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CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE T rials competition has had some great champi- ons over the years—the current dominant Toni Bou, star of the late-90s and early 2000s Dougie Lampkin, the masters Sammy Miller and Eddy Lejeune and of course America always will re- member its first, and to date, only world champ in Bernie Schreiber. But perhaps no one has a name more synonymous with the sport of trials than that of the great Mick Andrews. Andrews was a two-time FIM World Trial Champion and five times winner of the Scottish Six Days Trial, but more than that Andrews was the sport's all-time biggest evangelist. "Magical Mick" as his fans liked to call him, was the rider most responsible for creating the trials boom of the 1970s. His tours and book (The Mick Andrews Book Of Trials published in 1976) introduced an entire generation of motorcy- clists to the sport that puts a premium on balance and bike control, where riders can finesse their motorcycles to go over almost any obstacle. For Andrews it all started with some simple play around his home in England. "I was 15 when I got a street bike and started playing around in the fields," Andrews said in a 1970 interview. "A friend came with a proper trials machine and said, 'Give this a try.' You know, I beat him!" Andrews came into the sport early enough that trials machines w ere still four-strokes with rigid frames. "I got a rigid frame, 40 pounds it cost, and with it I competed with the top. I was 17 then and had my own ideas about riding. One day my father said, 'Just look in the garage.' There was a factory AJS! First time on it I beat Sammy [Miller]. He rode a 500 Ariel then." That victory on the AJS over Miller was in 1961. Andrews entered the sport in a transitional stage where new, lighter machines were being devel- oped. "Two-strokes were far superior from the start," he said. "Sammy and I went to Bultaco. Then I started riding for Ossa." It was with Ossa in the early 1970s, when An- drews really began to shine on the world stage. He spent six years with Ossa, during which time Andrews won the Scottish Six Days Trial three years in a row (1970-'72) and won the European Trials Championship twice (which later became known as the World Championships), all on a bike designed and developed by himself. The Ossa MAR (Mick Andrews Replica) is a well- known machine used in vintage competition the world over to this day. Trials in America really came into its own in America in the early 1970s, spurred on by An- drews, who came to over in the late 1960s and MICK ANDREWS: TRIALS CRUSADER P126 Mick Andrews in 1976 on the Yamaha TY that he helped design.