TMX SAYS: Time flies when you’re having fun

Then again I doubt too many of those questioned would have expected to be driving a fossil-fuel burning Ford Transit down a rough old farm track to ride their dirt bikes in a muddy field every weekend either. Perhaps progress just hasn't progressed like we predicted it would...

And that's definitely true for us kids who back in 1989 fully believed that the future technology we saw in films like Back to the Future Part II would come true. By those standards we'd have all been racing household waste fuelled hover bikes by now and not be totally enamoured with throwing our legs over 26-year-old oil-burning Evo machines instead.

But I guess the truth is that no matter how much things change we also like things to stay the same which is why good stuff, the old classics if you like, will always stick around. And that's exactly what TMX has done – for no fewer than 2,000 editions!

Obviously there have been a fair few changes over the years but TMX is still essentially what it was back in 1977 – a newspaper created by off-road enthusiasts for off-road enthusiasts with a heady mixture of trials, motocross, supercross, enduro, sidecars, minibikes, supermoto, sidecarcross and more inside.

There are a large number of people who have been absolutely essential to the TMX journey. The Lawless family – Bill, Sean and Vikki – have probably had more input into TMX than anyone over the years, then there's John Dickinson, Pete Plummer, Eric Kitchen, Alex Hodgkinson and a stack more who've all played their part too. I know I've missed a million and one people off that list – friends who are still with us and friends who aren't – but you get the gist...

There's been a fair old turnover of staff here over the years but believe it or not one man has worked on almost every single copy since the summer of '77. First making an appearance in Issue 14 as a technical assistant – whatever that actually means – our man Mannix Devlin has been here technically assisting us ever since. 

But perhaps the most important people in this whole puzzle are the readers because without you guys TMX would not exist. I've been a reader of the paper myself ever since I could read so it makes me immensely proud to be a part of the team that now produces it each week.

What I didn't realise before I became involved is just how much of a beast TMX is to work on and how the workflow is absolutely relentless. Also, since we spend so much time speaking about what's coming up in the future as well as what's happened in the past it's more or less impossible to keep track of time and the weeks, months and years whiz by in a blur. 

So no doubt the next 19 and a half years will pass by in the blink of an eye and Mannix, 

the rest of the team and I will still be here to celebrate the 3,000th issue. I can't wait...