The International Six Days (ISDE): the oldest off-road event in the world

RaceISDT1913

Founded in 1913 around Carlisle, in England, the International Six Days are the oldest off-road event still being run. Their format has barely shifted: a daily loop to be covered within a set time, time checks, timed special tests, parc fermé every night and a rule unlike any other, with only the rider allowed to work on the machine. Around the World Trophy and the Silver Vase came in turn British pre-war dominance, the 1939 interruption at Salzburg, the long Czechoslovak then East German hegemony, the change from ISDT to ISDE at the turn of the 1980s and Italian, French and American success.

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1913: six days to put the machine to the test

Before it was a competition, the Six Days was a demonstration of reliability. From 1905, the British Auto-Cycle Club — which would only take the name Auto-Cycle Union in 1907 — set up its own « Six Days Trials »: run a motorcycle six days in a row on broken roads, and see what is left of it. In 1913, the formula went international. The first edition ran from 18 to 23 August, based in the town of Carlisle, in Cumberland.

The first Trophy went to the British team of W. B. Gibb, W. B. Little and Charlie Collier. That last name is no accident : Collier, tied to the Matchless marque, had won the very first Tourist Trophy race in 1907 in the single-cylinder class. Motorcycle sport at the time amounted to a few dozen men, capable of winning on the Isle of Man in spring and crossing Cumberland in August.

The original regulations say everything about the spirit of the event. Each nation entered a single team of three competitors, put forward by its federation, and the machines had to have been built in the country represented. Better still: the rules opened three divisions — solos, sidecar machines and cyclecars — and the 1913 British team mixed them without hesitation, with a 349 cc, a 499 cc and Collier's 964 cc Matchless outfit. The aim was not to find the fastest rider but to prove that a national industry could build machines that did not break. The word « trial » did not refer to modern trials either: it meant a regularity event.

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The format: a clock, a loop, special tests

The framework of the principle has never changed. Each day, competitors cover a set loop within an allotted time, clocking in at time checks spread along the route — around four a day in recent editions. Arriving early costs as much as arriving late : every minute out is paid for in penalty seconds.

The result, though, is decided elsewhere. Within the loop, timed special tests — half a dozen a day — are run to the second. They come in three families: the cross test, on motocross ground; the enduro test, on natural, often wooded terrain; and the extreme test, more technical and slower. The total of special test times, plus time penalties, decides the individual winner as well as the national teams.

The distances have always been considerable: historic editions announced something in the order of 2,000 kilometres across the week. The sixth day breaks the routine : it traditionally closes with a motocross event, a series of short races on a closed circuit, the only moment when every nation lines up side by side on the same track.

The Six Days is sometimes compared to the Motocross of Nations, the other great national-team fixture in off-road racing. The difference is one of nature : the ISDE is won over six days of attrition, where a badly handled puncture on Tuesday still weighs on Saturday.

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The rule that shapes everything: the rider, and the rider alone

This is the event's absolute singularity. Once competition is under way, only the rider may work on the machine; the technical crew may step in for refuelling and nothing else. A world champion therefore ends up crouched in the mud, tyre levers in hand, just like the amateur who has come for the week of a lifetime.

The work windows are strictly framed: the morning slot before the start, then a limited time at the end of the day — around a quarter of an hour under the current rules — to change a tyre, do an oil change or replace a wear part. Past that deadline, the machine goes to parc fermé, guarded and access-restricted, where it spends the night out of anyone's reach.

That constraint shapes everything else: it means carrying your own tools, knowing your bike inside out and anticipating wear rather than suffering it. It explains the symbolic value of a simple finishing place : reaching the end of the sixth day within the time, with no mechanical retirement, remains an achievement in itself. Few modern disciplines keep this equation between riding and workshop skill so strictly.

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The World Trophy, the Silver Vase and the medals

The premier competition is the World Trophy, direct heir to the trophy first contested in 1913. Its make-up has varied over the decades; it now stands at four riders per nation, whose combined times decide the standings.

