Meet the president
Ken Roberts
“Mr P”
Pretty average trials rider. Past President and current Treasurer of the Cheshire and North Wales Centre.
I started on motorbikes at about 13 or so, when one of my mates in Trafford Park got a Honda 90 and then a CB72. I used to ‘borrow’ my older brother’s Honda 50 step-through to play on local rough ground.
I had a go at road racing when I was 17–18, helped by Brian West, who then had a shop in Chorlton before moving to a big place on Deansgate. A young family stopped all that — and probably saved my life!
I got into trials and Manchester 17 at about the same time, when I moved from Eccles to Hazel Grove in the late 1970s.
My claim to fame, apart from being Mike’s Dad, is that I invented the Dead Easy Trial format back in the early 1980s, as a way to let inexperienced riders know what to expect at the event.