Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 77 Winter 2025 i Classic Dirt Bike

Prepping factory team motorcycles for an important event such as the International Six Days Trial in the sixties was an altogether more homely affair and rather than in a clinically clean environment where technicians wore white overalls and latex gloves, often it took place out the back of the factory. MotorCycling popped along to Birmingham for their issue of 6 August, 1966, where the AMC teamsters were doing a bit of tyre changing practice outside the James works - James being part of the AMC empire. The visit was prompted by the announcement from AMC which stated that instead of a 350, 500 and 600 as team mounts, all three riders - Peter Gaunt, Mick Andrews and John Lewis - would be mounted on 500s for the Swedish event. This…

While the ultimate aim of building a classic dirt bike is to use it in classic dirt bike events, such a project often has more than one aim. Where this Triumph is concerned, there have been several aims. Initially, it was to see if a working Brit bike could be assembled from bits lying around and was featured in our sister publication The Classic MotorCycle. Alongside this, as the bike is mine rather than the publisher’s, I wanted a bike for classic sport. These two aims don’t always sit well together, as to be competitive a bike has to have a shilling or 20 pushed at it and the TCM thing was ‘budget, budget, budget’. With the TCM phase now over and the concept vindicated, I’m looking at more work…

Write to us at: ClassicDIRTbike, PO Box99, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6LZ. Or email CDBeditor@mortons.co.uk Restoration hobby The latest issue of Classic Dirt Bike, with the fantastic looking KTM GS80 on the cover, was of particular interest because my own latest project is a KTM. It’s a particularly rare KTM, an MC5, which was particularly rough when I got it. I’ve restored a couple of classic motocross bikes as a hobby, and it is something I’d like to do full-time one day. I’ve attached some pics so you can see what I’ve done, and it would be an honour to see one of my bikes in your magazine. Sean Acaster EmailSean, thank you for sending in the pics of your bikes, they look brilliant. Love to arrange a visit at some…

There’s no doubt about it, the UK was riding high in the MX world in the mid-sixties. Jeff Smith was reigning world champion in 1965, was about to win his second title, and would head into 1966 as world champion, too. Even better from the enthusiast’s point of view, also there was a chance he could take another 500cc title. This little musing was prompted by coming across the reports of the British 250cc GP at Glastonbury in 1965 and the 1966 500cc British GP shocker at Farleigh Castle. Both events were outstanding in different ways and show the way fate’s fickle hand plays out. While it is true to say the aim of every world-class rider is to win a world championship, coming a close second to this aim…

With the stunning Drumlanrig Castle as a backdrop to a well-thought-out scrambles course, the stage was set for Galloway MCC’s Drumlanrig Offroad Motorsport Festival over the weekend of 22-24 August, 2025. Even the weather played fair. This spectacular celebration of motorcycling takes many forms. There are the road runs into south-west Scotland’s magnificent scenery, then there’s the Blue Machinery sponsored grasstrack racing which gives the chance for competitors to warm up before the MX racing begins on the Saturday. For those of us who take motorcycling at a slower pace, there is the trial laid out in Drumlanrig’s grounds and for pre65 machines along with twinshocks, too, plus there’s a section cordoned off in the marquee where a concours line-up shows just what a diverse interest there is in motorcycle…

Compared to today with a multitude of classic enduro events available up and down the country, it is a wonder why the scene took so long to launch in the UK. There were always enduros – or Long Distance Trials – and the ISDT/E and Welsh events were always a feature of the UK press, but compared to scrambling or trials they were a low-key affair. That’s a shame, because the sport combines the best of both trials and scrambles with few of the downsides recognised in each sport. In the USA and mainland Europe things were slightly different and longer-distance ‘trials’ were more popular… Perhaps in those days there was access to larger areas of land. I remember one Christmas a book was given to me as a present,…

Let’s face it, as we read the papers and magazines of the day we lusted after the works bikes which were being used in whichever was our favourite sport. If only we could get our hands on such kit we’d be champions, too. Nice image to have, isn’t it. The incontrovertible fact is that us club riders would be unlikely to use such kit to its best ability as those works bikes were often vastly different to the production machines. Machines such as this team Honda were handbuilt, tailored to a particular rider – Dave Thorpe in this instance – and at least until the end of the 1986 season were cost-no-object things of beauty and performance built to perform a single task… that of winning a GP and ultimately…

Take an engine, the initial design of which was cobbled together 95 years ago, slightly refined 90 years ago then had a reworking nearly 60 years ago, fit it into a frame design created 60 years ago and go racing… Doesn’t sound like a recipe for success, does it? Thing is, no one told Cecil Pearson’s Team JAP this and the superb mix of vintage and classic components are a sight and sound to behold at classic scrambles around the UK where they’re usually at the front of the pack. It doesn’t hurt that the bikes have determined riders on them, but still… Constructing a bike from a selection of parts is no new concept and parts are chosen for a variety of reasons, from ‘Used what I had’ to…

Cumbrian Will Brockbank nailed the Premier Award in the 2025 Leven Valley Two Day Trial, which was staged as usual in the low-lying woodland and, of course, up on the moors surrounding Kinlochleven, deep in the Scottish Highlands. Huddersfield’s Will Tolson, a first-timer at the event, joined Brock on a clean ride but lost out on the tiebreak (oldest rider wins) and had to settle for runner-up. Brock was mounted on an immaculate 500 Ariel four-stroke Britshock single while Tolson relied on his trusty Fantic two-stroke Twinshock, proving that it isn’t the bike, it is down to the rider. The event caters for just the two classes. The weekend of 26/27 September saw the now usual format of a single long lap, taking in 30 sections along the way, each…

What makes for a good show? Is it the bikes? Is it the owners who restore them? Is it the clubs who act as focal points for enthusiasts? Is it the enthusiasts themselves? Perhaps it is the associated auction? Or is it the guests of honour? Yeah, right, a trick question really as the answer is probably all of the above as they all play a part in a show’s success. Without the bikes there is no show, without the restorers there are no bikes, and the club stands provide a gathering for enthusiasts from different parts of the country to meet and talk face-to-face which is always better than being on a social media thing. There are many more elements to a show than the main ones we’ve highlighted…

It is perhaps inevitable that a rider with the surname ‘LaPorte’ is going to attract ‘door’ references when being written about, and Danny ‘The Door’ LaPorte certainly provided ammunition for a whole host of them at the 1982 250cc British GP. The Californian racer was in his first season in world championship racing but was far from inexperienced. A full-time MX professional since the age of 16, LaPorte’s rise to success was almost meteoric. There was a slight hiccup when by his own admission Danny felt burned out due to racing, but seeing the MX associated with Evel Knievel’s Snake River Canyon jump convinced him to get back on the trail. This he did with such success he had Suzuki knocking on his door and saying: “Come race with us,”…