Cycle News

VOLUME 57 ISSUE 13 MARCH 31, 2020 P91 summit. Clymer had the last laugh, however. His run up the famous mountain on an Excelsior took 21 minutes and 58 seconds and was the fastest time of the day. A few years later Clymer went on to win national hillclimbing champion- ships for Indian. Even after his prime racing days, Clymer managed to find ways to keep his name in front of the press. In business trips across the country Clymer announced to the media that he was going to attempt to set a new city-to-city record, even though many of the routes (Denver to Chicago for example) were never considered or attempted by others. Ever the schemer, Clymer was a man of diverse business interests. In addition to his dealerships he began publishing a magazine, sold farm implements and countless other business concerns. One of his side businesses was helping to grant patents for inventors. It turns out that not all was in order with that particular side hustle and in the late 1920s Clymer was sent to prison at the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, for mail fraud. He was in jail for over a year, but his fame, and perhaps wealth, brought him certain privilege other prisoners could only dream of. It was reported that Clymer was granted special "leave" from prison to compete in motorcycle races during his sentence. Clymer showed his resilience af- ter getting out of prison. He moved to Los Angeles and took over the West Coast Indian distributorship from Al Crocker, who was concen- trating on manufacturing his short- track (speedway) racing machines. Ironically, Clymer established a successful mail-order motorcycle parts business. Clymer thrived in Hollywood. He helped promote motorcycling in the 1930s by loaning bikes to the movie studios. He also arranged to have movie stars receive bikes on loan from Indian in exchange for the company using publicity shots of the stars on its bikes for advertising. In 1951, Clymer purchased the fledgling Cycle Magazine from Petersen Publishing for a couple thousand dollars. Buying the fail- ing book seemed like a waste of money at the time. Clymer's jour- nalistic style was later summed up by a phrase in a later anniversary issue of Cycle, "Clymer never met a motorcycle he didn't like." He always emphasized the positive aspects of motorcycling in his pub- lications and shied away from criti- cal testing reviews of motorcycles, which became the style of writing that the public demanded during the 1960s. Clymer owned Cycle for 15 years. The gamble he took on the magazine turned out to be easily the most profitable venture he was ever involved with. "Anyone else would have stopped there," said Cook Neil- son, who became editor of Cycle under its new ownership. "After all, wasn't he already a pioneer? Didn't everybody already know who he was? Hadn't he already made it?" But Clymer, now in his 70s, got right back into the fray. He tried unsuccessfully to launch the aptly named Munch Mammoth. The German-made monstrosity featured a 1300cc engine designed for a car. Massive was an understate- ment—not only the size of the bike, but the $4000 price tag ($25,000 in today's money) doomed the bike. Clymer then tried to revive his beloved Indian by importing Velocettes and Royal Enfields and dubbing them Indian Motorcycles. The photo in this story is of Clymer demonstrating one of his Indian-badged imports to the press in the late 1960s. He still crackled with energy and knowl- edge. Clymer's joy of wheeling and dealing was obvious to the journal- ists on hand. Who knows, had he lived long enough maybe his final gamble would have paid off. Clymer died of a heart attack while working in January of 1970. Gone was the Gambler. Seemingly born with a briefcase in his hand Clymer went out the way he came in—trying to make one more big deal. CN This Archives edition is reprinted from December, 2006. CN has hundreds of past Archives edi- tions in our files, too many des- tined to be archives themselves. To prevent that from happening, we will be revisiting past Archives articles while still planning to keep fresh ones coming down the road. - Editor Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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