Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Hmm, KemoSabe, Much Crossing of Water o ~ l" N .... '" ,; o Z ~ W Z w ..J Col > Col The first amphibious landing by motorcycles in Arizona. I m'~gine doing this six times. by Ron Schneiders PHOENIX ARIZ., Oct. 22, 1972 - The first impr~ssion of the Tonto, Arizona State Championship enduro was not reassuring. The S tart/ Finish line was under two feet of fast-moving water. The organizers were out rerouting the course - at four o'clock the day before the event. 600 pounds of lime had been used to mark the course, but according to ,one of the club members there wasn t a spe.ck of lime left: 12 inches of rain two days before the event wiped it out completely. The Forest Service had talked of cancelling the run for environmental reasons. And they were objecting to one section in particular as being too dangerous for the riders. As I wandered around the makeshift camp (The planned camp was separated from the road hy the inn undated sandwash.) a small voice in th~ back of my head kept telling me, "You kn~w better." Enduros away from the major metropolitan areas are alluring because they offer the promise of new trails to ride. But the offer is coupled with others of a less attractive nature. You can give odds that the technical aspects of the run will be botched, that clocks will be inaccurate, distances nlca:;ured m0re or le~;; by guess and checks placed in the wrong spots. But if that's all you're lucky. You could wind up having to make a crucial decision: In which of 360 possible directions do you head in this strange territory after the marking has petered out completely and you have only two quarts of gas and a half hour of daylight? Finally, you might be faced with that ultimate of ego bummers, the club which figures that since this is the only enduro of the season "We'll give them one to remember!" This is commonly known as the "pack and carry" hip, but push, shove, drag, crawl under, sweat, cry abandon your wrecked motorcycle and suffer a coronary might be a more adequate description. . The .tip·off to the "pack-and-carry run" is usually a statement to the effect that "Me and my buddies made the whole course on our little step-through frame Yamasuki 80's. Surely you won't have any trouble on your fancy European ISDT machine". What is left unsaid is the fact that three SIX foot lumberjacks horsed the 100 lb. bikes over the course, onc section per weekend, over the six previous months. "Course, we couldn't keep the schedule, on those little bikes" they'll usually add piously. That was approximately what one of the organizers of the Tonto told me. I turned away so he wouldn't see the cold sweat break out on my forehead. I walked back over to my truck and gave my Matador a long loving look. I wanted to be able to remember it the way it was. .. . You might be tempted to d,sm,ss thIS as yet a,nother example of traditional California chauvinism, but in fact it's a matter of experience backed by simple logic. In areas where there are only one or two runs a year, the or:ganizers never ge t enough experience to become proficient in their tasli:, so a botch job becomes probable. Add a bit of human nature - the desire to be remembered forever - and the botch job can be translated into a catastrophe. Sometimes though, your experience can betray you and cold logic can evaporate like hot gasoline. It happened to the Tonto. The Tonto started easily enough with a 20 MPH schedule through desert-like terrain. The trail was narrow and twisty and riding off trail was discouraged by the presence of several varieties of cactus. The giant Saguaro were easy to avoid: they were 20 feet or more in height and could be seen' a long ways off. Another variety though, was more of a problem. It had long green snaky arms that sometimes extended across the trail. A "bite" from one of these left marks! After five miles the schedule wen t up to 24 MPH and the route was primarily fire road with lots of turns and more than a few rocks. The rains had really done their stuff, and erosion ditches from a few inches to a few feet in width crossed the road every hundred yards or so. Most could be ridden over or jumped, bu t occasionally there was a real for-and-bddy destroyer. The fireroad lasted for 17.6 mlles and climbed continuously from 3000 feet to approximately 8500. Guys who started rich were blubbering by the time they reached the top. Down. Yes. From high up in the trees to the desert level, some five thousand feet below in just al)out three miles. It was a great trail .with off-camber turns, rocks, a few slippery logs to jump and some short trials-like climbs over boulders. There was just a bit of mud to make things interesting and no dust whatever. The danger aspect that had concerned the forest. service was, I think, overrated. The schedule (eight mph) was just right for a middlin' good uB" rider; an U A" rider should have been able to double that speed. (Even though schedule was easy I managed to mal,

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