Have a good story that the rest of us would enjoy? Send it to keith@NMDRC.com and I will post it.
Well, here goes for those who may be interested. This is my recount of the events that took place in the Baja.
It all started several months before the actual race (and probably should have started sooner than that). Myself and DJ had expressed our interest in attending the Baja race with Kyle and the boys. We were interested in going down and seeing how this Baja thing worked, and possibly doing it ourselves in ’08. Normally, I would have gone with the Clark Brothers and Tim Dugan this time of year (late November/early December) to San Bernardino , California and raced in the Fire/Police Motocross Nationals. It has become an annual event for us. We had mutually decided to miss the Nationals and go to Baja instead (we knew what the nationals were about and the Baja would add some new excitement to our lives). So DJ and I got with Kyle and signed up to be “chase” guys. We weren’t so interested in racing (fear of the unknown), we just wanted to go down and work on logistics of the event. Kyle was very good at keeping us in the “know” and assignments were made. I would chase for Tommy, and DJ would chase for Kyle. I arranged to bring my own chase guy, because I wanted to ride a little also, and someone would need to chase for us. I would take Larry Helms (from Denco, Inc.) with me to chase. I had presumed to ride with Tommy and he rented a house for us in Loreto. Exciting-----to say the least. I had rounded up several chase guys in case someone suddenly couldn’t go. Turns out, they could all go---and did (and that was a GOOD thing).
So DJ equipped and sent up to Farmington a genuine “preride” bike. It was a KTM 450 XC complete with BIB Moose indestructible tubes, HID lighting, stabilizer, etc. This was for me to enjoy during Tommy’s preride (and just in case I had to ride out and deliver parts, etc.). Thank you DJ!!! Somehow in the whole mix, we were convinced to be “alternate” riders. This took some serious thought, because it involved being familiar with the entire race course (1296.39 miles) and being ready to ride at any second in the event of a down rider. We were in!!!!!! Well, that meant some serious practicing. I would be out every night and most days just tearing it up on the preride bike---not knowing exactly what to practice for. There was a guy here at my work that would graciously practice with me, as well as my all time best practice buddy---Pat Hudman. I practiced many hours by myself, AT NIGHT. So Scary!!!!!! I wore a backpack loaded with rocks and sand and a fender pack on the front fender full of sand. Everything I could think of to be “ready”. Well, during the Socorro race weekend, I would no longer be an “alternate”. Robby went down and injured his ankle during night practice there. I would be assigned his leg of the race. Just prior to that, Jeff Keeler had passed away and DJ was assigned his leg of the race on the 404X bike. There were no more alternates for Team 505 racing.
The day came to leave for Cuba ’s race. I would have to ride my Yamaha for that race (a bike I had not been practicing on). We would leave for Baja immediately following the Cuba race. Monday morning---we were on the road to Mexico . Excitement and fear were overtaking all thoughts. We were headed to the Abyss. The famous Baja 1000 that we had watched a couple years earlier on “Dust to Glory”. The race deemed “the most dangerous race on earth”. Every little detail of every aspect of this race was “scary”, mostly because of fear of the unknown. When we arrived at the international border near Tecate, I was physically shaking with fear. I was certain we were going to be robbed or mugged and beaten. I looked and DJ was the same way---which didn’t help my situation at all. We had to get our Visa’s there. I must have looked like I was trying to smuggle drugs into that country, with all the nervousness and shaking. There were chickens scratching on the sidewalk right there in the middle of town, normally that would not and should not be scary----it was!!!!!!!!!!
We got our Visas and headed deeper in to Mexico . I couldn’t understand the signs, but apparently Tommy interpreted them to say “no speed limit”. I have never been driven so fast through the winding narrow roads and had so many brushes with near death as that night. Why was he in such a hurry? Would we be robbed if we slowed down? Just that little thing made me sooooo nervous. I thought there would be lots of time to mess around in Mexico ---you know kind of like a vacation. WRONG!!!!! We hit the ground running. We stayed Monday night in Ensenada and left Tuesday morning for Guererro Negro. We were thinking that maybe that afternoon; Larry could drop us off in Chapala (the start of our section) and pick us up in El Crucero or something. We didn’t even get to Chapala until after dark. So no riding!!!! Travel time in Mexico is approximately 30 miles per hour average (and that is if you go 75 when possible). It took all day to get to Guererro Negro (GN). I was starving when we got there so we went to some little “café” to eat. That’s where the toilet dependency started. It is nothing like the great New Mexican food that we enjoy here. Those folks have never even heard of a green chili. Sometimes I wasn’t sure of what we were eating. Some of it was sweet, some mushy, etc. Would a hamburger be too much to ask for? We would happily eat bologna sandwiches from that point on, just to curb our dependency on the commodes. Wednesday morning we would leave at 5 o’clock in the morning and head to the preride area in Chapala . It took hours to get there and get ready. Every single event leading up to that moment was nervous and stressful. Once we mounted the bikes and took off, all of the nervousness would disappear. Riding is the one part of that trip that we were comfortable with. DJ had wanted to establish an approximate time frame of riding our section. We rode our section like we had been riding it for years, at break neck speeds (like something out of the book of Revelations as Dana Brown would say). DJ says the bikes would do 80 plus miles per hour, and we had them pinned most of the way. If they would have gone faster, we would have. Not bad for a couple of guys that had never even seen the trail before. We came across Coco’s Corner right away (13 miles in) and just had to stop and get a picture with the famous Coco- what a nice guy). After Coco ’s Corner, we headed in to Calamajuie Wash. This is a wash of just awesome whoops for miles (oh yeah, and ROCKS---lots of them). It was here that I figured out how to trust in a steering stabilizer. The wash narrowed after a while into some crazy water holes. There was no way around them, just through them. They looked innocent enough; we could not have foreseen the nasty, black, stale, DEEP water that was in them. Going through them caused us to be totally soaked (hands included). Now you know what wet hands mean----BLISTERS. I was thinking we should have stopped and looked for some good lines to keep ourselves reasonably dry. We were setting a time trial though, and would have to come back later and try for better lines. The next eventful section would be the truck whoops between El Crucero and the Bay of LA highway. These are deep, huge whoops that are hard to find rhythm in. I wandered what a big XR650 would do in them. We found a line to the left of them that detoured the majority of them, so we took it gladly. I was sure that Johnny Campbell would have done the same. Next stop—Bahia De Los Angeles via the pavement ( Bay of LA ). What a beautiful little place. Pavement riding is not as fun as you would think. Tire vibration makes for miserable conditions. There were 30 miles of that pavement and it seemed like 100!!!!! We stopped long enough for fuel at PeMex and then the long fast dirt road full of rocks to San Rafael . I have never ridden so fast for so long in my life. We passed San Rafael , San Fransiscito, and miles of barren desert—all at top speed. The bikes were pinned on top end for hours straight. I had to fall back a little further to keep clear of the blinding dust DJ was kicking up. Steering stabilizers are worth their weight in gold---no question about it!!!!!!! Larry had made his way to El Arco area with the chase truck and was waiting for us with fuel. We had carried fuel in our backpacks just to make it that far. We fueled and blazed out of there like the world would end soon. We would see double roads, cow pastures, dry pond bottoms, the dump, small villages without names, and the notorious silt section. This was probably not the worst silt that Baja had to offer, but it was bad nonetheless. That stuff splashes like water and you just plain can’t see in it if someone (DJ) is blazing ahead of you. I wondered how the trucks could fit through parts of that course. We would reach the highway 1 section before darkness and wait for Larry to pick us up. There was no need to preride the 18 miles of pavement to San Ignacio rider switch area---because, well it was pavement!!!!! Larry arrived and we loaded up and headed back to GN. I was starving, of course so we hit the motel restaurant there. Good Food, but expensive---well worth the expense. I think it will take months before Larry’s digestive system returns to normal. We went straight to bed for a good nights sleep. We would spend all day Thursday doing maintenance on the preride bikes (oil changes, fuel tank repairs, tire changes, etc.). We did get to take a little drive to the “beach” and look at the ocean and marshes. Friday would be our last pre-ride day. We waited till later to go because we wanted to do the majority of this one in darkness. We headed out when it was still daylight though, so we could stop at the water crossings and find a good line through them. We wound up getting into Bay of LA while it was still daylight. While filling up there, we met Mike Whitman from the Team 505 282X bike. We visited with him and ate at the Taco Stand while waiting for it to get dark. Mike would join us for the rest of the ride.
