The American Motorcycle Association has local chapters they call Districts. For the area in Northern California where I live that would be District 36. In the district are clubs, and members. You can be a member of District 36 and the AMA and not be in a club, but to ride these fun events you need to be an AMA and District 36 member.
The clubs put on the on and off road events, so without them not too much would happen. So thanks the the clubs. (Gee I should join one I guess!)
Among the off road events are Enduros, 50 mile or more races with times sections and checkpoints. You start say 4 bikes per minute. If the race starts at 9 am and you are on row 60 you would be on the 60 minute. At each checkpoint you try to ride at the average set by the race directions and if things go well you pull in right at 60. Show up late or early and you get a penalty. They record your time and write it on your scorecard and off you go.
Woo Hoo!
Yea but.
Unless you are pretty fast it is hard to nail your minute. You can't just putt around. I mean this is a race. The good news is that you can be late for the checkpoints (up to a point) and still ride the course and finish the day. Fast guys and no so fast guys have special computers they program with the limited course info they get from race officials. If you are fast it tells you to slow down you're above the course mph average for that section. If you aren't a fast guy the computer tells you to go you are running late for a checkpoint and need to pick up the pace.
Me? I don't need no computer telling me to go faster. I definitely don't need one to tell me to go slower either.
It might seem a little complicated, but for me I just was thinking of riding a closed area on a fun course, with people around to help if things go wrong. Hey that's worth the entry fee!
Sometimes there are 2 Enduros on the same weekend. The main event will be all day long on a tough course with a fast average speed. It is hard for even the "A" or Expert riders to make their minute all day long.
The other race is called a "Family Enduro." It is a little shorter, a little easier. True to its name families do ride, dads with kids, moms, friends, casual riders all sign up and give it a go. These aren't rides for beginners, but if you or your kid or friend can trail ride fairly well a Family Enduro might be for you.
In Early April 2009 I entered my 2nd enduro ever the Crosscut Family Enduro. The last one I tried to race was a disaster. It ended with a miserable DNF "Did Not Finish" as I ran out of gas from a leaking float in my carburetor and pushed my bike for far too long out of the Mendocino National Forest and back to my truck.
That was a little over 10 years ago.
Since that time I can ride a little better, and have a different bike. I've raced some off road events including the famous Elsinore GP, the Adelanto GP, and various events in District 36 Cross Country series. In the last few years I've been doing lots of exercise including some mountain biking, road biking and even Yoga For Regular Guys. So I thought this would be a good year to try an Enduro again.
The bike I rode is an older 380 KTM 2 stroke set up with an Acerbis aux gas tank mounted on the front. That worked great. It actually gave the front tire a little more bite in the loose dirt. I WAS NOT going to run out of gas and push my bike again! The bike has lots of power, and while not nimble in the tight trees, you can make up for that with some power from the motor. With me on the bike riding in the trees is a little like a freight train on a go kart track. The power comes in mighty handy hauling my big butt up the hillclimbs. I know the bike really well and have a nice suspension set up from Dick's Racing it really feels better than ever thanks to their work.
My buddy Neil went along to do the race with me and we spent Friday night in Clearlake. The alarm went off at 5:30 so we could leave around 6 and make it to the riding area just west of Lakeport by 7. We signed in and were on minute 66. So we would start at 10:06, the first riders went out at 9 am.
On our minute was a guy and his kid, about 12 years old. The kid was going to ride a Honda XR100. Those are just great bikes, and Honda has been making them for years. Even adults ride around on them. They looked like they knew all about the time and speed averages part of enduro riding. We didn't. We were just going to ride around.
We had some time to kill and were parked pretty close to the start. If was like watching a bike show go by. Enduro riders are mostly about function. Not a lot of bling bling on the bikes, and there were some pretty old bikes that were ready to ride the 50 mile course.
There was a big mix of Dads and kids, guys and their buddies, women, old guys, and young hot shots all ready to take off.
