Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

After a m ile or so of t hi s, you found out if your b ike was waterproofed. Learning about love , hate a nd enduro bikes. This guy changed plugs twice . It still didn't start. This is a logging flume . It is relatively difficult to ride down a lo gging fl ume. Follow that flume for Fools' Gold! ByRon Schneiders GEORG ETOWN, CA L., MAY 18 The first ImpreSSIon of C.E.R.A. North's Fools Gold Enduro was that it was awfully cold for this time of year.' In the morning, th er e were fires a t most camps. Riders who sho uld have been doing last minute ma in tenance were sta nding in front o f th em warming their hands. Ben Bower wandered b y the truck and remarked th a t he though t he wo uld wear some he avy glo ves fo r this ride. I instantly decided that I too would wear heavy gloves today. It turned out to be a smart idea. Ski m itts and electric un de rwear would have been an eve n better idea. T he course took off into the woods almost im mediately. Before we had go ne m orc than a few m iles, we hit the firs t o bstacles; a fairl y good stream cr ossing an d a treache rous rocky u phill cli mb . One felt sorry for riders who were wiped out that early in t he run, b ut at th e same ti me, happy that the y we ren't going to be arou nd to bottleneck the trail later! T he m ornin g section of trail was a real-mixture. There was some fi re road that was very d ry , dus ty and difficult to hand le in traffic. Mistakes tended to h urt. Linking the fireroad sections were tigh t trails through the woods, with narrow ly spaced trees and lots of down wood. Marv Le Blanc , a Sout hern California desert rider, called it "a tunnel of green.' T he club me mbers had cleared the trail , sort of. Some of th e st urdier growth was whacked off at whatever level was co n ve n ie n t with a mach ete and detours were marked around reall y impassab le logs . They cut a notch in on e log about 18 in ches wide. Un fortunately , the not ch was only about one fo ot deep an d th e log about three feet in diam eter. If you tr ied t o ride thro ugh the not ch, you stood a pretty fair chance of b reaking one or both feet. If you tried to horse your b ike over, it took the next three m iles to get your wind back . It was pretty difficul t riding. Off the trail and on the fireroads, it wasn' t much bette r. Fast sc hedule speeds , rocks, and co nstantly c hangi ng co nditions of liRht an d shade filte red thro ug h dust m ad e keeping sched ule difficult. Deep in t he wo ods, o n the edge of a swa mp, m y bi ke wh ich had been runn in g rich all m orning, ra n com ple tely out of gas. Misery . After a w ai t o f 2 0 minutes or so , alo ng co m es a fellow with a gallon plastic co n t ain er of raw gas (no oi l). He gave m e ha lf of it. A few min utes la te r a no th er fellow stops and I ask if has any oil. "Yep, Ron ,. same as last year:' he says. And it's true. The very same fellow had given me some gas (with oil) at the same run a year ago. He left ahead of me. I got about 12 miles farther with my borrowed gas and oil before agai n ru nning o ut . Along comes the same fellow . He runs out of gas him sel f fifty yards ahead. He's got about a quart of gas in a plastic container and he splits it with m e. It is enough, for both of us to m ak e it to the gas stop. T ha nks, Bob. After the gas stop, there was an uncomplicated 35 miles at 24 MPH including some old railbeds of the loggin g t rains. Great ri ding : almost trials riding so metimes, in and out of the trees, over the abandoned rail ties, through washouts and then back for more fireroad, If the section was long enough, yo ur fingers almost thawed out . The best, though was saved for last. After the second gas stop, with almost 20 miles to go, we were directed down an impossibly steep slope into a logging flume . I remembered that Uentrance n with a bit of leftover terror from last yea r wh en I st ood at the bot tom taking pictures of people crash ing and burning their way d own . This ye ar it was my turn. BUI something must have c han ged because it didn't seem that hard, riding down it. At th e bottom, happy at arriving in o ne pie ce . I lo o k for the trail up the flu me th at I remembered from last