Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

By Leon Wilbanks and Ed Chesnut . Photos by Ed Chesnut "T hree-quar'ers 01 'he way up, Ire nearly s'alled and exclaimed, 'My Chris'" • ... he was haVlng I un.Ilf It had been a long time, but at last he was coming. The Man, T he Champ - Mick Andrews was coming to one of our events. It boggled the mind, all m ust be placed in readiness, offerings must be m ad e to the snow gods to hold the white plague until after November 28. Six year s of groundwork was at last ready to be ar frui t. A Those twisted minds who look upon a horrendeous rock pil e and drool , wring th eir hands, and mumble" "beautiful, beautiful", were in ch arge of section lay o ut. It was touted the Man liked rock, He should lo ve this event. "Good God, nobody can r ide that!" cam e the hue and cry of the amazed onlookers. "He's the Champ, He ca n d o it!" rep lied the lay out crew, all th e time mumbling words like "perfec t", "beau tiful" , "unreal", h al f sadis t, half fiend, th ey marked the sections we ll. Section One was sim p le: Up the cr ee k through the boulder-stewn bottom of a sh eer-wa lle d gor ge and up over the face of a five-foot bedrock waterfall, then exit up the creek . Simple for th e aly o u t crew, th at is. A Start Sign and an End Sign, the rest was b ounded b y vertical rock. Se ction F our - Straight up the rocky cr ee k bed, ver y large r ock with several choices of line, all bad. There was n o place in any section th at would allow the rider to break co ncen trat io n. If h e did, he soon found himself displaying his crankcas e to t he crowd. There it was , nine secti ons all ready for the approval of The Champion. Would they meet h is standards? Would they be too easy? Too hard? This was an anxious tim e. The da y of theschool fin all y came, the weather held, we were r eady. Andrews arrived along with his lovely wife J ill and Cal Krefft, Eastern Sales Man ager for Yankee, the Ossa distributor fo r th e U.S. Wilbanks: Would y o u like to look over the area? Mick: Yes, it looks to be a beautiful place you have here. Wilbanks: This is Section One. Mick: Lovely, but a bit deep. Wilbanks: We have bets placed on whether or not y o u can clean it. Mick : Yo u're no t getting m e d own into t hat, first thing. The school gave everyone some good tips o n improving his score. Andrews rode everything in low gear wound about half out. It was apparent from the start that he wasn 't afraid to tum the Ossa engine in low gear, One of the m ain points of the school was to kill the old rule of crossing an adve rse ca mber. Andrews poin ted o ut that whe n wo rking with D unlop they pe rformed tests of dif different tires on slanted glass plates to observe the best method of obtaining full tire contact with a slan ted surface. "Leave the bike straight up as if you were on flat ground, don't follow the old way of keeping the b ike perpendicular to the slope, p lace all your body weight on the downhill peg, sh ift your body to the outside, you'll fin d you get the best grip th is way ." After the school he took us all down to Section One. He walked the entire length up and down the section, feeling the rocks with his feet and testing • fICTION ( Con t 'd. from page 6) checked to m a k e sure I was n't bleeding and went on to finish . R odger was standing in a crowd at the finish line. He leaped over the fence an d dragged h is b ike off the track. When his bike was out of danger he came and got me. "Look, Marsha," he said, inspecting the dama ge, "there's a crack in the gas line but we ca n still get a finish if you • p ush it to the fin ish line. Come o n! I SAID PUS H IT !" So, I stumbled and pushed, stumbled and pushed. I was getting the loudest cheers out of the spectators. "Happy New Year!" I waved at them. Rodger was p acing outside the fence , following me. "Hey, Rodge, when they p u t o n another Team-P rix ' I'll be more experienced to ride equal time with you." "Just keep pushing...PLAN ON RACING AGAIN?" He almost tripped. " Rodge, didn't you see me out there ? I'm improving. " Whew! I was exhausted and my perspiration was fogging my goggles. I hopp ed on the b ike an d tried to kick it over so I could ride to the ch eck ered flag. Rodger fr oze. "Oh-no, Marsha! Don 't try and kic k it over. You idi ot! The gas is... SSSWOOOOOOMMMM! The flag man dropped the ch eck ered flag at my front wheel just as the engine burst into flames. I jumped off the bike b ecau se I co uld n't stand the smell of sm o ke. I left everyb od y els e t o run aro und bumpin g into each o th er trying to lo cate a fire-e x ti nguish er. I found a fen ce post to b alan ce myself on. A h , It cer ta inly turned ou t to be a go od day after all. I smiled. I felt good , knowing Rodger would be happy because h e needed a new b ik e anyway . Just look at him. Bless his heart. He's so happy it looks like he could cry . If Mick 0- N r0C> -:.. N -, ~ w Z W ...J U >- U the depth of the water holes. After a period of concentration h e entered the section. Giant boulders th rew the bike sideways. Feet still on the pegs, the front wh eel started up the vertical side wall. He pulled it off, set the bike back down in the line and co ntinued on, still clean. His body did not seem to move but the bike seemed to be goi ng 