Six Days of Poetry: Motorcycle Trials Riders Dwell in Physical Profundity

If MotoGP racers are the 100-meter Olympians of the Temple of the Motorcycle, trials riders are its slam poetry masters. Able to travel where seasoned goats would think twice about clapping their cloven hooves, trials riders are the devils in the details of offroad.

And the place they will congregate for mass, for worship and for penance is as old and tough as gneiss. It's a land situated on the northern chunk of a somewhat well-known Atlantic island and is called Scotland by many, and Satan's Playground by others.

Aye, but there are few idle minds at recreation in the Scottish Six DaysTrial. It's the annual gruelathon that pits the world's finest in trials beyond what, quite honestly, would appear to be mentally healthy. That's leaving the physical aspects out of it.

Now this sport draws to it a species of creature whose need for speed is recurrently overwhelmed by a timing for climbing. It's less about flat-sticking it and chucking earth clods at enemies than it is about riding motorcycles up waterfalls and walls.

Brantfordian Jordan Szoke, an ESR sponsoree, is a Canadian Motorcycle Observed Trials champion, and also a Canadian Superbike Champion. For road racers, riding trials is like reading for authors; it makes one a more competent knowledgeable all-rounder - conditions the id to remain calm while inhabiting extended periods of extreme insanity.

More on Jordan here http://www.motourage.net/2010/08/jordan-szoke-crowned-cma-observed-trials-champion/

Yesterday, while waiting on my 40k service, upstairs at Budds' BMW - where they sure hide the bikes well (it's almost like Mr Budds' ashamed or something), I got talking to bike sales guy Steve Crouch about many hundreds of things, when in walked Pete, a man I'd guess to be in his early sixties. He'd competed at the Six Days and had the hat to prove it. I gave him my card, asking him to send pics and videos, as this makes him an automatic local hero to us ESRers.

Until such time as I receive, I leave you with a few snacks.

http://www.observedtrials.net/vb/

http://www.ssdt.org/

Hey, I'm over here... http://EatSleepRIDE.com/rider/champers