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/126287
"Maybe it's a good idea to have an ORV trust for land .... It's a much quicker form of acquisition." Rapping with Russell Cahill, Director of _ California State Parks and Recreation Dept. 10 CN: You say you've owned four motorcycles. Did you ever get into off-road riding? RC : Yes, as a matter of fact I dinged up my Harley severa l times. lowed half my salary to a dealer in San Jose for quite a while when I was a kid . I have a homestead up in Alaska and the only motorized transportation on the homestead is a Honda Trail 90. It gets the best mileage for anything you can use on those roads back th ere. You ha ve to bring th e gasoline out from a bou t 150 miles on a boat. It 's very difficult to get gas into th e area and you find a lot of people using very small motorcycles . You don't find very many people wasting gas up there when it's costing $1.75-$2 ,00 a gallon to bring it in . And I've hauled enorm ous loads of stuff on that H onda 90 - just like you see in pictures of people in Asia . But I understand that many of your readers are into the competitive aspect and I think that's something I ought to address . If I have a choice to make in any of the allocations of money for offh ighway ve h icles, motorcycl es , 4 wheel drive, or whatever, it's going to be for som e sort of participatory thing, In other words, if the people who attend advisory comm ittee meet ings , hearings and the like want to know where I sta nd, it's the more people who are participating in the thing and th is goes for horseback ridi ng, walking, motorcycles , anythinl{ - th e more people actually participating, the better I feel about it. CN: As opposed to what, spectating? RC : As opposed to intensive spectator use . A lot of specta t or sp orts , especia lly th ose not highly organized , will ha ve more than a 50 % participation ratio . People are th er e to wa tch the othe r class es run and they' re going to run too. I th ink it's certainly legitimate to have spect a to r sports, but I t h in k they should be funded separately. CN : But for instance out in the desert you have a very high ratio of participation from both competitive _riders and their families. RC: That's true. Who wants to watch th e beginning and th e end of one of those races? First off, all you do is get a great big cloud of dust and then everybody disappears. And then if you' re lucky . . . . ·CN : It sounds like you've seen some of those. RC : Yes I have. I was out at th e Big Bear once, a long tim e ago , CN: Does your department work with other government agencies like theBLM? RC : I don't know , to tell you th e truth - you're ca tching a new turkey. I've on ly been on now for five weeks . I've talked with the BLM Director and I've looked at some of th e th in gs they'r e doing with the d esert pl anning process. I would expect th em to take a major part of the load in this particular type of operation because th ey manage more than 16 m illion acres and we manage less than on e million , CN: If they treated us as well as the tortoises we wouldn't have any beef with the BLM. Have you talked with anyone from the Forest Service about possibly connecting trails in the Hungry Valley ORV Park with trails in the Los Padres National Forest? RC : No , we hav en 't really started yet. We a re still in the process of acquisition. But we will be discu ssing it with othe r agencies in the area . CN: What is the status of Hungry Valley? RC : I th ink th e tota l of the acq uisi tio n mon ey is up to abo ut eigh t m illion dollars. The last in cr em ent was three million out of th e revolving fund . I just go t a look at the figures yesterd ay. CN: That's a good deal more than what's in the green stickie fund. RC : Yes, and we're looking at that too and wondering wh y th e big drop-off in green stickies . CN: Well, people haven't seen anything I All they've seen so far is enforcement and harassment. RC : Yes, I know , they want results , But right now it takes four yea rs to go from th e time a park is conceived of to a tim e you let the contract for any type of co nstruction . That's not just for OHV parks , that goes for all recreational areas. An y state park where you hav e to build anything it takes f OU T yea rs. 1 need to cut that process . I need to get th e legislature to address th a t action a nd cut some of th e burea uracy so some of these jobs can get don e faster . But no one's going to be ab le to promise an insta nt out . It takes two or three yea rs to acquire the property. We end up going th rough the political process just buying these parcels and th is state ha s some of the strongest protections against government taking private property arb itra rily that I've ever seen, We're in condemnation act ions on a who le lot of properties for p arks and we ha ve to go back to the public works board three tim es just to ge t it approved to do that. It 's fa ir enoug h , but I'd like to make sure it' s no t done just to make someo ne fatter on property spe cu la tion. I'd like to see the thing cut to th e point where t here 's a fa ir hearing or condemnation but it's decided on e way or the other - so the fair hearing process says "forget it , you ca n't do this," or "it's not right ," or it says "go ahead and do it" and we exped itiously acqu ire the property and develop th e parks . It's