Old Bike Mart Magazine February 2013 Retour à l'édition précédente

There we were, thinking the winter was going to miss us and basking in very mild weather for the time of year when, uh-oh, down came the snow. This threw the whole country in to turmoil and caused any number of grave looking experts to be featured on the telly to explain why it snows in winter.
It also threw up a programme made about the ‘Great Snows of 1963’ which had a series of clips showing life during those storms when there was actually quite a lot of snow and the temperature did dip well below freezing for quite a long time.
One of these clips showed sporting fixtures disrupted by the weather and had a shot of the, I think, Chelsea football team taking extreme measures to get a game in... they flew off to somewhere warmer, boy did they look disappointed to be leaving the cold and the snow behind.
In that short film of sporting activity was a minute or so of ‘motorcycle scrambling’ listed as unaffected by the weather and, claimed the commentator, probably better and more fun for the extreme conditions.
Let’s leave out the fact that the motorcycle sport depicted was actually trials riding and probably a local event rather than something of British championship level – though I fancy one of the riders looked like racer John Hartle who was involved in a Velocette trials project. When not racing Hartle was a pretty handy trials rider and, like a lot of the stars of the day, used the feet-up world to sharpen his reactions and keep fit during the off-season. Anyway, the clip was over too fast for any real identification.
That winter of 1963 lasted ages, thawed then froze yet again. I know that feeling as I recently chose the coldest day possible to spend a bit of time in the workshop fettling the B40. Which, with one thing and another, is still in bits – though by the time you read this should actually be together.
Tim.