Cycle News

P248 BY KIT PALMER CN III OBSERVATION CHECK NOT SO FAST B y the time October rolls around, that's about the time someone in the Cycle News office first asks, "so, Rider of the Year, who do you think?" Sometimes it's hardly a question worth asking at all, since the an- swer is so simple. Sometimes it's a question not even asked at all, like last year—Marc Marquez, of course. Who's to argue? No one, as it turned out. Sometimes, the question is not so easy to answer, or maybe it just doesn't jump out at you right away, kind of like the year before Marquez when Superbike Cham- pion Josh Hayes was named Cycle News Rider of the Year. Hayes was definitely deserving of the title, of course, but there were some high-ranking nominees, as well, like Ryan Dungey, who gave KTM its first Supercross win in the premier class and then backed that up with the company's first outdoor National Motocross title in the big-bike class, and Jared Mees, who took the Grand Na- tional Championship title after a season-long and heated battle with Sammy Halbert and Jake Johnson. (Mees sealed the deal at the final round that year, hmm, that sounds familiar.) This year, the answer was again simple. Or was it? Ken Roczen's name was the quick answer to this year's ques- tion. And off we ran with it. After all, the young German did what few before him have ever done: win a National Motocross Championship in the premier class as a rookie, and he had the veterans in the Su- percross Championship shaking in their boots for a while there, too. Roczen's stellar year is well documented elsewhere in this issue. Shortly after confirming that Roczen would indeed be our 2014 Cycle News Rider of the Year, we got the ball rolling to do an interview with the new AMA 450 Motocross National Cham- pion. We gave the interview as- signment to long-time Cycle News contributor Steve Cox who knows a thing or two about mo- tocross, dealing with (and meet- ing) deadlines and getting the job done. He was on the case and I felt good about it. Sometimes it's not a simple task lining up an interview with the top stars, after all, they're busy people, they test a lot, they train a lot, they travel a lot, and they are often pulled in a zillion different directions at one time, but Roczen was stoked to hear that he was named this year's CN ROY and was more than happy to provide an interview with Steve, it was late October, so we had plenty of time to work with him and his busy schedule, and ev- erything was all set for a future chat between Ken and Steve. Meanwhile, somewhere in Ar- gentina… This year, the International Six Days Enduro took place rather late in the year, pretty much in the middle of November, and by the end of the third day of competi- tion, the U.S. World Trophy Team was making a very realistic run for the overall victory, which is some- thing the U.S. has never done before in the event's 86 year his- tory. That would be big! I couldn't help but think, "what if this is the year? How awesome would that be?" I also started thinking, "Rid- ers (as in the entire U.S. Team) of the Year?" But that would cre- ate a dilemma for us at this point, now wouldn't it? "Hello, Ken, hey, remember that Rider of the Year thing?" Of course, that wouldn't happen, but we would certainly have to acknowledge the ISDE team's achievement with more than just an honorable mention, that's for sure. Dilemma for us or not, I didn't care, "go Team USA!" Having covered at least 15 ISDE's in my time, I know what these guys go through—and it is a lot—and I wanted to see them finally win it, we would deal with any dilemma later, I thought. Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out in the end for Kailub Russell, Zach Osborne, Taylor Robert, Thad DuVall, Charlie Mullins, Mike Brown and the rest of the U.S. crew, but they were the closest

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