OffRoad Giants! Heroes of 1960s Motorcycle Sport Andy Westlake eBook
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If you can recall watching motorcycle scrambles and trials on your black and white TV during the 1960s, then this is the book for you. It’s a trip down memory lane as the author recalls boyhood journeys in his big brothers ex-GPO van to watch the stars in action, some of the world’s best, including scramblers like the Sharp brothers, Badger Goss and Ivor England, trials riders Gordon Jackson, Max King and the Kendalls, and great all-rounders like Ken Heanes, Johnny Giles and the American Bud Ekins. Not only does it include the star riders, but also the main British manufacturers of the time like BSA, Triumph, James, Greeves, Metisse, Cheney and Wasp, the latter two of which are still in existence to this day. However, the book isn’t just about bikes – it’s about the people and their stories from illustrious and successful careers on two and three wheels, which makes for a thoroughly interesting and captivating read.
eBook ISBN 978-1-845845-89-6 (9781845845896)
Print ISBN 978-1-845841-90-4 (9781845841904)
OffRoad Giants! Heroes of 1960s Motorcycle Sport Andy Westlake eBook
Many of us look back at the days of our youth with fondness, especially our early experiences at sporting events, where our impressionability creates indelible memories. The sporting heroes we chose in our youth usually remain our favorites for the rest of our lives. This is just as true for motorcycle enthusiasts as it is for baseball or football fans. When Andy Westlake wrote his slim, but beautifully produced volume Off-Road Giants: Heroes of 1960s Motorcycle Sport, he was certainly wearing a pair of rose colored glasses, but he clearly feels that that 1960s era of scrambles and trials riding was a sort of golden era of two-wheeled competition. Great Britain was just emerging from the hardships of the Second World War and the forced austerity of the 1950s. The Beatles were on the radio, television was just making its presence felt and, for rural lads, who were raised on the farm or working on cars or motorcycles that required lots of maintenance, off-road racing was a wonderful diversion from school and work. So, these young men learned to ride motorcycles across sodden pastures, boggy paths and over rocky terrain. On the weekends, they went out to see other young men who had really mastered riding high-powered motorcycles at racing speeds over natural courses in observed trials or scrambles (cross-country races held on circuits are now called motocross in the United Kingdom, but then they were known as "scrambles') races.The author, Mr. Westlake, turned to sports journalism after being "made redundant" as lay-offs are called in the vernacular of our British cousins. A resident of the Southwest of England, he has forged a second career as a motor sports writer. This book is a highly personal one, as Westlake actually grew up watching the stars he writes about in the book, traveling in the back of his older brother's second-hand postal van to some of the very races covered in the volume and he later competed himself. He clearly relished the opportunity to meet the men he watched race when he was a schoolboy. Because television was just beginning to cover motor sports live, a Scrambles meeting could draw crowds in the tens of thousands, even on a sodden or blustery English day. So, most of the men covered in this book were once household names to many Britons.
Westlake's little volume, which was produced by the excellent specialist publisher Veloce, is broken up into a series of well-written, tightly edited profiles on sixteen prominent motorcycle competitors, fifteen British riders and one lone American, the colorful Triumph rider Bud Ekins. While Ekins hailed from in the land of my own youth in California, he rode extensively in England and the continent, where he won Gold Medals in the International Six Day Trials and performed the famous motorcycle stunt in the Great Escape, which starred his motorcycle buddy, Steve McQueen. I was drawn to the book because of my interest in the Rickman-Metisse motorcycles that Ekins brought to California and that a number of the riders in the book rode, bikes that were part of my own youthful motorcycle experiences. While Off Road Giants is really aimed at a U.K. audience, I recommend it highly to American readers for whom much of the history will be new as the riders and events covered drew only cursory coverage in the pages of American motorcycle magazines such as Cycle World, Cycle Magazine or Cycle Guide.