DJ had told Larry to meet us at a different spot than before, so the wait at the end would not be so long. Some miscommunication occurred there. When we got to the place Larry was supposed to be, he wasn’t. We were dangerously low on fuel there and DJ had already run out once. In the hours that followed, we would all have run out of fuel. We were taking fuel from one bike putting it in another for what seemed like 30 miles or so. There came a point that we were all out of fuel and in the middle of nowhere. Larry’s sat phone number had been printed wrong on our phones and we couldn’t get a hold of him. He had tried to call us, but our phones were in the backpack and no one could hear them ring. Mike didn’t have the numbers for his chase guys, so we were done—right there. I hadn’t prepared really well for overnight camping in the desert, but we did have food, water, and blankets. Along came another preride bike or two. We flagged them down to see if they had spare fuel. We were prepared to dole out some Mexico style negotiations if necessary (whack them in the head and steal their fuel). These guys were awesome and gave us 2 quarts of fuel generously. We treated it like liquid gold, giving only ounces at a time to each bike. When we made it to the highway section, I nearly wept. The Pemex station was in sight. DJ would run out of gas a couple hundred feet from it, I ran out right at the pumps. DJ pushed his bike in and we filled them up. We rode 17 miles north to the El Arco turn off where Mike’s chase crew was patiently waiting. No sign of Larry. DJ and I would have to ride 26 miles to El Arco on the worst rode on the planet to try to find him. It took over an hour to go the 26 miles. It was well after midnight at that point. It was a miracle to find Larry. We had seen a faint light miles in the distance just minutes before we were going to give up and leave him out there till morning. I needed sleep so bad. It took an hour and a half to get back to the pavement in the truck (we had loaded the bikes into it and were all riding inside). We met back up with Mike Whitman and his chase crew. They opted to follow us back to GN and stay the night with us on the floor of the motel. We finally bedded down around 3 o’clock in the morning. This is when Mike’s chase driver, Todd, began to snore. People from the adjacent military base thought they were under foreign attack and manned their battle stations, only to realize that it was Todd’s snoring. We were up and on the road to Ensenada by 0730 hours that morning. We had to make the trip to get helmet tech and register DJ (and get some good food that we were in desperate need of).
It took all day to get to Ensenada , where a great meal waited, courtesy of C&J Welding ( Thornton ’s boys of the 282X bike). Sunday morning we went on a small preride of the first part of the trail out of Ensenada . I really wanted to get a few miles on an XR650 before the race. Those bikes are fast, and that is all there is to it!!!!!! I wandered what I had gotten myself into, but figured I would be one with the machine after a few race miles on it. We did have a little mechanical trouble with the “back-up” bike on the way back to town which resulted in me setting at the fuel station with it for a while. We got back to town and spent the rest of the evening preparing the race bikes and disseminating tires and spare parts to racers. We did manage to meet and shake hands with the legendary Malcolm Smith and even got a picture with him. Monday morning found us on the road back to Bay of LA , where we would stay the night.
Tuesday morning was race day. The whole situation of the race hit me right then. I was going to race the Baja 1000. Other racers were counting on me, and some of them had their doubts. When we loaded up to head to the rider switch point in Chapala , I was shaking like a rubber goose and had no appetite at all. So much to fear, so little time to think about it. We arrived in Chapala amongst lots of other riders and pit crews. We busied ourselves with chatter and lies until pressure forced us to get into riding gear (hours earlier than we should have). I realized also, that we were a professional race team. We had everything everyone else had, even a custom set of graphics on the chase truck, dedicated chase drivers, sat phones, etc. (well, we didn’t have a chase helicopter). We weren’t the only ones there that were nervous either. Johnny Campbell was the first bike to come past, noted by the arrival of his helicopter. I just knew Kyle would be right behind him, so I went ahead and put on my gloves and anticipated his arrival. Turns out that would come several hours later, after darkness had firmly set in. I had been mentally prepared to ride at dark and was definitely practiced for it, but had hoped to ride through the water in daylight. I had figured if he got there at 1630 hours or earlier, I could get to and through the water before it was totally dark. Kyle arrived sometime around 1800 hours I guess, though time had no relevance at that point. Maybe it was before, maybe it was after---who knows. Some speculate, but no one really checked for sure. When Kyle arrived, it quickly turned busy. We changed both tires, air filter, and installed the big dual night lights. Kyle checked on some bolts and nuts for looseness. Kyle’s chase driver (Mike Baldston) had arrived before Kyle and informed us of his trouble with the rear tire, and how it had caused the delay. He had also told us of the helicopter crash and the people that had died. I jumped on the race bike and it was a smooth ride all the way, with the tires only coming to a stop 6 times (4 for fuel pit stops, and 2 for checkpoints). The water crossings were absolutely foreign. It was as if I had never seen them before. It is amazing what happened to them since the last time I had ridden through there. Somehow I got through them reasonably dry. The Calamajuie wash was spectacular otherwise. The truck whoops detour wasn’t as easy to find at night and I rode way more of the actual whoops than I had planned, but eventually found the bypass and enjoyed it thoroughly. Bay of LA highway was good, but the stress of speeding was just terrible. I probably only went 45 just out of fear of speeding, and the penalties that went with it. San Rafael road out of Bay of LA was awesome. I was now on a bike that would go 115 miles per hour +or – and took full advantage of that. There were times I told myself “slow down fool” as I realized I was pinned in 5th gear on a road that was not good enough to land a small airplane on. Not to mention the spectators (potential booby traps), cattle, coyotes, rocks, etc. (and oh yeah, it was DARK). Baja Pits (our pit stops) were not as easy to spot as they had advertized. I was concerned when I left San Francisquito and had not found the pits yet. I found them at the El Arco turn off and fueled. I knew the silt beds were coming up and dreaded them. I wondered where all of the people had come from. There were spectators everywhere, with campfires and such. They cheered and yelled as I went by as if they had come there just to watch me. Awesome!!!!!!! The silt beds were unimaginable. I kept thinking what would Johnnie Campbell do? Sometimes along the way, the campfires were so thick, the smoke obscured the trail and when I got to the landfill I couldn’t remember which way to go (trail markers---yeah right!!!). The spectators were more than happy to point me in the right direction. I was passed by only 2 other bikes (one on the Bay of LA highway, apparently he didn’t care about the speed limit) and the