Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

- ENDURO ESSENrlAlS ! o ... .... - a> .,; N e ": ., " ~ w Z W ...J U > U Part I •• Following Rules &Keeping Time By Ron Schneiders This is the first of three parts on the essentials of enduro riding. This series of articles is intended to give the new rider some guidance in the sport. It won't make a winner out of a noice. Enduro riding is just as competitive as racing; the only difference is that it takes a slightly different set of skills. In this series of articles we will try to point the rider in the right direction so that he will develop the needed skills without wasting a lot of his time and energy. Part I will describe the game, the rules, and some ways of keeping schedules. Part II will deal with preparation, and Part III will deal with riding techniques. Enduros vary greatly from one section of the country to another. For simplicity and space considerations this series will concentrate on enduros as they are run in California. PART I HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED An enduro resembles a cross-country race in many respects. Significantly, though, the winner is not always the person who completes the course in the shortest amount of time. Are you confused? Did you think that an enduro was an event that bore no relation to racing? Settle down and prepare to do some rethinking on the subject. The object of an enduro is to ride a course in such a manner that you arrive at the various checkpoints at precisely the righ t time, neither early nor late. In an effort to make enduros different from races, the A.M.A. has decreed that you will lose more points for being early than for being late. The time at which you are to arrive at the checkpoint is determined by the "schedule speed," \ which is the one thing that you always know beforehand. The most common schedule speed is 24 mph but speeds of 4 to 50 mph are used on occasion. Here is a very simple enduro: A course of 72 miles is marked insome: fashion or other and you are told that the schedule is 24 mph. You leave at precisely 8 a.m. There are checkpoints at 24 miles, 48 miles, and the finish. You receive a perfect score if you ardve at the checkpoints at 9,10 and finish at 11. Naturally, this would be a very dull event with lots of tie scores, particularly if the course was easy. To liven it up ---.....__ .somewhat, the checkpoin~ are placed in secret locations, and not at such convenient times. For instance, a check might be placed at 14 miles. You would then have to hit that check at 8:40 because it takes 40 minutes to go 14 miles at 24 mph. With checks at secret locations, timekeeping becomes more difficult and the event becomes more interesting. As described so far it's very similar to a sports car rally, or a motorcycle road run. To be an enduro, another element must be added: The terrain must be difficult to ride at the schedule speed and must tax the contestant's endurance. To fulfill this requirement, the sponsoring club picks out sections of terrain that will make the enduro a challenge to all the riders. They can make the sections relatively mild, but string together so many miles of them that it takes a rider in really good physical condition to finish. The course can also be very short, but so tough that every mile finished seems like a personal victory. But here's the fly in the ointment: What's difficult for one rider is duck soup for the next. The difference in skill between the expert and the novice is not great; it's stupendous, vast, and almost immeasureable. So what happens? A oourse is laid out that will be mildly difficult for the experts and the novices find it a killer. At the beginning we said than an enduro was similar to a race, but for the experts, the enduro is a timekeeping event run over difficult terrain. For the juniors, the enduro is sometimes a timekeeping event, sometimes just a race.. For the novices it's almost always a race, pure an~ simple. If the schedule is 24 mph but you can't ride that fast, then you simply ride as fast as you can so .that you lose the least number of points. Timekeeping only becomes relevant when you can ride faster than the schedule speed, In every enduro -there is lome beginner parked by the side of the trail who is madly twirlin.lt dials on half a Here's the setup Dave Ekins uses on his 250 Ossa. Dave is one of those riders who 'snows the fine points of enduro riding and he can, thusly, use these instrumen~ effectively. For a beginner, however, having a setup like this would be a waste of time and money. dozen calculators trying to figure his schedule, when he's so late that he's almost disqualified! The moral is to learn to figure your schedule very roughly so that you can tell instantaneously if you're far ahead or behind. Most riders have no real "feel" for average speeds. It's not until they ride several enduros that average speeds mean anything at all. To add a little perspective, consider that about the fastest sustained average speed for an off-road event is the record in the Baja 1000 which is about 50 mph. But that race includes about 20 percent pavement. And only the winners come close to that average. In the average desert race, which includes no pavement, the speed average is usually between 40 and 45 mph for the winners and down to about 20 to 25 mph for the novices in the middle of the pack. Desert racing terrain is generally quite a bit easier than enduro terrain. but not always. From this you can figure that if you're a beginner and the terrain is easy with some dirt road thrown in, you migbt be able to keep close to the schedule riding as fast as you can. As the terrain gets tougher, or the schedule gets faster, you will amost certainly be behind. A 36 mph schedule you will only be able to hold on pavement. How does this help? Well, in certain situations, you can simply forget about keeping schedule; in others, you can forget about it for half an hour or even more. Thus, you can concentrate on your riding and go faster. Let's suppose that the schedule is 24 mph and at the first check you are 6 minutes late. If you can ride the 12 miles in 24 minutes you'll have made up the time, but that's an average of 30 mpb which you won't be able to hold unless the terrain is very easy. So in practical terms you can forget the schedule. Just note the real time at the check and check yourself 12 miles later. Hit's taken you 30 minutes, you've neither gained nor lost. Only if it's taken you less than 24 minutes are you in danger of getting ahead of schedule. On the other hand, if it's taken you 34 minutes, you're stilI losing time and you're far enough behind to where you won't catch up before the noon break, in ill probability. So forget it and go as fast as you can. Notice that all you need in the way of equipment is a wrist watch and speedometer to ride this way. And you'll finish better than if you mess around with charts and calculators. You'll need to know one other technique: How to determine whether you're early or late at a check. That's easy. Just add your number to the "key time" which is posted on a card at the check. Many beginning riders have a hard time understanding the concept of key time, but it's really quite simple. If the run is scheduled to start at, say 8 a.m., then all the times for starting and arriving at checks are based upon a rider who is starting at 8 o'clock. But, naturally, all the riders can't start at 8, so a drawing is held and the riders are assigned numbers as their names are pulled out of the hat. The first rider is assigned No. I, and he starts at 8:01. He should arrive at all his checks 1 minute after the mythical rider who started at 8 :00. The rider who o \ ~ draws No. 35 arrives at checks 35 minutes after the "key time", or the time of the imaginary 8 o'clock rider. For the rider with a high number, like 88, it becomes a bit more difficult. He must add I hour and 28 minutes to the key time at the start and at each check. Once a rider has become proficient enough to be hitting checks early once in a while it is time to start thinking about more sophisticated methods of timekeeping. In some enduros the rider is given a ptin ted schedule telling him exactly where all known checks are (gas stops, lunch break, etc.) and what the key time is for those known checks. He is also told all the schedule speeds. For runs like these it becomes possible to figure in advance: the time at which you are to be at every mile of the run. Such a chart looks like this: aa3 2: 'S~&. 8: \8 3 8~20Yt. Y 8:~ , s &:zsYL. 7 8:')0 8 T ,0 " 1213 Iy Q:2.2 I: 31.. 8:'4/ 8~1' 2fhr'" .v~!r IJI •• 'k S:at , ,:CU:> eo,s, . '9:A' Make a chart like this for the entire run. It might'.ta~·se_al pages. In the right hand column, I put some simple method of computing that pertie:lllar'.speed as shown. Others might be: 36mph ~ 3 miles in 5 minutes; or, 18 - 3.mi. in 10 min. If you've wondered why the "odd" mil_ set, it is b8C8Use it is much .easier to cor:npute since 60 seconds is easily divided into 6, 12.18,24, 30, 36, ete. L_m tha relatIonship between tha speed and the time ..ill be easily figunod. (PltltUe tllm ·to pg. 11)

• Cover