He handed the Editorship over to Phil, who carried on the fine tradition: While the crew was busy building racebikes in the Westlake Village, California, workshop downstairs, they were also busy hammering out Cycle magazine upstairs – until 1989, anyway, when Cycle was bought out by a rival publishing company, and Phil strapped into his golden parachute and left the building. In 1979, Cook had the cool sense to retire at the peak and move back to Vermont. That project was well-documented in Cycle, and some people credit Phil and Cook with resurrecting the Ducati brand. Actually he did more than tune it, he built it almost from scratch. Old Blue was the Ducati 900 Supersport Phil tuned and Cook rode to victory in the 1977 Daytona Superbike race. We didn’t waste any of it.ĭaytona, 1977: the late David Emde, Phil, Cook Neilson, Wes Cooley.
We saw Cycle’s circulation crest at about a half-million, we saw the advent of the first real Superbikes, we had a huge amount of fun building and racing Old Blue, we were a pair of young guys living and working in Southern California about a 20-minute ride from Malibu Beach. I treasure our friendship every time I see him or talk with him I am reminded how lucky I was that the two of us were able to spend so much time together, at such an exciting time.
In fact, Phil was not only the best Editor the internal combustion press has ever seen, he was also its best writer. Of the three of us, Phil was hands-down the best. I know there were other Editors after Phil retired, but I still think of Cycle as a magazine led by three people: Jennings, me, and Phil. We were together from that date until I left Cycle in the summer of 1979, then he ran Cycle for another decade or so. He gave in pretty quickly he must have known I would make his life a living hell until he said yes. When I found myself sitting in the Editor’s chair in the Fall of 1969, I called him up and asked him what he was doing by way of self-abuse, and that if he felt he was falling behind in this important area, he should join me in New York and become Cycle‘s Managing Editor.
Then he did some other pieces, and it didn’t take a genius to see that he was a brilliant talent with an enormous background. I think he submitted some work to us in the late sixties because he knew Jess Thomas, our Technical Editor. MH: How had you known Phil Schilling before recruiting him to Cycle?Ĭook Neilson: I’m not exactly sure how I found out about Phil. How could anybody sane say no to that? The Editor was Cook Neilson, who had already or was about to uproot and move the whole operation from New York City to California. He was on his way to doing that at the University of Wisconsin, and playing with motorcycles on the side, when the Editor of Cycle magazine called him up in 1970 and offered him a job, based upon a few stories Phil had sold to the magazine.
Phil Schilling was a kid from a farm in the Midwest (Ohio, I believe he said), whose career goal was to be a History professor.
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