Motorcycling Boom Sweeps Nation, We All Get In Trouble | Last Page

Chula Vista, Calif., June 8— Over our century-long history, Motorcyclist has always striven (that would be stroven, for you Gaelic speakers) to keep up with the fast-paced world of motorcycling. Indeed, as a wave of lightweight off-road freedom machines arrived in the early '70s, we quickly dispatched an uncomfortable-looking, mustachioed man to sample this new form of two-wheeled adventure. His verdict? Machines like the Honda QA50 pictured above were utterly intoxicating. And so in our pages, we trumpeted the off-road revolution, triggering the transformation of every vacant lot across this great nation of ours into a round-the-clock adventureland filled with the wheezing roar of tiny engines and the 1.4-horsepower sting of flying dust.

For those of you not old enough to have lived through it, it was like this: You could ride anyplace you wanted, anytime. No fences, no private-property worries. It was just the most totally awesome time ever. And nobody had to work either. We didn’t even do the magazine for a while, because we were just too busy riding. All we did was ride, talk about riding, or listen to others talk about riding. Yeah, it was a pretty great time.

But then this one guy gets a little too frisky and messes up one picnic, and next thing you know, snap!, we’re all busted. The barbed wire goes up and the fun stops. Thanks for ruining it for the rest of us, buddy. Way to go!