The Seventies

The post-war economic boom, which lasted into the 1970s, was also a period of increasing motorisation, particularly from the 1960s onwards. At the same time, the so-called leisure society emerged. The motorcycle, which had been replaced by the more comfortable car as an everyday vehicle, was now rediscovered as a leisure and sports equipment. In 1967, the book ‘Sport mit Motorrädern’ (Motorcycle Sports) by Crius (Christian Christophe) was published, a very popular guide to getting started in motorcycle sports at the time, which went through several editions.

Like other motorcycle sports, trials riding also experienced a corresponding upswing. According to the dates listed in the newsletter of the German trials riding association FAHRERLAGER, a total of 22 trial competitions took place in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1964. The successor magazine, TRIALSPORT, recorded 118 trial events in its founding year of 1976. In other countries where trials were held, the development during this period was likely to have been similar. The number of rounds in the European Trials Championship, created in 1967, rose in the same way from five in the first season to thirteen in 1974.

In addition to increasing motorisation and the emergence of the leisure society, there was a third factor that promoted enthusiasm for motorcycles and thus also trials riding at that time, namely the spirit of 1968, as it is referred to in retrospect today. This may sound surprising, but it is actually obvious that a trend which broadly led to the emergence of a tolerant, youthful and fun-loving zeitgeist, as can be seen from the longer hair and more colourful clothing, wallpaper and even cars, was more in line with the enthusiasm for motorcycles in an emerging leisure society than it was opposed to it.

In Germany, the spirit of 1968 paved the way for important political changes, such as Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, which focused on understanding rather than mere confrontation during the Cold War. The focus was now on equal opportunities in society and thus on social conditions, with some quite mundane effects. For example, attention was now being paid to the previously neglected youth and youth work was being carried out; in 1973, the Bad Nauheim City Youth Council was founded in this context, which acted as the official organiser of the bicycle trials held in Bad Nauheim from 1974 onwards.

Overall, however, one gets the impression that the originally politically motivated 1968 movement has been overtaken (or ‘saturated’) by the achievements of progress. ¹ Even in the USA, where the 1968 movement had gained strength in opposition to the Vietnam War, it rapidly lost influence in the 1970s, even though the Vietnam War continued until 1975. The fact that the Woodstock Festival (1969) became a symbol of the 1968 movement clearly shows how much the original political energy had now flowed into the expanding music scene and the world of leisure. The same could be observed with the second major symbol of the 1968 movement. The film Easy Rider (also 1969), which was cult even though the word did not yet exist in the 1970s, had a socially critical background, but was primarily a music film and also a road movie, a motorbike film about freedom on two wheels. Here, too, the focus was no longer on political freedom for all, but on the self-realisation of the individual, which was equated with the goals of the 1968 movement.

The enthusiasm for motorcycles in the new leisure society was also promoted and ideologically heightened by the influence of the 1968 movement. That may seem naive from today's perspective, but that was the atmosphere of those years. Who would write or read a book like Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance today? It's hard to believe who all succumbed to motorcycle enthusiasm back then – a remnant of this are the many older motorcyclists of today – and how many older gentlemen, who you wouldn't even recognise as such today, rode motocross or trials bikes in the 1970s! Spectators were also infected by the spirit of the times and, unlike today, flocked to events in droves, even if they had nothing to do with motorcycles.

In the early 1970s, posters were something completely new. I remember a brochure that depicted the entire, still manageable product range and thus provided a perfect overview of the topics of the time. These were the moon landing (for the first time, you could see the blue planet in all its beauty from the outside! This change of perspective was much more impressive than the pictures from the moon), anti-war photos (the peace symbol or the black-and-white photo of an American soldier in Vietnam who, fatally wounded, threw his weapon into the air with the big headline WHY?), lots of psychedelic posters with all kinds of color patterns that took advantage of the effects now possible, nature and animal photos, posters of Jimmy Hendrix, Racquel Welch, and Che Guevara, but above all, posters of Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper on their choppers in the movie Easy Rider were a must. Of course, there were also posters of motorcycle racing and a few of Formula 1, but in comparison, there were a surprising number of motocross posters.

This was very different from today and certainly had something to do with the fact that motocross was experiencing a boom in the USA at the time and was spectacular. Off-road motorcycling as a whole was also extremely popular in Europe during this period. There was a whole range of road motorcycles called “scramblers” that had raised exhaust systems. It is clear that trials riding also benefited greatly from this development, even though it was already overshadowed by other motorcycle sports at the time.

For bicycle trials, the founding of many new trial clubs meant that enthusiasm for something new and conditions such as those in Ebstorf in 1961 were now more common. Bicycle trials were in the air, even if no one was aware of it at the time. However, it required the support of adults who recognised and encouraged the children's enthusiasm. And it then required the further expansion of such activities and their supra-regional coordination so that bicycle trials did not die out again, but became an independent discipline. This was the case in Germany and Spain (Catalonia) in the 1970s.