Back in 2006, Superbikeplanet published a semi-compelling series of first-person columns, featuring insights and memories from several individuals who had the privilege of working at the legendary CYCLE magazine. Even today, CYCLE is revered as one of the finest motorcycle publications ever produced, setting a standard for journalism that many still admire.

To ensure these invaluable recollections remain accessible to enthusiasts and historians alike, we are semi-proud to revisit and re-run the entire series, preserving the legacy of a magazine that continues to influence the world of motorcycling. --DFA
Back when the Earth was flat, when Can-Ams, Hodakas, and Maicos roamed wild in the showrooms, and when our solar system still had nine planets, I was on the staff at Cycle, a tour that started out in the Ziff-Davis era. And while I love vile gossip as much as anyone, I don't know that I have any particularly valuable insights into the reasons behind Cycle's demise. Those decisions were made by the generals and field marshals in New York, and when it came to the throttle-twisting grunts in Westlake Village, our hands were plenty full just trying to meet our deadlines and get the magazine out each month. I imagine Gary Medley might tell you the same thing about Ducati's news last week.

But if some Soup readers thought it was a treat to see Cycle when it showed up in their mailbox each month, then I'm here to tell you what a life-changing experience it was to actually work at the place, at least for me. During my time there (1982-1987) Cook's imprimatur was still fresh. Jess Thomas and John Stein still dropped by. I'm not sure I fully appreciated how special it all was at the moment (the magazine, not the office; the facilities themselves were modest to say the least, but the priorities were right-the carpet was torn and stuck together with duct tape, but the garage was at least the size of the office suite.) Sure, we were lavished with new bikes, helmets, leathers, and as many complimentary speeding tickets as your license could stand (personal best: three in one weekend, one for 134 mph in a national park zoned for 25, and I was able to collect a few in foreign countries on the company dime too). But the real richness was in the staff, and the atmosphere they created.

At the time, I naively thought that every job must be like this; now I realize that not only were the era, the place, and the people unbelievably special, but that most poor bastards are never lucky enough to experience anything like it in their entire pathetic lives.

There's an old saying that quality is contagious. That certainly was true at Cycle. The shop was like a post-graduate school in all the best of motorcycling and writing: Riding with such wing-footed gods of the road as Mark Homchick, Danny Coe or Ken Vreeke was an education and a privilege beyond description for a glacial backmarker like myself. It was like watching poetry unfold at every turn, and I owe those guys big time for sharing the skills that have kept me alive to this day. Got a technical question? Hey, let's just get Kevin Cameron or Gordon Jennings on the phone, or drop by Jewel Hendricks' shop, or go ask Pierre des Roches. Even if I could barely peck out a story on one of those goddamned hammer-key Adler typewriters we had to use, Phil Schilling and Allyn Fleming had the editing touch that could make a left-handed hack like me look like Shakespeare. Art directors Tom Saputo and Paul Halesworth-both fine riders themselves-made your stuff look great and inspired you to do your best. Along with Allyn, Don Phillipson was one of the most decent, motivating mentors and bosses I've ever had. I remember him telling me that I after I'd ridden 200 bikes I could write a road test. Two hundred! But he was right, and my personal logbook shows something like 750 now. Once a month we got an envelope from Ed Hertfelder, and Allyn and I fought over it to see who would read it first. Jewel, Mark, Bruno de Prato, Ken Vreeke, Buzz Buzzelli and especially Ken Lee became close personal friends, along with all the other people in the industry I met because of Cycle—going to Laguna or Daytona every year is better than going to any family reunion. How could you not be inspired to do superior work in company like this?

Mostly, I think, it was really because everyone there was so good at what they did, and because so many of them were anything but one-dimensional—their knowledge extended way past just motorcycling. To hear Homchick talk about sailing or Jewel talk about music is to realize how much there is to still learn. We were in an atmosphere where the stakes were high and we depended on each other, and that demanded greatness. Then you get out into the rest of the world and you discover that it's largely made up of 15-watt bulbs, and half of those aren't screwed in. It's tough to do your best in an underlit room.

Motorcycling is wonderful in that way, especially racing. There's precious little bullshit when you're involved with it at the extremes. If you make a mistake, there's no blaming it on someone else-the ground comes up and slaps you right now, and no amount of smooth talking is going to buy you any more front-end grip or any more talent. Want to learn about personal responsibility? Here are the keys.

