Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126242
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Col ton Ave, Redl ands, CA 92373 ~ffi 7l;!-793-2041 Hand Washable ~a~ ~ ~~ Othman Distributing Co; 10 Bo x 356 San Lui s Obsipo, CA 93406 (80s) 544-6181 • Riding • Racin g • Street GLO VES Dealer Inq uiri es lnv iteo An action blueprint for M.O.R.E. and the rest·of us, too Off-road bikers could plow $35,000, 000 into influencing California politics if they were to pool an amount equal to the 'sta te sales tax on their bikes and equipment. This is the assessment o f an a stut e schola r Pr ofessor A.E. Kei r Nash of U.C: ., Santa Ba r b ara ; and It s a m ea sure of the untapped po wer we've never used want t k . ' o rna co m nsons If a you seve n times as e muchpaas h . th t's . as passe d t h rough our state s gu tted O H V Fund since 197 2 ; a bo ut ten tim es as . I · Cl b' as d S t ten u much . a th e b terra ri s natr ona h budget , as Japann a OU ten limesf as muc I d / , n c o spe n s o r m c advertising in this co untry. W e obviously hav en 't.done it , whi ch is one of the reasons Professor Keir Nash labelled us " an unnaturally weak interest-gro up" in hi s stu dy prep ared for the Los Padres National Forest. There are a variety of reasons fo r our unnatural weakness but fo r the sake of a rgument , let's label the m all as " excuses", buzz them , and sta rt with a cle an sheet. We ne ed a blueprint for a grassroots organization _ a fr amework wh ich we can flesh out wit h our own bodies. The place to start is through the efforts of the hard- corp s among us ( wh o are about burnt-ou t ) and progressively involve m ore and more riders. reaching out to all the people wh o've sa id , " I' m hot . I wa nt to do ~mething _ but what?" Since I'm not 10 favor of trying to create some new organiza tion out of thin air, let's pick on our old fr iend M .O .R.E. Most of us alrea dy know M.O.R.E. as the brainchild of Russ Sanford whose single-handed joust with the ~acrame~lto windmill is an epic saga in ItS own nght. Before illness and dea th in his family took R uss away for an extended period , he had inaugurated a system ofM .O .R .E.local chapters as focal po ints for concerned bikers in their home areas. In th e past year, seve ral such chapters have established themselves, but the local chapter idea has yet to be exploited to its fullest potential. Some c h a p t e r s h av~ attracted dy~amic leadership and are quite active _ a ready example is the Orange Coun ty chapter, which is setting up another M.O. R .E. Benefit GP for Saddleback, January 23 . Bu t all too often the call to that first ?rganizational chapter m eeting results ~n a couple d,oze.n.guys milling around 10 somebody s living room . sayi ng to each other. "Well, we're here w~re organized , now what do we do r : They -manage to co nsum e lots of beer. and po tato chips . They may even get lo ts of letters written _ but ~om:ho~ the dyna mism . t he mspr r atro n. . the m o m en t u m th:at comes by moving from sm all viett:.,ry to sm a ll VIctOry never . ge ts o~rating. .A nd the membersh ip O';""ickl y sinks bac.k t~ th: ?ard core burnt .out but caring indiv idua ls. This is no ' short-ch ar • m ea nt to badmouth or ," ge the efforts of sco res of r;t h d -worki . ar -w? rkm g , unsung bikers, Bu t t.he truth IS that the apathy b arner . b k r h ' . . re,mams un ro en lor. t e majority. It s a source of frus tration to all of us. k ki ' . . m.uc r a mg m oto-sc.n?es inc lu d ed, LIke , after banner -hmng the OHV F d . ff d I f ks I un . npo sca n a o r two wee : walk in to a local cycle sh op , m ention t h e sto ry, an d f our out of five of the customers at t h e counter say , " Huh? . What ri ff?" W h bl a t npo . e ave a pro em. KAZANGO ! The ke y to understanding our problem is so obvious , we've repeated It to each other as an excuse so oft en , tha t we',~ e lost sight of what it really means . Everybody would rather ride than ( w hat e ve r ) . . .. Sound wo~fully fam ilia r? . Now , instead of mouthmg the em pty words as an excuse , take them literally. H~~ing meet ings is not eno ugh . ~al~mg M.O .R.E. dues to 515 a nd kicking back 55 to the local cha pters is a . neat idea , and ~~ a bsol ute necessity; but taken alone It s not ~nough , eit her. !"10n,~ y alone doesn t answer the q uestion , What do I do ?" . . Consider , then , ho w the SIerra Club consolidates its gai".s " in the: field ." If you went to .a planning ~eetlng on the Santa MODIca .Mou ntam s Parks, you found a t the SlgnUp ta bl e a stack of Sierra Club fliers - Free , take one that had a three-month calendar. weekend by weekend , of club. hikes in _ea ch ofthe new_pa~ks. Ea ch .h lke had a team leader, an information phone nu ,:, b e r , a".d a classification . as beginner . birdwatcher , m aso