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/126344
\YIST America's No.1 Weekly Motorcycle Newspaper Sha ron Clay ton . Publishe r Tom Cu ll' . Marketing Directo r Ca ro li ne Ge nd ry . Sec . to t he Publ ishe r Ma rgir So uthe rn , Sec . to t he- Mt kg . Oi r. Advertising J im Rya n . Sales Ma na ge r . Larry Linle . Sal t's Ma nager , Skip J o h nson , Sa les Man ager , Ch ris Kol ber . Assist ant . Gin H a rp e r , W a nt Ads . Editorial Cha r les Mor e y. Ma naging Editor. 0 01 1 (" Brown . Edi to r . Bob i Scou . Edi tor. Graphics and Production 0 01 11 Pa ul i, Pr oduc t ion Mana ge r. J u d y Klinge r . Prod uct io n Assistant. Ma rio n H a ta sh ita. Ka re n Fa rha t . Typography . Den ni s Greene. Labora tory . Accounting M ik e Kl i n g e r , M a n a g r r. j e a n ne H a m m o nd . Accts . Rec e iva ble . Donna Bry an , Asst . Acc ts . Rec eiva b le . H oll y H a le . Collection a nd Credit. Circulation R h e b a S m it h . M a n a g e r , She rr y Ka ufm a n . Ch risty Bdl , Ta m m y Ta ylor . Barba ra T ay lor , Auutanu. Services and Support P a t Ca rdenas , Pet rit , S&S. Re ce p t ion ist . Br-uce West 2201 C he rry Ave .. Lon g Bea ch . C A P.O . Bo x 498 . Lon g Be a c h . CA 90801 (2 13) 42 7 .7433; L.A . L ine 636· 88H . East 4 190 F i r~t AV . T uck er . G A . P .O . Bo x I:. 80, . T uc ker . G A 30084 . (404) 93 4 ·78,0 . Subscription O ne yf:ar , sec o nd class ma il. S 15 : two yea rs . second cla ss m ail , S27 ; t h re e years. seco nd cl a ss m ai l, $3 , .50 . Co pyrigh t ~ Cyc le Ne ws. Ir.c . 1978 . Trade mark C ycle N ews regist er ed U .S . P at e nt Office . A ll rig hts re se r ve d . Publ ished weekly (')" ep t t he firsl an d last week o f t he' c alenda r year by Cycle Ne ws. In c .. P . O . Bo x 4 98 . Long Be a c h . Ca lifo rn ia . Seco nd class pos lagr pa id a t Lon g Bea ch. C A 9080 1. Cyc le New s welcomes u nsol icited. edi torial material incl udi ng stories , c a r too ns, ph otos . f: IC . Such mac r o a l. if publish ed . becomes th e exclusive co pyrigh t propert y of Cyc le ~ ("'Ws . Suc h acc e pted material is su bject 10 rev isio n as is n r cnsa r')' in the sole d iscre tio n of Cycle Ne ws, Unsolicite d m a teria l wh ich is not used will be re named if accompanied b y a se lf addressed sta m ped en ve lo pe . All un solici te d m a ter ial will be handled wit h re a son able c a re . ho wever . Cvcle News assu mes no responsibility For thr sa fety , loss o r d a mage ( 0 such m a te r ial. RI:' priming in wh ole Of pan o nly b y permission of th e publishe rs . Ad vef t ising rates and circu lation informatio n will be sent upon req uest . S«' S . R . D .S . POSTMASTER: Send form 3579 to Cycle News. P.O. Box 498. Long Beach. CA !I08ll1. ON THE FRONT PAGE: The desert had so many flow ers that w e needed to expand th e front page to t he back page to put just a few of th em in print. Photo by Charles Morey. 4 Cowbells forever The Mt. Baker Motorcycle Club should be congratulated on what has to be the oldest consecutively run end u ro in the U.S., th e Cowbell Enduro , dating back to the year 1931. And they have the original "Cowbell" to prove it (the club has been in existence since 1926 ). The club worked very hard on the run, wh ich was th eir first national event , and the facilities were excellent. Color was provided by locals , with their fireside chatter, but the real excitement and education came from the AA riders , as only it should be . There can only be one th ing better than the 48th running - the 49th. DOUG MILLER Canby , OR On th e trail of th e Phantom Duck Nature laid out a great desert Thanksgiving feast for us dirt riders last Saturday. The Mojave was moist one inch under the surfa ce with that just -ab out -set concreteness th at invites old thumper riders like me to squirt roostertails at every opportunity. T he air was clean, cool and balmy. The day was , in a word , perfect for a protest demonstration ride with the legendary Phantom Duck. The Phantom Duck of th e Desert , for the benefit of any readers who just awoke from a coma , is the symbol of the d irt biker's resistance to the so far pretty successful genocide of ou r harmless , human sport. On the Saturda y after Thanksgiving eve ry year (the anniversary of the Barstowto -Vegas Hare and Hound , world's biggest motor ra ce ) , the Phantom Du ck and a few other d irt bikers quack against th e closing of our habitat by riding stra ight through on one of the many motorcycle trails , approximately follow ing the race course from California to Nevada . The whol e ride is about 150 miles . Some of us bring the whole family , planning to ride only halfway , th en head back and load up before dark . Those who go a ll the way hav e to send fuel on ahead. because the gas stations are not reliable out here in the desert. The trail . like the racecou rse , follows Interstate Highway 15 . The ultra conservat ionists . our op pone nt s, would love to eradicate Interstate 15. which cuts the Mojave in two , but that is not in their power. Instead, they concentrate on driving us dirty dirt bikers out of th ei r desert ga