Each of the short biographical sketches are accompanied by high quality photographs of the era, many of them from the files of the Dorset sports phototgapher Gordon Francis. The images are well chosen, beautifully reproduced and nicely laid out. Westlake's sixteen profiles include stellar off road trials and scrambles riders like Ivor England, Bryan Goss, Ken Kendall and Triss Sharp, all of whom were interviewed for the book. Through these keen competitors eye's the reader will see not only the ups, downs and outright failures that are always part of motor sports competition, but also the issues that led to the precipitous decline of the British motorcycle industry and the rise and eventual dominance of their European and Japanese competitors. It is hard to imagine that in the days that many of these men rode, motorcycles were that green, sceptered isle's second biggest export.
While the 1960s was an era of dramatic change, it was truly a better era to grow up as a motor sports fan. Major commercial sponsorships were then in their infancy, so every square inch of a motorcycle or racing car was not yet branded with ugly logos. The riders or racers were more accessible and in motocross, you could get close enough to the races to reach out and touch your heroes. You were pummeled with the dirt or mud from their wheels as they sped by, their rear wheels searching for traction on the undulating surfaces. In those days, the riders came to the race in a van like the spectators did. And, without the intrusive security that plagues us today, it wasn't difficult to meet and speak to them. Today, everything is much more highly structured and organized, so much so, that athletes of all types are usually well insulated from the fans that insure their success. While modern television coverage allows us to see every detail or a race or a game, it has also made fans lazy and so precious few spectators venture out in the elements today, so sports fans don't experience the sights and smells that made an impression on young fans in the era of the writer's youth. While I have read of a English scramble in 1960 with a crowd of 60,000 spectators, even major races now draw a tiny fraction of that because it is far easier to watch on the ubiquitous television.
Because the book is slim with only 122 pages of text, the biographies are not deep or insightful, but that is not their intent. The concept for the book was not to provide an exhaustive recapping of long ago events and races, but to give nostalgic older motorcycle enthusiasts like myself something to recall and enjoy or to educate younger riders who may be active in the growing sport of vintage motocross. These young riders are now developing an interest in the riders and engineers who gave them the wonderfully capable but less interesting motorcycles they ride today.
Apparently, there is a volume II in the works, which will be released early in 2011. This book will include profiles of the fast as well as innovative Rickman Brothers - Derek and Don - and other British scrambling greats like Vic Eastwood. I'll look forward to reading this second book when it arrives at the bookseller, new agent or that other great example of modernity, Amazon.com.
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OffRoad Giants! Heroes of 1960s Motorcycle Sport Andy Westlake eBook Reviews
This book is quite informative. Although I missunderstood the description thinking it was about American riders, the book turned out to be quite informative and enjoyable to read.
Wonderful account of early motocross history.
Thanks!!!
Must have for any fan of the 1960's Brit scrambles scene.
For a motorcycle restorer of 60's off road Brit bikes...must have.
This book is really cool. It goes through the years from the '50's to the '60's, In 1963, I became a fan of these bikes & riders. The start of modern Motocross & Trials, I used to try my hand at the Trials ride on my CZ 125. Keep your feet on the pegs. Also did some 'Scrambling' the birth of motocross. In short there are a number of great riders, telling their stories. It's a credit to their skills to be able to ride some of these 'beasts', Matchless, BSA, & Triumph. Then slowly transition to the 2-stroke makes, James, Cotton & Greeves. Ton's of great pictures. Strap on your boots & helmet & go fast. That was the attair back then, no 'pads' just guts.
Many of us look back at the days of our youth with fondness, especially our early experiences at sporting events, where our impressionability creates indelible memories. The sporting heroes we chose in our youth usually remain our favorites for the rest of our lives. This is just as true for motorcycle enthusiasts as it is for baseball or football fans. When Andy Westlake wrote his slim, but beautifully produced volume Off-Road Giants Heroes of 1960s Motorcycle Sport, he was certainly wearing a pair of rose colored glasses, but he clearly feels that that 1960s era of scrambles and trials riding was a sort of golden era of two-wheeled competition. Great Britain was just emerging from the hardships of the Second World War and the forced austerity of the 1950s. The Beatles were on the radio, television was just making its presence felt and, for rural lads, who were raised on the farm or working on cars or motorcycles that required lots of maintenance, off-road racing was a wonderful diversion from school and work. So, these young men learned to ride motorcycles across sodden pastures, boggy paths and over rocky terrain. On the weekends, they went out to see other young men who had really mastered riding high-powered motorcycles at racing speeds over natural courses in observed trials or scrambles (cross-country races held on circuits are now called motocross in the United Kingdom, but then they were known as "scrambles') races.
