Untold History: The glorious trailblazing days of the Harley Scramble
Bill Watson admires the beloved red 1960 Maico sitting in his garage workshop and summarises the secret of being a champion motocross rider.
'Don't follow where the sheep go,' he observes.
It was simple really, he said.
Make sure you don't get bogged down and slowed down in the tyre tracks left by other riders.
Choose your own line.
It is advice the 96-year old has followed himself over many years.
And it stood him in good stead over the course of his highly successful riding career.
Mr Watson's record includes twice being runner-up Australian Motocross Champion, WA State Motocross Champion six times and podium finishes in the blue-ribbon WA event, the Harley Scramble, including when it was run on the legendary Rope Works circuit in Mosman Park.
And next month he will take part in a special event to celebrate the Scramble, considered the birth of Australian motocross nearly 100 years ago.
John Steyntjes, a past rider and author of the Australian Motocross History website, wrote that Aubrey Melrose and Roy Charman had taken part in an emerging new sport called 'scrambles' during their stay in England in 1927 and 1928.
They came up with the concept of an event in Perth and convinced the Harley-Davidson Motor Cycle Club of the merits of the idea.
Shortly after returning to Perth from overseas, Melrose and Gavin Casey rode their motorcycles to Mosman Park and mapped out a circuit wedged between Cottesloe and Leighton beaches and the Swan River around Buckland Hill.
They called the circuit the 'Rope Works Course' after the nearby rope factory.
The original course ran on the peninsula between the ocean and river to what was known as Billy Goat Farm for a lunch stop, before looping back to Buckland Hill in the afternoon.
The first Harley Scramble was held on Sunday, June 17, 1928.
The circuit had been shortened to about 4km so most of the racing was visible from one vantage point, Mr Steyntjes wrote.
Marked by arrows, the total distance was about 16km with the winner being 'the rider who gets to the finish line the quickest without missing any of the course'.
The first event was called the 1928 TT Scramble.
But the reporter at The West Australian gave it the name The Harley Scramble (after the hosting club).
The name stuck.
More than 5000 people attended the first Harley Scramble.
Riders took off two at a time at one minute intervals (this was gradually reduced to 10 seconds in the future) with the fastest riders at the rear of the field, Mr Steyntjes wrote.
The circuit was mapped out in a natural valley of grass and sandy terrain with a high sandstone ridge along one side.
'The track wound back and forth across the flats to up and down the steep cliffs (called slides) providing spectacular climbs and descents to a series of short straights along the opposite side of the valley that included a quarry section to add more variety to the circuit,' Mr Steyntjes wrote.
He wrote that according to The West Australian 'the course included 75 different bends, 25 hairpin turns, eight slides, seven sharp ascents and about 200 smaller bends'.
'For the greater part, the track is only about a foot wide.'
The event was so rough on the bikes that riders even took to storing spare wheels and chains around the track.
'In the early years of the event, rope gangs were placed at the top of the highest hills, armed with ropes and grappling hooks, to haul stricken riders to the top if they lost momentum on the climbs and to avert blocking the riders behind them,' Mr Steyntjes wrote.
This was no longer needed as the bikes became more powerful.
Most bikes in the early years were Harley-Davidsons.
Ken Vincent won the inaugural event in 1928 on his V-Twin Harley-Davidson four-stroke.
The bikes were for many years street machines stripped down for the event.
'Brakes were optional, but lights and mudguards and rear vision mirrors had to be removed before racing,' Mr Steyntjes wrote.
The event went from strength to strength, regularly drawing crowds in the many thousands.
Perhaps the high point of the Rope Works circuit came on July 3, 1955 when more than 20,000 people went to watch the combined Harley Scramble and Australian Motocross Championships.
This was the era when Mr Watson rode in the big events.
He was working in Kalgoorlie as a fitter and turner when he developed his love for bikes, and joined the Goldfields Motorcycle Club in 1947.
And he was soon attracted by the prospect of riding in the Harley Scramble.
Even getting to the start line could be a challenge, and he recalled how it could mean riding out of Kalgoorlie on a Friday night after finishing work, arriving early in the morning in Perth.
Saturday would be to scout out the circuit and prepare the bike for competition.
Then came racing on the Sunday.
'The story was don't follow the sheep,' he told The West Australian.
'Where the ground gets chewed up you go somewhere else,' he said.
After the event it might mean getting back on the bike to ride through the night back to Kalgoorlie — still with no lights on his racing machine.
'I had an army kitbag that would sit between my arms with all the gear in it and on the handlebars,' he said.
'Get home about 3.30 in the morning, have a shower and get a clean pair of overalls on so you can go to work on Monday,' he said.
Mr Watson rode the Harley Scramble six times.
Keeping fit helped a rider make it to the finish of the testing event, he said.
It has clearly paid dividends.
He has continued riding, and in recent years took part in 'Super 70s' events.
'I would race in with the 70-year-old kids,' Mr Watson said.
'I won that a few times and got some places.'
His most recent event was just last year at Wandering.
'If you relax and let the bike do the work it doesn't wear you out,' he said.
'And you pick the smooth paths. I always had a reputation for having the hot mix people out there making a track for me to ride on.'
Over time urban development and the Harley Scramble at the Rope Works became incompatible.
The end for the circuit came in April 1964 when the Mosman Park council called time on the Rope Works Course.
The event was then run in Rockingham, Narrogin and then Mount Brown in York.
There the Harley Scramble continued to be one of WA's premier motocross events through to 1978.
The event was then held at Belmont and then on to Gidgegannup and in 2028, it will be 100 years since it was established.
June 2025 will mark the 70th anniversary of the combined Harley Scramble/1955 Australian Motocross Championships.
The milestone will be celebrated on June 13 and 14 with the screening at Camelot Arts Club in Mosman Park of a documentary about the Harley Scramble produced by Mr Steyntjes: Harley Scramble: The Birth of Australian Motocross.
The event will pay tribute to the late Peter Nicol, a five-time Harley Scramble winner.
Some champion riders including Mr Watson will take part in a panel discussion and there will be a vintage bike display.
For details, visit camelotartsclub.com/whats-on.
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