We were in an atmosphere where the stakes were high and we depended on each other, and that demanded greatness. Then you get out into the rest of the world and you discover that it's largely made up of 15-watt bulbs, and half of those aren't screwed in. It's tough to do your best in an underlit room.
It wasn't all fun, though. There were brutal deadlines, and there were personality conflicts as you'd expect, and at times they grew oppressive. The pace-both on the road and at the typewriter-could be pretty intimidating, a real wake-up call. At times we could have outfitted a small hospital with all the pins, plaster, and prosthetic devices the staff collected, and ZD pulled off the scam of the century when they insured us all as "clerical workers;" the health-care bean counters nearly high-sided when they found out what we really did for a living.

Magazine journalism is an extraordinary way to communicate if it's done right, and SuperbikePlanet's readership doesn't need some ossified old fart like me to croak out an opinion about what makes a book great or just that much rack filler at the news stand. You can see it in websites as well. I think if you appreciate Soup, you probably would have appreciated Cycle, and vice versa.

Handing in my resignation at Cycle was one of the most difficult decisions I've ever made, yet, in hindsight, it proved to be the right one for me. At Cycle I learned that bikes are more than just transportation; they're vehicles of personal discovery, a lens through which to view what you're made of, and to bring the world around you into focus. And the fact that you can wheelie them for an entire city block ain't too bad, either

I have an old copy of Gordon Jennings' Two-Stroke Tuner's Handbook at my desk. There's a line at the end of the opening chapter that's always struck home. "There is only one 'Secret' in the game: to know what you are doing, and to do it thoroughly." Gordon was talking about engines, but like much of what came out of Cycle, there was much more to it than just that.

It's taken me a long time to write this, and I fear that the whole thing is beginning to sound like a bad Academy Awards speech. I respect all of Soup's readership and Cycle's loyal subscribers, but most of all I don't want to let down any of the Cycle staffers I worked with, or those who came before me-there'll never be another group of people like that in my life. It was a dream of a job. I can't speak for anyone else on the staff, but my philosophy was really pretty simple. I just tried to learn as much as I could about what I was writing about, and then share what I'd discovered with the readers in an entertaining and thorough fashion.

I hope anyone reading this and who remembers the old book enjoyed the issues we put out. We tried as hard as we knew how to do our best-for the readers of course, but really I think, mostly for ourselves. And I hope we never let you down.After spending a few years in the teaching profession, Ken Lee joined the staff at Cycle magazine where he would assume the responsibilities of Road Test Editor and Senior Editor over time. Upon his departure from Cycle, Lee spent a few seasons in the advertising world working on motorcycle and automobile accounts before returning to work in education as a private school Principal and Superintendent. In 2000 he jumped back into the motorcycling fold, joining Vreeke & Associates where he currently serves as Associate Creative Director on the Dunlop, Honda and Helmet House accounts.

My tenure at Cycle magazine did not last until the bitter end, but I was there to witness what I believe was the beginning of the end-and that was bad enough. I agree with Danny Coe when he spotlights the sale of Cycle from Ziff-Davis Publishing to CBS Publishing as the watershed event. After that, the magazine was sold a couple times more in rapid-fire succession (at least as rapid is judged within publishing circles, if not literal calendar days), which reinforced the bottom line: Cycle was now indeed nothing more than a mere widget, a commercial commodity to be bought and sold-or killed-at whim. The barbarians were at the gates.

Of course, at that time the editorial staff did not realize such a transformation had occurred; in fact, we all fought tooth and nail-at least for a while-to preserve the core identity of the magazine. But in a few years, any such efforts would all prove to be in vain.

It's interesting that in paying homage to the book, Dean highlighted the 1982 Total Paid Circulation figure of 460,386, because that year sits smack dab in the middle of my on-staff stint at Cycle. I began working for Cook Neilson as a freelancer in 1978, and when he left the magazine in 1979 I filled out the masthead from the bottom up, so to speak. I departed the magazine in 1986.

While I do not disagree with what my good friend Danny Coe penned here recently about his take on things at Cycle, I was moved to respond and present to long-time fans a view from a different bird's eye. Coe greatly emphasized the racer tie-in, for he and those others he named comprised the road racing crowd at Cycle. However, there was another important core of people that made up the very life-blood of the magazine: The editorial staff.

When I came aboard in 1979, I joined a marvelously talented group of editors that Cook had already assembled: Dave Hawkins, Don Phillipson, John Stein and Bill Stermer. At that time, Mark Homchick was already a part of the racer group (being an up-and-comer on the national road race scene) and Danny Coe would soon become an official RR hanger-on; they would earn masthead positions in following years. Later on, Buzz Buzzelli, Mark Lindemann and Ken Vreeke joined the staff, and they too were made of the right stuff; all three continue working within the industry and I consider them among my best and closest friends. But it was that aforementioned group that was tasked with wrangling words and photos under Phil Schilling when I arrived 1979. Paul Halesworth ran the art department at the time; a consummate professional he. Later, Tom Saputo came on board and he was as talented a magazine designer as anyone could ever wish for. It was a privilege just to know these people, but I was double blessed to be allowed to join this team.