year. It wasn't there ! Instead th er e was a muddy cha nnel of water, depth unknown, about eight feet wide stretching as far as I could see. It looked possible to r ide alo ng the top and there were two little girls standing there watchi ng the show . "Whic h way?" I asked. " In th e water," the y said . Would tw o in noc ent little girl s sadistically di re ct m e into six feet o f wa ter? Yes, I de cided, th ey might very well. But I coul d see th a t up top it was goi ng to o ne terri ble fig ht to Ret th rough with downed logs, st umps an d brush. " Have faith in little gir ls," I said t o m ysel f, and p lunged in . It was deep. You just can't im agine the se nsa t io n of joy w hen, after 100 miles of hard, cold riding, one suddenly feels a torrent of ice co ld water flowing down his ankles a nd o ut to his to es. We followed the flum e. mostly in wate r u p to tw o feet deep for about t h ree m iles. T hen down a rocky downhill, (with no brakes, of course) th ro ugh a trick b rus h pa tc h , ac ross a deep st ream an d finally, ou t . I th ought a bout how hard it w ould be to ge t a bike ou t o f th at last sec tio n , and how far I was from home with co ld hands and co ld , wet feet . In spots like th at, o ne eithe r learns to love or hate a motorcycle depending , on whether or Great, you kept your feet dry. Now just hold them t he re for the next ,three miles. not it keeps run n in g. T here were a few rid ers learning to hate in th at flu me. CERA al mos t always pu ts on a good run , but I th in k thi s w as one o f t hei r bes t. It was tough enough so t ha t no one ze roed th e eve nt an d less than hal f o f the en trants finished, b ut wi th 299 fin ishers, it wasn ' t too tough - q uite. ,Just abou t right . The re wa s no th in g un ridable in it , no reall y bad bottlenecks (In fact, none that I saw b ut some guys said there were so me) and th e ti me and di st an ce measuremen ts we re good. The m arking coul d have been a little be tter. Turns were consiste ntly marked a bit too close fo r the speeds sched ule d , resulting in overshooting one turn afte r a no the r. Bu t that was jus t abou t t he only com p lai nt th at I he ar d. T he Jim Jenkins.Jim Sp arkes co m b o was ba ck in th e gam e fo r th is event, ta k in g first Ove rall Uenkins), first in the 125 class, and first in the 250 class. Both of them ride Pentons. Sparkes' victory - was particularly impressive in view of the fact that he broke his foot at the Shamrocks ' run only one month ago . Ben Bower won the Open class, but he left before I found out whether it . was his Husky or the heavy gloves that we re res ponsible. Seems there was another enduro on Sunday down Sonora way and m os t of the better ride rs split almost immediately to make Sunday's run . Tim Glidden, brother of Cliff Glidden who is one of the CERA's organizers, won his class today for hi. first major win. Tim , a "B" rider, said when he finished that it really felt good finishing more or less on time - righ t in there with the hotshoes (meaning ' Sparkes, Bower, and that crowd.) He felt that the speeds were "realistic" but admitted that he couldn't keep up in the last section. To average 12 MPH in two feet of water you need a Mercury outboard, not a motorcycle ! Much of the land used in this run belongs to the Michigan-California Lumber Company and the Club wishes to thank them for the use of it, as well as the U.S . Forest Service for the use o f the ca mpground. • Results 1 2 5 A : 1. Jim Jenkins - Overall Winner 1 3 Ph. (Pen); 2 . M ike M cGowan 2 0 (Pen); 3. Ron Lacy 30 (Mon). 250 A : 1. Jim Spark es 14 (Pen) ; 2 . Ken Marecak 1 6 (Bu l); 3. John Troutt 17 (Yam) . Open A : 1. Ben Bower 15 (HUS1: 2 . G. Hendrix 18 125 B : lYam); 3 . John Nova 2 . C la r k (Yam) . F rent zen 2 5 ; 2 . J im Conway 25; 3.. Jim Armstrong 34. 250 B: 1. T im Glidde n 23: 2 . R ick Galdi ce 2 8; 3 . Ron Westberg 29. Open B: 1 . Art Minnick 14 ; 2. Shep Johnson 21: 3 . J ohn Mack 2 4 . 125 C : 1. Gerry Riw inkle 92 ; 2. Norman Bryan 186; 3 . Jeff Og den 207. 250 C: 1. Jim McCoy 41 : 2 . Andy Horwath 42: 3 . B o b R e w i n k l e 55. O pen c . 1. John Turner 34: 2 . J. McCoy 70; 3 . Dave Cz ec h 78. 19

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