In 1924 a second team competition appeared, the Silver Vase, contested by teams of three and long regarded as the Trophy's little sister. That category changed identity in 1985 to become the Junior World Trophy, reserved for riders under 23 and contested by teams of three. A women's competition, the Women's World Trophy, was added in 2007, also with three riders, alongside club teams.

Then there is the individual reward. The Six Days awards gold, silver and bronze medals handed out according to the time gap to the best in the class, bronze rewarding whoever completes the six days within the allotted times. For the vast majority of the field, made up of amateurs from all over the world, a medal is worth every podium.

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The pre-war editions and the flight from Salzburg

The First World War interrupted the adventure almost as soon as it had begun. The event resumed in 1920 at Grenoble, where Switzerland opened a run of three consecutive wins before Sweden took the honours in 1923. The competition then moved from one European country to another, carried by industries that saw it as a commercial shop window.

From 1924, Great Britain took control of the Trophy and held it for six years in a row, until 1929. Italy then joined the elite with two wins in 1930 and 1931, before another British success in 1932. The event earned in this period the nickname that would stick to it: the « Olympics of motorcycling ». The mid-1930s marked a political turning point : Germany won three consecutive Trophies between 1933 and 1935, results heavily exploited for propaganda by the regime in place, before the British took over again from 1936 to 1938.

The 1939 edition, run in the Salzburg region of annexed Austria, ended in an end-of-the-world atmosphere. While the British were performing remarkably well in the mountains, the British consul let his nationals know they had to leave the country without delay. The team abandoned the race on the evening of the fourth day, regrouped at Feldkirch on the Swiss border, crossed Switzerland and then France, and got home a few days before the declaration of war on 3 September. Germany was indeed declared the winner on site, but the FIM would cancel the edition after the war: neither the Trophy nor the Silver Vase was ever officially awarded for 1939, and no edition was held thereafter up to and including 1946.

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1947-1978: the long Czechoslovak dominance

The revival came from 16 to 21 September 1947 at Zlín, in Czechoslovakia, in a Europe still rationing fuel. The organisers won everything : the Trophy and the Silver Vase both went to local teams, on Jawa and CZ machinery. The original constraint on the machines would eventually disappear: the World Trophy is contested today with no restriction whatsoever on where the bikes come from.

That double opened one of the longest periods of dominance in motorcycle sport. Czechoslovakia would total fifteen World Trophy wins, the first in 1947 and the last in 1982, with impressive density in the 1970s: five wins between 1970 and 1974, then two more in 1977 and 1978. Great Britain still holds the outright record with seventeen Trophies, but it had to wait until 2022 — sixty-nine years after its 1953 success — to take the latest one.

The Eastern bloc settled in at the top. East Germany, carried by MZ two-strokes, won the Trophy in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1969, with factory teams prepared year-round while western nations still fielded a great many semi-private entries.

The 1964 edition, held at Erfurt from 7 to 12 September in the heart of the GDR, left an unexpected mark on popular culture. The United States entered their very first national team there — not in the Trophy but in the Silver Vase — and among the group's five men was Steve McQueen, riding a Triumph alongside brothers Bud and Dave Ekins, Cliff Coleman and John Steen. The actor carried the American flag at the opening ceremonyon 5 September, in a hall dominated by a huge portrait of Walter Ulbricht, the GDR's strongman.

Nine years later, the event left Europe for the first time. The 1973 Six Days was held in the United States, in the hills of the Berkshires, based at Dalton, Massachusetts, in September, over some 1,100 miles of route. Czechoslovakia again took the Trophy there, but the signal had been given: the ISDT was going global.

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At the turn of the 1980s, the ISDT becomes the ISDE

By the late 1970s, the machines entered had little left in common with reinforced production bikes. Long-travel suspension, sharpened two-strokes, purpose-built frames: the reliability trial had turned into an off-road speed race. Italy took the Trophy in 1979 and again in 1980.

The regulations eventually acknowledged the shift. The International Six Days Trial became the International Six Days Enduro : the FIM places the change at the very start of the 1980s, and most records of the event settle on 1981. The word « trial », inherited from 1913, no longer described a competition where the special test stopwatch decided everything.