My first day on the job left no doubt in my mind that Cycle as an institution boasted a genuine editorial legacy as The Journal of Record. Now as then, that was what set Cycle apart. We editors were never assigned a word count for road tests or technical features, and our assignment was simple: Get the story; get it all; get it right. And oh, by the way, make it entertaining as well.

And get it right is what we did, sometimes even to the displeasure of VIAs-Very Important Advertisers. If in the course of our testing we discovered some significant flaw within a product, we addressed it straight up front for what it was, albeit in polite, precise terms. The man responsible for enacting such high levels of editorial honesty was the publisher, Tom Sargent, and on more than one occasion he met the big-time pressure from advertisers head-on in order to back up his editors, even if it cost the magazine hard, cold cash. The integrity of the magazine was all-important in the long run.

Back in the day, no newbie could simply waltz in at Cycle magazine and write a road test; you had to earn your spurs fair and square. After an undetermined time of writing lesser features, you may-or may not-be invited to write your first road test. This was privileged status, the pinnacle of the motorcycle writing art, and you were required to fully demonstrate your riding, research, technical and writing expertise. And so in due time Gordon Jennings guided me through my first evaluation, on the Moto Morini 3 1/2 Sport-hardly a lot of jeopardy wrapped up in that assignment, whatnot?

Moto Morini notwithstanding, that experience and many future days spent with Jennings have to rank as some of the greatest experiences in my life. Working in the company of Jennings was like having Mr. Wizard at your side, ready to bail you out (journalistically speaking, at least) whenever you got in over your head. Every meeting, every engine tear-down, every phone conversation was a graduate-level course in engineering, journalism and human behavior all rolled into one. Jennings could be witty, insightful, acerbic, highly instructional and hilariously entertaining all at once. However, he also did not suffer fools, so as a young associate editor I worked very hard to not behave foolishly, at least not very often. A truly great man, gone too soon.

At various moments during my time on staff at Cycle I may have had an inkling of all that I truly had, but it wasn't until long after my tenure had run its course that I realized fully I would never again in my life be surrounded by a group of people that would be so incredibly bright, hard-working, knowledgeable and experienced, wholeheartedly dedicated to the word-making craft as well as the sport-and could also ride a bike like jet-stink to boot. To you long-time fans of the written word who still mourn the passing of Cycle magazine, I give you my thanks; I too grieve what was lost.

Dan Coe

What John only lightly touched upon is that Cycle was exactly "what is was" for a reason. That reason was the EDITOR. The editor gave everyone his or her direction and essentially was responsible for the content and editorial flavor of the magazine. When you looked at Cycle, you were seeing the magazine collectively through the eyes of the editor as it was his book.

When Cook moved on, in or around '79, Phil Schilling took over. Phil was every bit the racer and expert that Cook was, just in a different sense. The magazine in its prime was actually full of racers. Jess Thomas, Cook, Kevin Cameron, Gordon Jennings, Mark Homchick, Pierre Des Roches, then later, Mike Haller, TW Blinkee, myself and more. We all were heavily involved.

As a matter of fact when looking back, the garage of Cycle always had some form of roadracer gracing its concrete. From the RG500 Suzuki that was presented to Cook as a gift from the factory which he rode one time at Riverside Raceway as a courtesy and then parked in one spot (untouched as it left the track) for the remainder of its existence, to the now infamous California Hot Rod and numerous TZ 250s, 125 gp bikes and many others. It is safe to say that Phil perpetuated the racing interest, as he was immersed in every aspect of motorcycle racing. For me this included a mentorship that I will always deeply appreciate, with only a few really being able to relate to being under that special wing. Ultimately I think it was Cook that started Homchick and it was Homchick and a lesser-known fellow by the name of Bart Rome that sparked my interest in on-road motorcycling. Cycle was the place to learn more about motorcycles and in looking back, it was indeed a special opportunity.

The location of Cycle was crucial to the magazine as well. We could leave the shop and literally be riding on any number of challenging canyon roads within minutes. To this day Cycle staffers are fortunate to have had this setting as a backyard always immediately available for testing. Had the mountain roads of Malibu been a carpet factory, no doubt I would have learned the art of cleaning carpets as well with John possibly being my apprentice.