chist , whateve~ t ype hik~ . W it~lOut commentln/? on the suction the SIerra Club has with Pa rks & Rec, can you see ho.w they m~nage to get. you ng, c?mmltted , ac.tlve people Involved nght on the disputed ground? Hell , they even have "Singles H ikes" as a n alternative to ha~ging out in bars! Do you begin to see what . t he M.O. R .E. chal?ters can be domg? Each chapter ~ug~lt stake o ut an a rea of co ncern . I t m igh t be a n a rea of near.by desert. It migh. t be ~he ne~rest Nariona l Forest : or It m ig h t enco~pass seve: a l parcels of readilya.cc.esslbl~ pubhc . la nd . Th.e type of ndl~_g mlght_b~ tnals , or rra il/ en duro , o r firero a d /lla t·out dese r t. The possibilities are limited on ly by your imagination. , ~ith your. goals in mind , you 'd begin leafletting local races , endures. trials, a nd cycle sh ops with stacks of handouts. Each handb~~l ~Quld b e a c~lendar of ~oup trau rides - 25 nders or less In each - with a team leader responsible for each. A typi cal lis~ing might re ad : " O ct . 10 - two 30rn ile loop s , R a n d Op en Area, Begi nner/ Novice trai l. Team lead er Joe Honda~ P h : (2 13) XXX ·YYZ Z." It would be up to Joe Honda to organize his own ride: as much or as little as need.ed - things like pooling vans, poohng ga s m on ey, deciding how much to assess ea ch rider fo r common ex pe nses, telling each caller wher e to m eet. The purpose of the ride co uld be up to J oe . It coul d be a "Clean-u p preride" to pre-locate junk to be removed in a subsequent week's cleanup . It could be an "Environmental Impact Assessment ," far more fun to d o from the back of a bike , and get a cou pIe doz en people talking eco-politics right on the spot , so they can have something of first-han~ knowledge to d raw fro m when they la ter go to write lett ers or attend m eet ings. O r it could just be a " Meet your desert" ride , something to teach a bunch of tyros desert-sense , while at the same time telling them , "This is what the Sierra Club ber s want to take away from you ." Starting to get the idea? Let's say you have a M .O .R.E. chapter with 25 active m embers. That means two times a year-I a t the max) each m ember would have the duty - deciding where to go , what to do , how to coordinate transpor~atio and supplies, how to n pay for It - and then doing it with maybe 12 to 20 other riders . Using the L.A . a rea as an exa m ple, there's three active ch a pters I know of fo r sure which cou ld , each week , have three (or more ) separate groups out in the su rrounding publi c lands , doing something constructive , b ut most of all . riding their motorcycles a nd making the connection - in th eir own hearts and m in ds - between rid in g and po litical activity . It's the sort of thing that can mushroom in the course of a single season, if it 's done right. It ca n double and redouble the number of chapters already exi sting in the area, and widen the degree of rider participation like spreading ripples in a pond . It can give us a personal store of ammunition to use in those inevitable hiker vs. b iker confrontations - like having see n with your own eyes the few faint traces of the Ba rstow-to- Vegas ,cou rse .and ~omparing it with gaping open-pit mmes on the face of the desert : tremendous clouds of dust blowing from plowed fields ; the dark slas h of Interst ate 15 wit h all its com mercial develop ment , and putting it all into perspective. It can give us a needed insight into where the bike-haters are at - like seeing ugly scars left by b ikers past. and sayi ng to ourselves, " H ey, they didn't h ave to d o that .. . " It can help us sp ot and turn in to authori t ies signs of va n d a lism , unmarked m in esh a fts , a bandoned vehicles, existing trails that we think shoul d be designated , and so on . This in turn establis hes our p rese nce with ~he au thorities as a naturally strong ' m terest -grou p . Maybe eventually o ur stacks of M .O.R.E. fliers can be sitting at a BLM or Forest Ranger contact st a tion, right next to the Sierra C lu b 's. It a ll can co me f ro m getting increasing numbers of rid ers out in the land. riding with a specific p urpose , ri di ng with responsible leadership . An d as long as it 's ke pt to small grou ps, it's not an organized event. it also stays manag eable for a team leader to h andle . . . Of course, o r Russ has yet to Fss Ju d gem.ent ,?n C hu.!:k Gayton's earlier suggr:::;tiiJn abou t dues, sh a ring , o r o n this one e-ither. It 's firs t of all his show . But I hope Russ'll agree. W e've co me as far as we can on paper and in living rooms . For a biker, all the things we've been trying to sa y only begin to come together when viewed from th e top of a bike.' That's where our u nta p ped potentia l lies. And all the time we've been sitting on it. • Lane Campbell