In Memoriam: Bob Nickelsen

Bob Nickelsen (1941-2025) passed away in his sleep on Saturday 30 August 2025, aged 84 years. Bob was a friend and mentor to many in the trials community. He was a member of the NATC Hall of Fame. Bob Nickelsen started trials in the 1960’s. Twice he became the Southern California Champion. After winning El Trial de España, he made a trip to Spain to compete. Later, with his high-level skill and experience, he finished second behind Lane Leavitt at the pioneering North American Trials Championship in 1973. The next year at an AMA-sponsored event, he rode the infamous mud trials in Saddleback Park, California. It was the first official American appearance of the European riders. Everyone was hopelessly late due to the gumbo mud that came from rain and snow the day before the event. Nearly all the best riders in the world were disqualified due to time. Bob, ever the crafty one, realized the time disaster and used his intimate knowledge of Saddleback Park to speed to the finish line. He finished 10th, the last one to avoid disqualification.


That accomplishment was on one of the early, woefully underpowered Honda TL-125 trials bikes, making his feat even more remarkable. Representatives from the Honda Factory were at the event and offered Bob the opportunity to organize a Honda Trials Team to compete at the US Nationals. This was a pinnacle achievement for Bob. The hand-made Hondas were amazing and attracted endless admiration. The Honda riders dominated the nationals: Marland Whaley the National Champion, Mark Eggar usually a close second, and the rest of the team occupying the other top spots. Bob was the coach, mentor, chaperone, and the first minder anywhere. In all the rides in all the six years of national competition, there was not a single failure of any of the Hondas. Bob was the crew chief and tuner-mechanic extraordinaire.


Bob continued with Honda for 23 years. Predictably he had interesting jobs such as Dynamometer Emissions Testing Laboratory and as Automotive Senior Engineer Specialist; he was the one who travelled to dealers when they could not fix the worst of computer or other electronics problems. As with everything else, chaperoning his young riders to houses of ill repute in Okinawa was fun, troubleshooting electronic problems was fun, trials was fun (the training and practicing was more fun than competing), mountain bike racing was fun, and in retirement, riding ATV’s in the snow-bound high altitudes around Prescott, Arizona was great fun. All these years later, he regularly sent engineering reports to the factory on the Honda side-by-sides. Not surprisingly, all design problems got their attention, and all were fixed on the next model.


His travels with Honda, trials, and the military took him all over the world. In fact his travels with the military put him on the front lines in Viet Nam with electronic bombing beacons, the ancient predecessors of the GPS. Bob worked on the dangerous front lines, a biscuit toss from the forward position of the Chinese. Typical of Bob, he thought it was fun.


One of Bob’s hidden characteristics was his amazing toughness and self-reliance. Much of that came from moving every two years with his father who was in the Navy. He was always the new kid, always the outsider. His toughness was truly forged when he went to high school in Washington, D.C. where he might see another white face three times a week. Fights happened every day after school. His strategy was not to win, but to cause as much pain as he could to his attacker. Result: iron turned to steel and there were fewer and fewer fights. He commented once that the muscled, top trials riders strutting shirtless around the pits were a joke.


Bob was extraordinarily generous to many people, but true to his modest character, he did this in a personal, very private way that few knew of. Bob was also an inspirational competitor and provided a high-water mark that was available for anyone to chase. And tough? The first chest pains came during a mountain bike race. But his race face was on and he won. Even after sixteen heart attacks later, Bob continued to love life right to the end. He rode every day, every minute of which was fun. Bob Nickelsen was a much-admired, one-of-a-kind man.
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Bob Nickelsen, member, NATC Hall of Fame is the source of the material here (by Wiltz Wagner). Also, there is a superb interview on Brad Baumert's Trials USA Heritage Series, Bob Nickelsen. Photograph credit Wiltz Wagner.