Pro Team Honda Quad. I don’t know exactly how fast the Honda Quad was going, but I know how fast I was going---100 plus (I’m guessing). This guy was definitely fast, and come to find out; he was the top finishing quad by a large margin. I was glad to see Rex Cameron at the Honda pits on the San Ignacio Highway . I had never been to the place we were supposed to switch and had stressed about finding it. Rex would not have let me go by. I pulled in to see Jack Massey getting his tires ready. There was Tres Craig and his Chase truck waiting for DJ to arrive. The bike had performed flawlessly and I had only 1 near miss in the silt section. I had seen all of the “booby” traps and only had 1 bottle thrown at me. What a great ride. It was cold, I was tired, and you guessed it----Hungry. Kyle and Mike arrived later on, and then Larry arrived (not necessarily in that order- I don’t remember). When DJ arrived at sometime after 3 o’clock in the morning, we loaded up and headed back to the United States . DJ had lost his brother while down there and we needed to get back for that. Now that was a long drive, we arrived some 16 hours later in El Centro California and got a room… The end of a great journey was near….Jimmie Crawford
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12/7/06 Last night
we made it to uncle Pat’s house. We had told him we were going to arrive today
but changed our plans so we were going to arrive early. Uncle Pat had no problem
with the change. We arrived at about 10:45pm and uncle Pat was up and waiting
for us. We sat and enjoyed some good conversation when uncle Pat broke out the
home movies. Let me remind you, Uncle Pat lives in Lake Havasu, and yes the
videos are from summer days out on the lake. Not that I don’t like the video but
after watching a few hours, the tape has to be rewound. Anyway, we decided to
call Tim to let him know what a great time we were all having. So what if it was
1am. We called anyway. Tim didn’t answer his phone so we left a message. Today
we headed out and had some breakfast then headed over to a riding area. We
mounted up and headed out. We could not find any small trails so Jimmie lead us
up a road. We finally made it to an arroyo and started following it up. With my
knee it was tough to stand up and shift my weigh in the turns. There were some
nasty rock sections but fun anyway. I made it around Jimmie at some point so I
just kept moving up the arroyo looking for a trail that peeled off so we could
get out and do some trail riding. We never found one and we continued up as the
arroyo got tighter and in some sections there were some straight up rock that
had to be traversed. I finally got out and there were no trails to be seen. I
started riding across the ridge tops to get up to higher ground and try to find
a trail to ride. I finally got to the highest hill I could find and turned
around to find that nobody was behind me anymore. After a few minutes I could
see them coming out of the arroyo below. When they came out, they stopped to
look around for me. I moved closer to them so they would see me moving. When
they did, they followed my tracks up to the top of the hill. It turns out that
one of them was quite sore and could not move that fast. I won’t point out Ryan
because that would not be right. There we stopped for a few minutes to take a
few photos. We could not see any trails so we decided to head back towards the
lake; we figured we would cross a trail at some point. That was some fun stuff
working our way across the desert up and down the hills. The hills were quite
rocky and had some steep parts up and down. Our tires took a beating but the
experience made it worth it. We finally found a trail and followed it east
towards the mountains I was following the group when I struck a big rock with my
front tire and started swapping out. I managed to save it but I was stopped in
the middle of a large pile of rocks. I got back on the road and caught the
others. After we stopped to talk we continued on our way this time with me in
the lead. I saw a trail that headed north up towards the mountain. We followed
it up and it climbed about ¾ way up the mountain. We came to a mineshaft and the
road stopped shortly after that. We could see the truck way off in the distance.
We took off back down the trail and went back a different way eventually winding
up back on the edge of Lake Havasu City. We had seen some trails as we were
driving out there so we knew we could at least ride those trails back to the
truck. We loaded back up again and headed for Uncle Pat’s house. We had planned
on meeting Uncle Pat at 3pm at his house. We arrived and he was not there yet.
We climbed up to the deck he has at the back of his house, which has a great
view of the lake. When uncle Pat arrived, we jumped in the cars and headed for
the lake. Uncle Pat has a boat on the lake. We got on his deck boat and traveled
under the London Bridge then across the lake to Havasu landing where there is a
small casino and a bar. While on the boat we took a few photos including the
normal Lake Havasu picture. As we were posing for the picture Ryan knocked his
phone off his belt and it landed on tiny piece of the deck where the motor is
attached. Boy is he lucky. Since he can’t go more than a few minutes without
checking his phone for a message or a new call he would have been miserable for
the rest of the trip. I am not one for gambling but I do enjoy a good game of
black jack as long as the stakes are not too high. I dropped $1 into a $.02 slot
machine and killed that off in about 8min. I went over to the bar where the
others had gone and found a black jack table. It had a $3 to $100 limit. I had
$15 in my pocket so I gave it a shot. I was doing pretty good actually being up
$12 before I lost my first hand. I went back and forth for a while until this
guy came down and sat next to me where he dropped 4 $100 bills. He was betting
$50, then $75, and then $100 bets. Not only was he betting way more then I ever
would, but he was playing 3 hands at a time. I continue doing ok until I started
hitting some low cards and doing some double down bets where I got my butt
kicked. After that we headed back across the lake. Jimmie was bundled up and
sitting behind uncle Pat. Konrad and Ryan were sitting up front with their
jackets on and I was sitting in the back in just shorts and a t-shirt. The sun
was going down and the temp was about 70F. The water spray was a little cold but
not bad at all. We made it back to the dock and headed for the house. Great
weather, Great riding, and a great boat trip. What a day. Tomorrow we head for
home. Keith
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06/12 Race day has come and gone. Jeremy and his friend
John were there for support. John is a real nice guy with some heavy tattoos on
his arms. The road to Glen Helen passes by the San Bernadino Sheriff’s training
facility and the San Bernadino county jail. As we were arriving at the track
John states the last time he had been out here was when he was doing “weekends”.
Not that he is not a nice guy but I hid my wallet anyway. Normally when we are
here it is cold early in the morning and again in the evening. It has also been
windy which makes it even colder. Today could not be even more perfect. In the
morning it was 55F with just a slight breeze. The afternoon came up to about 80F
Because of all of the fires still going on in SoCal they did not allow us to
use the back roads, which considerably shortened up the track. The thing that
did change is something they had never let us does before. Climb the big hill.
