I Got to Know Pere Pi

In the course of 1979, I actually got in touch with Pere Pi – Felix Krahnstöver had given me his address. I wrote to him that I had organised my first bicycle trial in Bad Nauheim in 1974 and I also enclosed the first article on this subject from FAHRERLAGER: ‘Trialsport ohne Motor’ (Trial sport without a motor). Pi was now familiar with the Fürstenhagen film, he knew the date of 25 May 1974, when the first bicycle trial known at the time took place in Bad Nauheim, and he had the article ‘Trialsport ohne Motor’ from FAHRERLAGER. At this point, the story with Pere Pi took a dramatic turn. One pricks up one's ears when reading sentences like this in his autobiography, published in 2012: ‘Only a few can use the word “invent” in the case of bicycle trials, unless they are patented.’ ¹ Is this the mentality in business, that everything that is not protected by patents is copied? I believe that historical facts are not suitable for patenting and take the position of the historian who ‘should merely show how it actually was’ (Franz Leopold von Ranke, 1795-1886). So how was it?

Pere Pi then gave the bicycle trial the name ‘Trialsin’ – ‘trial without’: ‘The name Bici-Trial was replaced by Trialsin, as it was a trial without exhaust fumes, without an engine and without noise ... That was in 1979.’ ²  Pere Pi thus adopted the exact title of the article ‘Trialsport ohne Motor’ (Motorless Trial Sport), which I had sent him a few months earlier. The article and headline were written by Sven Kuuse (1923-2003), editor of FAHRERLAGER magazine. The Fürstenhagen promotional film for bicycle trials, which Felix Krahnstöver had brought with him on his second visit to Pere Pi in the summer of 1979, was copied one-to-one in the same way and a practically identical Montesita promotional film was shot – incidentally, in even poorer quality than the Fürstenhagen film. ³ And the third element, the date 1974 of the oldest bicycle trials known at the time in Bad Nauheim, was also ‘copied’ by Pere Pi and from then on ran like a magic number through his historical accounts of bicycle trials – whether he (initially) tried to ‘achieve’ this date with changing (!) stories, or whether he (later) consistently concealed this date.

The story Pere Pi used to reach the date 1974 was as follows:
"In 1974, Ot – Pedro Pi's son – was four years old. It was quite normal for a child of that age to want a bicycle. (...) Pedro Pi then decided to build such an (off-road) bicycle himself, as he worked at the Montesa motorcycle factory. (...) The new bicycle was built with a special geometry that made it easier for Ot to manoeuvre. This allowed 4-year-old Ot to ride up an 18 cm high step without having to use his foot for support." ⁴ It was on this occasion that he came up with the idea of bicycle trials.

I first read this story in a magazine article that Pere Pi sent me months later, towards the end of the year, in response to a letter I had written to him after returning from Spain in the spring of 1979, together with brochures for the then new Montesita T-10. Today, I think that Pere Pi needed that time to get the story described in the previous paragraph published in a magazine and then present it to me together with the material about the Montesita T-10, which had been completed in the meantime. I found this story dubious from the outset and thought to myself that at the time in question I had not only had an – alleged – idea, but had actually organised an event. I showed the article to my parents at the time to see what they thought of it. My mother immediately became angry: ‘That's mean!’, ‘Anyone can claim that!’ and ‘A four-year-old! That's ridiculous!’ My father added: ‘Especially since he has completely different opportunities in his factory than you do!’ I have forgotten some things, but I have retained my parents' spontaneous reaction.

Meine Mutter behielt recht. Aus einem in einem Interview, das Pere Pi 2014 für die Seite Retrotrials.com gab, veröffentlichen Foto ging 35 Jahre später hervor, daß Ot Pi zwar tatsächlich über die besagte 18 cm-Stufe gefahren war, aber nicht 1974 im Alter von vier, sondern im Sommer 1979 im Alter von neun Jahren. ⁵ Das fügt sich auch mit den anderen bekannten Daten – siehe hierzu das Kapitel „Felix Krahnstöver und Pere Pi“.