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/1466689
T here isn't a family name more synonymous with U.S. trials than—Belair. Fred and Martin Belair to be more specific. If it wasn't for the Belairs, the sport of observed trials might not even exist in the U.S. and there certain- ly would be no El Trial de Espana, or Bernie Cup, for that matter—a pair of famous trials events you've probably heard of, even if you're not a follower of trials. You might associate the El Trial de Espana these days with Martin Belair, the former National and World trials competitor who is pre- dominantly responsible for making sure the El Trial de Espana lives on, and you should. However, it was his father, Fred, who founded the event back in the early 1970s. Fred was from Argentina and raced motorcycles as a kid, pass- ing on his passion for motorcy- cles to his kids, including Martin, who was also born in Argentina. "His first two loves were my mom and motorcycles," says Martin. The family moved to Southern California in 1956 when Martin was a year old. "We started off on small bikes in the backyard and progressed up through Ho- dakas," he says. Martin's first motorcycle was a Honda 90 that he shared with his brother, Fernando, but Martin says that technically his first motorcycle was built out of a Schwinn bicycle that Fred, his immigrant father who didn't have a ton of money at the time, pieced together. "He made it himself! It had telescopic forks, a clutch, it had a McCulloch engine," Belair says. "He made telescopes at the time [as a side job] and had a machine shop [to make the parts for the motorcycle]." Eventually, Fred worked it out to where he could afford two Hodaka motorcycles, so Martin and Fer- nando wouldn't have to share any- more. "Having to stop and share every 30 minutes really sucks as a kid. Your half hour is a lot shorter than his half hour," says Belair. "I was about eight or nine when I finally had my own motorcycle." At that time, desert racing and motocross were the big things in Southern California. It's what all the cool and famous motorcycle racers did, so Martin wanted to do the same thing as his heroes. But when Mom heard about the many injuries from racing a mo- torcycle 60 mph across the des- ert floor and on the MX tracks, well, she wasn't exactly thrilled. "She was, 'Hmm, no racing.'" One day, someone (Cycle World magazine editor Ivan Wa- ger, it turns out) suggested trials to Fred, and said there was a big trials event coming to Saddle- back Park, so the Martins loaded up their Hodaka, which was still set up for desert racing, com- plete with an un-muffled expan- sion chamber and tall gearing, competed in his first trials com- petition, hosted by trials instruc- tor Sammy Miller. It didn't go well. "We had no idea what we were CN III ARCHIVES P130 BY KIT PALMER FRED AND MARTIN BELAIR The First Family of U.S. Trials Martin Belair celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the El Trial de Espana with a pair of Montesa trials bikes made 50 years apart. In the background is a Montesa 247 Cota and in the foreground Montesa's latest Cota 4RT 301 RR.