Yes, the tall one you see the pro’s do on TV where you climb the hill towards
the flagpole. It is about 1000ft long and 50degrees up. During the sighting lap
there was quite the big pile up where there were quite a few bikes that could
not make it up the hill. Konrad was the first to race. He managed a third place
without crashing or getting hurt. The fact that he raced is a success. Last year
he got hurt on the sighting lap and could not even make his races. After
finishing his race he sat down for the normal BS session. It’s a good thing that
I was standing on high ground. Not that I did not believe him but since I was
not racing yet the stories could not be confirmed. Jimmie and Ryan were the next
to race. Ryan used to ride along time ago and borrowed one of Jimmies spare
bikes to get in a few days of practice before the race. Since he was on Jimmies
bike, it had the same number as Jimmie. Ryan used some duct tape to put an X on
his bike behind the 155 to make it a 155X. Ryan was a bundle of nerves but
excited to go. Jimmie was so excited to go he was barely able to contain
himself. Last year Jimmie raced in the beginner class since he had never really
done motocross. He swept his class then finished second to an expert in the Iron
man class. So this year now knowing his ability he signed up for, yep you
guessed it. The beginner class. He said he did this so Ryan would not have to
race intermediate in the team race. There is a reason Konrad calls him his
favorite Sandbagger. They start the race in three waves. The experts first, then
the intermediate, then the sandbaggers, I mean beginners. For some reason there
was a group of about 8 guys out of the 29 or so beginners who lined up in front
of the rest of the other beginners. When the flagger raised the flag, the first
eight as well as a few of the others took off. Then the rest of them stated
leaving. Jimmie and Ryan were in the last wave of riders to leave. It did not
matter because Jimmie was able to lap all of them including some of the
intermediate and probably at least one expert. Ryan, for not having ridden in
some time did a great job. He was hitting the jumps well and had a good race
with a pack of 4 or 5 other guys that raced it out amongst themselves. Jimmie
did manage to push his front end out in a corner and fall. Not that it was a bad
crash but he was kind enough to do it right in front of everybody. When the race
finished, Jimmie decided he was not done racing. As everybody was slowing
through the last couple of jumps, Jimmie was still flying and instead of going
off the course with everybody else he stayed on the track and in the process
almost took out somebody who was going off the track. We went back for the
normal BS session. By the way, BS stands for Bench Racing. Ryan was beat, His
hands and forearms were weakened almost to the point he could not hold a beer in
his hand. As we prepared for the team race, Jimmie was so excited to race again
I think he was ready to do the team race by himself. Not only because he loves
to race but also he wanted to make sure he took home a medal for winning. After
some begging and pleading (I am not going to say by whom) we headed to the line
for the team race. Konrad and I had decided to do two laps apiece. Jimmie I
think was going to do the first hour and a half of the two-hour race then let
Ryan do a lap before Jimmie finished it off. I was worried about the big hill
climb since I had not yet tried it because when I was out at Southern, There was
one hill I could not climb with my two stroke bike while all the four strokes
could just jog up it. After Konrad’s two laps he gave me the ribbon and I was
off. It was not long before my arm was killing me, which is normal for me in any
race. I was huffing and puffing but I did my two laps. The big hill turned out
not to be so bad as my bike makes great power at only a few hundred feet above
sea level. I was quite slow as my many months off the bike were now clearly
evident. Konrad hit the trail once again and Ryan was still there waiting for
Jimmie. After Konrad’s two laps I did two more. I lasted a little longer before
my arm started aching but I made it around. Konrad left for his two laps and
much to our surprise Jimmie pulled in for Ryan to go out. It had only been 30min
and Ryan was already getting to ride. What wasn’t surprising was that Jimmie and
Ryan who were in our same class were close to lapping us. Jimmie said that as
much as he wanted to be out there he knew it was only right that Ryan got his
chance to ride. Konrad came in and I went out. When I came back Ryan was once
again sitting waiting for his turn. Ryan said he had signaled Jimmie the he was
ready to go back out. The same could not be said for a couple of guys next to
us. When one of them came in a disagreement ensued about who HAS to go
back out. Soon we could see Jimmie coming around, Ryan started the bike and
moved forward. As Jimmie came over the hill towards us he held up his finger to
let Ryan know he was going one more lap. Ryan rolled the bike back and waited.
Jeremy and John had showed up with Gatorade, which was a welcome sight. A few
turns later I came in to find Ryan standing there with no bike. I figured Jimmie
made him put it away so he would not want to ride again. As it turns out Jimmie
fell at some point and broke off his shifter. When he showed up Ryan was gone to
the little boys room but had left the bike there being held by John. Jimmie
pulled in and started yelling at the guy with tattoos whom he had only met
earlier in the day to hold his bike. Since John was already holding one bike the
only place he could hold Jimmies bike was from where the hot exhaust pipe was.
When he would not grab it fast enough Jimmie continued to yell at him. Mind you,
he wasn’t mad, just excited. Jimmie left and John started pushing the bike back.
As Ryan was returning he saw John pushing the bike and figure they had be DQ’d
because he left the track. It was funny but not the case. After Konrad’s next
turn he came in and did not have the ribbon that we had been exchanging as the
hand off. As I was making the turn at the top of the hill around the flagpole I
noticed it on the ground. Since I knew I was not breaking any land speed records
I stopped and leaned my bike against the side to pick it up. When I finished my
two laps I pulled in and Konrad already had another one around his arm. I am not
saying that John and Jeremy are not upstanding citizens in the community but
they managed to get a few replacements. Enough said. Towards the end of the race
I was getting my rhythm back and at the risk of pulling a Jimmie (stealing laps)
I gave Konrad the 1 more signal to let him know I wanted to do a third lap. He
gave me the thumbs up and I did one more. When I got back Ryan was back on his
bike because they replaced Jimmies shifter and he was back out again. Konrad
came around and was going to do only his two laps when he thought to himself
that if he only did two my version of the story which I tell to you would have
him pulling up lame and me carrying the team so he gave me the finger and went
for one more lap. He came in right behind Ryan because Jimmie had managed to lap
us for a second time. Konrad gave me the ribbon and told me the white flag was
up and this would be the last lap. I was giving it every thing I had (which
really wasn’t that much) because I wanted to catch Ryan. Before the big hill
there was another steep one that you had to double up to and I landed kinda hard
and the bike did not feel right after that. I almost did not make it up the big
hill and defiantly could not catch Ryan although I could see him most of the
way. The big hill had become quite torn up with many large rocks coming to the
surface then becoming loose and in the way. Two turns before the checkered flag
I heard a BOOM and my back end became real loose. Loose to the point that the
rear end of the bike kept trying to come around to have a look at the front.
When I pulled in I found that the tire had come off the rim on one side. Konrad
and Jeremy went to check the results for Jimmie and Ryan’s individual race.
