Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Team Cycle News takes on the 24 Hours of Glen Helen ish first, yeu must first finish. Running at ten-tenths could only serve to damage either myself or the bike, which could screw up the entire operation. Regardless of how amped up I was, I kept telling myself that I would always try to hand off the KTM to Lance in as good a condition as it was handed to me. I only managed to screw that up twice in 24 hours. out in the bushes, being attended to by a couple of other riders. It was the same CR250 rider who had earlier parked me in the tum. Gee, I wonder why I wasn't surprised? Later that day, however, I was surprised, though, and, yes, even glad to see him back on the track and racing. K.P. S.R. Okay, so I overreacted. The run up the hill known as Mount St. Helens wasn't as bad as it looked. In fact, it was easy. Even fun. The night before the race, I'll admit - it had me scared. When a group of us took a stroll to the bottom of the hill on Friday night, the enormity of the. hillside in the dark sent shivers up my spine. We stood at the bottom of the hill and it looked like Widowmaker, the hillclimb made famous in the original "On Any Sunday." It made for a restless Friday night, but strangely enough, just 24 hours later I was blazing up Mount St. Helens in the pitch black of night - with a smile on my face. P.C. After what felt like a crawl through my first lap, I was ready to settle into a comfortable pac~. I quickly theorized that there were basically foUor really low-speed technical sections on the 10-mile loop and that by picking at them all, I could put together a smooth lap. First was the downhill on the back side of Mount St. Helens. Then we could make our way over to the "woods section," a serpentine singletrack that danced tbrough the trees and poison oak near the 15 freeway. Then it was on to the scabrous uphill and rocky downhill that took us back into the motocross area via the vet track. Rolling the jumps on the stadium track (sorry, I don't do doubles) was the last hindrance before the relatively fastpaced sections that led to the paved area over at the sheriff's paved driving facility. But all of it was really a breeze, thanks mostly to the bike that Chris had chosen for our team to ride. I have to admit that while I never disliked KTMs, I had personally never felt that they offered a bike that was up to par with the Japanese bikes in the same category. That notion My plan for the race was to stick to what I'd told my teammates for the entire week prior to it. "I'm not going there to race," I told them. "I'm just going there to ride." The rationale was not so much an admission that I'm not the fastest desert racer in the world as it was a mental strategy. Simply put, I figured that I could be in for the toughest ride I've ever put in on any motorcycle, and my personal game plan was simple: In order to fin- changed within my first hour on the 400. It was as close to as perfect an off-road machine as I'd ever ridden. Its power delivery was seamless, and it always had just enough juice for any situation, whether climbing that rock-strewn and rut-infested uphill that led to the Glen Helen Pavillion parking lot or bombing the paved areas of the San Bernardino sheriff's driver training area. Kudos to KTM for building it and Chris for choosing it. S.R. I pulled the dusk ride, which meant that I would be the first to find out what our lighting situation was like. Imagine my surprise when I learned that we didn't really have any. Either the off-road riding ace whose advice we had sought was pulling our leg when he told Chris what type of bulbs to load into the KTM's Acerbis unit, or we had chosen the wrong ones, but the course went from fun to scary for me after the sun set. Aside from the fact that the sallow illumination quickly faded to near blackout every time the motor settled down to idle, part of the problem was that the unit didn't seem to be pointed properly. I tried to fix it on the fly and succeeded in ripping it loose from its mounts. So much for bringing the bike back in the same condition that I'd found it. At least I made it back. S.R. 18 SEPTEMBER 26.2001 • cue I _ n __ s Earlier, I told you about our prerace problems with the headlight on the KTM. As it turns out, Dad's handiwork didn't fail us and the light worked the entire night. Kel showed up and watched our flawless pit stops, probably making him reflect upon those flawless pit stops in previous Daytona 200s - okay, probably not. But back to the headlight for a minute. Way back in the planning (and I use that term extremely looseIy) stages, the subject of lights came up. Chris reassured me that all was well. The Acerbis aftermarket light would be fine - a respected off-road With Wortd Champion mechanic Kel Carruthe... looking on skeptically, the Cycle News crew perfonns an early 011 change on the KTM. It was the only one It would get, though we did regularly swap air fllte .... racer had told him what to do, and a trip to Home Depot for some morepowerful bulbs would have us reaching for sunglasses, they'd be so bright, Jonnum said. Liar, liar, pants on fire. Our lights sucked. I've huffed and puffed my way through brighter birthday-cake candles. P.C. What the heck was going on? I was supposed to be one of the linchpins in this deal, and here I was, riding like I'd never been on a bike before. My primary concern had been about getting my compadres around the course safely, yet I now found myself marveling at my own inability to competently pilot the KTM around the course. Not only that, but things seemed to be getting worse, as my naturally limited vision went from poor to worse. Following a rider down the formerly straightforward downhill on my first nighttime lap, the four lens surfaces of my goggles and glasses first became coated with dust. then began fogging, leaving me quite literally riding blind. How blind? After laying the bike down, I was approached by a drunken spectator, and my question was simple: "Am I at the bottom yet?" C.J. The Downhill. Actually, it wasn't so bad at first. In fact, it was kind of fun - just put your wheels in the rut, use your legs as outriggers, grab a handful of brake, and slide. Down, down and down - faster, faster and faster. No problem, really, but try it with your eyes closed! That's what it was like at night as our helmet lights reflected brightly off the dust pa rticles - total whiteout! Throw in fogged-up

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