Much like there have been kings of cool, there have been titans of tough and few personified that trait better than Kevin Hines. During the late 1980s through the mid-‘90s, Massachusetts native Hines proved to be one of the toughest riders in the world.

     Not content to win just the 1987 AMA National Enduro Championship (the first time a KTM-mounted rider was able to do that, breaking the stranglehold that Husqvarna racers had on the title since 1971), he enjoyed testing himself in other forms of the sport that didn’t require timekeeping equipment and mental gymnastics while on the bike.

     Hines proved to be a force to reckon with in the Dave Coombs-promoted 100-miler series (predecessor to the immensely popular AMA GNCC series of today)—winning the Blackwater 100 in 1983—and dabbled in events from the ISDE (which he finished 11 times) to Baja races to rallies. He’s also one of the few Americans to venture to Sweden where he rode the infamous Novemberkasan, which must be considered one of the original extreme enduros since it took place in Sweden in November and mostly after the sun went down as did the temperatures. As one might imagine, a winter night in Sweden can be brutally cold. Try riding through seemingly bottomless mud bogs, trying to keep moving forward in seat-deep ruts and trying to climb hills where the ground has frozen solid, providing as much traction as an oiled ice cube.

     Besides carefully honed riding skills, Hines relied heavily on fitness and he was legendary in that aspect, logging many hours and miles aboard his bicycles and in his home gym as well as wherever he found himself outdoors.

     His passion for two wheels continued after retiring from professional motorcycle racing and he transferred his energy towards bicycle racing, specializing in the hybrid competition known as cyclocross which has cyclists careening around cross-country dirt course on what closely resemble road bikes with slightly fatter, more dirt-worthy tires.

     Naturally, he’s won multiple age-group championships both in the U.S. and abroad, and he remains committed to keeping his body in top shape for whatever task he asks of it.

      Through it all, Hines has continued to maintain a presence in the motorcycle industry through his CRE Imports business then E Line Accessories which has provided carbon-fiber components for various models of dirt bikes for more than 25 years.