25 Years Ago November, 1968

25 YEARS AGO NOVEMBER, 1968

Irishman Sammy Miller, the premier trials rider of the era, made an appearance on this

issue’s cover, in a photo that depicted him cleaning a section at Southern California’s Saddleback Park aboard his Bultaco trials bike. A feature story titled “Supersam at Saddleback” covered Miller’s exploits during a two-day trials school and competition, a part of the champion’s six-week tour of the States to promote the sport of trials.

• Sears Roebuck and Co.’s SR250, a split-single-two pistons sharing a common combustion chamber and carried on a Y-type connecting rod-received a full road test in this issue. Although the SR250, built by the Austrian company Steyr-Daimler-Puch, “possessed no glaring faults,” it apparently was incapable of stirring up much positive editorial emotion. • A little more successful in that regard was the Harley-Davidson Sprint SS350, a bike built in Italy by Aermacchi with a great deal of design influence and venture capital out of Milwaukee. “The H-D factory seems almost to have modeled the Sprint as a scaled-down version of the mighty Sportster,” commented the editors in a test of the bike.

• The competition section covered the San Jose Mile and Peoria TT. Bart Markel took both wins aboard (what else) a Harley-Davidson. The Mt. Garfield hillclimb received coverage, with Logan, Ohio’s, Earl Bowlby earning top honors aboard his evergreen BSA. Bowlby finally retired two years ago.

Don Canet