Back to the point I wanted to make, the face of Cycle changed dramatically from the moment Cycle's ownership Ziff Davis publishing sold a select group of magazines to CBS. Jim Frahm, a member of CBS whom at the time also worked for the magazine division containing Cycle World (Cycle's closest competitor) soon replaced Cycle's publisher Tom Sargent. Seemed CBS had more layers of middle management than a French pastry. First Tom, and later Phil were both given golden parachutes and pushed from the plane by the magazines new ownership. From there Steve Anderson was immediately positioned into some very large shoes and assumed the role of editor officially taking the reigns. In my opinion Steve constructed a fine magazine and did a great job, but what made Cycle different essentially were the people and all were either gone or soon to be.

For me I'm pleased that many of the talented individuals formally at Cycle remain in the motorcycle industry. My comments and opinions don't even scratch the surface of things that went on, in and around the magazine, but my hopes are John's submittal and this might help to get more stories out, or at least the ball rolling.

Thanks Soup!

John Burns

Fine, I'll bite. It's always fun to gaze back thru rose colored granny glasses at the girl who got away, but when she reappears 15 years later, well...

When I got hired in late '88 by Phil Schilling, things had already turned the corner. I reported to work in Westlake Village, which meant you could actually go to the Rock Store for lunch and be back in an hour. Lore has it that those guys mostly just rode other peoples' bikes for fun and put out the magazine as a sideline. My first ride, Phil and me rode FZR400s to lunch and he suggested it was a good idea to put a little engine like that in neutral at the red lights. As I look back upon it, it is by the grace of God a kid from flatland Missouri learned to ride those curvy-ass roads without dying. I did have my share of crashes.

It takes me back to see the Danny Coe byline on 'Soup, I learned a lot from that guy. Phil always said Dan coulda been Ed Lawson, I always thought he coulda been either Ed or that guy from ZZZZBest Carpet Cleaning. Also at that time you had Ken Vreeke, who is now the brain behind the excellent Dunlop advertising and Honda parts advtg. I think Ken is the most underrated motojournalist of that time, Hickman Haul-Ass Club and a bunch of Ken's stories were just really some of the best stuff out there. Photography by Rich Cox. This is a guy who could ride a Gold Wing with his left hand while shooting with his right. You had your Thad Wolff, you had your whatshisname (Mark Homchick) who (ran) Kawasaki advtg. now? You had my buddy Tim Carrithers. You also had Paul Halesworth and his wife in the art department and the main deal is that these were just all genuinely nice humans in a low-pressure work environment located in not quite the sticks, but close. We were cut off from the publishers and who knows who?

So I'm there for what, six months? When the whole shake-up occurs. Phil Schilling is out. Strangely enough, I am in, but we are all moving to Newport Beach down in the OC. What do I know? Sure why not? I am still kid in candy store...

So this is '89, and the new Editor is Steve Anderson. Steve is a great human and all that (and currently running the Buell race team), but he came directly from Cycle World, I think his title was Technical Editor. Newport Beach is what, 80 miles from the old digs though, and before the internet it was not so easy to just shoot stories and pictures back and forth through the ether, so Vreeke is gradually phased out, as are Coe and Rich Cox.

Other guys on staff included Tyrone van Hooydonk, who was hired shortly after myself and whose credits included being the Editor of his college paper as i recall, and who is now with the Motorcycle Safety Foundation or is it Discover Today's Motorcycling? And Steve hired the veteran Charles Everitt, who had been at Cycle Guide, I believe, and if you love his work you can still see it at Motorcyclist. Aong with Tim Carrithers. Also Charles' buddy Jim Miller, who is golfing in Arizona I imagine.

The point is that by '91, Cycle mag. as you like to remember it, with Cook and Phil and Gordon Jennings, had already ceased to exist years earlier; the Cycle mag that David Pecker put a fork into was really but a shadow reflected on the cave wall. The old office on Lindero Cyn where you could "test" at lunch had been replaced by an office with an ocean view, where the nearest place to air out a motorcycle was at least an hour away (and the urban sprawl has only gotten worse).

At the same time, full props to Steve for bringing guys like Gordon Jennings back into the mix what a guy that guy was... if only I'd had the maturity then to know who was addressing me. And I never met Cook Neilson, but he appears in Cycle World now and then doesn't he?

OK here's the point then, ok the next point: That golden era of Cyce mag. you like to remember was just that, a golden era created by a few special talented people who moved onto other things. When Cook left, he hung up his spurs. If he had kept on at Cycle, do you think the level of enthusiasm that won the Daytona Superbike race could be carried on 30-some years later? What made Cycle cool, when it was cool, was that a few special people who were interested in a whole range of cool things, including motorcycles, dropped in for a few years, produced great art of the moto kind, and moved on to the next thing.

So I agree, feel free to mourn the Cycle mag of legend, but the Cycle mag that got axed was er, well, I am not a business person. I see the circ numbers from '82. Have you got the ones from '91? And let's not forget there's this thing now called the Internet... Hell's Bells man, remember the mag would come in the mail and it would be the First Time you clapped eyes upon the new ZX-10 or CBR600 Hurricane or whatever. Times have changed...

