 book
Following the precedent and style of Javier Benito’s book “ISDT1970”, this book tells the story of the International Six-Days Trial of 1968, based at San Pellegrino Terme, Italy.
09 Thursday May 2013
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!931 was the first year that the ISDT visited Italy outright. Although other events had crossed into Italy before, by 1931 Italy had a good home Motorcycle Industry and the sport was popular and growing. The ISDT 1931 was the beginning of many visits to Italy
Luckily one of this site’s keenest supporters has found and scanned a copy of ‘the Motor Cycle‘ issues produced in the run up to and during the event which provide an excellent record of the 13th event of the ISDT which was based at Merano near Monza.
You can read this scanned copy, here at our issuu.com library
06 Saturday Apr 2013
Posted in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Enduro, England, Europe, Gelände Sport, Germany, International Six Day Trial, Internationale Sechs Tagefahrt, ISDT, Isle of Man, Italy, Manufacturers, Media, Motorcycling, Motorsport, Places, Poland, Regolarità, Sei Giorni Motociclistica Internazionale, Six Jours Internationaux, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, Wales
Map of Speedtracktales V2.0 readership for first year
It was over a year ago whilst searching for some ISDT specific archive photo’s I was given a number of photos I had no need for. Such things are not items you can simply fling and I looked for a home to donate them to. I was pointed to Speedtracktales but on arriving found the site had gone, unknown to me the originator had come to the end of his ability to sustain the costs with maintaining the url and servers for a labour of love. Luckily some persons had sidled it away onto a free site where the contents could be seen. Eventually finding Taff Issacs who was the originator he had no way to edit further and my photos were not of much use. After a bit of correspondence I agreed to set up a new website and rehouse the collection so that it could be easily accessed by persons wishing to research the historic years of the International Six Says Trial before it changed its name to International Six Days Enduro in 1981.
23 Saturday Feb 2013
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We have been lucky to uncover a copy of the 7 August 1930 edition of ‘the Motor Cycle‘ that now resides in our growing ISDT collection of original archive material. Such copies of the magazines for the inter war years are getting increasingly difficult to find and when they turn up their owners normally expect substantial amounts of cash before they part with them.
The magazine has been scanned and the images are now placed in the ISDT 1930 page and is the first substantial find of material on that event was based in Grenoble then moved across Southern Central Europe criss crossing wild Alpine passes.
If you are on a device that supports Flash’ you can view the pages here at our issuu.com powered library:
We are always grateful for any offers of scanned articles from original copies of the old magazines which not only inform visitors to the site but assist in historical research into the sport of motorcycling and the ISDT
15 Saturday Dec 2012
We have been diligently, with the help of many supporters, pulling together the images of the ISDT in a hope to protect the history of the event and convey how the changing century imposed its standards on the attire, machines and attitudes of those riding. However our most frequent request from readers is to see copies of historic results looking for the names of family members, history of bikes or other studies of the riders and venues for the events. I made an appeal to our faithful supporters to help to bring together the results of the event as it seems many national governing bodies no longer hold these in their archives.
The original emblem of the FICM
Thanks to the efforts of our secret agent in Germany, the FIM itself has stepped in and has scanned and provided all the remaining copies of Final Results and Stewards Reports they hold. The collection is substantially complete and and we will be releasing these as pdf files, hopefully with some analysis of the material they contain on the event pages. Speedtracktales wishes to thank Marc Pétrier of FIM Information Resources who has facilitated the scanning of the FIM archive of ISDT results material and is allowing us to make it available here as a public service. You will be able to download a copy of the original Results and Stewards Report.
04 Sunday Nov 2012
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Approaching the end of the first 9 months after taking over and updating Taff Isaac’s old ISDT site I have mostly focussed on consolidating and correct the errors in the material as well as start filling some of the years missed. I have been able to re-discover some rare archive material. For the first anniversary I am hoping we can start to create new original material that adds to the understanding of the ISDT rather than just gathering old archive material to allow SpeedTrackTales to become more of a publication, although always free to anyone wanting to read.
I have been looking through the Search Terms that have driven visits to the site and looked in particular at those search terms I think we might be deficient in that appear high in reader search terms. I am proposing over the next year 3 months to prepare articles on the following and would encourage anyone who can help me with material or copy to make the articles from.
Photo of Brit Trophy Rider Ken Heanes looking happy in ISDT 1961
Zundapp Motorcycles
Ken Heanes
BMW R67
BMW R68
MZ
Cheney Triumph
Triumph Trophy
BSA Empire Star
Georg Meier
Marjorie Cottle
As a post script to this post I must sadly add that i have just discovered of the recent passing away of Ken Heanes in October 2012. Another great loss to the community of the ISDT and hopefully we can ensure his achievements can be preserved here for future generations of Heanes family members to discover.
http://www.classicmotorcycle.co.uk/news/2012-10/obituary-ken-heanes-mr-isdt
26 Wednesday Sep 2012
I can thank Dave Giles from the VMCC for providing all the content for this Blog which is very much an appeal for help in trying to locate any of the team or other BSA’s that were ridden in the immediate Pre-war period.
Photo of British Army Team Motorcycles #156 Sgt O. Davies Matchless 350cc #113 Pte. JL Wood BSA 496cc [EOG 22] #75 Cpl A C Doyle BSA 496cc [EOG 20] #68 Lt. J. F. Riley with Norton 500cc at ISDT 1939
I have been provided with a list of the last three events of the ISDT prior to the outbreak of WWII in 1939, an event which for the second time interupted the ISDT. If anyone is able to help us identify any of these bikes by providing a registration or other ID and if they are aware if any collectors have one of these bikes kept under wraps somewhere we would be grateful if you could contact us here by messaging on this post Continue reading
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