Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Honda wos on hond to lend support to o ny red riders in the event. almost all the way to the lunch stop in California City, the n headed out on rolling trails across the desert to the east, w here rocky trails up and over small hills, miles of knee -numb ing whoops and power-robbing sand washes provided plenty of challenge. Recent rain had settled the dust, and a tiny stream was still running in a gravelly wash that led riders to a moving tribute to desert racers known as Husky Monument. Set in concrete at the middle-of-nowhere site is the Husky once ridden by "Rapid" Robert, along with plaques celebrating the lives of we ll-known desert personal ities such as Don Ogilvie,Norm Stewart and Jesse "Let's go, we're burning daylight" Goldberg . "That was the way-most bestest th ing of the wh ole day," said Roy Co e , trying to put a little levity on what had, unexpectedly, turned out to be a very moving expe rience. "I had never see n it before , and there were two guys from the Checkers standing the re and they were crying. You could hear sniffing. It was so tou ching. It gave me goose bumps , and it made the event. " When the riders left Husky Monument there was 50 miles of co urse between them and the finish in Barstow, most of it through critical desert tortoise hab itat, where a BLM-mandated speed limit of 30 mph was in force . "I didn't like the fast road sect ions - they were too easy - and I didn't like the tortoise sec tion either," said 16-year-old Jaso n Swiderski, who was aboard a Honda XR6S0R. "I'm a fan of t he hard secti ons. Those were pretty fun." The rolling trails of the closing sectio ns provided entertai nment for most of the riders , who found themselves dodging muddy puddles left over from the snow that had blanketed the area the prior weekend, bouncing up rocky hills and fighting dee p gravel in some of the washes. The short winter day mea nt most of the riders had no time to stop and check out the petroglyphs they passed with 30 miles to go, and most found themselves casting very long shad ows as they continued to ride east while the sun set behind them. "It got dark earlier than I wanted it to , that 's for sure," YZF426 pilot Beau Briggs said. "Going into the tortoise area at 3 o'clock slowed us down. We did the math , and we knew it would be dark by the time we finished. I jerry-rigged a flashlight up my sleeve so Icould still read the roll chart, and we rode for a good hour after the sun went down. It was my first time here and my first dual-spo rt ride ever, and it was a lot of fun - even if it did get dark ." The sun set at quarter to 5 and was rep laced by a fat, yellow moon that sat on the horizon looking impressive but, despite being full, didn't east enough light to he lp the riders see. Temperatures dro ppe d sharply as darkness closed in, but the dual sporters simply changed to warm -weather gloves and kept on riding. "Wha t an awesome ride. The weather was perfect and, with the rain we had, there was hardly any dust . You cou ldn't ask for a better day," said San Francisco's Ken Nielsen , who had nearly skipped out on Thanksgiving dinner to make the drive to his first eve r LA-B-to-V. "I got a hall pass from my wife to come this time . It being on Than ksgiving makes coming here a bigdeal. I had to wo lfdown Thanksgivingdinner and scurry out the doo r at 4 p.m., drive 400 miles down, sleep five hours , then get up and ride. It's really outstand ing and, as they say, the worst day riding a motorcycle is better th an the best day doing anyth ing e lse." Another first-time rider from far away was KTM 450 -mounted Ross Reed , a motorcycle dealer from Kansas. "There are six of us here , and we came all the way just for this. We all flew in and had our Parts Unlimited rep drive a chase truck for us. So far it's great; well worth it'; he said. "I've got some ribs that are talking to me . I fell off early this mo rning on a road in a hard way." Mark Bakarich, who had selected a KLR6S0 as the moun t of choice for his firstever LA -B-to -V. was thinking better of it by the end of the long day's ride . "It was a bit too heavy in some of the sand and some of the dirt stuff. That's my excuse, anyway," said th e rider fro m Glendale , California. "O n the plus side, it wasn't as heavy and slow as a GS, and it was great on the desert sect ions." Even Chris Real, a participant who didn't get to ride, was having a great time . Real was out in the parking lot at the finish line in Barstow, manning the Honda Riders Club se rvice center, wh ich provides environme ntally