Pere Pi Makes Cycle Trials HIS Business

For Pere Pi, everything pointed to bicycle production. First of all, there was the positive example of the Montesa Cota 25 children's trials motorcycle, which was still in production at the time and had been a huge commercial success a few years earlier during the boom in motorcycle trials. ¹ Such an upswing now also seemed to be on the horizon for bicycle trials, guaranteeing the commercial success of trials bikes. At the same time, BMX spilled over from California to Europe. Pere Pi tried to jump on the bandwagon here too with a BMX bike based on the 20-inch trials bike, the C-10. ² The fact that both off-road disciplines of motorcycle racing, trials and motocross, were now apparently also developing into cycling disciplines probably reinforced his expectations of success in bicycle production.

The economic interest in sales was matched by an interest in promoting bicycle trials and BMX. Added to this was the fact that Pere Pi had been Spanish champion in both disciplines, trials and motocross. This resulted in not only an economic but also an emotional interest in promoting Ot in these two areas – Ot also competed in BMX at the beginning. If Ot did not become a successful motocross or trials rider on a motorcycle, then he would do so on a bicycle. Economic, organizational, and personal interests went hand in hand. Pere Pi now made bicycle trials his own thing, and he had the opportunities to do so at Montesa. ³

Pere Pi brought Andreu Codina (Andreu Codina i Candelas, born 1964) to Montesa, who was the best bicycle trials rider from San Feliu de Codines at the time and became Catalan champion on a Figueras in 1978 and 1979, to develop a proper trials bike for older teenagers, the T-15. At the age of fifteen, Codina became the first factory rider in bicycle trials and, at the same time, something of a personal trainer for Ot, who was six years his junior. As a basis for the development of the T-15, Pi collected data on existing trials bikes, the Figueras, studied the double bridge fork by Eliseu Sellès in Sabadell, whose influence was later reflected in the T-15, and commissioned Felix Krahnstöver to measure the bikes in Fürstenhagen. At the same time, the series production of Ot's trials bikes, which had not yet undergone any systematic development work⁴, was pushed forward as the T-5 and T-10. ⁵

When Felix Krahnstöver returned to Pere Pi in the summer of 1979, he brought with him the data on the Schlieper bicycles from Fürstenhagen, as well as the aforementioned promotional film for bicycle trials that the Fürstenhageners had shot. Felix Krahnstöver wrote to me in a letter in 1990: "He (Pere Pi) got hold of a projector, and so the Spanish premiere of a Super 8 film by Schlieper from Fürstenhagen, showing the boys training, took place. Incidentally, Mr. Canellas was also present that evening; he was and is the director of the Montesa factory. (...)
During my next visit—in the fall of 1979—he had already assembled the first prototypes in his garage at home (...). ⁶