Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

EVENTS e AMA S1IZIIki D1W Sport Trail Ride Series: Round 6 r------~ e Good times in the Sequoias By Anne Van Beveren Photos by Tom Van Beveren KERNVIllE, CA. jULY1()..1t he flier that announced the Team Dual Dogs dual sport ride in the Sequoia National Forest was not a good example of truth in advertising. The flier promised two days of dual sport riding in the Sequoias near Kernville, 40 miles northeast of Bakersfield, Ca lifo rnia . It promised a course laid out by Team Dual Dogs - the first AMA-sanctioned d ua l sport club and a barbecue Saturday night, but that was it. ·There was no mention of spectacular mountain scenery, towering red w oods or the stark gray skeletons of acres of long-burnt pines. There was no mention of the wreckage of a light plane or a bike-attacking deer, and absolutely no hint of an E-ticket ride through the Tule Indian Reservation , w h ich th e Dual Dogs had op ened to motorcycle rid ers for th e first time in the reservation's more than l00-year his tory. But it was probably just as well. The Dual Dogs's flier drew 270 entries; a more accurate description of the rid e would probably have put the club well over the 300-rider limit imposed by the Forest Service. Riders began leaving th e s tar t near the shores of Lake Isabella at 7 a.m . on Saturday morning, eager to get out in front of the dust for day one's lSO-mile circu it. The golden brown hills surrounding the lake were already starting to heat up when s ign-in opened at the live Oak Campground and most of the riders wore only a riding jersey or an unzipped jacket as they headed out of the campground and made the first left tum on the route chart. The chart led the riders due west into the h ills and before long, they were enjoying spectacular views of the lake far below and a steady uphill climb, with one silty comer after another to keep them on their toes. The trail led from the bright sun of the golden foothills o ve r Greenhorn Summit and into the gloom of the forest, where the air smelled of Christmas and sun light shafted through the trees to play on the thick dust that hung after each rider had passed. Riding in small packs of three or four, there was so much passing and repassing in the early stages of the forest section that most of the dual sporters missed the wreckage of a light plane just off to the right of the trail. Those who stopped to inspect the twisted meta l expressed doubts that the p ilot could have walked away and they rode a little more carefully until the chilling effect of the wreck wore off. An easy/hard split not far from the crash site took advanced riders through a cha llenging downhill sectio n, w here deep silt, bottlenecks and heavy use of the brakes caused more than a few offthe-course excursions. More cautious types traced narrow, winding roads past the picturesque vacation cabins of Sugar Loaf and saw remnants of the snow that had postponed the ride from its original date in June as they made their way to the easy/hard rendezvous at Pine Flat Grocery-the first gas stop on both days of the ride. Store owners Lou and Joyce Larson T For the first time, the Team Dual Dogs club got special permission to ride through the Tule Indian Reservation. and their famil y welcomed the dual sporters with open arms and never-endin g smiles, and did everything th ey could to ensure a pleasant rest stop, from providing a pump for flat tires to setting up a makeshift till at the pumps to speed the time-consuming $3 to $4 a bike refueling operation. But even the Larson's best effor ts co u ld n ' t h elp Loren Fancy, w h ose Honda was misfiring badly and had to be towed into the rest stop. "This happened at last year's B-to-V (dual sport ride)," said Fancy, who had the seat off and was trying to track down the problem. "I can probably make it, but the worst part is I'll have to take the easy sections. It won't run on the harder trails." And the next d ifficult section was not to be missed. Saturday's second course split paid huge d ividends to hearty rid e rs who took the hard left. It b egan innocently enough w ith a silty road that led to a short climb up a loamy bank littered with trees. There was an old gateway to clear and a sudden drop over the edge of a heart-in-the-mouth downhill that plummeted the dual sporters down, down, down into the heart of the Tule Indian Reservation for a one-time-only. look at the heavily restricted area. "This is the third year we've had the ride and it's the third time we'd tried to go in there," said Team Dual Dogs 's Jean Offers. "We put a lot of time into it - we even went to tribal meetings and made presentations, but.they'd always said no before. They were not interested." Th e club's third request - cou pled wi th the offer of a $5 fee for each rider d id the trick. "We're ve ry lucky to be able to do this - it's the very first time they've let anybody go through. We're hoping it'll start to .op en up a n ew area for dual sport," said Offers . The reservation offered the thrill of exploring forbidden ground, footpeghigh water crossings that provided welcome relief from the sweaty temperatures of the lower elevations, and the unusual sight of a dozen young Indians armed with rifles hunting deer from the backs of two p ickup tru cks. The Sequoia National Forest ride featured a few challenging "hard-way'" sections. With 100 miles behind them, the riders stopped for lunch at a rustic restaurant known as the Ponderosa. Early arrivals d iscussed the challenging sections of the 50-mile route back to the start/finish as they relaxed with a burger on the patio; some of the later arrivals gul ped down a drink and a Power Bar w ithout removing their helmets while th ey studied the bail-out options that wou ld get th em back to Kernville in time for the barbecue at 8 p.m. The afternoon's pace changed from slow to fast and back again as the trail alternated between narrow forest trails and the bright sunlight of grassy open areas where cows chewed lazily as they watched the riders flash by . Day two's cows were a little more active. "We got to dual sport with cows," said CR250 pilot Jim Woods, who rode Sunday only. "Two of them were stand ing in the middl e of the tra il. We tooted our horns and they started running along the road. We'd toot more and they'd run faster. We followed them for about four miles," Bob Reddish's run-in with a deer just two miles from the pavement at the end of day two was not as entertaining. "It flew down the hill next to the trail I was on and nailed me," said Reddish. "I always thought I'd be able to do something - like get out of the way, but there wasn't any time. It wiped out the front of my bike." Reddish limped in to the finish and then left for the hospital to get some attention for a sore arm and a suspected broken finger. Riders rushed away from the finish at the end of day one's ride, as well. Cal Bottum raced off in search of repairs for his ATK, which he'd ridden for 50 miles with a hole in the primary case. "We did a roa ds ide repair - drove a 33

• Cover