Jeremy came back and told him that he had gotten 4th and Jimmie had
gotten 5th. Jimmies jaw just about hit the floor. He stood there as
we tried to tell him that the scorer’s possibly got them mixed them up since the
numbers were hard to differentiate and they could have given Ryan one of
Jimmie’s laps. Konrad then walked in the trailer and told Jimmie the same
results that Jeremy told him. It was a few minutes before the let him know that
he actually won. Like we didn’t already know that before the race started. Ryan
came in 9th out of 19 people. For the team race Konrad and I came in
6th and I will give you ONE guess what place Jimmie and Ryan
came in. They picked up their first place medals and we headed for the house.
Pizza from uncle Howe’s was on its way.
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Wednesday morning we got up and got ready to go. Since
there was leftover pizza Jimmie had something to eat, he was not sitting there
grumpy waiting to go. It turns out that Ryan had stayed up the latest sharing a
few spirits and deep conversation with Jerry, our host who had only met the day
before but it turns out they have a common interest that comes in a 12oz
aluminum can. We took off for Ocotillo Wells. We have heard about what a great
riding place it is and of course we have seen it in the different riding videos.
When we got out there I went to work replacing the tube in my back tire while
Jimmie made himself a sandwich. They got ready as I finished my bike. I went for
a quick trip down a wooped out trail. When I got back I could tell something was
not right. My back tire was hanging up. I looked and sure enough the tire was
once again coming off the rim. I must have torn the last of the cords on that
hard landing and now it is ballooning right off the rim. When we went to
Chaparral on Monday we hassled Jimmie because he was buying a tire he did not
need but did not want to spend the money on a new gear bag for himself. That
decision saved the day for me. I put his new tire on my bike while they went out
for a ride. I finished and headed down the wooped out trail again and when I got
to the top of the hill I could see them coming back. I went down and met up with
them. They said they had not found anything that was worth camping out overnight
for. If you live in southern California where the riding areas are scarce 82,000
acres of open desert is fun to ride. But if you are from New Mexico where there
are many wide open areas to choose from it was not that great. I told them it
would be fine if we left now but they wanted to make sure I got some riding in.
We were going out for 20min then we would leave. I took off and the guys
followed me. I made one turn that looped back on it’s self, which I did not want
to do so I turned around again. That’s when things went off track. Jimmie lost
sight of me and we started circling up and down some hills. Konrad, Jimmie and I
were at the bottom waiting for Ryan to come down when Jimmie took off up the
hill and went flying across the top. We figured he would follow us so Ryan,
Konrad and I headed across the open desert. When we made it to the top of the
next hill we watched Jimmie off in the distance doing a high speed run up a an
arroyo, across another one, then back down a different one. I figured we were
there to ride and not necessarily watch Jimmie ride. The three of us left and
followed some trail that took us a rock hill that had some gnarly rock that
reminded me of Socorro. We traveled across some flat land and came to some clay
hill that looked much like we had seen in the movies. They had trails all over
them so we spent some time playing on them. There was one particular hill that I
was trying when I rear tire caught some grip and the frond end lifted. I pulled
in the clutch and fell over on the left side. The bike and I started sliding
down the hill because it was both steep and pretty hard packed. Unfortunately I
slid down much farther than my bike did. The clay was so hard I could not climb
back to my bike. I had to move to the side and angle up to it so that I could
grab the rear tire and pull my self up high enough to reach under and shut off
the fuel. I tried to pick it up but I was only able pull it down the hill. I
finally got it up on two wheels and rode it out of there. Konrad and Ryan were
sitting on a small ridge so I rode around behind them and when I tried to stop
my feet did not reach the ground and I once again fell off. Now my bike was
lying on the side of the hill with both wheels higher than the rest of the bike.
I managed to get it picked up again and we all took off for the truck since the
sun was starting to go down. We were moving along a trail called Shell Reef
Trail. It is a few miles of woops along side the road. We were cooking down the
woops when we came upon a vehicle where there were some people parked and
talking. Of course you know what that means, we had to turn it up a notch and
look like we were pros. After all we had just race Glen Helen. Out here in
California, there are alot of rocks. This trail was no exception. Jimmie caught
one with his tire at full speed and right in front of Ryan, He (as Jimmie calls
it) “Wadded it up”. Ryan isn’t positive he didn’t hit Jimmie as he was bouncing
down the trail. Ryan went up to him concerned about his health since he had hit
so hard. Jimmie wasn’t talking so Ryan tells him “Say something”. Jimmie was
trying but since he had the air knocked out of him no words were coming out. He
finally composed himself enough to formulate the word Owwwwwwww! He remounted
and we all made it to the truck just as darkness hit. We loaded up the trailer
and headed for Lake Havasu. We called Uncle Pat, Who is actually Tim’s uncle but
since he is such a nice guy we adopted him and even though Tim is not with us we
are going to Uncle Pat’s house anyway.
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12/3/06 The Yearly California trip has started. This time Tim is not with us, He wanted to keep his truck safe at home. Jimmie brought Ryan, a fellow fireman from Farmington. We met up at the Gallup Fire Dept. where we unhooked my truck from the trailer and waited for Jimmie and Ryan. We were meeting at 10am, so we got there at 10:05. I called Jimmie and he said they got a late start and were 10min out. 45min later when they showed up we unloaded the Blue bikes out of his truck and put them in the trailer. After the trailer was loaded and hooked up to his truck it was time to leave. So we thought. We were going in Jimmie’s new truck. When I say new truck, I mean brand new. It is a 2007 GMC with the Duramax, 4 doors, the new truck smell, and 1,100 miles on the odometer. Before Jimmie would let us in we had to be frisked for Sunflower seeds, Grape juice, and Cheetos. He did not find the stash so off we went. The trip was uneventful other than we found out that an RV is towed behind a vehicle, the other is type is considered a “self propelled RV”. We arrived in Redlands at about 8:30 local time. We had only eaten once so Jimmie was starving. We met up with Jeremy at his house and we jumped into his truck to go eat. When we got back Jimmie went to the room to sleep. I grabbed a blanket and a pillow and grabbed some couch. It is tough trying to sleep while Konrad, Jeremy, and Ryan are enjoying the spirits while Jeremy does his best to try to keep waking me up. Apparently at some point I told him to go to bed and leave me the hell alone. I don’t think it worked because they kept going till about 2am. Jimmie was in Jeremy’s bed and Jeremy found a soft spot on the living room floor. At some point Jeremy got up in a certain stupor to go to the restroom. He returned to bed and probably never completely woke up. Shortly after that Jimmie woke up cold and was unable to get his pillow. Jeremy being half asleep had returned to his normal bed and now was lying next to Jimmie and had stolen his blanket and pillow. When Jimmie realized this he jumped up and headed out of the room. He found Jeremy’s abandoned pillow and blanket on the living room floor and curled up for the rest of the night. Early in the morning Jeremy woke up at his regular time of 5am and came out to see who else might be up. Jimmie reclaimed his bed but this time locked the door behind him.
It’s now Monday morning and guess what. Yep that’s right, Jimmie’s hungry.
