Secret Riders
The Secret Riders are a team of Guardian GoBots, and were also a subgroup in the GoBots toy line, where they were also known as the Power GoBots.
The team definitely includes:
and might include:
Fiction[edit | edit source]
Challenge of the GoBots cartoon[edit | edit source]
The Secret Riders began life as the Blue Team - Twister, Tork, Tri-Trak and Staks - in the Guardian Academy, competing against the Red Team for a place in the Guardians. Initially they seemed set to lose due to Tri-Trak's seeming impetuous behaviour. However he investigated with help from A.J. and Nick and discovered the Red Team were actually Renegade spies, planning to use the graduation ceremony to abduct Zeemon. The rest of Blue Team worked with them to expose the Renegades and were ultimately successful in thwarting the plot. The group were then put through the Modifier and welcomed by Leader-1, who decreed they would continue to work together as the Secret Riders. Which they never did again. Guardian Academy
When the group next appeared Tork and Staks had vanished and Throttle had joined, seemingly with memories of the events of the team's formation. The Secret Riders' first official mission was escorting the colony ship Pilgrim to New Earth but when they got there they were jumped by the Master Renegade's Monster GoBots and captured. Later when Cy-Kill arrived to confront the Master Renegade the group were able to get free and chase off the Renegades. Quest for New Earth
Toys[edit | edit source]
The three Secret Riders toys were not drawn from Machine Robo but from another Bandai toyline, Zenmai Kahen Winch Robo, which had already been released in Europe as part of Robo Machine before appearing in Gobots. All featured friction motors while both Tork and Twister had working winches. The figures were larger than Super GoBots and, unusually for GoBots, featured a pair of guns and a stand each. The toys were also given fresh inner-box art picturing the trio fighting Vamp, two Bug Bites and no less than three Cy-Kills. As they were among the last figures in the Gobots range they can be hard to find second-hand. The three figures were also issued in Japan as part of Machine Robo for the first time later in the year, using updated versions of the Gobots figures to become the Dash Robo, released as part the Revenge of Cronos toyline. Tonka gave the Secret Riders an assortment code (#7335), while each member had an individual code. It is not known whether the latter was just for internal reference or if solid cases of the toys were offered to retailers.
Notes[edit | edit source]
- The Secret Riders in Challenge of the GoBots were sadly a nexus of continuity errors. Tork had already been accidentally used as a named Renegade in "The Gift" while the team inexplicably included the long-established Staks in their origin story. This was a clear continuity error but as the character is actually named on the test scoreboard and features consistently through the episode it's hard to ignore. He was later dropped for "Quest for New Earth", which was stated to be the team's first mission, but Tork also disappeared from the line-up in favour of Super GoBot Throttle, who acted like he'd always been part of the team. And for the icing on the cake Twister and Tri-Trak were later to appear in flashbacks during "Et Tu, Cy-Kill" that suggested they had been Guardians long before "Guardian Academy".
