Cycle News

OFF-ROAD Nove",ber 26,2005 Bert's Mega Mall Azusa, CA 22nd annual Los Angeles-To-Barstow-To-Las Vegas AMA/ SuzukilD-37 National Trail Tour B-To-V: The LongWay Once again, hundreds of dual sporters participate in the after-Thanksgiving Los Angeles-To-Barstow-To-Las Vegas ride at's the best thing to do after you've gobbled up your Thanksgiving turkey? How about working it off by gobbling up a whole lot of off-road miles? L.A.-B-to-\I, the two-day dual-sport ride that goes from the outskirts of Los Angeles, via an overnight stop in Barstow, to the bright lights of Las Vegas, has been helping riders burn off Thanksgiving turkey for more than 20 years. This year the two days after Thanksgiving provided exceptionally warm weather and that, in turn, provided an extra helping of fun. LA-B-to-V pits riders against 200-plus miles of off-road riding a day, so the fun gets under way early. By dawn on day one, sign up was running smoothly inside Bert's Mega Mall in Azusa, the Toys-ForTots hamper was filling fast and, with the exception of the ATK pilot who was jump-starting his early-'90s bike off a pickup in the parking lot, riders were starting to hit the trail. If the measure of a good dual-sport ride is how little pavement the journey involves, day-one riders got an A-plus trail. They headed straight up San Gabriel Canyon, past spectacular views of the San W Gabriel Dam and reservoir, and hit pay dirt at 13.8 miles. Warmer-than-usual temperatures made for dustier-thanusual riding. That kept speeds down, but the twisty forestry roads, with spectacular views from the peaks, and tree-covered glades with hints of hobbits in the valleys, provided plenty of action. There was the excitement of an oncoming pickup to remind the riders that forestry roads are two-way even if they're only one lane wide, the delight of tiny streams to muddy the boots, and the threat of drop-offs steep enough that an errant rider would never be found. "On one corner, there was a long skid mark, a little 'V' in the berm and this vertical cliff on the other side," said veteran L.A.-B-to-V'er Roy Coe. "I rode up to the edge of it and kind of peered over as I went by, just in case, but it was so far down I couldn't see anything." The trail met pavement at Angeles Crest Highway and followed it into Big Tujunga Canyon just long enough for a bike cop to flash by some of the riders, but then it was back into the dirt for a hillhugging run that wound north through the Angeles National Forest all the way to 44 DECEMBER 14,2005 • CYCLE NEWS STORY IY ANNE VAN BIVERlN PHOTOS IY TOM VAN BIVEREN the desert floor at Pear Blossom. "I think that, overall, I enjoyed the fire roads a lot better than what we did last year," said DR350-mounted Jake Rodriguez. "It was really good - besides breaking my speedometer cable. That's a bummer. And my GPS didn't work. That's a bummer too, but I followed people and I made it okay." The desert floor signaled the start of sand and whoops. And more sand and whoops. And a stretch of challenging cross grain, whose smooth, rolling boulders the size of bowling balls represented such a sudden change in terrain that it warranted a warning in red on the roll chart. "For me it went great, but we had a guy break down in our group," said KTMmounted Greg Everson. "He fell over on some rocks and broke one half of his radiator. He had to limp into Victorville, route some hoses from an auto parts store and block off half the radiator. That took a couple of hours." Mesa, Arizona, rider Gary Chaidez was confronted with a more serious mishap. "I hooked up with some guys who took a shortcut to avoid some highway, and one of them hit arock," Chaidez said. "He was I0 feet in the air Sideways without his bike and he got messed up. Fortunately, he was able to ride back to the highway and we loaded his bike into a truck. He was able to ride, but he didn't know where he was." The trail took the riders east, past Black Butte and the Three Sisters, and into the perfect storm of the EI Mirage Dry Lake riding area, where trailer-towing motorhomes, doughnut-spinning ATVs and recreational riders without a clue joined forces with blustery winds to kick up a near zero-visibility dust cloud of epic proportions. The air was clear by the time the riders picked up the trail at the far end of the OHV area, but being able to see didn't help when it came to finding the trail. The roll-chart instruction for the easy trail said bear right at the trees, then go straight onto the trail to the right of the stakes. Left of the stakes would have been a better instruction, and a lot of riders headed off on a tangent and didn't know they'd

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