Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/141009
Cl N .ci '" u, ~ w Z W ...J U >- U Here's the neat pin all the finishers got . enduros these days you don't even get a lu nch break. After that the ru n got a bit more serious, b ut not m uch. The average went up to 24 m p h and the co urse headed out across the desert. Fi rst there was normal desert of the bouncy variety and t hen th ere was a h uge d ry lake (Coyote Dry Lake?) where riders were really enjoying themselves, cutting big slalom-like S-curves on a surface so flat it seemed unnat ur al. About that time it seemed a check was long overd ue , we spo tted a collection of cars and vehicles in the d istance. Gas Ch eck . O nly there wasn't any check, just gas and a half hour b reak. Most enduro cl ubs can get by wi th a pickup truck to take gas ca ns out to a remote fu elin g stop. Not this o ne. They had a regular gas truck, like t he kind used to fill up service station tanks, to take care of the riders. No oil was available . If you we re one of thoese odd-balls who didn't ride a Ya ma ha, you brought your own oil. A couple of people were seen carrying their own gas or mix. I'll bet a one-gallo n Clorox bottle of gas st rapped to the forks does neat thing to the handling. Ugh . From there on it was about 30-odd miles to the finish through some nice co untry. Some super-duper sa nd washes and rocky dirt roads and such. We passed an interesting house co nstru cted of odd-shaped piece of the red rock. I wanted to stop and admire but I didn't. The whoop-de-doo tunnel stoke d everyone. After the run I asked Ro n Vincellette if there had been any trouble spots 'o n the course. "Only o n that bad downhill," he said. "Uh, which one was that?" I asked. A frantic search of my memory banks di dn't d islodge any recollection of any downhill of significance. Some guy I was trying to pass ran me off the course into the rocks on one necessitating some footing and hollering, but that had nothing to do with the h ill. T he only other one I could remember was kind of rocky and I decided to be cautious and went down in second gear. "Y o u know. That one o n the first loo p ," Ron said. "We had four guys helping the riders get down and they really had a workout. " "Oh, that and" I said . I was beginning to wonder if I had cut the course because I still didn't have the foggiest idea what he was talking about. "Yeah, T hey'd wait until some girl got h er step-through Ho nda sideways on the hill and herself on the downhill side and they 'd go help her get down," Ron said. I agreed that that wo uld indeed be a b ad situation. There were over 300 girls entered, incidentally. Everything connected with the enduro part of the thing was run in a r elaxed fashion, befitting a run with a coffee break in the middle. When I got in , I was immediately handed a finisher pin b ut nobody seemed to want my timecard! I sat t h ere for a co uple minutes, thinking surely someone was m arking ti mes of arrival. A fr iend reluctantly parted with his beer ca n for precisely the time I needed to consume half of it. Then I parked my bike and went looking for someone who wa nted my ca rd . After two false tries, I found a lady with a stack of cards in her h an d . "Oh, when did you get in?" she asked . "About five min utes ago, " I said, beginning to wo rry th at all my effort was in vain. Sh e looked at her wristwatch, noted the time , subtracted five minu tes and marked it d own. I was dumbfou nded. I di dn't know whe ther that made me late o r early but, at that point, an argument seemed co ntrary to the spirit of the t hing so I d ecid ed to ride wan the la d y 's Timex. If the checking was rather lo ose , the rest of the organization was n 't. T he SRA did everything right. They h ad th e San Bernardino Sheriff's Resc ue Squad (helicopter and all) out to hel p ma ke su re everything w en t smooth ly . They secured passes to the ghost to wn (which they had to pay fo r, incidentally) for all contestants and families who wa n ted them and th ey had everyone off the course well before dark. Really quite a tremendous achieveme nt. A nd Ron . Vincellete didn't even lo o k ti red at t he end. I'll bet he's going to be t ired b y th e time he fmis hes scoring 20 00 cards in umpteen classes, though. A nd then he 's got to disperse 400 trop hies! Whee. Better get your entries in now if you want to ride on the first day next y ear. Hard-tofind parts, eas~·to·get at .Valerian's. . V' OOoltl~ ~?,~~~ ,o~!~.~~o~t". ~~, Los Ang eles. Californ ia 90064 - Telephone: (213) 475-4541 Sales - Service - Ac cessories - Par ts - Rivett s Champio n Leather s Hu saVAR NA ' JAW A /CZ · SUZU KI ' PENTON ' M Z ' MO NT ESA ' ZUNDAPP · MINI ·TRA ILS open monday through saturday A roc ky path at the start and every one is freaked.