Mountain Bike Action, March 1994

Bernie Tusko (shown here) made the cover of Mountain Bike Action something like 25 times, more than any other rider in history. Bernie was never a famous mountain bike racer, unlike Toby Henderson and John Tomac, who also got on the cover of MBA numerous times. Bernie was a racer, too, but he used to race flat-track speedway motorcycles at Ascot Raceway, the same track where MBA editor Richard Cunningham used to race his motorcycle when he wasn’t busy building Mantis mountain bikes and writing articles for Mountain Bike Action.

Richard rode mountain bikes with Bernie on a number of occasions and was very impressed with how skilled a mountain bike rider Bernie was, so Richard talked Bernie into becoming a test rider for our magazine photo shoots.

Bernie had narrowly missed winning a speedway racing title at Ascot Raceway, so he was never able to make a living racing motorcycles. Instead he ended up pursuing other business ventures. He created the Cool Head visor company, helping to make cool-looking helmet visors popular with mountain bikers. Bernie now makes world-famous guitar-tuning tools with his business, Fret Guru.

Bernie still rides mountain bikes. We talk to him on the phone occasionally, but we haven’t shot photos of him in years. With luck, we’ll get to shoot with him again one day. Bernie was one of the best test riders we’ve ever photographed and a great guy to work with. You can read more about him here:

https://mbaction.com/throwback-thursday-the-mba-buyers-guide-cover-from-1994-3/