Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

'" :. ~ w Z W ..J U > U - and of 125' s, too By Ron Schneiders Photos by Ellen Schneiders LUCERNE VALLEY, CAL., Mar. 5, 1972 Last year the Chaparrals Motorcycle Club tried a fairly daring experiment: They required mufflers on all bikes entered in their enduro and just to make sure nobody missed the message, they called the enduro "The Quiet I". They were in the vanguard of those trying to save the sport from being killed by excessive noise. Being in the vanguard of anything costs and in this case it cost entries. Only 280 riders tried "The Quiet I". Yesterday was "The Quiet Il ", Silencers are now an accepted fact on the desert. The entry was over 500 and no one thought the fact they required silencers even worthy of comment. Some 60 riders bought their first enduro cards at this event, this was their first run. They'll never have the thrill of being awakened at 5: I 5 by a Kawasaki 100 with a tuned expansion chamber rapping at 9,200 rpm and shifting gears every six seconds as it circles your tent like an angry Indian. They'll never experience that exquisite feeling of having your ears ring for three days from the sound of your own exhaust. And it's all the Chaparrals fault. How will thev ever be able to live with themselv;"? Probably a good portion of the riders who ride this event don't even know how the name of the event originated. These new riders might have received a bit more than anticipated in this run. In spite of being only about 96 miles long, it was a long, long run. The morning section, so the Chaparrals told me, was more or less laid out with a skilled rider - the trials rider - in mind. The afternoon section was for the "bite the bullet, hang in there now, it only hurts when I laugh" crowd. Actually, the morning section was really not much for trials riders. There were some rocky little canyons with ledges and such and a substantial amount of rock, but not much that a trials rider would consider challenging. On the other hand, the schedules were fast. Dave Evans commented that they were too fast ,fo r him and I rather concur. I started off late, and even riding as fast as I was able, I couldn't make up a single minute on the schedule . But all things are relative and what's fast for one is just right for the next. Max Bubek reportedly "zeroed" the first loop. He lost his card though, so no one will ever know if the could have repeated in the second. One thing for sure: nobody was doing any resting on that loop. It took two hours and 15 minutes of hard riding and concentration if you did it right. After that there was a I 5-minute gas stop before the second loop. The second loop had some rock and a few difficult-to-ride sections but basically it was a desert race course. There was much deep sand (and uphill too) and quite a few miles of whoop-de-docs, Loops like these, which are quite typical, are producing an interesting phenomenon. There's no way that an average size adult can compete on a 125cc machine in the "Lightweight" class . When you're going uphill in deep sand, there is, as they say, no substitute for cubic inches. The 125 rider always loses in that area and his spot to make it up is the gawdawful rocky downhill or the canyon that's so tight and choked with bikes that his small bike has an advantage. But a run with enough of this nastiness to even things up invariably brings a lot of complaints so there's a natural tendency by the clubs to go easy on the really terrible stuff. The result is that 125 's are slowly but steadily disappearing from the enduros in Southern California. If motorcycles could bleed, we'd have a whole crew of biologists studying the disappearance of a species. It's a classical case of Darwin's survival of the fittest. When conditions change to where a species' particular talents are no longer an advantage, the species disappears. But whoever thought it applied to mechanical objects as well as plants and animals? Maybe some graduate student in biology will do h is master's on the subject of "The 125 Motorcycle : An Endangered Species." He might even be able to predict when the last 125 will enter an enduro and expire in an unrelenting sa~dwash, winners. First overall was Shamrock Bob Steffan on a Bultaco Montadero . Next was Dave Ekins also on a Bul, but an Alpina 250 in his case. Bob lost one point, Dave lost four. First Class B was Dwayne Martin, a CEA member. Once you stopped, it was hard sleding. " ~~ ,. ~ t " L Bruce Brown made the "Flying W" famous-this rider shows now forever, futilely chasing an uncatchable 250. Meanwhile, back at enduro headquarters, the Chaparrals were computing the results. Yep, you read me right. Good old District 37 is finally going to catch up with the rest of the world, it looks like, and give us enduro results on the spot. And again, the Chaparrals are in the vanguard. In fairness, the CEA tried it a couple months ago but blew it with a couple of questionable checks. The Chaparrals didn't make it 100% either. We didn't get any trail bike winners and only the first couple of winners in Class B. But we got a fairly complete list of Class A Dwayne enjoyed the run. I said, "After the run you guys put on [the Last Chance I, this one must have seemed like a piece of cake!" "Sure glad I didn't have to ride that one:' Dwayne said. He rides a 360 It's done. Husky and lost II points. Dan Knous, a Checkpoint, took first B lightweight with 15 points. He rides an Ossa Pioneer. High point of yesterday's run occurred at about 23 miles out on the second loop in the middle of a tight, hot uphill sandwash. It was just about the spot when you started wondering what on earth you were doing, beating your bod in this miserable desert. Then all of a sudden these two young boys are standing there with a gallon jug of ice water! I don't know who they were or where they came from, but they sure made the world a brighter spot right then. Each rider that stopped got a drink and I'm sure at least half of them though t they had just walked into a technicolor mirage when they tasted that water and found it ice cold. Most people that 1 spoke (0 after the run said they enjoyed it. A few had some trouble with the marking which did not seem to be quite up to last year's very high standard. I didn't get lost but I had to ride in circles several times to pick up the marking. The checks seemed to be in good locations to catch the unwary and there were lots of them. One check in the afternoon section had to be thrown out because the clock was off, The Chaparrals have thrown two good enduros and in each of them they've made a positive, progressive contribution to the sport. first in quieting. now in scoring. One wonders what they'll do next year. Maybe they'll run the country's first ZED enduro. ZED stands for Zero Ecological Damage and I just made it up. But who knows? Maybe they'll try it. (Results on page 32)

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