page under construction always…
Introduction to ISDT 1971
The 46th edition of the ISDT took place in the Isle of Man, part of Great Britain 20th to 25th September 1971
Image of scanned part front cover of Official Programme ISDT 1971
Photo of #116 Pierluigi Rottigni of Italy on his Morini 160 cc ISDT 1971.
Photo of #15 H Poorte, Holland #14 R Uhlig, GDR #13 J Kozuch Czechoslovakia all in the 100cc class starting the ISDT 1971
Arthur Willians provided some Bits, so we shall start another page re this Date Event, here is the Monday Start. This should have been termed International Sachs Days Trial because 68 German Sachs Power Plants were in use. Used in USA Pentons, Dutch Batavus, German Hercules, Britain’s Dalesman plus 3 others.
297 Starters in this Isle of Man 20 to 25 Sept 1971 event. Czech ran away with the Prizes,
143 Golds, 41 Silvers, 19 Bronze.
The Sachs promo Vans had goodies for all. Ken Heanes, Malcolm Rathmell, Pease, Sandiford, Mick Andrews on Cheney Machinery took Golds had it not been for Mick Wilkinson getting penalties, (said to be after he offended the little fairies people) Britain may well have been in with an extremely faint chance.
Photo of #299 British Team member Ken Heanes on a Ray Cheney framed Triumph beauty with 504 cc motor at the ISDT 1971
Photo of #299 Ken Heanes firing his Triumph [WCG 101H] across some open going in the ISDT 1965?
Photo – M Rathmell Triumph ISDT 1971 (Courtesy Deryck Wylde collection)
The above images were made available by Deryk Wylde. : Images in this section are protected with a digitally embedded watermark. Copies, without the watermark, may be available – please contact ‘offroarchive@gmail.com’ for details.
Photo of #89 Broer Nilsson Sweden in front on 125 Monark to gain a Gold, #95 Horst Molle 123 Hercules of West Germany, -Gold. #88 Jarma Koskivvori 123 KTM Finland -Silver, #94 Renato Foresti 123 KTM – Gold, all Sachs powered!!!
Photo of #55 Fred Row of Zambia on a 250 Bultaco & #292 John Pease 504 Cheney Triumph playing in tuesday’s mud near Laxey ISDT 1971
Photo of #295 Kurt Distler & a 745 BMW in Manx Mud ISDT 1971
Photo of Dutchman #67 Herman Van Hoegee on his Sachs powered 125 Monark attack the watersplash at Druidale ISDT 1971
Photo of #296 Mick Andrews, for a change on a 504 Cheney ISDT 1971
Photo of Tom Penton of USA Trophy Team on a PENTON family Product. ISDT 1971
#292 John Pease’s Cheney Triumph [WCG 106 H] in the background the bikes of #276 TG Fayers, #214 TA Leonard, #215 A Lampkin and #220 R Underhill of Canada await their riders in the Parc Fermé in the 1971 ISDT
Photo of L Grable 125 Dalesman [LWW 677 K] wearing USA Skunk stripe helmet and GB registered Dalesman… bit of lend / lease going on there surely….? ISDT 1971
Ed Youngbook’s report of the event in the American Motorcyclist Association’s News magazine of Nov 1971 can be found on Google Books . Go to page 6
I am very grateful to Helmut Clasen who has contributed the following images from his own ISDT collection
Photo of #205 P Cemus at ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of #250 Ossa R Herbertz W Germany ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of #182 R Bohn USA at ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of #65 R Eklund of Finland in ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of inknown rider / bike ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of #299 Ken Heanes’s Cheney Triumph [WCG101H] ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of unknown rider / bike ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of rider at service point ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of unknown rider / bike ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of #231 R Consonni Italy in ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of riders preparing motorcycles for ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of #126 G Signorelli of Italy in ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of #176 G Hilton of Ireland on Simpson motorcycle ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of unknown rider at ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of #87 DG Andrews of Ireland in ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of #5 E Reschnar W Germany fixes a puncture with ease thanks to his quick release hubs at ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of unknown rider at ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of #197 B Bokstedt, Sweden #207 H Drogosz Poland struggle with others up a tractionless hill ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
Photo of #184 D Cutler USA ISDT 1971 ( Courtesy Helmut Clasen)
More images submitted by Roger Newark a reader of this site can be found on this site blog
The Final Score: Results
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. Download a copy of the original Results and Stewards Report at the link below.
