Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

The idea here is to chan nel the traffic away from the residen tial areas where noise and property damage are real problems. But we won't close down an are a without providing another place to ride first! As we co n ti nu e to develop a trail system, we hope to work into lo nger trail networks and, perhaps someday, h ave trail rides which wo uld take several days to co mplete. CN : Similar to the hiking trail that the Sie rra Club was ma inly responsible for up the Pacific Coast? CW: Right. We may see a day whe n a rider can go fro m one end of th e state to the other without hardly eve r to uchin g asp halt. I'd like to see a ride like this in the desert area in Southern Idaho. CN : What about "play area s" like cycle pa rks? There are guys who maybe ride temperamental race bikes and are kinda afraid to go for a lo ng t rail ride for fear t hey m ight break so met hi ng and be stranded ! CW: Yeah ... this is where the parks would come in. We definitely have to I serve all in teres ts with the program. We are looking at the possibility of establishing some cy cle parks near the larger metropolitan are as in the state. What we're after is acquiring or purchasing or leasing some land, either donated by a group or club or purchased through the fund for the establishment of these parks. In such a park you co u ld have a large play area, a motocross track or two an d maybe a flattrack where racers could come to I practice. There also could be an area within the park where the sponsoring club co uld hold weekly races. They could charge admittance fo r this area on race day but the rest of the park wo uld be open all week for the public to ride. CN: So what you're saying is that a stat e-established cycle pa rk would be open to the public with t he possible exception of a designated area where the club or other sponsoring group b co uld ha ve their own race t racks. These t racks would be closed except fo r race day but people could practice on t he t racks in the ma in pa rk area wh ich wou ld always be open . Right? CW: Righ t. Th e idea here is to have a club wh ich would donate or lease its land to th e sta te. The sta te would then, through t he 0 RV fund, fin an ce the co nstruc tio n of tracks, fen cin g, facil ities, etc. an d p ay fo r the contin ued maintenance o f suc h an area. The club could still have a special ar ea se t aside whi ch co uld be locked up except for days when sched uled races would take , pl ace and th ey co uld charge ad mi ssio n on t hose day s. We 'd also lik e to h ave par ks wh ich wo uld be open to c snowmobiles an d four-wheelers, either :. •on desi gn ated day s or in certain sections. We wan t to get maximum use of all of these p arks and we'd like to be able to acco mm oda te all factions if possible. Of co urse , we'd hav e to h ave some safety measures so that there ~ wouldn't be any confli.cts between bikes and fo ur-wheelers, for Instan ce . CN : Yeah , com ing up over a hill and , runni ng int o a Jeep could be a ve ry pa inful bummer! CW: Right ! But th ere's no reason we couldn 't have a park with a certain area " design ated for four-wheel~rs an? a certain area des ignated for bikes. LIke I o say, we'r e interested in acco mmo dating all factions. CN: Would you r office be responsible for the actual construction and maintenance of these areas? CW: Not reall y . This would b e left to the sponsorin g gro up or club . We will no t go o ut and build th ese as a state agency . We will use t he ORV funds to fina nce their b uildi ng and main te na nc e bu t the ac tu al work would be left to th e grou p responsib le. CN: S imila r t o what you said abo ut buying a trail grooming mach ine for a sno w mo b ile club to use to make t rails? CW: Exactly. What we 're looking for is clubs, groups ... even municipalities (city governments) who would like to use their land for a state-sponsored cycle park an d receive the benefit of st ate funds to finance the maintenance of the grounds and the constru ctjon of facilities. CN : Is there any particu lar pe rce ntage of the fu nds alloted for each group ( b i k es, snow m a chines and fou r-wheelers]? CW: There h ave been no priorities set and/o r c1ivision of funds at this time. In the future, when we h ave more requests than we have money, we will have to set up priorities an d these will be determined by the amount of benefit that the largest number of people can derive. CN : You said that you have no actual pro jects under constructio n at this t ime. Whe n do y o u expect to have some projects fu nd ed and underway ? When will we actually be able t o see some use of these fund s? CW: We hope to have projects funded within two or three months ... so oner if possible. CN: So bascially, we ' ll be able to start seei ng use of the fu nd s and deriving benefit fro m this d uri ng th e early part of 1975? CW: Yes ! Chuck's racing • experiences As an aspiring moto-journalist, I've seen Chuc k Wells in action in th e Idaho desert races an d hav e even raced with him . (A ltho ugh I was qu ite a ways back !) Chu ck is on e of tho se gu y s wh o just see ms to get fast er as h e gets older. A form er 88 0-y ard track star in high school in Oregon, Chuck has th e end urance to run fast and finish in th e most gru elling cross -country events that seem to mark bike racing in th e Pacific N orthwest. He