Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

Husky Sale 400 SC 450 OM 450 CR 250 WR Large Stock $1195.00 $1195.00 $1150.00 $1295.00 Available ~~\ON~ ~~ ~ ~ 7'ORC'(~\; 873 0 Sepu lved a , Sepu lved a , CA (just north of Parthen ia ) "We have the parts" 1974 Montesa VR 11195.00 full price 213-785-4289 Introducing the New "Factory Replica" Guaranteed Top Performance Wider Powerband & 2,000 more R.P.M. Consists of: Porting Headwork F.M.F . Pipe 32mm Carb Tw in Air Corrected Gearing $170 All 125cc MX Bikes er . hesi & p ist o n to : Bill Robertson Honda 5626 Tujunga North Hollywood, CA 91601 213-166-4356 So. Califorrtia's la rgest stock of 125 & 250 Honda Elsinore Parts & Accessories YELLOW OR BLUE NON-SLIP O URY Dealer Inquiries Inviteo 12131363-6230 Goodyear is Carroll Shelby 213-538 -2914 COMPLIltTE' MAC H INE SHOP A ND REPAIR S ERVI C ~~ rC'" ....."P1s__Ie. ~Cycle EngIneerIng & Supply 10 1t40·A N. A,...... t-4E I~ . KR!AI:MER c .... 'Il 2 e06 ( 71 4) 630 ·5720 This must be Dave Evans posing on his rock. Cal State 100 Enduro Bottleneck! By Ron Schneiders LUCERNE. CAL.. OCT. 6 "It's been two vears sin ce we've had any bad bo'ttlenecks to co ntend with, and I've for gotten how to co pe with them," said one of the 260 riders who periodically plugged the trail of th e Double Crosser's Cal State 100. But there were some riders who haven't forgotten a nd still others who dis covered som e new and not very p lea sing wa ys of de aling wi th the fru strations of bottlenecks . Th e Cal State 100 was ex actly 100. I miles long, which wa s a nice ch an ge from the now-common practi ce of exaggerating the lengt h of the run any wh ere from 20 to 40 percent. Starting fro m the dry lake off Ca mp Ro ck Road, the course resem bled the traditional figure eight with two loops of 47 and 53 miles. In this now-sickeningly familiar area there is little opportunity for much originality with respect to the co urse itself, but the dub did try, to the delight of some and th e dismay of many. Most of the I DO-mile course was trail. well-studded with whoopdedoos , and dirt road. One rider estimated that at least 40 percen t of the co urse was dirt ro ad. To keep it c hal len ging th ere were co n tin uing speed cha nges, about eight per loop. All the co m mo n averages , 12, 18, 21 , 24 and 30 MPH were used a nd there was o ne sec tio n po st ed at 19 MPH. In the morning section the averages tended to be on the tight side and in fact most o f th e riders were late to the five -mile ch ec k and didn't manage t o ca tc h up until mid-way through th e loop. The morning sec t io n had three bottlenecks but two of them were not particularly bad and the third, a ro cky uphill bit which caused most riders to wait a few minutes , didn't actually ca use much harm because there was time to ca tch up before the ne xt chec k. The major portion o f the a ft ern o on section was much like the morning section only a bit slo wer . Dave Evans, now back on t he scene fo llowing hi s accident and long recuperation last spring, commented t hat it "tended to get a bit boring." Then cam e the six-mile -per-hour section entitled "Little Hubie." Little Hubie was only I. I miles long, which m eant that the rid er s had I I minutes to d o it. The trouble was th at it took most rid ers bet ween 15 and 30 minutes to get through and the This is a bottleneck ca lled Little Hubie and consisted of big rocks. It would have made a tough Expert trial s trap, but in an enduro there is no penalty fo r footing . Made it hard to stay on t ime, though. length of time had very little to do with the rider's s kill , since most of the time he was just waiting in line with his engine shut o ff . Little Hubie was a ro ck wash and the co u rse went down it. Gravity ensured that no one would be there permanently. If no thing else, the c o rn'ing winter rains would wash remaining bikes and riders to level ground. But th er e were a b o u t six or seven spots where everyone got st op ped for a t least a minute or two while two, three, or four riders teamed up to uri-wedge a thoroughly stuck bike, or tip on e over a boulder after it had high -centered on the skid pl ate . At o ne point, near the top, riders had to drop off a rock ledge about two feet high, whi ch wouldn 't have been so bad except for a giant sized, immovable boulder just abo ut 50 in ches in front of th e drop-off point. Fifty inches !:ieing ju st a bit shorter than the average bike's wheelbase meant that the rider had to eit he r turn in mid -air, a fea t most riders find d iffi cu lt to accomplish o n purpose, or he had to so me how pry t he bike out after it had wedged itself between the rock and the hard place. Actually, the wash was rideable by a go od tri als rider on a trials bike , but few enduro riders know the te chniques required a nd the typical end u ro bi ke, with stretched swingarm and near ch op per rake just doesn't get it . The technique most commonly employed to get down might be called the "tip it over, let the (expletive deleted) fall, pick it up a few feet farther d own. " If you were unskilled. or unlucky in letting it fall, it got wedged and that ne cessi tar ed a j oint effort by three or four riders to unplug the path. When Shamrock Lyle T aylor arrived on his Triumph , someone co m m en ted . "Here 's wh ere it gets plugged for good." "Don't bet on it," Lyle said, and he got the Triumph down with better than avera ge gra ce. Larkin Wigh t , who's too young to remember when Triumphs became obsolete, rode his Triumph down and had less troubl e than some jokers on bikes so light they could be carried. Dave Evans, though, was the real star of the Little Hubie , The main path, and the only one even faintly feasible for most riders, went down in more or less a straight lin e, and was of co urse thoroughly pl ugge d with about 100 riders when Dava, got there. So Dave made a n Sv curve, going off both sides o f ' the mai n path in boulders you co uld barely walk or scram ble over. He finally blew it though . The only way past th e last plugged section required him to ride over the top of an eight-foot-high boulder and cross a gap to ride down the side of an adjoining boulder. He co uldn ' t quite make it a nd he got the fron t wheel over

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