Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

CIl 200 RIDEMQR.£ ENDURO By Ron Schneiders FRAZIER PARK, CALIF., Nov. 8, 1970 - Ever since I moved to California from the East coast I've asked people, "Why don't clubs use the forests in Southern California for enduros? It would seem so natural." The replies have varied but the most typical is, "People around here have their bikes set up for desert and they wouldn't ride a woods enduro. Nobody owns a spark arrester. And besides, the Forest Service won't let y·ou." Apparently Bud Collett and the Conejo Trail Riders didn't know any better, because they just went ahead and planned a forest enduro less than '80 miles from Los Angeles which they scheduled for Oct. 4th. The Forest Service restricted them to 200 riders for the event to ensure that there wasn't too much damage, and the entry was filled weeks before the event. Bud regretfully had to send back close to 200 entries! Then came the disastrous fires. The enduro had to be postponed. Undaunted, the club simply rescheduled the event for November 8 tho There wasn't much happening on November 8th, just two International motocrosses, Hopetown, the windup of the Baja 1000, a few things like that. And there was the Cowbell enduro, one of the classics, running up north. You'd think that all that probably cut their entry some, right? Nope, they filled every spot and a few people who_came up without entries, rode without numbers. Th e run started right at the Lockwood Creek Campground and it didn't take very long for you to realize you were in a different type of run. For the first five miles, it was hairpin turns up a fire road at 15 mph. Then turning southwest, we found ourselves on Long Dave Canyon trail, which was one of the neatest trails I've been on in a long time. In a short run we had deep sand, deep water, trees, rocks, mud and lots of downed bikes to get around! Soon we picked up Lockwood Creek and rode it, criss-crossing the creek endlessly. Turning right from Lockwood, we followed Piru Creek a ways until we got on another fast fireroad for about 8 miles. To get back to camp, we turned Northeast on the San Gullermo Mountain trail and rode about five miles on this beautiful trail. Since this run wasn't sanctioned by the venerable AMA, the club was free to make its own rules. One of their innovations was a mandatory 30 minute lunch stop for all riders. They marked your helmet with your time of arrival and let you leaye 30 minutes later. When I asked if this didn't make scoring a little more difficult, they said "not much. And besides, some of these fellows' are running so late, if we didn't do it this way they wouldn't get any lunch." This was typical of the thoughtful, low-key approach that marked this enduro. The second loop found us again splashing our way back and forth across Lockwood Creek, this time on a different section, until we got on a trail going to Gold Hill. Altogether there were probably 75 stream crossings, so bikes that weren't waterproofed were quickly out of business. The trail to Gold Hill was single me with lots of sharp turns and good rocky sections, no place for the faint-hearted because the drop-offs were truly monumental. We came out on a dull dirt road that we had to ride for ten miles at twenty per. I knew there had to be a check at the end of that one and fhere was. Nobody who hasn't tried it knows how painfully slow 20 mph is on a straight .road. The next section was even slower - 10 mph.but nobody was complaining. Steep hills, up and down on trails that weren't s. :. o .... CIl ..... ~ w Z W ..J (,) >- (,) wide enough for your handlebars. Turns that were so sharp that on one I literally had' to lift the back end of my Sachs and swing it around. We had experienced drop-offs before, but not like tht;se. They were terrifying. And the trail was off-eamber loose sand. There were several hills that had smaller bike riders pushing and others swearing because the road was blocked. The outstanding feature of this enduro was the beauty of the country through which it travelled. Fall was really on the forest and the trees were colors hard to descnbe because of their combination of bright spashy colors and shaded subtle hues. Yellow cottonwood (I think), reddish oak 'and lots of evergreens were the foreground for spectacular views from high up in the mountains, while the str.earns of the interior almost made you want to trade your bike for a fly rod. I heard some complaints that the schedule speeds were too low and occasionally I a!(l'eed, but for the most part I was happy tha~ the speeds were slow enough to give me a chance to absorb some of the life of the forest. Apart from the riders,' the ~hief beneficiary of this run was M.O.R.E., the Motorcycle Owners, Riders and Enthusiasts, Inc. which is essentially our one real motorcycle lobbyist, Russ S~nford. A lobbyist is a person who tnes to encourage laws favorable to a given activity and discourage laws that are l;lnfavorable. Right now there are lots of people anxious to tell us how, when, and where we can ride our bikes and what we must encumber them with, in order to do so. Without someone up there to say, "Hey, wait a minute," we would soon find ourselves fettered and hassled beyond belief. Russ is the guy and he gets the money the Conejo Trail Riders raised in this enduro. Since we bike riders will be the ultimate beneficiaries of Russ' efforts, we should join Russ in thanking the Conjeo Trail Riders for their efforts. This was the Conjeo Trail Riders first enduro and it was an unqualified success. No one that I talked to could say that they hadn't enjoyed themselves. The most serious complaint was the slow schedule speeds which I mentioned previously, but there was also a bit of bitchin' about the schedule itself, which didn't contain as much information as Southern California enduro riders are used to. This was unjustified, however, as there was sufficient information on the route sheet to enable the rider to figure the schedule and to ride it. In most enduros, at any point on the course where a speed change occurs, there is a card stating the distance, the key time and the new speed average. This gives the rider a chance to check his. speedometer periodicalJ-y. It's not absolutely necessary, but it is nice and most riders are used to it. Since key times were not given on the route sheet, these cards would have been a help to some of the more inexperienced riders. As noted (Please turn to pg. 24) ~==========~~====~L-_ i

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