To make the story complete we have to go back to the 1940's, when Monark was about to deliver the first Monark Albin MC/42 bikes to the army. The army administration had to test the bikes. Among things they tried how persistent the bikes were, by driving them at maximum speed for an hour. They called the tests the Tvååkers TT, and were held at Tvååker outside Varberg, Halland Sweden. Four tests were held between 17 of august and 27 of October in 1942. At the last test the engines in some of the bikes were tuned up to drive in a special class. The compression was improved; the cams got sharpener and the number of revolutions were raised from 3600 rpm to 5500 rpm. To top it all the riders were told to ride the bikes as hard as possible. The course was 9,1 km and a maximum speed at 116km/h was measured. The army was satisfied with the tests and Monark Albin could start to deliver bikes. Just to make sure that the tuning of the bikes was ok, Folke Mannerstedt were hired. Tönseths workshop in Stockholm produced the high compression plungers and other tuning products. When this epoch ended Albin established the Swedish Union department in Charlottenberg in 1949. Unfortunately Union had economical problem and disappeared in 1950 with only 42 bikes produced.
     The Albin interest continued to grow. The young Nisse Hedlund fell for the charm of the engine. He won the junior-class at 1954's Skånelopp with a sharpened Albin engine with hairpin needles in a Velocette frame.
     At the same time Gunnar Hagström made an agreement with the Monark factory to produce two motocross-bikes and a 1000m bike, for this he got paid 15000skr. Hagström did draw the frame himself. He had a lot to do with making all the yokes, hubs, tanks, so Tord "The Ice-king" helped him to build the frames. Guys from the airforce did the welding and the entire welds were x-rayed. Hard-chromed cylinders were used in the bike.
     And in the late summer of 1955 the first bikes were sold. The 1000m bike went to Varg-Olle Nygren who won 28/32 competitions with this bike. Ove Lundell and Bengt "Spicky" Svensson got the other two motocross-bikes. The debut for the bikes at a competition was at the Swedish Championship (SC.) in Uddevalla, the bikes were unfortunately not that good enough, because the engines were too heavy so the frames broke. But two weeks later the bikes were fixed and Ove won with his bike. In 1956 Bengt "Spicky" Svensson transferred to compete in TT on a Ducati/Monark, so his friend Allan Eklund started to ride the bike.
     This was a dream for the guys, to work with their hobby and get paid! Both Ove and Allan got a place in the SC in 1956. In the autumn 1956 Sten Lundin tried Allans bike on a competition in Motala. Sten used to ride a BSA, but since BSA stopped to serve their foreign riders, Sten got a contract with Monark. This succeeded in a third position in the WC premier. Sten was a little bit better rider than Ove, Allan and Bengt and therefore had higher demands on the gear. So the bikes became better and better. In the beginning of 1958 a new rider, Lasse Gustavsson, joined the Monark-team with his BSA/Albin bike. This was a bike with a BSA engine with an Albin top. The bike was painted blue as the rest of the Monark bikes. The blue bikes made a strong team at the circuit this season.
     Now the army was looking for a bike, so Monark developed a new cross-bike with a Triumph Trophy engine and gearbox. It had an Earls fork which soon were replaced by a Norton fork. Ove, who was the "fixer" of the gang, fixed a tank that was a bit bigger to his bike. Sten fell for this tank and wanted it to belong to his bike. This made Ove a bit angry because of all the time he had spent on the tank. But there was nothing to do but to start on a new one. These tanks soon were placed on all the bikes. T

1959 was the year that the real breakthrough should come for the Monark bikes. And before the year was over a Monark bike was on top of the throne in the 500-class.
     Monark had a really strong team on the paper, with riders like Sten Lundin, Lasse Gustavsson, Ove Lundin, Bengt Svensson and Allan Eklund. And they showed their class at the competitions as well. At the first World Championship (WC) try-out at the Austrian GP Sten won one heat and became second in the other one. This gave him the trophy and 8 valuable WC points. At the following try-outs Sten didn't take any points but at the Italian GP, Sten won his second competition of the season. The British brothers Derek and Don Rickman came close behind on their Metisse machines. At this race Ove became fifth on his Monark. In the German try-out Sten won again. Jeff Smith on a BSA won the next try-out in England with Lasse Gustavsson on sixth place with his Albin/BSA-Monark bike. Sten won the try-out in Luxembourg as well and this made him the WC.