Download Stewards Report for the 1971 ISDT here
One man’s tale
Tony Down #145 ISDT 1971
Image of scanned cover to 1971 Welsh Two Day Programme
In 1971 experience trials rider in the RAF Tony Down decided to try his hand at riding in the ISDT and submitted himself to the British Event selection procedure which included a number of activities one of which was competing in the Welsh Two Day Trial, on a trials bike, Tony tells his story of discovery of Enduros in an article on his website here
Photo of Tony Down on his Montesa Trials bike in the 1971 Welsh 2 Day Trial
Photo of RAF Team #145 Tony Down 170 Cotton Minarelli #133 Dick Clears 170 Cotton Minarelli [DBJ 7J] ISDT 1971
Photo of #145 Tony Down passing #136 ISDT 1971
Tony explains with great humour about his bike and the teams experience in the 1971 ISDT on his website here.
Artefacts and Collectibles
Photo of Brian Catt’s ‘I was there’ still here. ISDT 1971
Where are they Now?
Here we catch up with a recent photo of John Peases Cheyney pictured above now owned by Dugald Cullen.
John Pease’s Cheyney [WCG106H] with it’s current owner along with the ISDT’s legendary historian Brian Catt who provided the photo.
Speed Track Tales 
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The pic of #289 is one of the 1973 Triumph Adventurers. In other sites, it is shown erroneously as a Cheney.
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The rider on the right (No 33) in the RAF team pic is Dick Clears. Not sure who the one in the middle is possibly T Thompson
John Wakefield is correct, the rider on the right is No 133 Dick Clears (me).
Centre rider is John Hambook and the third is Tony Down.
That’s not Ted Thompson, it’s probably John Hambrook, who with Dick and Tony was a member of the RAFMSC Team. Hambrook’s bike was described in the programme as a “Vulcan Minarelli”, but the other 2 were “Cotton Minarellis”. It is possible that Hambrook was flight crew on a Vulcan bomber…..
The centre rider is John Hambrook, riding a “Vulcan” Minarelli— named after Cottons’ Vulcan works. This was to comply with the regulation which required club teams to be on “different” machines. John retired on the second day when a gearbox circlip let go allowing 2nd and 3rd gears to engage simultaneously– big crunch no more go !!
Further to that last comment, I do remember some back-room practice taking place to see how long it took to change the complete front end of one of these machines by swapping the entire unit forward of the steering tube….
thanks as ever for helping me joint the dots together naming the people on these photos
Brian— I thought my secret had remained hidden!!,– at least until the March 2014 issue of the Cotton Club magazine, when they published my 1971 ISDT reminiscences.
Mid afternoon on day 2 a cylinder head stud fractured leaving my engine drastically down on power. Trying to make up time I lost it, hit a boulder, and badly bent the front forks. That evening we removed the complete front end, at the steering head, from John Hambrooks’ broken bike and in the morning, having made a repair to my cylinder in the parc ferme I left the start and rode down the course to where Johns’ good front end was hidden. We swapped them over and I finished the day. That night I straightened my fork legs and rebuilt the unit . The following morning, day 4, the front ends were swapped back.
I was proud to finish despite this escapade and several other adversities!!.
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The driver in image00014 is Alessandro Gritti with its Puch 125
The bike in image00016 is a Gilera and the man standing on the right is Carlo Perelli, former director of the Italian magazine Motociclismo
Yes, you were practicing the front end swap in the hotel, I remember it well!!!!!