Felix Krahnstöver's enthusiastic editorial in TRIALSPORT at the end of 1978 certainly contributed to the positive development of bicycle trials in the following period. Some things that had previously been dismissed as child's play in the world of motorcycle trials were now taken seriously and embraced.
In Emmendingen in south-west Germany, the Unterer Breisgau car and motorbike club began organising bicycle trials in 1979 – this was the club of Andreas Kromer (born 1967) and Hansjörg Rey (born 1966). The club's first bicycle trial was a thank you to young people who had acted as observers at motorcycle trials – a similar story to that in Engabrunn, Austria, in 1972! In ‘Gernot's Bike Corner’ in TRIALSPORT (which had been around since issue 55/October 1980), I wrote in my report on the third bicycle trial in Emmendingen on 25 October 1980: "Gerd Wätzig (...) turned the event there into a (...) counterpart to the Fürstenhagen bicycle trial centre in a short space of time. (...) In view of the (...) decision to expand the geographical scope of the bicycle races (for the 1981 Velo Trial Cup), this further (...) closure of a blank spot on the bicycle trial map can also be seen as another step towards a German championship. In any case, this word is being used more and more often." 1
The Fürstenhagen boys first took part in the bicycle trial in Bad Nauheim in 1978, and in 1980 (there were five rounds in the Velo Trial Pokal that year), the Bad Nauheim bicycle trial was the first VTP race to take place outside the Fürstenhagen area. In 1981, the Velo Trial Cup was held nationwide for the first time in seven races. Among the organisers was Brake near Bielefeld, a motorcycle trial organiser that had already held rounds for the Henri Groutars Cup since 1964 and a round for the Trial World Championship in 1977. 2 In 1982, the Velo Trial Cup became the first German Bicycle Trial Championship, which was organised at the time by the Deutsche Trialsport Gemeinschaft (DTSG) – the German Cycling Federation (BDR) was not yet involved in bicycle trials at that time. The number of organisers continued to grow steadily in 1982, and this year's German Championships featured a model with preliminary rounds in the north and south regions as well as national rounds. In 1980 and 1981, Kai Schlieper from Fürstenhagen won the Velo Trial Cup, in 1981 narrowly ahead of the up-and-coming Hansjörg Rey from Emmendingen, who became the first German champion in bicycle trials in 1982.
The organisational work behind the scenes, for the Velo Trial Cup and also for its expansion to the German Championship, was in the hands of Günter Schlieper from Fürstenhagen, Kai Schlieper's father. At the time, Günter Schlieper was chairman of the DTSG and a member of the Trial Committee of the Supreme Motorcycle Sports Commission (OMK). He worked quietly but tirelessly for bicycle trials, and his name must therefore be highlighted in relation to the organisation of German bicycle trials. He was also chairman of MSC Weser-Solling in Fürstenhagen, which hosted the German round of the first Eurocup in bicycle trials in 1982. Günter Schlieper later told me that at the time he had a bitter opponent on the OMK Trial Committee in Hermann Neukirchen (his son Matthias Neukirchen became German motorcycle trials champion in 1987), who wanted nothing to do with bicycle trials in the field of motorcycle racing and thwarted many of his efforts to promote bicycle trials at the time.