That’s what they ask me when they see me aboard my Sherpa doing trials. And they are partly right, why having a modern motorcycle, which brakes, dampens and accelerates much better you use that clamp?, because those reasons, already weighty, will serve to explain this incomprehensible why.
To begin with, this sport, like
any other passion in life
, has a lot of sentimentality. Our experiences are a mixture of experiences and memories that we will always have in our heads, materially, we keep objects that make us relive those times and here the story begins.
Because of my age, the golden age of Spanish trial, I didn’t experience it first-hand like others I know. I was caught when I was 7 years old and from then on I saw the older ones doing areas in the mountains. Then on my bike I tried to emulate them, admiring the sound of their machines, the juggling they did, those sensations made me dream. And over time, because I had a trial bike, I signed up for the races, but the memory stayed there.
And I have to mention my friend Toño Villanueva, who is to blame for me liking the classics. We met in the modern ones, but what he liked, and likes, are the classics. And I looked at him like a weird guy (between us, something weird is, hahaha) thinking what he was doing with a clamp that didn’t brake, cushion or accelerate like the modern one. And I don’t tell you when I climbed into his prized champion kit!, what a brick!. But he put the poison in me.
And I bought
a classic bike, and I struggled trying to make it work
, and I sold it, and I bought another, and then another, until I found my Sherpa Manuel Soler. Like a love story, you meet beautiful girls who don’t fall in love with you, until you find the one you really like, the one who knows how to treat you. Well, that’s what happens with classic motorcycles, it’s a strange feeling and above all, irrational.
Getting an old bike in running order is quite complicated and expensive. There are different degrees of restoration here. There are those who leave them for display, impeccable and 100% original and there are those who choose to make them 100% functional to compete with them. And this is where the controversies among fans of this specialty begin. How far can we go without altering the classic spirit of the frame? This can be enough for another article, so I’ll leave the baton for those who want to take it. Then it’s time to roll it in the races. With these bikes you can do more than you think. You only have to look at photos of yesteryear doing incredible areas, well, from this moment on it’s time to try to make the areas that you did with the modern one, and the difficulties begin.
We have to change the chip. With these you can’t, or rather, you shouldn’t, move, you accelerate in another way, and you don’t jump. The wheels are better on the ground. Ahh, and the steps, better for young ladies. You start to learn how to position your body, how to put your weight in its place, how to help her get up, you learn the basics better, because modern music helps you so much that you don’t perceive mistakes as such. And you enjoy it more and more, without having to do barbarities to feel the adrenaline flow, you begin to see that you enjoy more than with the modern ones, that there are areas in which they are more effective, in short, that you are more and more comfortable.
This enjoyment also comes from adjusting the bike, improving it little by little, or better, adapting it to your tastes. In these details you are making YOUR BIKE, your work, a lot of time invested that gives you a satisfaction that a modern one, at least to me, has never given me.
This is what I like about old motorcycles, you have to find your bike, you have to make it to your liking, you have to learn to ride it, and of course, you have to learn to pamper it to do some “little number”, like leaving you stranded, without throwing it down the mountain. These are the ingredients to enjoy it, to take it to the races and give you the pleasure of making them live for what they were conceived. And they don’t have to be classic races, you will also have a great time in the modern ones, seeing how far they are able to beat their younger sisters.
Pedro Gonzalez Aldatz
