Greeves (motorcycles) - Competition Success

Competition Success

It was off-road competition that was to dominate Greeves production, and in 1956 Greeves signed motocross rider Brian Stonebridge and started competing in the European Motocross Championship. Stonebridge became the company Competitions Manager and Development Engineer, as he was a skilled two-stroke tuning specialist and was able to significantly improve the performance of the Villiers engines. In April 1957 Brian Stonebridge managed to beat the 500 cc bikes on the much smaller capacity Greeves round the demanding and hilly Hawkstone Park course, winning the 350 cc race and coming second in the 500 cc race, establishing Greeves' reputation as true off-road competition motorcycles. The next Greeves model was called the 'Hawkstone'; to capitalise on this success and the company began to specialise in motocross motorcycles, ridden by champions including Peter Hammond, Jack Simpson and Norman Sloper.

Stonebridge led a three-man Greeves team to the West German International Six Days Trial event in 1958 and had a faultless ride, winning another gold medal. In October 1959, tragedy struck the Greeves team when Brian Stonebridge was killed in a car accident. Bert Greeves was at the wheel and Stonebridge was in the passenger seat when they crashed returning from a visit to a factory in Bradford. In a head-on collision Bert was only slightly injured but in the days before seat belts it proved fatal for Brian, who died at the scene of the accident.

After the death of Stonebridge, Greeves signed Dave Bickers, who won the 1960 and 1961 250 cc championship. The company went on to win the Manx Grand Prix, the Scott Trial, the European Trials Championship and the Scottish Six Days Trial, winning gold medals in the ISDT and the ACU 250 cc Road Race. Bert Greeves also managed to sign up Bill Wilkinson, the Yorkshire trials rider who made the headlines when he won the British Experts Trail competition in 1960, the first time it had ever been won on a two-stroke motorcycle and a significant result for the Greeves factory.

In 1963 the Greeves range still included the 25DC Sports Twin and two new models with the latest glass fibre tanks and handlebar fairings, as well as plastic mudguards. These were the 25DD 'Essex' and the 250 DCX 'Sportsman'. The same year the Greeves factory was asked to provide the motorcycles for the British ISDT team. This was significant because the team had previously relied on four-stroke vertical twins. Greeves produced three special machines for the event, which was held in the Czechoslovakian mountains. The engines were highly modified Villiers MK 36A but instead of the standard Villiers crankshaft they had an Alpha assembly and the squared-off cylinder barrels and heads were cast in Bert Greeves' own foundry and painted with matt black heat-dispersing paint. Although one of the riders, Triss Sharp, had starting problems, his brother Brian Sharp and the third rider Peter Stirland both won gold medals. The only woman to compete in the event was also riding a Greeves machine and won a bronze medal.

Greeves also made a successful entry into road racing with the 250 cc Silverstone model. Although these were not as fast as some of their competitors, they earned a reputation for reliability and were chosen to be the standard motorcycles for the Mortimer Road-Racing School. As well winning the 1964 Manx Grand Prix, Gordon Keith also took the Greeves racer to the fastest lap of the race at 87.6 miles per hour (141.0 km/h), which proved to be the best speed ever by a British 250 cc motorcycle.(Although Peter Inchley on the Villiers Starmaker Special lapped The Island at 93.17 MPH,the only Brish 250 to lap at over 90,he completed the 250 race at over 90 MPH and finished 3rd.).This was a Cotton frame,a highly developed Starmaker engine and Bultaco forks. As well as a boost for the Greeves factory, this was an important win when the sport was beginning to become dominated by foreign motorcycles. This led to a lot of interest in the Greeves road bikes, including from a number of British Police forces for a version of the bigger twin equipped with a radio.

Also in 1964 Greeves launched the 'Challenger', and first time out ridden by Garth Wheldon it won the Terry Cups Trail. In 1967, a 346 cubic centimetres (21.1 cu in) version of the successful Challenger was launched, together with a 350 cc road racer called the 'Oulton'. A special export model called the 'Ranger' was also developed but by 1968 Villiers had pulled out of engine production and Greeves decided to leave the trails motorcycle market to concentrate on the development of a motorcross model.