Sten Lundin's final scores were 8, 6, 0, 4, 8, 8, 0, 3, 6, 8, 3 = 54 points. But only six competitions were counted so he finished on 44p. Bill Nilsson who finished second had 34p and Lasse Gustavsson became eight with his 12p.
     At the SC the Monark-team didn't get such good results. Sten Lundin only finished third and it seemed like it was harder to win back home than out on the continent. Lasse Gustavsson became ninth and Bengt Svensson became eleventh.
     1960 was yet another year filled with a lot of success. Unfortunately Lennart Warborn died this year and Monark decided to stop the motocross - competition activity. Allan Eklund and Bengt Svensson were injured and decided to stop racing. They both sold their bikes. Sten Lundin became second in both the World championship and the SC. Rolf Tibblin came fourth in the WC; Ove Lundell became sixth and Lasse Gustavsson eighth. In the SC. Ove came third and Lasse sixth.
     Per-Olof "Pelle Mas" Persson bought Bengt's bike and took both WC- and SC- points on it. This bike changed colours through the years, from Monark's blue to Husqvarna's silver-red to Hedlund's white. In 1966 Pelle was going to ride on a Metisse with a Hedlund engine, but he wasn't happy with the bike so he borrowed Ove Lundell's Hedlund DOHC/Monark. In 1967 it was time for a Metisse frame again but this time with the loved Monark engine from 1958 that he bought from Bengt Svensson.
     Sten Lundin got a new bike from Monark in 1960 and when Monark decided to stop with their racing-garage, he took his bike and moved to Lito. The autumn 1966 a new competition was in discussion, the FIM Cup with bikes up to 750cc. Sten won the race in the debut in 1967 with his Monark bike.
     In the late 60-ies Sten was helped by the Monark factory to fix the old Monark bike and in 1969 he won a TV shown race. He won in front of 29 Husqvarna riders and trough out the season he won 29 competitions on this bike.

Lasse Gustavsson never got a pure Monark/Albin so he had to stick to his Monark frame with a BSA engine. He won the English GP on this bike at Hawkstone Park in 1959. In 1962 Lasse bought a Lito that he re-coloured in the Monark colours.
     Rune Larsson rode a Monark in the four-stroke cup for a couple of years. The bike he had was Lasse Gustavsson's old bike.
     Ove Lundell was the one that was faithful to Monark the longest. He stayed with the factory until his retirement. Ove was successful with his Monark and Siegfried Wirtz from Germany was very enthusiastic about the bike, so Ove sold it to him. Siegfried still owns the bike and it has the original #5010 engine but a Hedlund frame replaces the old frame, which broke. This was Ove's first Monark. Ove's bike from 1962 is currently standing in my own garage. The bike has a Hedlund engine in its Monark frame. In 1964 Ove became a factoryrider at Husqvarna but he wasn't satisfied with the bike that Husqvarna gave him, so he painted his old Monark in Husqvarna's colours. This year he was close to win the Soviet GP, which he won a couple of years before, but he finished second behind Jeff Smith, England on a BSA. Ove built a new machine to the 1965 season. This time it was a Hedlund engine in a Monark frame. Ove has now got this bike in his hands again and he loves to show it off at different vintage-Cross meetings.
     It's hard to now exactly how many Monark 500 that were built, but if we assume from Hagström's prototypes, that Ove have had three machines, Bengt "Spicky" Svensson had two, Allan Eriksson one and Sten "Storken" Lundin three machines, which makes nine machines. All the bikes were re-coloured in the "Lito colours" since Monark built frames to Lito. Monark also made exhaust pipes and saddle-grounds, even the conical pipes to the swing, to Lito. Ove and his colleagues made between 25-30 frames to Lito. Ove himself also made some frames that were sold in Sweden but they weren't genuine Monark frames.
     Even in the sidecar circuit Monark machines were found. Knut Rosqvist and Krister Pålsson were two of the riders that got backup from Monark. The bike that they used won the SC in 1967 and came third in 1968.

Seeing that so much time has passed since Monark started to make Cross-bikes, it hasn't been easy to remember all the details and I hope that you'll be indulgent towards it. And in the end I would like to thank everybody who has helped me with information about Monark. Without them this article wouldn't have been what it is!

Nisse Wedin
A proud Monark owner