montesa trial 250

I have been very interested in the Montesa trials development and design since getting and restoring my first Montesa Cota 348 when I was in my late teens. I ran a Montesa Cota website for many years after teaching myself how to create and publish websites. Around this time I became aware of the Montesa Trial 250 which was the predecessor to the Cota series of motorcycles that were very successful in trials competition in the 70's. I remember thinking that it would be cool to create a sort of replica homage to those original prototypes and first production runs of Trial 250's. 

My plan would be to take a early King Scorpion and add a later Cota flywheel to it and change the gearing. If the Scorpion was early enough it would allow you to run in an earlier trials class than most Cota's usually do. Jared Bates and I had had a few conversations about this at the time and he had a list of other mods that he thought would be slick. 

I have since lost that list somewhere, but now that I'm in my new shop I spent a few hours yesterday modifying a King Scorpion frame to accept the reed valve conversion Cota motor that I've had sitting around. I had to cut out the frame tubes that run down from the main top tube and add in some spacers to make more room for the carb conversion. I also cut off the peg mounts and will relocate those farther back closer to the swingarm pivot and lower for stability. I mocked up an old tank and made a templet for some slide plate/seat combo that I'll make in aluminum. At this point, I'm just playing around, but this might actually turn into something if I keep going. 

I just love the pics I of the early 250 I found that were taking in conjunction with the Montesa 50th anniversary. There is something really beautiful about this first trials prototype and production run. I'm always amazed when someone "gets it right" on the first try.