has raced motocross, d eser t and ridden trials. He ju st sold his Honda Elsinore which was trick ed out fo r desert and is building up a Hodaka which has been every thing fr om a pukka trailer to a motocrosser to a desert m ini-sled.. Here are just a few of th e bette r rem embered m oments f ro m his racing caree r. CN : What was the fi rst b ike you had, Ch uck? CW: I really st arted riding motorcy cles ba ck in 1964 when I bought a Honda 90 to ride back and forth to w o rk and ride tr ails on. I had a Montgomery Ward Mo-Ped during my co llege d ay s, bu t I'd just as soo n forget that . I go t a Hodaka Super Ra t a few y ear s after the Honda and I rode trials, cross-coun try and motocross on th at. In th e Fall of 1970, I rode trials on the Ho daka, which was built by Whi tey Hartman of Coeur d ' Alene [Idaho] and Curt Alexander of Pabatco. That same year, I ca m e down to Boise with the Pab atco crew, Harry Taylor, Curt Alexander and Leon Wilbanks to put on a trials school and h old the first trials in the Boise area. This was originally Idah o 's OR V administrator Chu ck Wells glances up fr om his deskwork. He is spe nding $53 000 on th e Diamond Jack riding area sou th of Twin Falls. Oth er pr ojects in th e making are a "no ise " park fo r Idah o Falls, a 60 0·acre pa rk by th e city of Pay ette and a trail sys te m on th e Boise Front. conceived by Quinten Gregory and John Larsen who were interest in tri als and were ab ou t the only people in Boise who were actually ' members of the P.N .T.A. [Pacific No rt hwest Trials Association]. Sin ce I was the only novi ce of our group, they'd lay ou t a section and then let me ride it. If I co uld clean it, ' then it was n't tough enough and they 'd m ake some changes. CN: What ab o ut cross-cou nt ries? CW: I started ridin g cro ss-co un try even ts whe n I was man ager of Heyburn State Park up in No rthern Id aho. Th is is th e st ate 's oldest and largest state park and I used to travel as much as 600 miles to race in various p arts of Idaho, Ore gon and Wash in gton. In 197 3, I got a Honda 250 Elsinore an d traveled to Mou n tai n Home , Idaho [just south of Boise some 40 mil es I to ride the J ackrabbit 100. That was the y ear they had the bi g write-up abou t it in Dirt Bike and I d idn't finish due to stopping to help my buddies who had all broken down out in the middle of nowhere. They later told me that I was running ab ou t 15th overall at the halfway point. The next year [I 9 74], I again came down to ride the Jackrabbit and I wound up first 250 Amateur [an d first Am ate ur overall] and was eighth overall. Got a great start in that one! CN: Yeah and they promptly made you an Expert! CW: Right. I presently carry the number six Expert pl ate in the I.M.A.'s 250 class. CN : So you ' ve ridd en all types of cr oss-co u ntries from the "desert-type" events wh ich , I' m told , are fairly sim ila r to Cal ifo rn ia desert race s to the rugged mo untain races like they have in north Id ah o ? CW: Yeah. I rode in this race at Orofino [Idaho] last year , which was billed as the Idaho State Championship Cross-Country and was 78 miles long. It took five and one-half hours to finish it ! The second section of the run has something like 500 de adfalls [logs across the trail] on it ! CN : How was your motocross raci ng? CW: I rode motocross in 1972 on the same Super Rat that I had ridden in trials the year before. I ran on many of the local tracks in the northern Idaho and western Washington area and was generally in the top three or four places in the 100cc class. We traveled over to a little town near Yakima o nce for a MX and I rode against a kid by the name of Pomeroy who was the local hot shoe. CN: That name so unds kinda familiar! CW: Yeah .. . Jim wasn 't signed up but was ricling another guy's Honda in the 100 class. He ended up getting dis qualifie d because he wasn't supposed to be riding t he bike, but I beat hi m one heat on the Hodaka. I crash ed in the second he at so I didn 't pl ace too well, but it's neat to look back on it and be able to say I raced against him! CN : You just race cross-countries no w? CW: Yeah, I'm not reall y as fast as the young mot o cros sers wh o are co ming UP 9 b u t I feel th at I have t he endurance that gives me an adva n tage in desert races. C N: How old a re y o u, Ch uck? CW: I'm 3 1. I wish y ou wouldn't have asked me that" .. I get to fee lin ' kinda old ! CN: Well, I ca n ' t trust y o u, but aside from that, how about y o ur family? CW: Well, my wife Alice and I have two child ren . . Bo bb i J oe is five and Jacki Ly nn is three. They 've both been on bikes sinc e they were as y o ung as five months ! CN: Do you have an y lo ng-range plans or goal s for your program? Is there an y t hing you'd like to see hap pe n wi th ORV's in Ida ho and in the rest of the coun try for that ma tter? CW: Well, I' d just like to see our program develop into something that the rest of the states could model their own p rograms fro m . I hope that we 're sett ing up something that will really benefit the motorcyclists and other ORV u sers in this sta te. I think that once some of these proposals actually get funded and we ac tu ally get so me public facilities set up . . . then people will be able to see the benefits of their tax money. I'm really looking forward to it ! CN: Me too! • 17

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