been a year now and we're still in the acquisit ion process in Hungry Valley. CN: The last we heard, there was some sort of a bill on the governor's desk to be signed. RC : He signed it. CN: So, Hungry Valley is moving right on down the line? RC : It was one of the first things I recommended, right away, after 3,000 letters came in because of a quote in the Sacramento Bee. The gu y [Rob Rasor] flew out from the AMA in Ohio just to see if I really was on the level. I recall that interview very well . The guy asked me , "Well, how do you feel abou t off-h ighwa y vehicles?" and I said number one, t he state's involved in it and stat e's go ing to continue to be in volved in it. W e're going to complet e the projects we ha ve now - I want to see how they operate. I'm go ing. to d o the p rojects that got sta rted under Bill Mott , I'm going to get them done as quickly as possible , and I'm go ing to see how th ey work , And he said, "W ell, what do you th ink the long range view it ?" and I said the long ra nge view is, on off-highway vehicles, that there's going to be a tough time getting gas somewhere in the near future . CN: Well, you know, we can run on alcohol and other renewable resources if we have to and we're perfectly willing to do that. RC : Oh yes, I know that. Since then I' ve had d iscussions with severa l dozen people from the motorcycl e and offhighway vehicle community who have pointed out the error of m y projections , But just like anything else , it's th e visible thing that counts in the public im age of the thing and I was deal ing from the public's image, If you pick up a copy of any mot orcycle publication - I picked up a co py of "Cycle World" on m y way do wn here , 1 hadn' t looked at it for a long tim e - just to see what was in it, and here's an adve rtisement for a new Harley. The guy that's on it looks like Darth Vader, ou t of Star Wars, it's all black and the pipes are black , and the psychologi cal imagery that's built into that advertisement is, man here comes th e combat troops int o you r house! The public's im age has something to do with th a t. I'm reflecting now, you know , I was gone from this country for a long time, out in the boondocks, and frankly I was am az ed at the proliferation of motorcycles, 4 cylinder half-liter bikes that all look the same. I'd have to look ca refully at the name on th e side. I remember , just before I left th is part of the country and went to Alaska where you don't see much of this kind of activity, I rode a Kawasaki 3-cylinder that scared the death ou t of me . It was something I almost co u ld n 't handle and got off it very quickly. I come back no w anE here's th is array of th ings - and th e public's im age right now is on big bikes, Hea vy advertising on 1000cc , bikes, 850 's and I understand bigger things coming down the pipe , 30-40 m iles per gallon bikes, as a general rule. Yet I know there are 100 ,000 people riding around on 100cc -125cc Hondas , Yamahas and trailbikes . Ma ybe they don't put a lot of hours on those bikes , but ge nera lly th e fuel consum ption on those thi ngs is going to be a heck of a lot better . CN: You're a bicycle rider aren't you? RC : Yeah - I'm a con vert. CN: Well, anyone that's ever been into bicycling knows that unfortunately the world's not all down hill , There are places where they have a sign saying "no bicycles" because they don't expect that a normal human being could pedal u p it without a heart seizure - that's why motorcycles were invented in the first place. T h en we turned it into fun , not just utilitarian like it would have to be in Alaska and places in the third world. So we have a sporting nature to it now and I don't feel that Americans are going to give up their enclosed 4-wheel luxury for even the largest, most sophisticated big bikes on the road. But I think the off-road thing is going to stay with us for a long time because those of us who love the desert for example, if you've ever. tried to hike 20 miles in the desert you just about have to have a burro with a water b ag , and yet a 20-mile trip to see the petroglyphs and then another 20 miles back is quite easily done on a tank full of gas with your whole family along. RC: T o point up a r eall y seri ou s management issue , things like some petroglyphs and some natural phenomenons have b ecome much m or e accessible to people and much more difficult to protect. Those of us who a re in the "co p" side of resources management know it' s just not possible for the public sector to take care of all that stuff. I understand there's a very strong movement towards responsibilit y, self-policing and those kinds of efforts. In the end I think it' s got to be a necessity, but once again it 's a public im age , and once the image gets to a certain point the regulations are go ing to come down on everyone's head . CN: Well, you can't carry away too many stones and cacti on a bike even a Honda Trail 90 . O u r recreation is a non-destructive, even ecologicall y sound, form of recreation . RC: It could be . My perception, my first glance , is that there's been a lot more abuse since I left California about 11-12 yea rs ago . I was out ;it Saddleback State Park, looking across the va lley from the park (it used to be ca lled Joshua State Park. but it' s now Saddleback State Park) in Antelope Valley, and there's a pretty seriously