O Features archive - January 08
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Start classic scrambling
The gentle art of bouncing across country at high-ish speeds used to attract thousands of spectators but it’s not that difficult to join in and have a go as Paul Grace explains.
Modern motocross is now a specialised highly commercial sport but it began as very much a strictly informal affair. The story goes that a trials club in Surrey, way back in 1924, was inspired by the Scott time trial to organise a fast cross-country race with no speed restrictions or observed sections. The ACU pointed out that without observed sections it could not be a trial, so the first cross-country race was advertised as ‘a fine old scramble’; afterwards the name stuck and the sport spread rapidly throughout Britain. After WWII, scrambling spread to the continent under the new name of motocross, from the French word 'moto', as in motocyclette and 'cross' as in cross-country.
The period from just after the war until the early 70s could perhaps be regarded as the golden years of classic scrambles. Great Britain won the Motocross des Nations 15 times in 21 years, an astonishing achievement. Les Archer and Dave Bickers were European champions; Jeff Smith was twice world 500cc champion. These were the elite of British motocross, along with Brian Stonebridge, Arthur Lampkin, Geoff Ward, Dave Curtis, the Rickman brothers, John Banks, John Burton and Vic Westwood. So popular was the sport that during this quarter century crowd attendances could often be numbered well into the tens of thousands if two or three of the big names were riding, just like modern Moto GP today.
As a rider, one of the appealing things about motocross, compared to say trials, is the finality of the outcome. In trials there could be discrepancies between points we think we had lost and those recorded. There is a darker side too in scrambles where the stalking and overcoming of an opponent unleashes a primal urge. To watch or race in a scrambles event you can see the poetry in the riding, the rhythm of machine and rider entwined in the pursuit of victory in the final lap. There is a raw beauty in the process of riding fast over deeply rutted ground accurately on two wheels. Things happen slowly in trials, the likely worse result of an error would be to pick up your fallen bike, whereas in motocross, a similar error on a 300lb scrambler can be more than a little dramatic and painful.
To start racing scramblers you need to join a club. There are a number of clubs around the country that cater for vintage motocross events. These are held throughout the UK but very few clubs try to mix the modern motocross machines at the same meetings as the classics. Modern tracks with artificial hazards are not suitable. Races are usually around four-six laps, very rarely lasting longer than 10 minutes, usually over old fashioned type courses with natural hills and few artificial jumps.
Clubs organise their race classes by the age of the bikes and the size of the engines. The classes include pre-60, pre-65 and pre-74 motorcycle ages and these mark approximate milestones for the development of the motocross motorcycle. Whilst some machines are genuine British bikes from the 50s, 60s and 70s, a lot are now 'new' replica copies. The clubs insist on limits to the amount of suspension movement back and front and some of the early foreign European bikes are allowed.
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