Felix Krahnstöver and Pere Pi

Felix Krahnstöver's encounter with bicycle trials in Fürstenhagen, described in the last paragraph of the page ‘The Beginnings in Germany’, was to have far-reaching consequences. Krahnstöver was not only a dealer for Montesa trial motorcycles, but also a factory rider for Montesa. In this capacity, he travelled to the Montesa factory in Barcelona (Esplugues) two or three times a year, where he always met with Pere Pi (Pere Pi i Parera, born in 1940; at that time he was still called Pedro Pi), the then head of the research and development department at Montesa. During his visit to Pere Pi in March 1979, Felix Krahnstöver enthusiastically reported on the boys in Fürstenhagen and informed him about the existence of bicycle trials in Germany. This was the first contact between the two developments of bicycle trials in Germany and Catalonia, which until then had been unaware of each other.

Pere Pi's first encounter with Bici trials

At that time, Pere Pi had already come into contact with Catalan "bici-trial", albeit rather involuntarily. Pere Pi, who had been six-time Spanish motocross champion between 1961 and 1966 and the first Spanish trials champion in 1968, wanted his son Ot (Ot Pi, born in 1970) to follow in his footsteps and become a successful motocross rider—I know this from stories told by Felix Krahnstöver. In September 1977, however, Ot crashed during a children's motocross and trial event in Montornès del Vallès and refused to touch a motorcycle ever again. 1 That's why Ot was now supposed to compete in the rapidly developing sport of bici-trial, since he wasn't riding a motorcycle.

But to do this, Ot needed a trials bike, which Pere Pi built with the help of the staff in his research and development department at Montesa, just as he had done previously with the children's motorbike for Ot. This fits with what Pere Pi said in a 2006 interview for Desmond Lee's video ‘Leaps&Bounds’: ‘This sport came to me when Ot was seven and needed a bike’ – right after Ot's fall in September 1977, because Ot was born on 22 September 1970. 2 Accordingly, Ot's first bicycle was ready in 1978. 3 In the same year, Ot rode his first bici-trial in Bellaterra (near Sabadell). 4

Ot's participation in bike trials was only intended as a stopgap solution and a temporary measure to enable Ot to take part in trial events at all. As Pere Pi himself writes, he had ‘NO idea that such a thing as bike trials even existed until (...) Felix Krahnstöver came to Montesa. Until then, I knew nothing about it; I was involved in the world of motorcycles ...’. 5 That is why it was a key moment for Pere Pi when Felix Krahnstöver enthusiastically told him about bicycle trials in Germany during a visit in March 1979. Pi now recognised the opportunities that bicycle trials offered and quickly turned his attention to this sport, which was developing rapidly in both Spain and Germany at the time.

  1. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ot_Pi 11 March, 2019 ↩
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXiMkDnQmos(Pere Pi, 2006, 1:36:12). – In his autobiography a few years later, Pere Pi gives a date one year earlier for the construction of the special bicycle for Ot: ‘I started in 1976 when Ot was 6 years old’ (‘La empecé en el 1976 cuando Ot tenia 6 años’); Pere Pi: No tengo 200 años, 2012, p. 253. The date of 1976, moved forward by one year, is apparently intended to make the turn to bicycle trials appear to be his own idea and to avoid the impression that it was a turn to the already existing Bici-Trial that came about due to external circumstances, namely Ot's fall in September 1977. ↩
  3. ‘This bicycle was the precursor to the later Montesita T-5 (...), the first prototype of which was completed around 1978’ (Aquella bicicleta fou l’embrió de la futura Montesita T-5 (...), el primer prototipus de la qual estigué enllestit cap a 1978); https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montesita 07 March 2019 ↩
  4. Pere Pi: No tengo 200 años, 2012, p. 297. ↩
  5. „… no tenia NINGUNA referencia de que existiera algo de trial en bicicleta hasta que (venia) Felix Krahnstöver a Montesa. Hasta aqui yo no sabia nada, yo estaba en el mundo de la moto …“; Pere Pi: No tengo 200 años, 2012, p. 255 ↩