Dealer Visit • Tom Adamson
VIVA MONTESA TOM ADAMSON MOTORCYCLES
It is always exciting to hear of new dealerships in the off-road world, and a call we took from someone with a strong Scottish accent confirmed we were talking to the man himself, Tom Adamson — the proud owner of Tom Adamson Motorcycles. It is maybe a name you are not so familiar with as he is based as far north as we think you can get for a motorcycle dealership, at Elgin near Inverness, Scotland. The article you are about to read is, as always, very interesting as we find out how Tom moved into the off-road world with his Honda dealership and then the icing on the cake, Montesa. We caught up with him for the full story of a business based on hard work and passion. Words: Tom Adamson with Trial Magazine • Pictures: GF-V Media
T
om takes up the story: “The first time I rode a motorcycle, I was ten years old; it was a Gilera 50 Trail model, which was way too big for me, but me being me, I decided it would be easy anyway. So I went up and round the stack yard on the farm, came round the corner flat-out in first gear, and the throttle stuck open. The result was me crashing into a gate on the shed around the corner: ripped jeans, skint knee, skint elbow and my mate John Craig whose motorcycle was standing over me shouting, I was hooked, and I have never looked back! “I have had a huge number of motorcycles over the years from all sorts 100
of weird and wonderful manufacturers, but between 1977 and 1980, I had Bultaco Sherpas and fell in love with trials riding. I joined the Lanarkshire Trials Club and looked forward to every weekend there was an event. Peer pressure took me in a different direction after this, and I did road racing in the production class, followed by motocross.”
MARRIED AND MOTORCYCLES
“Over the years, I got married and had kids, and motorcycles had to take second place for a good few years until I decided to start my own December 2022-January 2023 • Trial Magazine
