Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126501
The newest machine to score wins in World Observed Trials Championship competition is this 330cc ltaljet. There's some Bultaco influence in the "Eee-tal-jet" shown in a familiar looking silencer box and Betor shocks (top rightl, and Betor forks (middle rightl. (Bottom rightl Magura grips go with compact throttle. Gas tank and bodywork are formed of tough polyurethane plastic. Ameri~lInjeton lin Itll'jet The %980 odyssey 01 Bernie Schreiber and his Green Clean Machine" By Len Weed As 1980 began, Bernie Schreiber, America's first and only gnarly-terrain World Champion, was clearly recognized as the best observed trials rider in the world. His exploits in 1980 only served to reinforce that evaluation. Despite swapping brands in mid·season, from a proven win· ner to a totally untested proto· type, he managed to post a 32 record·setting six wins in twelve starts, including the last four in a row. Schreiber's six wins came in the final nine trials, after his usual slow·start. And in two of those three fmishes below the top spot, he was handicapped by machine problems. So it was a year of brilliant perfor· mances but. .. it wasn't quite enough. The world's·best·rider didn't win the World Championship. Vlf Karlson, winner of one trial, took the title. The Swede did it with consistency, scoring six runneriap placings t? go with his sole victory. On the record Bernie lost the championship by 10 points. But what it really came down to was two minutes. The two minutes by which Karlson slipped under the wire in Switzerland, just missing a time dis· qualification that would have cOSt him 12 second· place points. As the series began, no one could have suspected that the factory that had won the last seven world (or European) championships would soon be riderless and that Schreiber would be aboard a totally untested machine made in Italy by a minicycle manu· facturer. Yet that's exactly what happened. By May, the financial problems reo lated to the strike at Bultaco had reo duced the five·man team to just a single rider: Schreiber. Other manu· facturers wooed him, but Bernie didn't want to swap bikes in mid·stream with his title at stake. Bernie, who had switched his Euro· pean base from England to 'Italy in ApriL, knew that ltaljet had talked to Bultaco about buying them out. Then Italjet came to an agreement with Manuel Soler, a four· time Spanish champion and grand nephew of F.X. Bulto, to do development work on their own trials prototype. Still, as the Scottish Six Days ap' proached, Bernie had had no direct contact with the ltaljet company which, ironically. first opened its doors the same month that Schreiber was born. in January of 1959. After the Six Days, Schreiber phoned Bultaco competition chief Oriol Bulto to learn if he could get a fresh bike. He hoped to get one from the Italian im· porter, Leo Tartarini. At that time. Bernie did not know that Tartarini was also the owner of this Italjet com· pany he had been hearing about. He phoned Tartarini about getting a Sherpa and found himself invited to come to Bologna to talk. "I told him 1 didn't want to go to Bolosna. I just wanted to get a bike from one of his dealers." But Bernie did go and Tartarini asked him what he would want to join Italjet. An offer was made, without Bernie seeing the bike. Schreiber said he'd consider it and headed for Austria. Back in Bologna after the trial, he got his first glimpse of the crude, half·