Remember this Honda oldie: ATC ?

I was reading the tread about Silverwing trike conversions, when it came to the point of somebody mentioning the old Honda ATV trikes. That brought back some memories...

In the seventies and eighties I was a member of a local off-road club. Besides motorcross, trials and enduro training and rides, we also had a weekly fitmess training. My sparring partner in those days was Ronny Renders. I hear you think "Ronny Who?" Well, he is the ONLY person EVER to finish the world famous Paris-Dakar Rally in time on a sidecar combination. Good old Ronny sold motorbikes for a living and invited me on an off-road demo-day.

There were these Honda ATC models. I never rode such a motorvehicle before (and after for that matter) and grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

After thirty minutes or so, I decided it wasn't my cup of tea: during that half-hour I spent more time crawling up from under the trike than riding it. I must have turned it over at least six, seven times. I can't remember Ronny selling ANY of them. These ATV's were sooooooo difficult to ride!

The Honda ATV90 came out in 1969 and by the early '70s were very popular in Kotzebue and Point Barrow, AK. The Eskimos used them to pull sleds and traveled all over the country with them. There was a lot of disgust at their being discontinued due to accidents down in the South 48. The people up there preferred them to later quads because the trikes were simple and easy to repair. The things would float too which was handy getting them across large creeks.

Wow! Kotzebue and Point Barrow Alaska. I sent time there in the 90's servicing rural Alaska. Basically I would just walk from place to place. These trikes and Bike where all over along with snowmobiles, dogs and sleds. The most concerning was the rough looking big dog following me dragging his big honking chain.

My time was a bit earlier, I arrived at the FAA station in OTZ in 1963 and left in 1973. In the early 60s before the advent of much in the way of motorized transportation there were more dogs than people in the village. When the bell would ring in the Catholic Church the howling was something to hear to believe. In the late 60s when snogos (Snowmobiles) became the thing to have the dog population of the village dropped to less than half. Dog sleds became rarer, mostly kept for seal hunting and the poorest villagers who could fuel dogs with fish but couldn't afford gasoline for a snogo.

I remember reading -in the '70's- about these trikes being able to float!

I guess they were fine for riding rough terrain, but not for racing...

The trikes lost favor and legal status because they where unsafe. They would roll easily when making corners. People had leg injury when a back tire ran up there leg if they failed to get their feet up. The three wheels where said to be better then four wheel 2x4 drive in off road travel. I owned one in Fairbanks and it was a rip roaring ride. The wheels could be taken off and parts loaded into a bush plane and taken to the tundra for carabou or moose hunts.

Almost ran over my own foot the first time I rode one of these things. My natural reaction from riding 'bikes was to put my foot down during cornering and had to develop new habits.
Are FBI wanted posters in Alaska post offices really autographed?

Not by me!

I knew through others two men who where on the witness protection program by their own statement. They had heavy Boston accents. One was a wacko who burned his brothers house down hiding from the police. He took cover in an under ground trap door cellar in Fairbanks Alaska. When they sifted through the ashes he came gasping out from the cellar and was arrested for murder of a longtime Alaskan gold miner and political radical. In the end it was difficult to argue that it was not self defense as the radical was edgy and capable of shooting anyone entering his property. There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.

That's what I hear. I think some guys that are attracted to living in the hinterland of our fifty states are just not meant to be in civilization!

It was good for me to move to Kotzebue when I was 19. It was first a culture shock and then a great place to live, hunting and fishing first rate, and six months after arriving and saving every dime I could of my pay by living off local game and substandard living quarters I bought my first airplane and paid a fellow FAAer who was a flight instructor to teach me to fly for two cases of beer, one when I soloed and one when I got my first ticket.

Highest percentage of flight licenses of the 50 states as I recall is in AK.