in 1958, John Penton's wife died at age 29, and his family said they’d take care of his three children, so Penton went for a ride to clear his head and deal with the grief.

He left Ohio, heading for Daytona Fla, riding a 175cc NSU. He stopped in Atlanta and won the Stone Mountain Enduro on the same bike he’d ridden from northern Ohio.

From there he continued on to Florida and won the Alligator Enduro, then he continued riding the NSU to enduros across the Midwest and continued winning, including earning his first victory at the Jack Pine. Then, upon his return to Ohio, he was challenged by his brother to break the record for transcontinental travel held by the legendary Cannonball Baker. He did it.

Penton was born on August 19, 1925. He grew up on the family farm in Amherst, Ohio. His older brothers had revived their father’s 1914 Harley-Davidson, which had been long forgotten in the corner of a barn, and the Penton boys became motorcyclists and ran a motorcycle shop in while they competed in off-road motorcycle races. John became a championship rider as well as fabricator and mechanic.

In 1949, Penton returned to the Jack Pine Enduro, this time on a B-33 BSA. He finished in second by only a single point to winner Bert Cummings, a Michigan dealer and veteran of the event. That second-place finish stoked the fire in Penton. From that point on, his mission was to find a better performing enduro motorcycle.

 He realized the heavy machines like the Harley’s, BSA’s and Triumph’s they all were riding could be beaten by smaller, lightweight bikes, a revolutionary idea at the time.

 In the 60s, he served as the eastern distributor of Husqvarna, a motorcycle that revolutionized the sports of motocross, enduro and desert racing in the U.S.

John Penton believed he knew better than anybody what would work best in the world of off-road motorcycles. As it turns out he was right. When everyone else thought bulldogging big bikes through the dirt was the way to go, he wanted to ride a little bike. By the time everyone hopped on board the little bikes, he was thinking about something else – a purpose built off-road bike. He (and subsequently his sons) influenced the way bikes were built, the way they were sold, where they could be ridden, and what people wore when riding them.

When his attempts to convince Husky to produce a smaller, lighter motorcycle fell on deaf ears, Penton created his own design and commissioned KTM, a small moped and bicycle maker in Austria, to build it.

The motorcycle was an instant success in off-road competition and led KTM to expand its efforts in the motorcycle realm, initially in conjunction with Penton and ultimately on its own. Today, KTM is the largest manufacturer of motorcycles outside of Japan and winning championships around the world.

He also founded Hi-Point, a boot and apparel company that for a time boasted over half the sales in the U.S. market.

if any singular rider deserves to have a feature length documentary developed about their life, it’s him, as Penton is largely considered the founding father of modern off-road riding.

The resulting film is a great testament to not only how significant John Penton was, but also how much he is still revered.



http://dualsportalchemy.com/2014/09/movie-review-penton-john-penton-story/
http://www.motorcycle.com/top10/top-ten-motorcycle-tours-tourists-time.html
http://pentonmovie.com/john-penton/
http://motorcyclemuseum.org/halloffame/detail.aspx?RacerID=84&lpos=-410px&letter=P&txtFname=&rblFname=S&txtLname=&rblLname=S&discipline=0
http://goodsparkgarage.com/john-penton-motorcycles/