Many moons ago when I was a young lad, Honda introduced a rather interesting and very popular small trail bike. It was bigger than the mini-bikes but not anywhere close to being full size, like the ultra-cool Honda CB160 (my brother had one of those!). It was Goldilocks dream. Not too big and not too small and anyone could ride it and everyone wanted it and almost everyone owned one in the early seventies. "Everyone" included my good friend, Mark who usually got the toys he wanted and that included a Trail 70 back in the summer of 1970.

Mark suddenly had lots of new friends but only his "good buddies" like me got to ride his shiny red Trail 70. There was some vacant land nearby that had plenty of trails on it and we made the most of it. It didn't matter how often we crashed that little bike or overrevved the engine or just generally abused the snot out of it, it didn't care. He never gave it any maintenance or care - just put gas in it and thrashed it and it never once quit or broke or complained. It just happily played with us like a faithful dog.

When Mar k grew older and finally got his license and a car, the poor little Trail 70 just sat unused. Finally his mother gave it to Mark's cousin Dougie. Dougie hated it because it was old and beat up and now out of style. He rode it some anyway but he really wanted a cool new motocross bike, so he revved the engine up to full throttle and headed the bike for the edge of a high cliff. At the last moment, Dougie jumped off and the beat up old Trail 70 went sailing off to its demise . . . (sniff). Dougie went home and told his mother the bad news of the terrible accident and that he was OK but the old Honda was now junk. "Well, we can't just leave it there!", exclaimed Dougie's mother, "we should go get it so someone doesn't trip over it and hurt themselves".  They went back to the base of the rocky cliff and found the old Trail 70 twisted and mangled and . . . idling. "Putt, putt, putt, putt".

I just love that story and I knew that one day I would have my own Trail 70. One day I spotted one for sale in the paper and I went to see it. An older gentleman had purchased it new and he would strap it to the back of his motorhome and when he and his wife settled in at the campground they would use the Trail 70 to putt around the area. They had all but quit traveling in the motorhome and decided to sell the 70. So for the princely sum of $325 (in 1985) I finally had my shiny red 1970 Honda Trail 70, just like Mark's old bike.

Putt, putt, putt, putt.