Jeremy is not necessarily an eat in the morning person. In fact he is not much
into eating at all. It gets in the way of his beer drinking. By the time Jeremy
gets ready it is 9:30, which is 10:30 back in NM and 4hrs past Jimmies normal,
eating time. We get Jimmie fed and all is well. We went out to Perris to a
dealer to look around then went down the street to StarWest racetrack. We were
not able to go in because it was rented out for a private event. We could see
the Cernics Racing rig with Pastrana’s number plastered on the side. There was
also a Honda rig, a Two Brothers Racing rig and many others I can’t remember.
After that we went by Perris raceway but nobody was out there practicing. We
then went over to Lake Ellsinore to find that racetrack. At the entrance to the
track in Langston’s motorcycle shop. We went in there and found some pretty cool
stuff. The coolest part was that the lady working the cash register is Grant
Langston’s mom. She was a super nice lady who went out of her way by going
through the boxes to help me find what I was looking for. As we were leaving she
went outside to take a few photos with us. That was nice of her to go out of her
way for us.
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We then went to the track where we watched Donnie Hansen do some cool jumps. We then went to an indoor racetrack where you rent an electric go-cart and go for some laps. Those things will top at about 45mph and corner great. This place is partially owned my Mike Metzgar, Jeremy McGrath, and a few others. There is lot’s of cool memorabilia in there including some great bikes that were raced and freestyled by MC, Metzgar, Emig, Stewart and others. Four of us raced and of course I won. They gave us some readouts that we have trouble reading but I know that I won. We did three races. On the second race some guy went by me then when he cut across he caught my front end and he spun out. It wasn’t my fault but they black-flagged me. Yes me, I had to pull over and stop then he let me go again. The next race we were moving fast and I did quite a bit of bumping. Not on purpose mind you but it was some pretty fast racing. After the race Jeremy and Jimmie asked me if I had any road race issues. I am not sure what that was about. Jimmie sat out the last two races and took a few photos. As we all know Jimmie is technologically advanced with his brick phone and portable CD player. If you didn’t know, the photos taken with Ryan's digital camera will explain. Tomorrow is race day. I hope to write again. Keith
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3/27/06 Yesterday, we went on a breakfast run. It had been a while since we had done that one but the temperature was 65 degrees and the wind was less than 10mph so it was within DR’s parameters. There were five of us going, DR, Ben “Possum” Martin, Ryan (DR’s 14yr old son), Mike Tilton, and I. There were four Honda’s and one Yamaha. Oh well, everything can’t be perfect. We headed out of DR’s house towards the end of Southern. Right after we hit the dirt we came around a corner where for some reason there was a giant mud puddle. Ben was following Ryan and when Ryan hit the mud he gave the throttle a twist and Ben ended up with a face full of mud. Enough mud that he had to pull over and clean it off his goggles in order to go on. We headed down some single track and then into an arroyo. Usually it is a nice quick ride at this point, the racing does not start till later. With Ryan there it turned into a race early. Ryan is 14 but he rides a hopped up CR250 and can kick my butt anytime he wants. We raced up this arroyo dodging the trash and junked cars and trying to stuff each other in the corners. We made it out to Southern, in the parking area I noticed Paul Scroggie’s truck. He is out there getting ready for Farmington. We worked out way down into the valley and headed down the trails then back up an arroyo. Heading back up DR stalled his bike in a corner so Ben and Mike headed up and out. When DR restarted his bike we continued up the arroyo. We popped out and followed some single track over to another arroyo where Ben and Mike were waiting for us. With Ben’s luck, not only did he almost hit a Deer, but he almost hit his friend also. I have never even seen a rabbit out there but Ben almost hit’s two deer. We hit a fast arroyo and made it down to the Puerco. Dry as a bone. It was wide open all the way down. It is much more fun when there is some mud that has to be traversed. I had to make my own fun by trying to cross the sand bars as fast as I can. Ryan was trying to save gas so he was doing most of the arroyo on his rear wheel. Yes here is this 14yr old in fifth gear standing up on the pegs in a wheelie at 50+ mph. Of course he gets it from his dad because there is DR doing the same thing. We stopped a few time to regather the group. Ryan had stopped with his front tire on a ledge higher than his rear tire. When it was time to leave, DR started to pass behind him and Ryan dumped the clutch and sent sand flying 20ft in the air. DR saw this and stopped just before he got hit by the sand. After a few sand showers Ryan had stopped and looked like he was going to get off the bike and pull it out. DR took off and Ryan gave it one last try and showered DR with sand. At another turn we stopped again to wait for the rest of the group to catch up. There is a large metal tank buried in the sand at about a 40-degree angle. Usually it is surrounded by mud or debris’s. Today it is nice and clear. I told Ryan to jump it, he went over and checked the landing, came back, turned around and hit the tank and jumped off. The tank is about 10ft in diameter and has a pretty narrow ridge on the top to hit after squirming through the soft sand to get there. Well if he can do it, so can I. I went over and hit it also. We took turns hitting it till Ben decided it was his turn. Ben did fine so Mike thought he would take a turn. He did not realize the sand grabs the bike when it lands and he hugged the tank and leaned over to see the front fender. He decided not to try that again so off we all went. We made it to the casino and sat down for some breakfast. When you are there you get a lot of strange looks, some from people staring at these guys with the weird clothing and all that gear they dropped on the floor next to the table. Others are from the guys that watched us roll up, lean our bikes on some post’s and walk in, wishing they were our riding and having a good time like us. After breakfast, we were fueling up at the pumps. Us two stroke guys, of which there were 3 out of 5 of us this time, have to mix the fuel in the tank. DR told Ryan to shake it up well so I started singing “Shake it up baby”, the lady from the other side of the pump came around and asked if we were having fun. With a big smile I replied. “Of Course”. We fired up and headed out. At the end of the parking lot we got to the road leading out and were waiting for traffic. DR jumped out in traffic and started off. Ryan followed him but not at such a fast pace. Being that he went after DR and he was not going as fast he did not see the 18-wheeled propane truck traveling at twice the speed he was. We all gasped until the truck hit it’s horn and Ryan pulled over and let him by. Sure let him by, like he had a choice. We jumped back in the arroyo and headed back up. While I was racing with Ben, I was passing him against a bush when a rather large non bendable stick grabbed my front brake while I was at full speed in fifth gear and the next thing I know I am laying across the bars looking at the front fender and the back end trying to come over for a look also. I managed to save it and kept going. The rest of the run went fast as DR and I were racing all the way up. I had my bike tapped up, he pulled along side of me just to show me he still had another gear. He shifted and pulled away. It did not last long though, I hit a 2ft face and jumped up on a sand bar then jumped off on the other side ahead of DR. He was looking back to see what happened to me when he finally saw me ahead of him and the race continued. Before we knew it, we were out. We followed the trail back up and as were climbing a very sandy hill out of the Puerco there is about a foot and a half lip. Ryan bogged his bike and Ben tried to go around him. He did not have enough speed and only made it half way up the lip before coming off the bike. Mike and I had to turn around along with Ryan and head back down. We turned around and made it up the lip with Ben still there. After everybody made it up Ben pulled his bike back down and came up it again this time clearing it and going all the way to the top. We went up to the pits where I found they pulled in with some guys they knew. Ben pulled off his helmet to reveal the side of his face was red from smacking the bars. The guy offered Ben a beer but he declined the first one but took the second one. The guy was laughing saying that not only is he giving away a beer but the person he is giving it to is being choosy. Ben stated he wanted it for the side of the face. The guy said he was not going to waste a beer on that so Ben drank it. We all headed back down the trail and made it back without any more incidents. I loaded up my truck and headed home. To top the fun day off, my truck made it all the way backs from Rio Rancho without leaving me on the side of the road