sensitive oil changes, tire changes and just about anything else the riders need , with any proceeds going to the Ride For Kids charity. "I saw som e funny th ings out there," Real said. "There was a guy who came in with an extremely loud motorcycle and he said he didn't know what the proble m was. His muffler had comple tely slipped out of the header and he didn't know what was wrong. His number plate was sta rting to smoke and in another mile he was going to be on fire . I took the number plate off and re formed it, and put the muffler back together. It didn't even need a bolt. It was just loose. ':A.nd t hen there were the guys that came in with no goggle lenses. Two guys wearing goggles that had no lenses in t he m," Real laughed. 'if\pparently they had put new lenses in at the start and obvio usly didn't do it correctly. Twenty miles or so into the ride , the lenses fell out. But to have two guys ride in together after that with the ir goggles still on... you had to be there . One of those guys was able to show me his Hond a Riders Club card , so I gave him a pair of HRC goggles - with lenses in them ." The riders trickled in off the course until well after dar k. Most opted for an early night because it was up and at 'em at the crack of dawn again on day two, when taking the hard ways meant gung-ho dual sporters faced 2S5 miles of trail on the ir way to the finish lineat the San Remo Hote l just off the Las Vegas Strip. Riders were greeted wit h a cloudless sky, and the rain that had bee n pro mised by weather forecasters was now here in sight. Temperatures were also a little higher than in years gone by. Instead of the usual, icy, biting cold, ear ly risers had little mo re to contend with than a chill in the air, and it was an almost balmy 60 degrees by 9 a.m. For some riders, the challenge started before they even found the trail. Two riders doubled back to ask for directions out of the hotel parking lot, and two intrepid characters headed off aboard Vespa motorscooters. "Good luck," was the comment from Bill Wolf. "The hard sect ions on day two we re great, and they were challe nging," Wolf said. "Ther e was a 10-mile sand wash re latively early on . We had been through it before but this time it was deep, deep, wet sand - power-robbing wet sand. Peo ple www.cycleneW5.com were crashed over and worn out all over t hat. And there was a I 3-mile train trellis area heading into Dumont Dune s. There were huge washouts you couldn 't see along that, and that took its toll on a lot of people, too. You just cou ldn't see the wash outs until you were 10 feet from them. At the start of that section, the re were posts where the drop offs were, but in the second section there was noth ing to warn you." The wind started kicking up as the frontrunners cleared Dumont Dunes, add ing another challenge, and the worst - or, perhaps, the best - was yet to come. "We were getting into Red Rock Canyon , and rider after rider after rider was coming back the other way," Wolf said. "They went up there and saw snow and saw people stuck in snow and back tracked, but what they didn't know was th at, if you rode past the part where the road was total ly snow covered, it opened up and there was very little snow. You cou ld do it fairly easily. One guy on a 1954 Triumph made it through there, and he did it at night. He had some pushing and shoving, but he made it." The dual sporters straggled into Vegas, some of them com pleting the course well after dar k, but the re were smile s all around at the awards ceremony. The oldest bike award went to Bill Getty, who rode both days aboard a 1952 Triumph . Bill and his wife, Marla, also re ceived a Sportsmanship Award for rescuing Ed Crowell, w ho crashed shortly after Baker on day tw o and suffered a broken collarbon e and cracked ribs. C rowell, who is 75 years old, re ceived the Be n-Gay award in honor o f his injuries and capt ured the tr ophy for oldest rider. The ride r who trave led the furthest within the United States to get to the event hailed from Uma, O hio, and , because the re were no internationale ntrants this year, the Inte rnational Award wen t to golf-cart driver Buddy Menudo , who traveled "overseas" from Catalina Island to join the fun. Steve Iorio's Ricknnan Triumph earned the Most Unusual Bike Award, and the awa rd for the longest suffering bike went to LarryWoodruff's ATK, which has made the two-day trek from LA to Vegas 16 years running - and is sure to be back again next year to make it 17 in a row. CN CYCLE NEWS • DECEMBER 15 , 2004 47

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