to put the true account about motorcycle off-road competition into history.

Deryk Wylde Factual…

To put the true account about motorcycle offroad competition into Recorded History…

Photo Courtesy Deryk Wylde...

Cotswolds Grouping..

Dave Langston second from the right on the Goldie BSA lent Deryk this photo, said to have been taken by an amateur photographer, and the copy later given to Dave Langston.. the group had been out practicing and were on a chatting huddle as we all had, when spoted by the chap?who took the shot getting them to line up for him...David's brother Ron is sat on the works Ariel second left...

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With the need for another platform to record the true history about competition motorcycle sport from the early days up until now 2024… Deryk and I have decided to cooperate into getting this true information recorded into the history books (records) before it is too late. A lot of motorcycle journalists did tend to go with the trendy story about the past history of the sport, and fabricate little untruths just to make up the copy… or at worse just fabricate stories just to fill a page... well we don't want that do we...

Well as you know on this Otter site we do our very best to fish out and record the true history of the makes we cover, and a few would have been lost in time without Deryk's and my input… to uncover the stories that make the history more reliable… Now that Deryk has got his porfolio of photo's in safe hands for the future...We can explore the back issues of the Offroad Review Magazines all 100 plus, for little snippets of information and profiles that many people that do not have the collection has ever seen...Deryk has given bsaotter permission to do just this and we will also have his input when he has time...

Over to you Deryk.

Photo Courtesy Offroad Review...

Tony Davis 776 BOP

That looks like some prime mud in the 1962 Cotswold Cups trial for local star Tony Davis. The B40 in trials trim was created by the works simply to attack the 350 awards in the nationals, which is precisely what Tony did, taking the 350 Cup on fourteen marks! BSA never offered the 343 cc version for sale to the public. For my good old mate, Tony, it was his favourite of all the machines that he rode!

Yes, and I had a ride on it! There was a great conundrum with the creation of trials models based on the 343cc motor unit, which were available in abundance as ex-WD replacement spares that were never needed and ended up in the military auctions, many were snapped up as a cheap source of a brand new motor unit and trials machines were created. But the ex-WD B40 was not the same power output as the rare factory 350's like 776 BOP, which had deep-down controllable grip - where as the ex-WD motors were 'revvy'. There were people like Hubbo and Reg May who could make them talk - but most really didn't go as well as the over the counter C15T!...Deryk.

Charlie...

What you forget Deryk is the first Works BSA B40 had the older engine with the timing side bush and not bearing... these motors were always renowned for being a softer engine and would pull better... but would need treating with care...

And another story I realy like...from ORR..

Photo Courtesy Offroad Archives...

Deryk...

This totally irrepressible character is Richard Percival from Suffolk - the East Anglian answer to Fred Dibnah! Yes, “Perce” has an agricultural machinery engineering business which always seems to be busy with immense devices driven by steam...

Richard competed in just about every trial in the British Bike championship cum Sammy Miller series, etc. Trouble is, his is obviously a girder-forked rigid but he always wanted to ride the 'harder' versions of any sections where we made a variation - we normally, for example, had a sidecar route that the girder-rigids also took. Not Richard. "I don't want the 'cissy' sections!!"

Trouble is he usually beat most of the rest of the entry - pre-70 unit-construction and all!

He won the Girder Rigid class of the championship every year.

This photo shows him on my first section at Cwmcwefru (pronounced Kum-kweh-vri) in the Frank Jones round of the first British Bike Championship...

Photo Courtesy Offroad Archives...

Richard made the trip from Colchester in Essex to the west riding of Yorkshire to ride his Girder Rigid Ariel in the West Riding round of the Sammy Miller championship.

As usual he asked permission to ride the more difficult versions of the sections wherever there was a sidecar/rigid easier option, and still won the class with a score that embarrassed some of the riders on telefork springers and the like.

But we all enjoyed seeing him every time he rode - and that , for me, is what it's all about. Deryk...

Photo Courtesy Lee Prescott Photos...

I must say that I love our old rigid Ariel and it rides so lightly. I removed the early Ariel teles from the bike in 2010 ...and fitted the MP ones, and I still think that the head angle was set up for a pair of girder forks..we will never know now...Charlie...

So we have a start to this page and it will continue as I find more interesting snippetts ...from the 100 editions...of Off Road Review... and get Deryk's input too...

Photo Deryk Wylde...

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