3/18/06 I remember vividly the day I got My first bike. It was a 1976 XR75. I remember taking the first ride on that powerful machine in the dark backyard when we got her home. I also remember my self and Konrad who all of 11yrs old at the time riding down some dirt roads out in the high desert above San Bernadino in California. I know we must have ridden hundreds of miles out in the middle of nowhere. Yet there was my mom and following in the truck. Today we went for a similar ride. Only this time we had our boys with us. They are 13, 11, and 9yrs old. We had our two CR250’s, two XR100’s, and an XR70. My two boys (Kyle & Kevin) have been riding for a while. Konrad’s son Kiefer has not ridden as much and is now learning how to use a bike with a clutch. We unloaded the bikes and let the boys ride out on the flat area at Montessa park. They were riding around together until Kevin on his 70 crashed. I walked out there to check on him. As I was standing there talking Kyle and Kiefer collided with Kiefer going down with a good slam on the hard ground. After getting him picked up and dusted off, they were off again. We fueled all the bikes and headed across the street to the figure 8 track. The boys were riding around with some other little kids out there also. Kyle was coming out from behind a berm when the father of the other kids was going down the middle and nailed Kyle. I had stopped with Kiefer who had fallen in a corner and did not see it happen but I did see both of their bikes on the ground. The man left and Kyle was still standing there. When I went over to see what was wrong he told me that his forks were bent. There were black marks all down his left fork and his shifter was bent. We make it back to the truck where after loosening all the front end parts I was able to rotate everything back straight. We dropped into the arroyo and headed west. The ground was nice and hard and we had a good run. We came to where they are building the bridge and had blocked the arroyo. We all climbed out and went under the bridge. I went first because I did not know what was down there. There was a concrete part then some rather large rocks covered by wire mesh. The end had a steep slope of a couple of feet. I came out where there was some metal and stopped there to direct the kids around the junk. No, the did not pay attention when I was waving at them to move to the side and they all crashed right through it. Nobody fell and no tires were punctured. The arroyo on the west side of the bridge is a mess. It has not had any water run down it in many months and it is very dry and powdery. The 70 had a hard time but Kevin managed to get it through. We got out at the end and things were not much better. The tractors have made flat roads that without moisture have six inches of powder on top. There used to be some good woop trails there that are all ruined. We got out of that and hit some wopped out trail. I stopped the kids and Konrad and I did a high speed run to show them what it is like out in the desert where they can’t see us. We tried a few hills but Kevin refuses to gear down and could not make it up. Konrad took the two older ones and did some bigger stuff while Kevin and I hit some flatter wooped out trails before heading back to the truck. On the way home we stopped and got something to eat, Just as I remember being, the kids must have felt like they had conquered a few hundred miles of desert. Keith
3/6/06 Today I headed out to the end of Southern to go riding with Greg Sceiford. The other day when he invited me I asked him if he needed an anchor. I have tried to ride with him once and he spends a lot of time waiting for me. On my way out I saw a CRF450X in the back of a truck that was also headed out there. After I unloaded and got ready I went over to meet up with Greg and that other bike was there with he care taker. His name was Craig. Greg invited him but he declined stating that he was too slow. We told him it does not matter, I’m slow but the only way to get better is to ride with faster people. He agreed and we all took off to the south. It was only a few miles down when Greg who was leading the pack took a right turn towards the edge of a bluff. Down he went. I looked over to see him going down this tiny goat trail that I would be scared to walk down. Craig declined to go next so I followed down. Greg was waiting at the bottom with a smile. Craig made it down and we were now in a tiny S turn arroyo that he called the “Devil’s Spine” This was new to me. I have rarely ridden out there with someone who knows the trails so it was actually a treat to ride some new trails. We made it out with me only falling once in a corner which is pretty good for me. At the bottom we got out and did some ridge top single track trail that I am lucky to be able to stay on. Craig was not so lucky and came off so I got by him. We then headed down another arroyo. This one was flat and wide so we got up some good speed. There were a few dead trees that we had to weave around. In one particular corner I missed the turn and caught a tree branch in the shoulder. I wear my chest protector but of course it had to stab me right on the outside of it. Luckily it was dry enough that it broke before it skewered me. Now that would have been a great story to tell while sitting in the ER with a large stick going through me. At The bottom we waited for Craig but he did not show up. We could hear his bike to the south so we headed that way and found him. We continued south on some wooped out trails at a pretty good rate of speed. There was one small wooped out arroyo that I had to seat bounce to get all the way across. Unfortunately I shot right into a tree. I caught the edge and was able to ride through the branches without falling off. After that we followed some trail down towards a small mountain that I had never seen before. It had a single track that circled around to the back then climbed to the top and headed back. Craig once again came off the track and I went by him. After riding along the top I looked back to see him cruising down below. He had come off the trail again and was looking for a way back to the top. He made it back up just in time to descend back down. We followed the trail back toward where had come from. Every time we stopped I could not believe how tired I was. I was beat. We crossed the valley and then Greg headed up a rather large sand mountain. We followed up and then back down the other side. This went on for a few more mountains. As I was following Craig he made a right turn and straight up a mountain. I knew I did not have enough speed or the torque of the four stroke to make it up so I turned around to get some speed. These two particular mountains were close enough together to form a V so I climbed up a few feet and started to turn around. Half way through the turn with the sand being so dry my front tire sank and hit the roots of a bush, the back tire lifted a bit and tossed me right over. That was funny. I was laughing as I picked up my bike and started off again. Ten feet later the same thing happened and over again I went. This time it wasn’t funny. After cussing at my self I remounted and headed over the mountain. They were waiting for me on the other side. As I turned to drop into the arroyo I realized that not only was it a drop of about three feet but that I was once again going through a tree. At least this time the other guys got the pleasure of watching it happen. A few more hills and we came to a rather large straight up hill. I would say it is probably a sixty-degree bank that went up about 500 feet. Greg headed up with no problem. Craig headed to the bushes and I gave it a try. I shifted too early and only made it about a third of the way up. Next time I kept the RPM’s up at the bottom and made it about two thirds of the way up. I went way back and got a running start at it. Three quarters was all I could make it. Craig got on his thumper and just motored to the top. I gave up and went around. I was now by my self and moving at a good pace since there was nobody there to tell the story any different. We all made it back to the truck and I was exhausted. It was time for me to go. Greg was filling up his bike to go with two others that had just showed up. What a wimp I am. I need more training. Keith
9/19/05 I got my bike put back together over the weekend so I am
trying to squeeze a month worth of training in this week. Sunday morning I took
off from the fire station out to the west mesa to see how far it was out to the
Rio Puerco and if it was possible to make it out there from Coors Blvd. I made
my way up to the mesa cutting some trail on the way up. When I got to the top I
saw alot of flat land and alot more houses than I remembered. I jumped across
the road and started heading west across the desert. There was nothing
challenging about the ride, I just had to stand up the whole time to make sure I
did not run into any holes or trash hidden in the tall grass. I made it out to
the sand dunes and started looking for the trail that I was told was out there.