Okay, rant off.My main connection with CYCLE was Cook Neilsen who always thought my screed was far better than it actually was.

After publishing some of my longer stories in the late '60's—the best of which might have been UNAWARE IN DELAWARE a mud-slot to mud-slot account of the Delaware State Enduro which I rode, and finished, with a mini-recorder on shock cord around my neck. It is a tribute to the electrical engineers at Sony that the thing survived the beating it took as Delaware was always—and still is—a strange enduro where you might climb out of a muddy flooded field trailing soybean vines onto a six lane highway where snot nosed kids in station wagons in the next lane wonder why the motorcycle rider doesn't just stop and unlace the vines instead of trying to break them by smashing them down into the highway with his boots.

And a mile later following arrows across the well-tended backyard patios of nice folks seated at umbrella-topped tables offering glasses of iced tea to any rider willing to trade lost points at the next checkpoint for the opportunity to avoid death by dehydration.

Strangely: here it is over thirty years on and I'm still asked for photocopies of UNAWARE.

Cook asked me to do a monthly column and my THE DUCT TAPES—inspired by the Nixon tapes in the news at the time—and the fact that the stuff is absolutely indispensable to enduro riders—is still being inflicted on readers every month.

CYCLE ran the column from February 1977 to January 1985 when it transferred seamlessly to the February issue of Petersen's DIRT RIDER to run until February '02 when, seamlessly again, it picked up in the March issue of TRAILRIDER.Nice piece about Cycle, and thanks. I don't know exactly why what happened, happened. Things I do know: CPM (cost per thousand, a publishing term having to do with how much it cost advertisers to reach a thousand customers) had something to do with it, although with Cycle's substantial circulation lead over CW and the rest I would have thought our CPM would have been competitive; there might have been a problem with small advertisers for whom CPM wasn't as important as simply how much a third of a page cost; finally, it may have been time, simply enough, for us to go. Cycle after all had a pretty long run; Clymer bought it from Pete Petersen back in the late Forties or early Fifties, sold it to Ziff-Davis around 1966 for exactly 330,000 times what it cost him, ZD sold it to CBS for multiple millions of dollars, and I don't know what it was worth when CBS unloaded it to Hachette (but I'll bet it was a tidy sum). All-told we hung in there for almost a half-century.

One last thing I know for sure: from the ZD years all the way to our demise, Cycle only had three Editors: Gordon Jennings, me, and Phil Schilling. Of the three of us, Phil was by far the best, overseeing Cycle during its most difficult (and competitive) years. My hat's off to him, and to all the extraordinary staffers Gordon and Phil and I were lucky enough to work with over the years.

It was fun while it lasted; it could have lasted a bit longer.

Thanks again for thinking of all of us.

Ken Vreeke
My time at Cycle magazine came in the post-Cook/Jennings era. I was part of the last generation of Cycle staff, but we were all schooled by Cook, Gordon, Schilling, Dale Boller, Jess Thomas, Paul Halesworth, Tom Saputo, photographer Bill Delaney, John Stein, Don Phillipson, Mark Homchick, Mark Lindemann, Ken Lee and all the others who made Cycle what it was over the years. Hell, the whole industry was schooled by these guys. I penned my first story in 1985, a piece called Growing Up Squidly, about a youth misspent in the very Malibu mountain roads that I would ride again and again while road testing for Cycle. In my time there, I had the opportunity to ride with some of the greats in our sport, and I include in that list Dan Coe and Thad Wolff, who helped form the backbone of our testing staff and with whom I rode in close company for literally thousands of miles. Those were some of the best rides of my life.

Coming in at the late stage of the magazine's existence—1985 to its demise in 1991—I had an opportunity to work a little with Jennings and a lot with the great Kevin Cameron. The fingerprints of these guys never really left the magazine. Not for some of us, at least. There was so much respect for the magazine and for the people who had come before us. Through all the changes in ownership and management, the goal of the editorial staff never really wavered. It was all about getting it right, about being true to what the magazine always was, about learning and experiencing as much as possible and passing that along to our readers. There were a lot of talented people on the Cycle staff over the years, and it was an honor to work with them for as long as I did.

I worked for Cycle as an associate editor between 1979 and 1983. It was a great time, an incredible learning experience for me. We tested two or three bikes every month, and we were expected to get it right. Heaven help us if we ever made a factual error. I remember in a Yamaha 650 road test, I reported that it was odd that this particular model seemed to vibrate more than a near-identical model with the same engine. Turns out that the other one had rubber engine mounts. I thought Phil Schilling was going to kill me for that! He held us all to a high standard.

