Trail Rider Magazine

Wheel Spin No doubt life can be a wild ride and if you relax a bit and let it unfold, it sure can be interes ng to see where it can lead you. For those of you who have yet to hear the news, Trail Rider Magazine is under new owner- ship and I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Kurt Flachbart, a life-long motorcyclist who grew up obsessed with all things two- wheeled. We lived just north of Boston, Massachuse s in the town of Danvers when mini bikes and trail bikes were just star ng to get popular. Christmas 1968 was a special one to be forever etched into my brain. My neighbor Garry Drown had woken up to a brand new Honda Mini Trail under the tree. Within minutes, phones were ringing all up and down the street and the neighborhood kids all gathered at the Drown's house to check out this blue and silver beauty. Within an hour, we had shoveled a path all around their house and Garry was kind enough to let us all take turns on his new bike. That was it, even though it was 48 years ago, I can remember it like yesterday and two-wheeled dirt bikes have constantly been in my life, at mes, even consuming my life. First and foremost, I'm an off road riding dirt bike nut and remember very well sending out for my NETRA membership back in 1975 and how cool it was to get the s ckers on my Hodaka Wombat and start follow- ing the older dudes in town who were ripping through the local trails on their Penton's, Husky's, Ossa's, yes Hodaka's and other cool woods rides of the day. MX was never my bag, not that I don't follow it, but woods riders get bored easily and riding around the same track lap a er lap just never appealed to me. Our local woods riders shop was Cape Ann Cycle in Bev- erly MA. where The New England Trail Rider Magazine was sold. As a kid who was not interested in s cks, balls or bats, other than me spent in school, riding my Hodaka occupied all my me. All of it. The Hodie was not the freshest bike as it had seen a couple years of NETRA Enduro's before I had bought it. It was my first real motorcycle that had a hand clutch and 5 speeds and the learning curve was steep for a 13-year-old. Crashes were constant, requiring my Dad to give me a li to Cape Ann Cycle for parts. Cape Ann is where I picked up my very first issue of New England Trail Rider. I had started reading Trail Rider religiously somewhere during the 1975 season and was happy to see it was published not far from our house in Wenham MA by Bob Hicks. I knew Bob's son Rick Hicks from watching him rip up the then well-known MX prac ce track at Cherry Hill in Beverly MA. Every Saturday, we local kids would ride our bikes to Cherry Hill and watch the experts tear up the loamy soil. Rick was a local hero at the me and I remember him being very kind to me by handing down some of his cast-off res occasionally. The obsession comes full circle By Kurt Flachbart August 2016 5

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