14 different directions. Just befor e the waterfall the fr on t wheel b ounced wil d ly, . jammed in a crevice and tis ted, throwing The Champ in a heap. The crowd gasped but the Champ picked the bike up quickly and turned around; he was going to try again. The second try he had less troub le in the lower part and was able to m a ke it to the waterfall clean. He literally th rew himself and the machine at the rock face . The bike seemed to leap up th e escapement like a deer, b u t at th e last moment the rear ti re los t grip on th e m ossy ledge and a dab was needed to crest th e top . Tremendous! Unreal! mumbled the gallery amongst the applause. The Champ turned around and headed for the start again. It was obvious that getting by with a dab was not good enough. He did clean the section two rides la ter . Breathing heavily, wet to the waist and smiling, he sai d, "That's a good one, that is." We went to Section Nine. After,abo ut four a t temp ts at the steep, rock-filled "V", he said, " I believe you've got me here. " We were dejected, HELMETS (Co nI 'd. f ro m page 15 ) is muffled. All I can say is that it r eal ly works. I have been wearing an Arthur Fullmer helmet lately that is very comfortable. It is a lso a "Z9 0 " h elme t and fiberglass. The bac k of this h elm et is cut a little higher than most and if y ou 're concerned about what some of those helmets that are low in back will do to your shoulders when you fall , you may like this one. I have seen no specs on how much of your head a helm e t should cover and there comes a time when you have to consider how much protection y o u want as op posed to comfort, especially when racing. Another helmet I own, is a Champion " comp lete coverage" type. I use the term " complete c overage" to ref er to the type helmet that covers your face as opposed to t he full cover age type. I do not own or wear any o f the partial covera ge helmets, which leave the ears and temples exposed. I r eally lik e the com p lete cov era ge helmets. T h ey o ffer more protection than any oth er t ype, also usually they give y o u less wind n oise a t high speeds, making fo r less fatigue o n lo ng trips. My Champion cam e with just an AMA Group I sticker, so I ca n o nly guess how sa fe it migh t be, sin ce th e manufa cturer did not b other to in form me wh et her it would even p ass " Z9 0" or not. somehow it seemed unfai r - none of us could ride it but we had t hrown it at him. Then h e said, "There's a section almost identical to this in Belgium." He smiled - we knew he would try again. He charged up again. Three-quarters of the way up, he nearl y stalled and exclaimed, "My Christ!", footed to the top, turned and looked at this delight of a lay ou t crew's twisted mind then he smiled again! He was having fu n ! He cleane d this one too and all were in awe - not only of h is riding skill, b ut also of his enjoyment of the sport and his immediate warmth to those who share his feelings for "impossible" rock walls and gullies. On that section it became obvious that Mick Andrews The Man was also Mick Andrews the man - a man who simply enjoys what he d oes. Due to recent surgery Andrews did not press his luck b y riding The Trials on Sunday. T he p revio us day's exertion had to ld him not to go too far. Four laps around the nine-section course showed Danny Smith of Portland, Oregon, on hi s Sammy Millerized Bultaco, to be the overall winner with 62 marks lost. A truly incredible ride. Lane Levitt, current California State Ch amp io nsh ip p oint lea der, followed closely with 71, also o n a Bultaco. Mick c ongratula te d t he winners an d promised to return next year in "flt" condition and on his own bike. part of helmet tes ting include below th e addresses of some of the organizations where you can get so me of th is tech nical informa tion. If you are an average enthusiast the only thing y o u'll h ave time for is to check those stickers and in this manner since you now know a little about what it takes to get the stickers, you can judge about how safe your helmet will be. My own observations fro m a safety standpoin t are that the b est helmet yo u can wear is the "complete coverage" type, with a Snell Foundatio n sticker. You ma y not feel comfortable in this type helmet and may prefer a normal full coverage helmet, but if you're racing keep in mi nd that lth e extra ten b ucks or so you had to spend for a "complete covera ge" helmet would have been insurance when y ou 're in th e dentist's chair getting those new teeth. And if y o u ride a motorcycle at speeds over 50 mph, your head doesn't know whether vou're racing or not. For mo re information, write to: Safety" Helmet Coun cil o f America Suite 506, T he Gibraltar Tower 9107 Wilshire Blvd . Beverly Hills, Calif. 90210 SOME PERSONAL CONCLUSIO NS I have not tried t o b e too technical becau se I figure th e average ri der is n ot interested in th e sci ence of helmet te sting, but only in wh at is safe fo r him. If yo u ar interested in the tech nical ', 1 . 1 .'" .. C> . Roger D eCoster might not have lived to become th e wo rld mo tocross champion had he not been I I ( < J" H ' ...I ") ~ ( • . 1W( . w earing th is Bell wh en a footpeg probed for his skull in a crash. •

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