Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

T ALTERNATIVE STORY BY ANNE VAN BEVEREN PHOTOS BY TOM VAN BEVEREN Thanksgiv ing traditions go, LA-B-to-V is one of the best . It 's refreshing, non fattening, w ith just a to uch of spice, and it appeals to pe o ple of all ages. O f cou rse , it can be cons idered addictive a nd it does seem to keep repeat ing on you . Just ask Roy Coe, who has been riding the two-day dual-sport event that runs from the outskirts of Los Angeles to the glitte r of Las Vegas for more years than he A can rem ember. "There's noth ing like it. It's the best event of the year," said Coe , who turned out on a 2003 Suzuki DRZ400, instead of his usual mount - a colorful bit-of-this, bitof-that machine based on a Yamaha500XT that was affectionately known as Th e Mongrel. "My oid bike turned 24,000 miles a few weeks back. That's once aroun d the world , and I always said I wo uld do that then park it. The next time I took it out boo m! It blew up, so here I am on a new bike. There 's stuff that norma lly wou ld've just kicked my butt, but this thing works so we ll, it's like cheating. It made a grea t ride even better." This year's version of the 21-year-old ride that began as an offshoot of the infamous, and now defunct, Barstow-to -V egas Hare and Hound dese rt race , began in Valencia, and, with 220 miles of off-road fun ahead of them, day one 's 400 riders hit the road early. Tem peratures we re in the low 40s when the fi rst riders pulled out of the start at 7 a.m., and the chillin the air kept speeds low for the open ing 20-mile run on pavem ent to Rowher Flats off-road area . But the coldweather gloves came off the minute the dirt started , and intrep id riders dashed THE L.A.-B-TO-V IS AN EVENT NOT TO BE MISSED headlong into the first of the day's hardway options . "When they say most difficult on this ride, they mean it," Stuart Mumford said. "I've done LA-B-to-V for five years, and when you take the hard ways at this event, you need great insurance , the right gear and a pickup to take you home afterwards. It's tough." Most of the riders enjoyed the tricky uphills, twisty downslopes and rock-strew n trails, but the re were some who wished the y'd selected the less-challenging, easyway optio n. "There was a German guy on a BMW a paper-plate new GS 1200 - on that first hard-way loop. He was on a single track and hit a rock that was sticking out ," Keith Huff said. The rock tore offa valve cover and, with no oil in the engine, the fi rst-t ime dual sporte r was stuck - until a quartet of good Samaritans, including Huff, decided to help out . "We towed him all the way out , and it wasn't easy," said Huff, who hoo ked the BMW up to the back of his bike and, along with Mike Lastelley, Kevin Auman and brother Steve Huff, manhandled the BMW behem oth out of the tight sect ion to where a sweep truck could pick it up. "He 'd fall and I'd go down, too. At one stage he went off a little cliff and fell upside down. We pushed him, pulled him, lifted his bike up. It took almost three hours to get him out . We felt bad for him. The bike was brand new and he left pieces allover the mountain. He could've got arrested for littering." Keith Huff and his helpers got a Sportsmanship Award from AMA District 37 for the ir efforts , which took so long they ran out of time to tackle the second half of 46 DECEMBER 15,2004 • CYCLE NEWS the day's ride and we re forced to take a bailout and ride pavement to Barstow. For his effort, the BMW pilot earned the event 's Hard LuckAward . "I pulled some thing in my back and I think I need a massage. Does n't that count for some thing!" Steve Huff said. "This was my first dual-sport event ever. What a way to start ." For Joey Woods, the challenge in the first hard-way section was resisting the urge to twist the throt tle. "I almost didn't have eno ugh gas. There was so much coo l single track and neat downhill stuff, and so many neat flyers, but I had no gas so I had to nurse it the wh ole way," Woods said. ''I'm so happy to be doing this ride. The ride is 21 and I am 21, too , which is cool, and I tho ught I shou ld ride it now because we might not have one next year. I'm worried about the new desert plan. It's always a co ncern that we might get locked out of the desert, and I wanted to do both days before that happens. Last year I bailed out on day tw o . It was too cold and to o windy, and I just wussed out. But not this year - I'm going all the way." For BMW GS 650 -mo unt ed Larkin Wright, the challenge was finding the way. "I can't set the od ometer on my bike back, so once you're off track , you're really off," Wright said. "I got lost in the first hard way. The re were peop le on top of the hill out there looking around for half an hour. The re are some really good trails back there and I know them, so I just found my own way out." The easy-way trail was simple to follow but not so simple to ride . When the gentle uphill run on a jeep trail was over, easy-way riders found themselves hurtling downhill 40th Anniversary on the same deeplyrutted , goat-trail-hangingon- the-side-of-the-mountain sect ion as the hard-way riders, and w hen the dirt trail was over, it was followed by a near-verti cal section litte re d with large , loose, rolling rocks . "I've been talking to allthe guys and they are liking it. They especially like getting the single track out of the way in the morn ing, but it was a bit much for some of the riders ," said Buddy Percin, outgoing president of AMADistrict 37 Dual Sport. "There was a girl out the re from Oregon on a 250X. She asked me, 'Is it like that all the way? Is there a way out?' She said, 'I th ink I've gotten in way over my head .' I to ld her it was easy all the way once that first section was over, but it's amazing how many people make this their first dual-sport ride. O ne day would be a good warmup, but both days? It's a big deal." Tricky uphills alterna ted with hang-ontight downhills all the way to Lake Hughes, then it was back on pavement for a run past the Lancaster Poppy Rese rve, followed by a high-speed 50-mile dash on a pipeline road across the Antelope Valley. "We certai nly brought back the hard ways," said Dave Tonkiss, who was riding LA -B-to -V for the 14th time. "Nobody can complain about those, and it was just as well because the next 50 miles we re kind of boring. There's only one way to get acros s Antelope Valley, and that's it, but we know it'll get bette r afte r that." For a couple of colorful characters who were tackling the cou rse in an off-road golf cart, the re was no chance for the ride to get better. The duo from Avalon, on Catalina Island, who rode 50cc moto rcycles at last year's event , reportedly rolled their four-wheel entry and broke the passenger's arm while doub lingback to re pass an event photographer on the tra il through Antelope Valley. Riders followed the California aqueduct

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