As the man said, great photos don't need captions. image, thanks mark

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.