Edinburgh Trial

[Tony Griffiths]

It's the Edinburgh Trial tomorrow - usually a good showing of Austin Sevens and other intersting cars - and Mike Costigan and myself had planned to see the attempts on Litton Slack. Unfortunately, the weather looks as though it my be rather damp. If you don't know it, the history of the trial is quite something: https://www.themotorcyclingclub.org.uk/t...rgh-trial/

[JonE]

they seem to be over-egging the rain drops a little. The clouds aint big enough.

[Dennis Nicholas]

Now there is another story.
Did the Edinburgh one year in Nippy special ATR 860 with its 948 BMC A. Bit of hassle to start with...:-

Broken piston ring on one piston day before - phone round to try locate new rings - Spares supplier in Plymouth located - yes got - asked if he could send to north Devon on bus (they used to do things like that in those days) - certainly sir - few hours later met bus at Milton Damerel NW Devon and collected parcel off bus - with help from neighbour fitted rings and engine back into car and departed for journey to our start point - on one hill saw there was a quite wide deep hole on the section that was unavoidable....moderns just cruised across it with 3 wheels touching ground.....I said "no way, don't want to wreck car......passenger said give it a try we have come this far.....I said ok but will drive very slowly and gently across and ok we are likely to fail........Nippy cleared the section......they seem to go anywhere!

Dennis

[Tony Griffiths]

they seem to be over-egging the rain drops a little. The clouds aint big enough.

A correct was issued minutes later:

[austin]

The London to Edinburgh trial, no longer starts in London and doesn't end in Edinburgh!

Loads & loads of pictures here. Plenty of Austin 7s as well.

https://austinharris.co.uk/event/mcc-lon...-edinburgh

From the link above as worth a quick read:

The Edinburgh Trial was the first of the club’s big three trials.

Starting out from central London in 1904 motor cyclists had just 24 hours to reach Edinburgh city centre.

Whilst officials took the night train to keep ahead of the pioneers on their motor cycles, they faced a 400-mile challenge following the great North Road to Harrogate. They then criss crossed the dales and fells of Northern England, onwards through the Scottish Borders before racing into Edinburgh. This a decade before The Great War, when tarmac had only been patented in 1902, Orville Wright had not yet flown a powered aircraft and the Taj Mahal hadn’t even opened!

Despite these hardships the MCC only took a couple of years before claiming that London to Edinburgh was too easy, so doubled the length and made it London to Edinburgh and back to London, in 48 hours. After that cars were then allowed to enter, and the die was cast.

[Alan]

My Special took part in the 1933 Edinburgh. Unfortunately no decent photographs.

[Mike Costigan]

Definitely rain stopped play as far as spectating is concerned, so here's a nostalgic picture from fifty years ago:

[Stumpi]

We got the night run and a couple of hills done after breakfast.Then lack of fuel and the deteriorating weather defeated us.
170 miles with no problems was brilliant after careful preparation.
It was very rough in some places and getting down was more difficult than going up 
(and took longer).
Lakeland Trial next.