Once we got a telephone call from a guy at the printer when an issue was on press. He noticed a mistake in a spec chart, where we listed a Kawasaki as a SOHC instead of DOHC -- this pressman was a motorcycle enthusiast. Schilling pulled the publication off press (very costly!) and had it corrected before going back on.

Schilling said that when he quit the business, he'd never have anything to do with publishing or writing, and that he'd be done with it. And he pretty much stuck to that, although I recall at least one story he did for Cycle World a few years ago.

I left Cycle to work in Harley-Davidson's marketing department. All of us ended up working in the motorcycle industry. Ken Lee, who was there all the time I was, now works for Ken Vreeke (another Cycle alumni) on the Honda and Helmet House accounts. Mark Homchick worked for Kawasaki for many years; now he's with Suzuki. Don Phillipson and Tom Saputo went to add agencies, as well as Mark Lindemann, who has worked for Honda's agency for many years. And I of course went on to enjoy five great years working as Harley's public relations manager. For better or worse, we all got stuck in the industry!

I was in my office at Harley-Davidson in Milwaukee when I got the call (don't remember from who) that Cycle had been killed. I was confused. Why Cycle? Why not Cycle World? Later I learned through publisher Jim Hansen that everyone was as stunned as I. The corporate bigwigs didn't want two competing magazines, and they wanted to keep the more well-rounded one that covered more facets, like dirt bikes, which the all-street Cycle seldom did. Apparently they felt that there was more advertising $$ potential with CW.

Schilling believed that a magazine was built on persona. It was the editors who gave the magazine its personality, who shaped the magazine's image. Cycle was different, in subtle ways, before Lee, Homchick and I were there, and it was different after we left. That's okay, because nothing ever really stays the same. Nothing, except my own fond memories of good times with good friends.

Mark Homchick

Many have weighed in on Cycle, prompted by Dean's casting call for someone to reveal the "real" reason behind the demise of the favorite magazine of his now-gone youth. There may have also been the underlying desire to incite controversy-which is always good for piquing the interest of readers. My take? Those in the room at Black Rock know and everyone else has an opinion. Probably a matter of economics: The industry had seriously imploded, Cycle had gone all street, somewhat limiting its revenue base and perhaps most of all, there simply wasn't sufficient ad dollars to support two high-priced spreads. To feed Dean's thirst for dirt, there are those who surmise that Cycle, being the foster child of its owner's firstborn, was ripe to be thrown out with the bathwater. Whatever happened, Cycle was gone and it was time for everyone to join the rest of the world and actually toil for their paycheck-something that working at Cycle definitely never was. (Lee disputes this, but perhaps it was toiling in the way raising a child can be-but the rewards are worth the price.) But that's all business. What is important to me is how Cycle, through the incredible nurturing, generosity and friendship of the people who made it what it was, influenced what has come to be a life that I am everyday thankful for. And I don't think there is anyone who was a reader of Cycle in the '70s and '80s who was not positively influenced by what was delivered to their mailbox every month.

Everyone came to the magazine in a different way. As a teen, I poured over Cycle's pages. Cook's writing brought to life the experience of riding, discovery of new skills and places, racing and fast guys in an inspirational way like nothing else I'd ever read. Inspired by Cook's stories of his growth as a rider, I acted out my own skill development following the "Beyond Racer Road" series, marveling with self-satisfaction as my tires were finally feathered to the edge and the ends of my footpegs were beveled and shortened on the very mountain roads Cook began his road racing education. Schiller, through "Satisfied Mind," chronicling the resurrection of a beloved Ducati single destroyed in a fire, helped my young mind realize that motorcycles were so much more than machines that you didn't need to pedal. His words showed me how the relationship with a machine could touch your soul and that motorcycles were okay, and more than something that rational people (and parents) looked askance at as a foolish distraction of a youth needing direction. While my daily 100-mile blast through the canyons after school fed my growing dependence on the adrenaline fix, reading Cycle brought the dream world of motorcycles into my soul.

I was hooked hard. Being the precocious 17-year-old I was, once I figured out Cycle was housed in Westlake Village, a wonderful 25-mile ride of high disregard for the law through the Malibu mountains from my home. I rode up there after school one day, walked in the front door and asked whoever would listen, "Hey, I really enjoy the magazine. How do you guys put this thing together?"
Thus began an association that changed my life forever. In the innocence of my youth, I could never have imagined the simple act of a curious teenager would lead to a journey that would broaden my horizons far beyond what I had ever dreamed. The years of my life from that point forward would bring experiences euphoric and life-threatening-sometimes simultaneously. Non-stop learning. Incredible fun and camaraderie and most of all, the enrichment of my life through life-long relationships with the most nurturing, caring and giving people that one could ever dream of. Relationships (Mom, I hope aren't reading this) of equal value with any blood relative, living or dead.