I had all my favorite riding gear for the day. My Klim jersey and over the boot pants come recommended by my buddy Charlie from San Francisco's Rally Pan Am Dakar team. I now always ride with an Alpinestars Bionic Neck Support. I consider it a must for riding off road. I also use an Alpinestar under the jersey protection vest. I really like that, and it fits so well that during the ride you don't really feel it there. My Oakley goggles, and Alpinestar boots are also favorites of mine. All this gear not only does the job giving me protection, but it works and fits well.
We got dressed and that minute 66 came up pretty quick. We started by crossing a shallow creek and started a big fast fire road hillclimb first thing.
We were flying! We went around a few corners and up a hill and some riders had stopped. I thought hey good idea maybe there is a checkpoint, we were going pretty fast and maybe we would arrive too early and get a penalty. So we stopped.
I saw riders with numbers 65 take off and they were on the minute before me so we took off too. Ha Ha on me. The course soon took a hard right into some of the tightest singletrack of the day. Uhh no worries there was going to be a problem going too fast here. We had to really fly. It was about as hard as I could ride going up, down, over big rocks, past tree branches swatting me in the face, thick brush slapping my arms and legs, and in deep ruts where my tires would drop down and I had to ride with my toes pointed in and feet right next to the engine.
Yea no way I was going to average 14 miles an hour in this, I was barely able to go fast enough to get into 2nd gear. And I knew they would have a check at the end of this time average killing section. Around a few corners and there it was. Check 1.
I got scored with a 71. 5 Minutes late. I could have done way better if I would have just ridden and not tried to be slick and wait out some time. Oh well.
We survived. Neil was right with me the whole time. We were pretty good riding partners as we had about the same speed.
At check 2 I had a time of 72. Wow if I was on minute 71 or 72 I'd be doing great! But I wasn't. I was still doing pretty good and most important we were both having fun.
The next section started out with some fast fire rods again. This time in the shade of some big pine trees. It looked and smelled like Tahoe a little as we were climbing some more.
Neil was ahead of me on this section. As we took came around a fast sweeping right hand turn there was a tree covering most of the left half of the trail. It wasn't blocking the trail, and you could easily get past it without slowing down.
Yea but somehow I didn't. I drifted a little too wide and the tree caught my front wheel. I was slowed down in a fairly quick manner. Ok I crashed. The front end of the bike stopped moving while me and the bike continued on for a little bit, and I wend down over the bars. It was a really good "Here's Your Sign" crash.
I was ok and got up pretty quick. The bike looked ok too. When I went to restart the throttle felt funny. It was sticking, staying open not returning to closed. Now a younger me might have thought I should ride on and fix it later. But that's a really bad idea. I definitely don't have the skills to ride as fast as I could with a throttle that was going to stick now and then. I'd crash for sure.
So I stopped and took out some tools and loosened the Acerbis handguard. Without that handguard my crash would have been much worse and the trees and brush would have really torn up my hands. So I cleaned out he throttle area a little and moved it around to let it find the place where it felt smooth and would snap back. When I did I tightened down the handguard and took off.
That really killed my time as I was checked in on minute 79. Yikes.
Neil was waiting for me. What a guy!
The next checks were 69 (not bad) 74 (bad) 67 (good) and 66 (really good!)
The last check was a slower time average and honestly I just lucked out, bit I'l take a little luck.
I thought it was a pretty hard day. Neil and I both rode as fast and as long as we wanted on a course that was about as hard as we wanted to ride. That's a pretty perfect equation for about 4 hours of off road motorcycling riding.
The dad and his kid on the XR100? I saw then really quickly at the gas stop and a little on the trail at the end. But they were fast, I didn't see them much.
So how did I do? Better than 10 years ago!
29 out of 48 in my class and 161 out of 243 overall.
That was big fun. Thanks to the North Bay Motorcycle Club for the course and the weekend. More Enduros in my future I hope. I can't do any this spring, but will be back for more in the Fall series.
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