(Above) Even cleer·thinking enduro riders get mixed up occasionallyI
(Below) Fire destroys Fred Perry's Penton at an Alabama gas stop.
Championship Enduro
Trouble on the
trail
Something will go wrong .
26
Even if you've ridden enduros for years
and have learned the tricks of
preparing your bike and riding it well
under widely different conditions and
on all kinds of terrain, you can count
on your share of trouble . That's
because enduro riding is tough on you ,
but often even harder on the machine
you depend on to. get you to the finish ,
or at least out of the boonies to a place
where help 'can be found. Luck has a
lot to do with it. Even the king of the
current crop' of national class enduro
riders, Dick Burleson, has had his
share of the bad kind in competition,
and so have all the challengers. It 's
part of the sport.
The secret to winning or scoring
well in the face of trouble along the
trail is to act quickly to correct the
problem if you can, then get on with
your riding. This way you may lose
only a few points, possibly none at all
• •"':_
"'C.._. .
. ........ . ........ . •
-J .
if you aren't stopped very long and
there's no checkpoint immediately. If
'your trouble is serious, you may have
to hang it up for the day and get back
to headquarters the best way you can.
You avoid trouble much of the time
by setting up your bike properly in the
first place and by preparing, before
each run . for every imaginable
difficulty. This means tools and parts
and plans. If you have with you what
you need when something goes wrong,
know immediately what to do or how
to check and fix it· fast, you'll enjoy
enduro riding more -. And if you know
how to improvise when you don 't have
what you'd normally use to get going
-again , you will have conquered one of
the real challenges of the spon.
A look at some common and not- socommon problems of enduro riders,
all of which have actually happened.
prove anything is possible along the
trail. If you're a mechanic. you have