Anyway, for some reason (it couldn't have been my charming personality), I found the staff would actually let me hang around. In time, I found myself developing relationships with Cook, Schilling and Jennings while I was graciously tolerated by Dale Boller, Dave Holeman and Jess Thomas.

I hung out whenever I could, doing whatever odd jobs I could to be part of the scene. Clean the van? No prob. Model for a photo shoot? Sign me up! Drive the chase van on a staff trip? You're kidding, right? You mean I can?! I remember sleeping on the floor in Cook's hotel room in Monterey as he tried to rest, soaking the hand he had broken in Laguna's (what was then) turn seven in a bucket of ice water, hoping against hope it would not look like the swollen mess it was by Sunday morning, with Stepper (his girlfriend, now wife) accepting that it was just something he was going to do, but fearing it at the same time. Phil letting me ride his new Ducati 750 Super Sport (!) up Highway 33 and back. Cook lending me his black Chevy van to drive to Willow for my first taste of life on the racetrack. Man, it was heady stuff as an 18-year-old, driving down the road with that bitchen' Cycle logo on the door. In my young world, Cycle was the center of the motorcycling universe. I swear I felt the same on the inside as those that first traveled to and walked on the moon. This was it for me.

As Mark Lindemann mentioned in his piece, Cycle attracted some pretty sharp people, whether on staff or in the inner circle. While they may not always have had the knowledge when they arrived, over time their relationship with the magazine fostered a desire to succeed and high level of expertise, because that's what everyone you looked up to was made of. As an example, I met Matt Owens at the Rock Store. Matt, like most of the people I was hanging out with, was interested in racing, but realized he was better at making bikes go fast from behind wrenches than behind the handlebar. Matt got to know Schilling and Jennings, and ultimately, with the gracious donation of Matt's 250cc Yamaha DS-7, we went racing. Jennings ported it, des Roches modified the exhaust (with Jenning's guidance), Matt fine-tuned it and that little bike went on to win the first road race it and I entered. Matt showed up with the basics, and with what he learned from Gordon and later Phil, went on to wrench Eddie Lawson's TZ250s in the late '70s, and worked with Erv Kanemoto during Freddie Spencer's first full GP season.

In the years I was a "hanger-on," my racing career blossomed. Cook decided to park Old Blue at the end of 1977 and while it was sad to see him stop racing, it freed up Schilling who wanted to know what it was that made those funny little engines without valves go so damn fast. In 1978, a TZ250E showed up at 780-A Lakefield Road. The benefactor of Cook's retirement and Phil's burgeoning interest in two-strokes? Me. It was soon obvious Phil understood all things internal combustion as he built a machine in which the only thing preventing it from winning every race it entered was the rider's still developing skills. I finally kept the thing on two wheels at the Sears Point national, giving Phil another national win to go with the ones he shared with Neilson, albeit in the novice class. Not to dwell on it, but much more racing was to come, courtesy Phil. He put all the pieces of my pro career into place, along with benefactor Stanley Chan and TZ750 owner/tuner Paul Dahmen. But that's another story...

After many years of hanging around and doing the racing thing I got the call I never dreamed would happen: "Mark," Phil asked on the other end of the phone, "how would you like to join Cycle?" John Stein had left, opening a vacancy. I sure didn't feel qualified, but I sure-as-hell wasn't going to hesitate for a moment. Of course, my arrival on the staff had nothing to do with any ability to craft words together in a meaningful way, but everything to do with Phil's driving ambition to keep Cycle at the forefront as the authoritative motorcycling journal of record. Ends up I had become an acceptable road racer on the national level and all-around decent motorcycle rider, so my presence added verifiable credibility to the magazine's road tests.

At this point I'll be honest here and say that were it not for Phil, Don Phillipson, Mark Lindemann and Allyn Fleming crafting my habitually late road tests and columns into prose worthy of the magazine, my tenure might have been short-lived. And I am forever grateful for them for giving me the skills necessary to eventually make a living putting words together without the managing editor and copy editor functions backing me up. But that's what made Cycle great. Everyone had their special skill set, everyone knew what was expected of them and through their own inner-drive, they did it to the absolute best of their ability.

I don't want to bore your readers with too many more details, but I would like to embellish personal memories about the staff and other relationships I owe to my involvement with the magazine...

Cook Neilson: The architect of, in its modern version, the best motorcycle magazine ever. Funny. Extremely generous. Incredibly bright. And a hell of a motorcycle racer for what to me at the time was an old guy. I am amazed he's still alive after all those four-egg breakfasts and Tareytons. And I am so proud to see he will be inducted into the AMA Hall of Fame. He definitely deserves the honor.

