Bob poses with his restored RH67 and its purchaser Jarno from Sweden. The classic dirt bike movement lost one of its true characters when Bob Neilson from Las Vegas, Nevada passed away in his sleep last Friday. His many friends here have known of his passing for a week but Bobs wife Linda asked us to keep it quiet until his funeral arrangements had been made.
Bob Neilson is regarded by many as one of the most prolific collectors and restorers of classic off road bikes in the United States. His collection of custom framed machinery has few equals and it'd be a sure bet that there wouldn't be very many aftermarket brands that hadn't passed through Bob's shed over the years. His real love was the aftermarket framed bikes that forged American flat track, desert racing and motocross history in the sixties and seventies. Bobs number one passion however was for the work of Harry Hindall, having at least six of Harrys beautiful creations in the collection at various times. I first met Bob a number of years ago after missing out on buying a C&J Honda he'd posted on eBay. I emailed him to ask if he had anything similar coming up for sale and in that initial email mentioned that I owned the Dirt Bike Magazine Project Bighorn Hindall Kawasaki 350 basket case. Bobs reply came almost immediately telling me that I had "the infamous lost Hindall" and reversing the equation, wanting to buy
it from
me. Before long we realised that we were very similar souls and a great friendship was formed.
I wasn't the only Aussie who benefitted from knowing Bob. Alan Jones, Jim Garvey, Freaky and a number of others have benefitted from knowing the big guy. I purchased my Boyd and Stellings framed TM400 and Hindall DT1 and countless parts from him while Alan Jones bought his Redline Honda and C&J Triumph and Dave Tanner purchased the Cheney TM400 now owned by Ray Sullivan.
In a sad irony two of Bobs bikes, his Kenny Roberts and Hindall framed TT500 Yamaha specials are featured in the next issue (#44) of VMX following up the piece Ray Ryan did on Bobs wife Linda's Champion framed DT1 in issue #22. At the time of his death I was organising the logistics for future articles on Bobs vast and eclectic collection.
In a typical example of Bobs different slant on life, there won't be a traditional funeral and burial. Some of Bobs ashes will be scattered over his old home town race track in Peoria, Ilinois while the rest will be stored in a restored Triumph gas tank as were his wishes.
Bob is just as non comformist in death as he was while living. RIP big guy.
