Ron Bishop: 2015 Trailblazers Hall of Fame Inductee

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As we have been doing in recent weeks, here is another of our Hall of Fame inductees to be honored this year. The Trailblazers were saddened to hear the news last September that Ron Bishop had passed, but we are moving along just the same to properly credit him for his many great motorcycling accomplishments.

Ron Bishop was born in Woodland, Washington, in 1943. His family moved to Southern California when he was 10 and settled in Escondido. Escondido was a hub of motorcycling activity and it wasn’t long before little Ron was blazing around on a Cushman Eagle scooter, which he naturally took off-road. He rapidly moved from the scooter to a Mustang and eventually to his first real motorcycle, a Zundapp 250cc Super Sabre.

In 1960, at age 17, he started racing TTs and scrambles aboard the Zundapp, but waiting around between races was excruciating for the energetic teen. Soon he discovered there was no waiting around when he entered enduros, hare scrambles and long-distance desert races, just hours of wide-open racing.

Ron began an off-road racing career that took him all over the world. Bishop rode many of the major off-road races of his era: the Greenhorn Enduro, Barstow to Vegas and the grueling long-distance races such as the Mint 400 and the Baja 1,000. Ron raced the Baja 1,000 starting with the first event in 1967 to a record of forty consecutive years! He was also a front-runner in the Baja 500, the Mexicali 300, and the Tecate Enduro.

Bishop earned a factory Kawasaki ride in 1973. That year he qualified for the ISDT, held in the United States for the first time in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. He came back and qualified again for the ISDT in 1975, riding for the factory Rokon squad. That year, the prestigious “Six Days” event was held on the Isle of Man. Bishop always said representing his country in two ISDT appearances was among the most memorable episodes of his racing career.

During his years of off-road racing, Bishop became a self-taught electrical engineer and began developing more powerful lighting for his motorcycles. He was the first to figure out how to power halogen lights on his bikes.

In the early 1980s, Bishop opened his own motorcycle shop, dealing exclusively in off-road motorcycles. Through his shop, Bishop worked with many of the leading off-road and motocross riders of the greater San Diego area.

Ron Bishop was inducted into the AMA Hall of Fame in 2001 for his many accomplishments in off-road racing. In September 2014, he passed away due to natural causes, not long after his seventieth birthday.

The Trailblazers welcome Ron Bishop to the 2015 Hall of Fame.