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/1545744
"T here's nothing worth having," goes the old saying, "that isn't worth working for." Perhaps that was what the 750 entrants in the 1971 Jackass Enduro were tell - ing themselves as they unloaded their Greeves, BSAs and DKWs from their Chevy C-10 and Ford F-100 (with Twin "I" Beam suspension) trucks, buckled their kidney belts, and stretched their aviator goggles over their open-face helmets. Several hours and 125 miles later, two-thirds of the field had limped back to those same trucks, thoroughly whipped, winded and possibly even wounded. Motorcycle infantrymen who charged into battle thinking "no pain, no gain" were now reduced to whimpering shells of men (and at least one woman), pleading, "no pain…no pain." Cycle News not only covered the Jackass Enduro, editor Ron Schneiders also competed, riding his Sachs in the grueling event and stopping at various points along the way to shoot photos, most of which show riders either on the ground and separated from their motorcycles or engaging in some kind of body physics experiment in their efforts to avoid ending up in a photo like the aforementioned. Scenic, postcard-pretty pics pop up while searching for the town of Red Mountain, California, home of the Jackass Enduro. Founded as a silver-mining town in 1919, it was originally called Osdick, then renamed Red Mountain in 1929, just in time for the stock-market crash and the subsequent Great Depression. Beautiful from afar, Schneiders' photos reveal a more sinister side of the area. There are rocks. Big rocks, bigger rocks and smaller rocks that are still pretty big, espe - cially when one is trying to ride an early-1970s-era dirt bike over them. A stony downhill so treacherous that any mountain goat that wasn't afflicted with wasting disease would steer clear of it was cruelly included in the enduro course. Racers line up like sheep heading for slaughter, foolishly taking their turn, each thinking that they can do some - thing that every other rider has failed to accomplish. "The first five miles were just a 30-mph warmup over desert trails," Schneiders wrote. "Most everyone dropped a couple min - utes, but it was easy to get back on schedule because the next section was 12 mph and rather easy at the beginning." Clearly, the course had been laid out to CNIIARCHIVES P132 BY KENT TAYLOR What is an off-road race in the Southern California desert without a gigantic rock downhill? 750 STARTED, 200 FINISHED What is an SOME OFFROAD RACES ARE TOUGHER THAN OTHERS; THE JACKASS EN DURO WAS ONE OF THE TOUGHER ONES.