The author, Mr. Westlake, turned to sports journalism after being "made redundant" as lay-offs are called in the vernacular of our British cousins. A resident of the Southwest of England, he has forged a second career as a motor sports writer. This book is a highly personal one, as Westlake actually grew up watching the stars he writes about in the book, traveling in the back of his older brother's second-hand postal van to some of the very races covered in the volume and he later competed himself. He clearly relished the opportunity to meet the men he watched race when he was a schoolboy. Because television was just beginning to cover motor sports live, a Scrambles meeting could draw crowds in the tens of thousands, even on a sodden or blustery English day. So, most of the men covered in this book were once household names to many Britons.
Westlake's little volume, which was produced by the excellent specialist publisher Veloce, is broken up into a series of well-written, tightly edited profiles on sixteen prominent motorcycle competitors, fifteen British riders and one lone American, the colorful Triumph rider Bud Ekins. While Ekins hailed from in the land of my own youth in California, he rode extensively in England and the continent, where he won Gold Medals in the International Six Day Trials and performed the famous motorcycle stunt in the Great Escape, which starred his motorcycle buddy, Steve McQueen. I was drawn to the book because of my interest in the Rickman-Metisse motorcycles that Ekins brought to California and that a number of the riders in the book rode, bikes that were part of my own youthful motorcycle experiences. While Off Road Giants is really aimed at a U.K. audience, I recommend it highly to American readers for whom much of the history will be new as the riders and events covered drew only cursory coverage in the pages of American motorcycle magazines such as Cycle World, Cycle Magazine or Cycle Guide.
Each of the short biographical sketches are accompanied by high quality photographs of the era, many of them from the files of the Dorset sports phototgapher Gordon Francis. The images are well chosen, beautifully reproduced and nicely laid out. Westlake's sixteen profiles include stellar off road trials and scrambles riders like Ivor England, Bryan Goss, Ken Kendall and Triss Sharp, all of whom were interviewed for the book. Through these keen competitors eye's the reader will see not only the ups, downs and outright failures that are always part of motor sports competition, but also the issues that led to the precipitous decline of the British motorcycle industry and the rise and eventual dominance of their European and Japanese competitors. It is hard to imagine that in the days that many of these men rode, motorcycles were that green, sceptered isle's second biggest export.
While the 1960s was an era of dramatic change, it was truly a better era to grow up as a motor sports fan. Major commercial sponsorships were then in their infancy, so every square inch of a motorcycle or racing car was not yet branded with ugly logos. The riders or racers were more accessible and in motocross, you could get close enough to the races to reach out and touch your heroes. You were pummeled with the dirt or mud from their wheels as they sped by, their rear wheels searching for traction on the undulating surfaces. In those days, the riders came to the race in a van like the spectators did. And, without the intrusive security that plagues us today, it wasn't difficult to meet and speak to them. Today, everything is much more highly structured and organized, so much so, that athletes of all types are usually well insulated from the fans that insure their success. While modern television coverage allows us to see every detail or a race or a game, it has also made fans lazy and so precious few spectators venture out in the elements today, so sports fans don't experience the sights and smells that made an impression on young fans in the era of the writer's youth. While I have read of a English scramble in 1960 with a crowd of 60,000 spectators, even major races now draw a tiny fraction of that because it is far easier to watch on the ubiquitous television.
Because the book is slim with only 122 pages of text, the biographies are not deep or insightful, but that is not their intent. The concept for the book was not to provide an exhaustive recapping of long ago events and races, but to give nostalgic older motorcycle enthusiasts like myself something to recall and enjoy or to educate younger riders who may be active in the growing sport of vintage motocross. These young riders are now developing an interest in the riders and engineers who gave them the wonderfully capable but less interesting motorcycles they ride today.
Apparently, there is a volume II in the works, which will be released early in 2011. This book will include profiles of the fast as well as innovative Rickman Brothers - Derek and Don - and other British scrambling greats like Vic Eastwood. I'll look forward to reading this second book when it arrives at the bookseller, new agent or that other great example of modernity, .
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