THERE’S not much Sammy Miller hasn’t done with a motorcycle, including climbing b eyond the snowline to the summit of Ben Nevis.

Nowadays, Sammy can usually be found at his eponymous Motorcycle Museum at the corner of Bashley Cross Road and Stem Lane, New Milton.

But even at the age of 76, he is still competing in motorcycle events around the world.

In mid-May he was in Italy competing in a classic bikes’ road race “for fun”, although you can bet that competitive instinct was still there.

And it is that instinct that has driven him on to do very well in every branch of motorcycle sport, and which earned him the MBE in 2009.

The internationally-acclaimed trials and road race ace was born Samuel Hamilton Miller in Belfast in 1933.

His love of motorbike racing started at the age of 12 when his father, Alexander, began taking him to competitions.

“Most of the events we visited were pure road racing, but we also took in the occasional grass-track or trial,” he said, as Mick Walker recalls in his book Sammy Miller Motorcycle Legend (DB Publishing, £19.99, ISBN 978-1-85983-763-4).

Sammy’s motorcycling career began at 15 in 1948 when he saved and bought for £10 a 1929 197cc Francis-Barnett.

“It wasn’t very reliable but it got me round to the race and taught me a lot about how to keep a motorcycle running,” Sammy recalled.

“It wasn’t any good for competition riding, though, and, as I was dying to race, I swapped it for a 150cc four stroke New Imperial.”

He won his first race, a grass track event in 1951.

His first trials victory was in only his second competition, on his home-built Samuel Hamilton Special.

In 1954, 10 days after the Scottish Six-Day Trial, he made his road-racing debut.

And what a debut it was, with a win in the Cookstown 100, averaging 73.98mph on a 348cc AJS, one of the fastest times ever recorded in the series at the time.

He was not to look back after that.

Among his 1,226 trials victories, he was British Trials Champion 11 successive times and twice European Champion.

He also won the Irish Motocross Championship, the Irish Sand Racing Championship and holds the record for winning the most Irish road races.

In the 1957 Grand Prix World Championships he took third place in the 250cc race and finished fourth in the 125cc race on works FB Mondials.