Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

.l?i Forest Service Helps Out at the Shamrock's Enduro by Ron Schneider s Phot os by Ellen Schne ider s & John Cla usen . ANGEL ES NAT IONAL FOR EST , May 6, 1973 - Th ere was an oppo rt unity th is Sunday to ride one of Southern Califo rnia's better end uros, but many of th e local riders passed it by. Th e Shamrocks had only about 280 ent rants for their enjo yable tour of th e Angeles forest . Th e run was fairly long both in terms of miles (I 13) and time (abo ut eight hou rs rid ing) . From these figures it might seem th at the averages were slow, but most of th e averages were mod erate , just abo ut right for an average riders. There were, howe ver, three sections with very low averages. Would yo u believe 3.3 miles at 3 MPH?! That works out to 2 minutes per 500 feet. You can just about go that fast riding your Triumph sled from the garage to your third floor bedroomm, if there aren' t too many turns in the stair s. When the riders saw th e schedule speed th ey wondered what they were getting into . It t urne d out that th e section was a neat canyo n with a trail that criss-crossed a cr e ek ab out umteen times, went th rough some low brush , and over a lot of rocks . It was tough riding but you could go a lot faster than 3, MPH, like mayb e 6 MPH, so guys would be waiting every tenth of a mile or SO for th eir clocks to cat ch up . The Shamrocks set the speed average on th at sectio n slow because, at th e time th ey laid out the course it was a lot tougher, with snow in spo ts andno tra il, and they didn't want a lot of broken mach inery and bottleneck s down there. Good reason ing, but t hey were a b it over cautious. After 'some fireroading we got onto an abandoned power line road that was the featu re of last year's run . It' s actully a tr ail cut on th e side of a mountain and quit narrow in spots. Off to your left is a long , lon g drop. Last year several hot-d ogging rid ers went off the edge and ' had the , devil' s own time gelling th eir bikes out. (One guy took his out in pieces over th e next three weekends!) Thi s year th e average was a bit lower (6 MPH instead of 9 MPH) and the guys were a bit more cautious. Nobody was down at th e bollom th is Sund ay night. Th e aft ernoon sectio n, a fter a 22 minut e lunch break ("What ever happened .to the hour lunch breaks" Al Fox wonders wistfully ) included a whol e lot of fire reading, and some of it was very fast , One 18 MPH section, ju st before th e gas stop, had most of th e non-expert riders losing slo w po ints. Some o f th e, good old boys on th eir Triumphs were just loafing, th ough . We to ok a ride up Pacomi a canyon, a very nice trail with a cooling wat er splash every hund red yards o r so. You have a very stiff climb out of tha t canyo n, and last year there was qu ite a bottleneck at a point wher e you fir st had to go und er one large tre e and th en over ano ther. The Shamrocks did some work with sho vels and cha in saws for this year 's run. Th e obst acles are still th ere and it st ill takes , a lill ie bit of work but not so much that there is a boll Ieneck. A well-done job. At the end o f the seco nd loop they again routed us over the high power line trail, but th ey had the check in a ' different spot and caught quite a few guys napping. The second loop had approximately 10 miles of trail, ten miles of pavement and 53 miles of fireroad. That much fireroad, even for someone (lik e me ) who likes fire reading, gets a little b it boring. They really needed an other 10 mile st retch of trail in the middle of so mewhere. Th e Shamrocks used the new flip card syste m, (That system seems to have caught o n for goo d, and is really popular.) but they were not able to take full advantage of it and post th e scores r ight away because th ere several prot ests, most of th em centering abo ut wheth er checks in th e slow sectio ns were off in distan ce by a te nth of a mile . "Normally a tenth would be considered tri vial, but in those sections a tenth of a mile co uld lit erally mean th e difference betw een first and te nt h place ! The Shamrocks along with enduro Q. ... M '" .. > :< ~ w 2 w ..J U >- U referee Stan Baldwin and Ed Farrell went out immediately after th e run and che cked one of the sect ions. One prot est will be allowed; the card was misplaced by a tenth o f a mile. All scores will be alt ered accordingly. Tw o protests are defin itely disallowed and on e remains to be resolved . There are probably a dozen riders with sco res betw een zero and three , and , at th e moment, all of th em are pot ential ,winners. So there' s not much point in guessing at this dat e. Result s should be available in about a week, Th e Forest Service was very heavily involved in this year's 's hamrock run and cooperated to an unexpected degree. They provided names and add resses of the people 'and co mpanies wh o h ad to b e c ont acted for perm ission s, aided the Shamrocks in liaso n with some of the people who were skept ical, suggested some rou tes to the layout crew and eliminate d some of the bureaucratic hassles of last year. The y had an environmental team flown in from San Franc isco to do the now rcq uired environm ental impact stud ies and , acco rding to one of th e F.S. men who I talked to , found that th ere is really mu ch less damag e than is currently believed in some qu arters. They are quite pleased also with th e Sham rock 's approach. It look s like a very good relatio nship is developing which should prove beneficial to th e sport in co ming years. The Sierra Club was also on hand using their tim e proven tenchique o f moralistic haras sment to alienate anyo ne who might have a realistic concern fo r environmental problems. The Shamr ocks have been opera ting under a heavy load thi s year. The y had to put on the enduro withou t th e services of their enduro expert Bob Steffan du ring th e crucial period of layou t. Bob was injured , but is now j ust ab out r e co v er ed . Th e y ar e simulta neo usly setting up for their ISDT qu alifier which is to tak e place only 6 weeks fro m now (J une 24) (In cidently , prin ted information is now available and entries are o pen. Th ere is a limited ent ry and it is expected to be filled shortly ), In spite o f all, however, they managed to put on an endurowhich ,on my own personal scale, still ran ks as one of two or three I would most hate to miss each year . Tom Patton, of Team Bultaco, blasting along at 3 MPH. The Forest Service came out and helped I

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