The following years reshuffled the order. Sweden reconnected with the Trophy in 1983, its first since 1923, and the Silver Vase gave way to the Junior World Trophy in 1985. Italy, for its part, settled in for the long run : sixteen World Trophies in all, the latest in 2025, which places it second in the historic standings, behind Great Britain and ahead of Czechoslovakia.

That shift fed the whole discipline: these specifications shaped the catalogues of the specialist manufacturers, starting with KTM, and the public's taste for extreme off-road gave rise to events such as the Erzbergrodeo. The Six Days remains the elder of them all.

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A worldwide event on the eve of its hundredth edition

France took a long time to win the World Trophy. The first French success dates from 1988, followed by a long gap and then a remarkable run in the 21st century: 2001, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2017. The French team returned to victory in 2024, in Galicia.

In the meantime, one nation had broken through a barrier nine decades old. In 2016, at the 91st edition held in Navarre from 11 to 16 October, the United States won the World Trophy for the first time in their history, with Taylor Robert, Kailub Russell, Thad DuVall and Layne Michael, finishing just a few minutes ahead of Great Britain. They would do it again in 2019 and then 2023.

The recent period has known only one interruption: the 2020 edition, planned for Italy, was postponed because of the pandemic, and it was in 2021 that Italy staged — and won — its home Six Days. The 99th edition was held at Bergamo from 24 to 29 August 2025, with another Italian win in the World Trophy, while the American women took a third consecutive Women's World Trophy there.

The next chapter is written in Portugal. The hundredth edition will be held at Grândola, in the Alentejo, from 12 to 17 October 2026, a fourth Portuguese hosting after Coimbra in 1999, Figueira da Foz in 2009 and Portimão in 2019. More than six hundred riders from around thirty countries are expected, under a refreshed name: 6DAYS FIM Enduro of Nations.

A hundred and thirteen years after Carlisle, an event born to prove the sturdiness of motorcycles remains the oldest on the FIM off-road calendar, and one of the most demanding. The principle has not moved an inch : six days, a clock, a machine entrusted to a single pair of hands.

🏁 Mud, reared-up handlebars and front wheels in the air: bring the imagery of the Six Days to your workshop walls with our selection of motocross canvas prints.

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Summary table

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FAQ — Frequently asked questions

• When and where were the International Six Days created?
  The first international edition ran from 18 to 23 August 1913, based at Carlisle, in English Cumberland. The British team of W. B. Gibb, W. B. Little and Charlie Collier took the Trophy. The event descends from the « Six Days Trials » organised in Britain from 1905 by the Auto-Cycle Club, which became the Auto-Cycle Union in 1907.
• What is the difference between ISDT and ISDE?
  They are the same event. The International Six Days Trial took the name International Six Days Enduro at the turn of the 1980s, the FIM placing the change at the very start of the decade and most records of the event settling on 1981. The new name reflects the move from a reliability trial to a genuinely timed off-road race.
• Can a rider be helped by a mechanic during the event?
  No. Once competition is under way, only the rider may work on the machine, with support allowed to step in for refuelling alone. Work is limited to a morning slot and a short window at the end of the day, around a quarter of an hour, before the bike goes to parc fermé for the night.
• Which nations have won the World Trophy most often?
  Great Britain holds the record with seventeen wins, the latest in 2022, sixty-nine years after that of 1953. Italy follows with sixteen victories, the most recent in 2025, ahead of Czechoslovakia and its fifteen Trophies taken between 1947 and 1982.
• What is the Silver Vase?
  It is the Six Days' second team competition, created in 1924 and contested by teams of three riders. It was renamed the Junior World Trophy in 1985 and is contested today by teams of three young riders under 23.
• Where is the hundredth edition of the Six Days being held?
  It is scheduled for Portugal, at Grândola in the Alentejo region, from 12 to 17 October 2026. It will be the fourth Portuguese hosting after Coimbra in 1999, Figueira da Foz in 2009 and Portimão in 2019, with more than six hundred riders expected.

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