Greeves European Champion

[cennet53]

Back in 1964, I lived in Highams Park, London E4 and at the bottom of my road was a motorbike shop owned by a guy who rode Greeves as a pro and was a European Champion in 1964 - I think. I think his surname was Smith. Has anyone any information about him and what he is doing now?

Many thanks

Janette

[montesaukr]

Your man was Greeves works rider Don Smith who was European Trials Champion in 1964 and again in 1967 riding works Greeves.
Don was a colourful character who had a habit of riding the sections with a lighted cigarette hanging out of his mouth. I believe he was involved in most branches of off road motorcycle sport and if you put in a web search for don smith greeves you will find an article about a Greeves engined speedway bike he tried to develop but unfortunately the project came to nothing.
In the 70's he developed the Kawasaki trials bike and ran a trials school at Kelvedon Hatch near Brentwod.
He also wrote  a book about the black art of trials riding and copies are listed often on ebay. If I remember rightly Don still has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth in most of the photos in the book.
I believe he died a few years ago but he certainly won't be forgotten by anyone who was involved in trials during the 60's and 70's.

[cennet53]

Many thanks for that - I was talking to my mum about him as they used to say hello etc. She is 75 so if he was alive he would have had to be in his 70s. It states in one article on google that he went to Spain and I seem to remember him selling his shop about that time

I will tell her the news though

Thanks again

Janette