Observed Trials is a strange form of motorcycle sport, its invention in the very early days of two-wheeled transportation usually attributed to the Scots, who also gave us golf. They seem to have a real need for frustration. Trials is an attempt on a motorcycle to conquer a series of obstacle courses (“sections” or “traps”) without putting ones foot down. Balance and control are the key elements. Like golf, the low score of the day wins. Scoring is one point for each time a foot touches down, up to a maximum of three points lost as long as the bike maintains forward motion in the individual section and the rider is still astride the machine. Stopping within a section gets five points, considered a failure. A "clean" is a zero, completing the section without putting down a foot. An observer (hence the name) watches from “front axle in” to “front axle out” and writes or punches the rider's score for that section on the rider's scorecard as he or she leaves the section. When one is competing, one usually does not know how the other riders are faring overall, so the competition is literally with oneself until the end of the day when the scores are tallied. I competed actively from the early 70's until about 1982 in what was then modern, now considered “Vintage” trials. What is now Modern Trials is “a game with which I am not familiar”, using machines and featuring riders who do things we could not then imagine.

At the Mid Ohio racing facility, on the North side of the track near the motocross area there is a time warp tunnel back to the early 70's. The parking and camping area is bordered by a thick wall of trees and where they meet at a 90 degree angle, there is an arch-shaped opening which leads to the course for the Vintage Days Observed Trials event. My nephew Paul and I walked across the hot gravel road into that opening in July of 2004 and immediately were in a cool woods clearing in 1975. The sun lost its edge as it filtered down through the leaves onto the scene. It was the same bikes, the same sounds, smells, the same sections, just as I had left it back then. I instantly became 29 years younger (though for some reason didn't regain the same waistline).

We tiptoed through the mud over to the first set of sections, arranged around a bend in the creek. One was laid out in the creek itself, entering from the bed “upstream” and, depending upon the class of the rider, either going straight downstream to cross a small log, make a turn on the rocks and exit up a bank or for the higher classes, making a left over a log, going up a root-infested bank, turning in the mud and then crossing a raised log.

We watched as the old machines, made new again, were piloted by riders of various ages (were the young ones we saw really young, or just rejuvenated?) over, around and through the natural obstacles they were made for all those years ago and again today.

As we walked the loop with bikes passing us, on their way to sections ahead and coming back from sections ridden, I remembered more and more of what it felt like back then to be part of this wonderful scene. As often happens when a past-middle-aged man starts remembering his youth, there were stirrings in the back of the head (a safer place than some memories of youth may stir) and the question began to form as to whether I could do that again .

When I returned to the real world, after Vintage Days (always a shock) I began looking around for an old trials bike, “just to see what’s out there”. My rides in the “old days” had included a Suzuki RL 250, several Montesas (I was a dealer for the brand, briefly in the early 70's) and finally Bultacos which I considered to be the pinnacle of the hierarchy of trials bikes. Bultacos have the intrinsic quality, the “random elegance” (to use Peter Egan’s words) to make just looking at them a sufficient reason to own one. I finally found a 1975 (model 151...Bultaco doesn't really go by years) Sherpa T that had been owned by a succession of people I knew from “back in the day”. It had been thoroughly used, but not terribly abused and, as my nephew puts it, “all it needed was everything”. I got it for $700, but as we all know, that’s just the beginning. I cleaned it up, got it running, ordered new tires (it still had Pirelli’s from the 70's) and sent in my entry for the 2005 AHRMA trials at Vintage Days. It would be my first trials competition after a 25 year absence.

When I arrived at the track for sign up at 8am, things with Team Rice ( Paul is my pit crew) still weren't quite up to professional quality. The tank, fiberglass that wasn't exactly the best thing to hold gas back in 1975 and hadn't improved much with age, still leaked copiously and the piston in its worn-out bore sounded like a pop can rattling in a drain pipe. The bike took a looooong session of carb-tickling to start. But once it was going, it ran acceptably for a vintage trials bike and I knew that, assuming the tank didn't leak enough to strand me out on the loop, I’d have no bike-related excuse for my performance. The riders meeting was just as I’d remembered it, grey hair on most of the participants notwithstanding, and soon we were off in the woods. The next few hours were a blur of trees and rocks and logs, seen through a haze of sweat-fogged glasses. My first loop score was 12, including one “5" when I lost my way in a section and went out of bounds. By the start of the next loop, I was beginning to get a handle on the idea of trials again and I dropped only one “3". My last loop contained all zeros, proving simultaneously that: 1) this was an easy trial, not designed to kill anyone, 2) Since it was that easy, I probably could have done that on the first two loops if I'd been paying attention and 3) maybe I could do this trials thing again, after all. To further demonstrate the truth of #1, my total of 15 put me in 15th place. The first several places were all zeros, ties broken by age of the rider and most cleans.

By the next year I still hadn't fixed the engine, but it wasn't rattling any worse. I had purchased a new gas tank which actually kept the fuel mostly inside and definitely made the whole rig look better. I hadn't ridden it enough to need new tires, so my total preparation consisted of changing the oil in the gearbox (Bultacos are notorious for getting and holding water there) and the clutch case, new oil in the forks and a general wipe-down so as not to take too much of last year’s dirt back to Mid-Ohio with me. Paul and I showed up again at the riders meeting and again I headed off into the woods with 40 or more of my peers (or at least I liked to think I was such) to have a go at it. There had been a storm through the area, leaving large parts of the former loop inaccessible, even for trials bikes, so the loop was much shorter. The mud left behind by the storm was a mixed blessing for me. It made the sections a lot more difficult than I think the organizers had planned, but mud was always one of my strong suits in the old days....a “leveler” of the field, one might say. One section had a long slippery downhill, followed by an axle-deep mud/creek crossing, then a series of tight turns around trees on the steep creek bank. The first few riders took off all the dirt covering the tree roots, so the worst turn required going up across muddy, slick roots while turning 90 degrees to the right. Most riders were trying to “clean” it and failing to even complete the section. I went into the turn, put my right leg way out in front and physically hauled the Sherpa around the pivot point and up on the bank, losing one or sometimes two points rather than the fives the others were getting. On another section, the line allowed one to go around the end of a muddy log, but that path then required a forks-to-the-stops turn in mud to come out the other side. I chose to go over the muddy log every time, leaving me a straight shot to the exit and fortunately, managed to keep my feet on the pegs in the process.

I finished the day with 12 points, garnering a fifth place trophy....my first in 26 years. I think it was more a situation of perseverance rather than any kind of superior skill on my part. I just didn't dislike the mud as much as some of the others.

I plan to try it again a the Barber track in October, if the proper stars line up to permit the trip. If I'm lucky, it may rain.

John G. Rice

www.johnricelaw.com