Gordon Jennings: People either adored Jennings or despised him. I fall into the former group. I once heard that I reminded Gordon of him as a young man, which with Gordon's temperament and personality could be taken both as a compliment and a hint that you'd better learn to be more humane towards your fellow man. He always had a great way to make something self-effacing entertaining. On the subject of dirt riding before the original "Dirt Donks" story: "The only time I ever go riding off road is as a direct result of ineptness on the pavement." On the pursuit of women: "Get two tomorrow, miss one today and you're still one behind." But the biggest thing Jennings taught me was much more humanistic: Stay in touch with the people you care about. He never told me he was dying of cancer. I regret to this day I wasn't able to spend time with him at the end and that I was unable to say "Goodbye" and "Thanks."

Bart Mulhfeld: Bart came to Cycle from Connecticut for the summer to be Cycle's "shop rat," a job his father, a Ziff-Davis Man of Power arranged for him. Bart would later move to California for college where we roomed together for many years. We insult each other on a regular basis to this day.

Ken Lee and Mark Lindemann: Two guys who were able to put a humor "spin" on my mostly annoying personality. I once asked Ken how he put up with me in the days leading up to a national (I had a bad habit of getting my "race face" on about Wednesday-becoming insufferable in the process). "Homchick," he remarked, "I just stayed away from you so I wouldn't smash your face into the wall." I did get a fork in the chest once, but from what I hear, I was luckier than some other staff members... Both A-plus guys who like me, don't see to be able to get out of this industry. Lifetime friends.

Phil Schilling: No-one except perhaps God will ever be able to properly repay Phil for enabling so many young racers to realize their dreams. Thad Wolff, Danny Coe, Mike Haller, Kevin Brunson and James Stephans—to name a few-all realized their dream of racing 250s competitively at the national level thanks to Phil, and they all reached levels of success they probably would not have attained without his direct involvement. On a personal note, in addition to my racing accomplishments, my relationship with Phil paved the way to a wonderful journey through this industry I am so fortunate to be a part of. Having worked at Cycle was a stamp of authority in the industry. It certified that you really did know something about motorcycles and the people that made them part of their lives. And it opened doors of great opportunity for all of us. Phil made that all possible for me. Thanks, Schiller.

The team of Neilson, Jennings and Schilling together: They sparked the dreams of motorcycle enthusiasts through challenging, humorous, insightful, educational, emotional and wonderfully crafted writing with an innate drive to be nothing less than the best at what they did. And had more fun at the same time than should be allowed.

In closing, my relationship with Cycle might be different from that of the other staffers who have offered their assessment of the title via "Soup." I more or less grew up there in what were very formative years of my young life. The time I was so fortunate to spend with that incredibly nurturing, benevolent, fun and talented group of people had more influence on where my life would lead than any other single experience.

God bless 'em.Thanks for mentioning the Cycle reunion. You do an immense service—I believe, but that's just me—by bringing that magazine to your readers' attention now and again.

I'm 53. When I was a wretched teen in a tiny town in Arkansas going to high school, it was (in no particular order) Jess Thomas, Gordon Jennings and Cook Neilson who gave me an education I value most highly, and still use, even today. Staffers/contributors to come, Kevin Cameron, Mark Homchick, Danny Coe, Ken Vreeke and Phil Schilling, have all contributed equally as much--although, I must say, anyone who doesn't care for anything I've ever written should put the blame solely on me, and not on any of these men. They were just putting out the best motorcycle magazine ever. In today's world, where hyperbole has become commonplace and virtually meaningless, that deserves a repeat: They put out the best motorcycle magazine ever.

I wish, fervently, I could have been a part of those generations of Cycle: Jennings, Neilson, and Schilling. Nonetheless, of my time in this industry, I am most proud of the three short years I served with Cycle's last generation, when Steve Anderson was at the helm. I can tell you that we--Steve, John Burns, Tyrone van Hooydonk, Jim Miller, Ken Vreeke, Danny Coe, Kevin Cameron, me, and virtually every other person intimately associated with the magazine--did everything humanly possible to live up to the high standards set by the previous generations. Of the people named, I'm as certain as I can be that absolutely no effort was spared to keep putting out the best motorcycle magazine ever. We had to. We owed it to those who came before. Anything less was, quite simply, unthinkable.

Perhaps I'm merely living in the past by keeping alive what Cycle magazine meant to me, both as a reader and as a staffer. But to be able to draw upon those memories, and to have a constant, daily reminder to treat the reader as an intelligent person, and to write accordingly, then I'm more than content to live there forever.

Thanks for listening, and more.