CAT QUICK & TIGER TOUGH
Most motorcycle stories don’t start with racing a 1957 Chevy with a Corvette engine, but Jim Noel’s story does. While going to school and racing his Chevy in his spare time, Jim bought a Triumph 650 to ride back and forth to school in Boston. He enjoyed riding it, and his girlfriend enjoyed going along for rides, too. But in 1970, “someone coaxed me into the woods,” Jim says.
“Despite being the product of a small company, the Pioneer was quite advanced for its time.”
Going offroad was an eye opener. Jim was immediately bit by the Offroad Bug, and has never really recovered. “I tried to follow an offroad bike with the Triumph. I realized I was out of my element.” Jim went to a dealership and traded the Triumph for this 1970 OSSA Pioneer, which had no room for a passenger. “My girlfriend was upset — she liked going for rides.” And though Jim bought the OSSA in New Hampshire, the story of how he got it, and how the bike, which is now west of the Rockies, got there, is a little convoluted.
OSSA’s beginnings
OSSA was part of the post-World War II resurgence in the
