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/141023
> ::;; '" '" ~ w Z W ..J U >U 'S A R C S H M O K' SWEEPSTAKES ENDURO By Ron Sch neiders Ph otos by Ellen Schneiders ANGELES FOR EST , CALIF .,M ay 7, 197 2 - " You woul dn ' t believe all the hassle we wen t through t o p u t o n t his run ... ." That was the opening line in the instruction sheet that came w ith your riding number wh en yo u entered the Shamrock's Swee pstakes Enduro. The reason for th e hassle was simp le : T he Shamrocks decid ed to p ut on the enduro in the Angeles Na tional Forest and this just hasn't been done fo r a long, lon g time. T en o r 15 years ago motorcyclists used th e fore st s aro u nd Los An geles e xtens ive ly . bu t wi th new re gu lat ion s incl ud ing th e necessit y to licen se the bi ke and in st all a spa r k arresto r, mo t or cy cl ist s simply moved to t he unre stri ct ed d ese rt. La tely . h o wever . the re have been more restrictions on the desert and clubs have been pushed farther and farther away from their Los A nge les base . Last year the S ha mroc ks fel t they had been p ushed far enough and it was ti me fo r a re tu rn. Th ey had to sta rt from scratch. T h e en tire run was laid o u t in the fores t d irectl y north of th e Glend ale-S an Fernan do area an d a t one point the run passed with in five miles o f th e to wn of San Fernando. T he sta rti ng point . a small camp area ca lled Kentu ck y Springs. was less th an an ho ur' s drive from 1.0. Angeles. The ru n included something for everybody includ ing good pavement. fire road , asp halt, b r o k e n ra b an d o n e d-r oa d desert-like trai ls, mountain cl iff-hanger trails and best of all so me hon est-to-gosh fo rest trails. Wit h trees. Loop One was a wh op pi n g 69 .2 mil es lon g w ith an emergency gas sto p at 53 miles. It starte d with 26 miles of fire road which to ok th e riders o ver to Mag ic Mountain an d a ste ep d ownhill trail. We were grad ua lly wo rk ing our way over to Pacoima Canyon which would lea d to o ne o f th e best tra ils to be fo und aro und here . T his tr ail, which has n o nam e tha t I can di sc over. w as once a jeep or wagon trail. It cro sse d back and forth over a roc ky- bottomed cree k and winds to rt urously up to an abandoned fo rest service camp. T he schedule up here was slow - only 8 mp h - and man y rider s hi t the check at th e h ead of th e trail so mewhat hot. T hey cooled off in a h urry th o ugh. Jus t be y ond th e chec k th e trail cli mbe d ou t of th e ca nyon and th er e were a coup le of ob stacles. An earth slide had taken the tr ail o ut a t o ne point an d a coup le of hu ge tr ees had fa lle n across it. Th e Shamro cks du g th e trail ou t from benea th the earth slide an d made it possib le to go un der one of th e trees. The other tree we had t o go o ver an d it was a time consu ming affair. There we re ~\ ' . "I to ld him this wasn't a Trials section, but he kept insisting." about 50 riders waiting for a shot at it when I arrived. After the tree there was a lot of good fast road to make up time bu I for man y of us. there was too much time lost to ma ke up. The Shamrocks had allowed for about a 10 minute time loss at that point, but it turned out to be more like 20 minutes , which couldn't be made up . Some of the Northern clubs cou ld learn something from th e S hamrocks gas • stop. They had all the gas cans arranged in order and several cl ub m embers to act as p it crew. I go t one o f the fastest p it stops I've ever had! A fte r ano ther 20 mil es o f fire road