Appeal: Help us find the Pre War ISDT BSA’s

26 Wednesday Sep 2012

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

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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 →

The First International Six Day Trial 18 ~ 23 August 1913: A centenary anniversary 2013

22 Saturday Sep 2012

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

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With the 100th anniversary of the holding of the first International Six Day Trial less than 1 year away, as the event was hosted by the ACU in England before becoming one of the most truly international of top class motorcycle events. Which, with the toughness of the six days of effort quickly saw the event being likened to the ‘Olympics of Motorcycling’ a name that has stuck with it ever since as it has been hosted on most of the worlds continents.

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BMW R68 ISDT Tribute Gelandesport Racer – Mid America Auctions

09 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by in Enduro, Gelände Sport, Germany, International Six Day Trial, Internationale Sechs Tagefahrt, ISDT, Manufacturers, Motorcycling, Motorsport, Places, Regolarità, restoration, Sei Giorni Motociclistica Internazionale, Six Jours Internationaux

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I was recently browsing links to ISDT BMW pages when I stumbled upon a perfect example of an old BMW ISDT bike,

Customised BMW R100 from the 1979 rebuilt to have the ISDT look

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A Hundred Years of ISDT Approaches 1913 – 2013

28 Tuesday Aug 2012

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

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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 Continue reading →

MCC of Wales at the ISDT

05 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by in Enduro, ISDT, Wales

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With so many of the British hosted ISDT’s being based in Wales, it’s no coincidence the landscape of Wales offers perfect terrain for the event. Associated to this little Principality of the United Kingdom with only 2.5 million is the sport is popular with its residents and often punches above it’s weight in national standing for its sports men. With great Trophy Team riders like Dai Jeremiah in the 70’s was the introduction of ‘national’ club teams in the ISDT by the MCC of Wales. Three of the great managers in this period were Arthur Brick, Elwyn Price and Kenny Williams. For more details check out the web site dedicated to recovering the details of the Welsh national team by former manager in the ISDE era Jeff Edwards

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Two German Giants of the ISDT ‘Bull Rider’ Class

23 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by in Europe, ISDT, Motorcycling, Motorsport, Uncategorized

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German riders Rolf Witthoeft and Herbert Schek were legends in their riding era which was partially due to the longevity of their time riding and also they became best known for riding some of the largest bikes to ever, later known as the Bull Rider Class. These bikes over 750cc may not have had the greatest power to weight ratio but they were powerful and it took a good rider to get these items of heavy metal around a typical ISDT course.

Photo of four-man BMW team in the United States including #295 Herbert Schek ISDT 1973

Photo of Rolf Witthoeft as a BMW factory rider in 1979

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Recovered classics Vincent HRD, BMW and Jawa

08 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by in Enduro, Europe, ISDT, Manufacturers, Motorcycling, Motorsport, restoration

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Now there’s a mixed bag title but rest assured each of these 3 bikes we have just added to the ISDT History web site at Speedtracktales is exactly that two heavy weights post war one British and one German and of course the lightweight Eastern European classic that ultimately led to the demise of the heavyweight enduro bike and also saw mass produced competitive bikes coming straight out of the delivery crate rather than the preserve of the favoured works supported rider. Here are the pictures and links

Arthur Merrett’s works 1948 ISDT Vincent HRD

Georg Meier’s works 1953 ISDT BMW 

Photo in a studio of the Jawa 250cc of 1961

The ex-works 1961 ISDT JAWA 250cc

If a Picture paints a 1000 words what about a video

07 Saturday Jul 2012

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Our panic last week when a lot of our historic images were lost when a server provider evaporated our data is close to being resolved as we have moved a backup of the images to another server. The remaining url’s linking to the old images need to be updated and unfortunately WordPress.com does not have an automated batch text update so I’ve got to correct each link one paste at a time.

Back to the good news of more new content we have recovered from the internet. This time amongst the fantastic treasure trove of the internet’s video libraries we discovered a film created by Christian Sulleman of the 55th International Six Day .In an amazing timeless classic dedicated to the period I recall very well  I would hope our site’s visitors enjoy this unique footage. Please enjoy and check out the other videos on our ISDT Tube page dedicated to collecting these fantastic troves of ISDT treasure.

Next post should be a collection of new ISDT material

Small Technical Hitch at Speed Track Tales

01 Sunday Jul 2012

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Unfortunately, it has come to my attention that the WordPress site, to save time during compilation, took direct links to many of the images from a previously archived website that was still accessible on line. We have now noticed that it appears the host has now taken the entire archive site off-line which means many of the images have now gone and will not show in our articles.

We have access to the old images and will slowly correct this and we are grateful for your patience whilst we do so.

In the meantime there is a further unmanaged archive of the original Speedtracktales site which is associated with the National Library of Wales. If you are wanting to see images before we restore them we hope you can see them here.

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20110228233545/http://www.speedtracktales.co.uk/4598.html

Refurbishing an old hero: MZ ISDT G5

02 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by in Enduro, ISDT, Motorcycling, Motorsport, restoration, UK

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The MZ in its original pre restoration state

Whilst googling today looking for fresh ISDT related material to add to the site I stumbled on this online article of the restoration of an ISDT MZ VTW26L by restoration genius and MZ enthusiast Peter Feilding. I do not know if this bike actually rode in the ISDT or is one of the popular replica models MZ sold that were a popular clubmans bike in the early mid 1970’s enduro scene in the UK. This bike first registered in 1972 has been with the same owner since 1975 until Peter acquired it. If anyone knows anything about this bike please tell us. Continue reading →