rden . The Barstow-to -Vegas race was their headiest bag so far. World's Biggest Motor Race brought down by the skinny ladies in big glasses . All those crude bikers gnashing their teeth in frustration. It kinda gets you between th e legs . Victory isn 't only sweet , it's sexy. Especially to fragile broads in big glasses . Barstow-to-Vegas was doomed, anyway. I don't think the club would have scheduled it again if the Sierra Club Off-Road Vehicle Task Force hadn't been so snotty. The last year , when over 3,000 raced , the winners crossed the finish line holding hands, to make certain that his tory would record a tie . As a ra cing ' veh icle , Barstow-to -Vegas was ready to retire . Rather than seem to ca p it u la te , however, the dirt bikers preferred to be defeated , so th ey tr ied to run a nother year and put th e Bureau of Land Management into th e awkward spot of denying them permission. But this wasn 't enough fo r the Desert Protection Alliance , it only whetted their lust. If they could stop 3 ,000 healthy bikers from racing , could they not keep a small group of unorganized bikers from taking a receearional ride across the same desert? Each year I make the trek out to the Duck ride mainl y with the purpose in mind of having fun, not getting hurt , and getting out in the dez. But also I go out there to see who is going to try and stop me . Each year it gets bigger , just like Barstow-to-Vegas only on a much smaller scale. More and more followers of the Duck showed up . To _ be there on that day is to show by plain body count that you care about your rights to ride the public domain on your motorcycle. The bikers who do come are pretty well informed. They know that motorcyclists and the desert have co -existed for over 50 years without noticeable harm to either, and that the only thin~ desert bikers knowingly destroy is distance, This year it looked like about twice as many informal groups of bikers showed up as last year. There were plenty of club jerseys. These were the old rebels of the early motorcycle days , generally - Prospectors , Dirt Diggers, Los Angels. Bringing along gas. just in case anybody needed it . but not riding were Don "Dingus" Watkins and Ed Wight, promoters of the counterfeit green stickie. ("Why spend SIS when for S3.50 we can give you the same thing - a sticker and a cop ?") This year again there were no cops in sight ( u n less you counted the aircraft) as we unloaded the scooters and started hunting for the trail. The desert has never looked lovelier, and yet this area was the pits of the defamed Barstow-to- Vegas race . There were at least three documentary film crews interviewing skinny ladies . and burly bikers. Newly -elected state Assemblyman Robert Hayes was holding forth eloquently on the side of our rights to enjoy the desert as much as anybody . Hayes , a SoCal Club hound turned politician, was driving a Baja buggy instead of his usual Husky. no doubt to broaden his constituency of voters. A skinny lady was telling one camera. "Fro m a wildlife standpoint there is nothing that can be said about off-road veh icles that is not negative. It has been shown that the sound of one motorcycle cane make a desert igu an a permanently deaf and unable to protect itself from predators" (the rest was drowned ou t by a jet overhead). PBS wasted some film try ing to int erview m y Ifl-year-old (Skinny Lady with glasses holding microphone: " H ow do you like riding your minibke? " Junior : "Fine. " Skinny I Lady: " Why do you like it ?" Junior : (Sh ru g) . They ended up filming him riding his MX Cat replica XL70 . ' Junior rides a lot better than he talks . We had a great putt all the way to R aso r Road , where my lady encountered a piece of the desert ecology that is tougher than she is and snapped her neck out of alignment . We borrowed some fuel from a Prospector (the station was out of gas) and sent her back home on the freeway, while we explored some ' powerline roads and sandwashes back to the camper. Again Junior and I discovered that we could do a lot of things we didn't know we could do and we felt great in ourselves. We saw a fat rat being pursued by a sleek desert fox . . I don't think we inflicted any of the biota with a severe handicap to survival. I know I came away full of poetry and pep. Junior was sullen at the sun for going down , but he helped clean up the campsite with uncharacteristic cheefulness, A film crew was still shooting a poker-faced BLM man as the sun slowly turned apricot, then purple on the Los Angeles horizon. "Isn't it true that the Bureau of Land Management devotes a majority of its time and budget to dealing with off-highwayvehicle problems?" The BLM man evaded the announcer's questions by citing the bureau's polls that prove how unpopular ORV recreation is with the majority of public opinion, bu t he stopped just short of agreeing that OR V recreation should be stamped out totally. It was another year at the Duck ride, proving that the dez is still there for the delectation of us scooter hounds . But for how long until the skinny ladies can call it all their own? I Chuck Clayton