Dirt Bike History 101

Maybe you could get it for 14 even without the milk crate?

Verified from Mrs Smith that this is a youthful Mr Smith


Tim

I had the motorcross version - District 38 desert

Yes, Harley did produce dirt bikes. Back as far as 1957. The first Sportster XLCHs were dirt bikes complete with knobby tires and upswept pipes.

hah! he lowered to buy it now to 14 even but it fizzled at $9100.

who knows. thats a lot of cash but it might be worth more come springtime.

Here is a Rickman a friend is putting togather. Alum 500 motor with lots of tricks in it

Found a nice site with lots of vintage stuff if you look around.


http://dirtbike.off-road.com/dirtbike/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=573658&pageID=1

SuperHunky is running it.......I think.

Malcolm and Andrew Smith, John Dowd, and Darrel Schultz among others, will be competing at the snowbike races in McCall Idaho next Saturday Feb 7 2009.

http://mccallwintercarnival.com/project-filter-2moto-ground-zero-race.php

If your in the area, might be amusing to watch!!

I have a couple of slideshows for you......

Summer

http://www.pbase.com/uk_kev/pre_65_motocross&view=slideshow

and Autumn

http://kevindean.zenfolio.com/p1040756817/slideshow

Enjoy.
maybe I should do one with the video this year?

Wow, great pics. Now THAT'S vintage racing!
I'm sure some great sounds associated with that too! I would love to see some UK pre-65 stuff sometime when I get back over.

JEEBUS!
Ya gotta love Malcolm. 70 years young and still acting like a teenager.
I got to meet him and Alexander at his shop in Riverside about ten
years ago. Perfect gentleman with a kids ornery twinkle.
A true ambassador for a sometimes misunderstood sport.

Yeah, wish I could be there to see it. I'll see if a buddy can snap some shots for me. If so, I'll post them up here after the weekend.

Wow, 102 pages and counting! I've only read the first 9 pages so far, so apologies if I'm repeating things that have already been said.

In this area (northern Michigan) the first dirt races I saw in the early 60's were called scrambles. The bikes were pretty much all British twins and singles with a few modified Harley's tossed in. The tracks were fairly wide with rolling hills and sweeping turns. I always figured the Honda "scrambler" models took their name from these types of races.

In the mid-60's a local dealer started selling Bultaco's and everything changed overnight. Those little 2-strokes could keep up with the heavy iron on the straights and smoked them in the curves. Other European models started showing up and the big 4-strokes were gone from the scene in a few years.

The hills got steeper, the curves got tighter, and the name changed to motocross right about then, at least here locally. I was so impressed by those little Bultaco's that my first dirt bike was a 1965 Bultaco 175 Campera. These and similar models from Ossa and Montesa predated the Yamaha DT-1 by a couple of years, and I always figured the Yamaha enduro line was pretty much just a copy of them.. Mine had great suspension and handling for the day and looked just like this one:

Well, all I got was a forward of a short video clip from a cellphone. Not even Youtube-able or quality. Hopefully someone else was there and got some pics. Sorry!!

This has just poped up for sale at one of my local bike shops.









Apparently its a 72 Bultaco Matador fitted with a Persang tank and Preston Petty guards and they're asking AU$1000...

Tempted...

Found some shots from the race on flickr. Not sure who is who. Photo credit to the owner of the flickr account!! Wish I could have been there!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/albertphoto/with/3260956245/
Knowing Malcolm, he would be right in the middle of the mix!!

My Pursang in '76 at Fremont rough scrambles and in 2003, just before I sold it to someone who wanted to restore it. He got a great deal.

I miss this one.

That CZ is giving its pilot the business for cuttin' the course!

IMO the development of fast, lightweight, good-handling European 2-strokes in the mid-60's may have been the single biggest revolution in off-road motorcycling. Up to that point if you wanted to ride or race on dirt you were pretty much restricted to modifying a British twin or single.

The British sleds pretty much disappeared from most serious dirt competition by the late 1960's and true motocross took off. That paved the way for the Japanese to jump into the game by the early 1970's, and then innovations went wild.

It's been steady development since then, but the revolution of the 1960's turned the world on it's ear in just a few short years.