Vintage Thing No.16 - the Cox Triumph outfit
 |
| Binky and Ginger contemplate Bishop's Wood before nailing it and going BOBO - Ball's Out, Brain Off |
The photo above was taken by Charlie Wooding (the official MCC photographer) on the 2005 event in Bishop's Wood near Wadebridge moments just before our finest five minutes. This remains one of my highs in a sporadic competition career.
Career? I didn't get any money from it - I paid to do it. We just careered everywhere and it felt great, me, Rob and the Cox Triumph all doing our own thing and somehow going in roughly the same direction.
On this section, we had to cross a steep forestry track at an angle and then blast up a sunken lane between the trees. We went BOBO - "Ball's Out, Brain Off" - all the way, mostly airborne but sometimes in contact with the ground and the sides of the sunken lane. In fact we bounced from right to left as much as we bounced up and down, on the ragged edge all the way and I loved it!
One of the cars turned over and it felt like we were about to most of the time. We didn't though. Rob is an experienced solo trials rider and soon adapted to the outfit's tendency to pivot around the sidecar wheel. It was one of those exhilarating sections that you don't want to end and when it did I ached all over from my exertions and laughing so much.
The weather throughout that event was magnificent. The Cox Triumph developed a misfire as we travelled up through North Devon from the Launceston start but Rob had anticipated this eventuality and new plugs saw us on our way. After a promising start we failed a few sections but didn't care.
As we are both called Robert, there was a degree of confusion about who was doing what and when but some time during that night we became Binky and Ginger, the intrepid Boy's Own sidecar crew, pushing the competition trials sidecar envelope, in a muddy place somewhere in Blighty.
Girls in Radstock blew us kisses as they went home from their nightclubs and by morning small groups of locals had gathered by the course of the trial to watch our brave lads go by.
Pottering through a "Quiet" section somewhere in Devon soon after sunrise, we turned a corner to be greeted by the enthusiastic residents of the local farm, tucked up in blankets on their garden seat by the verge. Their children's bedroom window overlooked the farmhouse porch and all over the porch roof were their soft toys, given a grandstand view by their custodians who had tried to stay awake but failed.
A little later, we had to cross a valley and the road formed a big dipper. On the opposite side of the valley was a large group of children in charge of a couple of adults. As we drew near they waved so - naturally - we waved back. That was the signal for part two of their greeting.
From out of nowhere, they produced colour drawings and paintings of Easter bunnies, ducklings, daffodils and classic trials machinery! What a welcome! What a fantastic gesture!
The only downside to our trial was an inability to get off the line at Blue Hills 2. This section - the sting in the tail - was the one we wanted to really make a show of but we couldn't get the balance right between getting traction and not flipping the outfit.
Being awarded a coveted Finisher's Certificate at the Crossroads Motel(!) and chilling out with our fellow competitors was the finale to a great trial.
2006 couldn't be any better and it wasn't. After tackling Beggar's Roost in North Somerset, we were on our way again when the Cox Triumph stopped suddenly. After a good deal of pushing and shoving we unseized the gearbox but, once we'd got going again, there was a nasty ticking noise from it that increased with road speed. Rather than damage the outfit any more we retired and came home on the back of a lorry.
Then Rob moved house. The Triumph didn't get looked at until last year when Rob found a broken tooth. He fixed it and then sold it. An old rugby injury to his shoulder causes him a good deal of pain after being hunched over a pair of handlebars for a few hours so he hasn't the enthusiasm for further long distance events as he did. Besides, I think we both realised that the 2005 Land's End couldn't be bettered - well, maybe if we'd cleared Blue Hills!
 |
| That nice comfy seat proved the envy of all my rival sidecar acrobats |
The Cox Triumph was built by Mike Cox in 1996 and is based on a 1963 Triumph Bonneville so men and machine were all roughly the same age. The engine features a Morgo 750 barrels on the Bonnie bottom end topped off with a TR6 single carb head. Ignition was electronic and the Cox Triumph was always an eager starter. Mike Cox designed and built the chair and I can personally vouch for how comfortable it is. Many envious glances came our way from other outfit crews at pit stops during the trial and more than commented on how well padded our seats were - the bike's seats, I mean. And there were all sorts of useful cubby holes for spares and emergency rations even if the exhaust - routed through the nose of the sidecar did melt all our Mars Bars.
 |
| Heavy Metal trials iron |
The leading link forks and front wheel are Wasp items and the swing arm had a QD hub and was extended by two inches to put more weight on the front. Rob told me if he'd kept it he would have shortened the front shocks to increase this effect. Traction was never a problem but the front end often came up and caused him to throttle back just as things were getting interesting.
Rob still raves about the belt primary drive to the five speed box. We certainly gave it some beans.
I remember one occasion when we were practising near Rob's home on Salisbury Plain. We'd been green laning for a while when Rob mentioned a place known to the squaddies as Terror Hill. It's where the rolling landscape of the Plain doesn't roll so much as rocks. In the middle of nowhere a hill rises out of the plain. It's scarred by innumerable wheel tracks of heavy trucks and tanks and is where the military drivers learn about gradients and the importance of keeping up momentum. And grip.
It was inevitable that we should give it a go. We went BOBO again and gassed it. We got about two thirds the way up when we bounced across the deep ruts and I became air borne but this time all by myself. I didn't fly far and Rob broke my fall as the outfit tipped. Like a horse refusing a jump we went at it again starightaway.
It wasn't until I was back home the next morning that I found an acute pain in my ribs. I never discovered whether it was a cracked rib or just something muscular. There's no knotty lump on the rib so maybe I didn't break it and it didn't hurt enough to make a fuss of it.
This was the machine that sent us into orbit into different ways and morphed us into fly trialler boys Binky and Ginger. My rib was nothing compared with The Robster's shoulder injury. The bike didn't do that to him but like an experienced wrestler it made for the weak point and made an all night long distance trail too painful to contemplate again.
But the feeling of gunning it through Bishop's Wood and growing wings will always remain with me.
I hope the new owners have as much fun as we did.
Comments
Post a Comment