I followed the directions given to me and found the trail that went down into
the Puerco. It then started moving south along the edge of the mesa. It was a
fun trail that had a medium difficulty rating. As I got pretty far down I
noticed an old trail that went back up the mesa. It looked like nobody had been
on it for a long time so I decided to see where it goes. As I worked my way up
there were some narrow parts, some off cambers and the sun was in my eyes. I was
moving slowly because I could not see well. As I came one steep section that had
some tall lips on either side forcing you to go up the middle I found myself on
a flat area about 3ft wide with a drop off on the other side. As my eyes widened
and my ass puckered I yelled "Oh Shit". I made the turn and moved away from the
sharp drop. With my heart rate now doubled I moved around to see that the drop
that I just avoided was about 30ft deep. There was nothing at the top so I
headed back down, carefully negotiating my way around the drop off section. When
I got to the bottom I continued to follow the trail that I was on previously had
been following. I know knew that I was on the right trail because I was told it
was a single track. I followed that the best I could but I am sure that I missed
some. Even though it started out as a single track it was much wider after I was
done with it. I made my way back up the mesa and back to work. My GPS tells me
that it is 6mi across the top of the mesa and the total trip was 30mi. It was a
good day, The ride was fun, I avoided the drop off and would live to ride
another day.
Another day turns out to be the
next day. After work I headed over to Montessa park. Greg Sceiford told me he
was going out there so I thought I would try to ride with him and possible
improve my ability. I parked by the go cart track and got ready to go. As I was
getting on my bike I noticed Greg driving up at the main parking area on the
other side of the road. I was going to head over there but a good song came up
on the MP3 player so I went for a quick loop first. When I got over there we
took off on a loop called "boot camp" I knew of this trail and have ridden parts
of it but never with anybody who actually knew where they were going. The trail
was rough and I was working hard to stay within sight of him and not slow him up
too much. As I went over one bush my front end soaked it up well but the rear
end kicked sending me close enough to going over the bars that I could count the
knobbies on my front tire. I managed to save it and we kept moving. A short
while later after the woops my legs were crying. We kept moving and by the
time we made it made it back to the truck my shoulders were also hurting. I
realized that normally I ride alone and when I get tired I can slow down. Now
that I am riding with someone that runs a single digit number I can't slow down
and have to push myself more. We crossed the road and went to a turn section to
practice some turns. After doing a few turns, Greg took my bike for a spin and
then came back and adjusted my rear suspension. Denise Provoost who rides in my
class came out to do some riding so we waited for her to gear up. While we were
waiting Bryan Lowery (#6) and Eric Valdez (#21) came over to see if we were
going out. We all headed out and it was tough chasing the experts. At one of the
places where they had stopped to wait for the slow one (me) I noticed that
Denise and I (the amateurs) had chest protectors on and the expert riders are
wearing just t-shirts, clean ones at that. I guess they don't fall as often as
we do. We made our way through the hills over to the track on the east side of
the road. As I came up one of the hills I saw Bryan stopped at the top of the
hill and Eric coming to a stop right next to him. As I came up I saw Greg's bike
laying in the track and Greg walking up the hill back to his bike. Since experts
don't crash he must have seen something he liked and dropped his bike to go
check it out. We followed the trail I normally follow and then peeled off on a
single track that led to a jump. This particular jump is about 6ft high and a
foot and a half wide. CrazyYammi had showed it to me once before so I knew I
could do it. I checked to make sure it had not changed and the jump was OK but
the tail leading up to it now was wooped out. This is a step up jump to the top
of a hill about 8ft higher and 20ft away. Greg hit it and cleared it and landed
on the back side. I landed on top with no finesse. Bryan and Erick preferred to
keep their tires on the ground. I did the jump a few times but know when to call
it quits without doing it "on last time". We took off on some more trail and
made it back to the truck. I had to go to work later so I did not want to wear
myself out so I loaded up and went home. My bike is still in my truck because I
need to finish my month worth of riding in the next two days. Keith
9/7/05 OK, it is now just over 2 weeks till the next race so you know what that means. It's training time. I moved to a new station in July and I have been wanting to try riding in the desert west of Coors Blvd. I finally took my bike to work and was ready to ride. I caught a ditch that led through a subdivision and to the flood control dam. On the other side of the dam is the desert. I got to the dam and not only are there fences but there is also guard rail. I could not get through there today but I have a key to those gates back at the station so another day I will just be able to go through the gate. I circled around and every access to the desert is fenced off. I had to head south to a road that I knew went out there. The road is paved so I was not thrilled about getting out there through the pavement. Anyhow I found a opening so I could get behind the dam. Everywhere I went there were barbed wire fences. No fun there. I headed back to the road and crossed it to the south side and there was open desert. Unfortunately with open desert that close to a road invites jerks who dump their trash out there. That area has potential but this day was just a test to find a place to ride and it was getting time to be at work so I headed back. In my garage I had noticed a spot of oil under my bike. I thought it might be just carb dumping some overflow. I had loaded my bike in my truck and was talking to her when I noticed the rear shock full was coated in oil. Yep, the rear shock was leaking. This morning I went back out to the airport to go get in some rough woop riding. I was doing my usual ride being very careful. My first lap is always slow to make sure nothing has changed or that nobody has dug holes or dumped cars or trash on the trail. I has rained pretty good out there recently so there was alot of erosion that had taken place. After my first slow lap I went around my regular track again at full speed which turned out to be slower than my slow speed. Damm I suck. At least I have good music to listen to while sucking wind. After I do my loop a few times I start going up the arroyos and back down the wooped out ridge tops to practice my woop riding. Coming down one my back end kicked out in one of those "I am going to die moments" Things seemed to go into slow motion and I remember calmly thinking to myself "this is going to hurt" then I said to my self "slide back on the seat and gas it". I did this as the back tire hit and I powered through it. That was close. The nice thing about going riding right after the rain is that you can see your track and know which trails you have been down. I was coming down a trail when I realized that I was on the same trail that I had almost wiped out on a few minutes earlier. I was going down with a little more speed so the same thing would not happen again. I could see my tire marks across the woop tops then there was one about four feet to the side where my back tire had hit. So now I am thinking that I am glad that I did not do that again. Soon after that I found me going to fast at a double size woop that was on a short uphill. I knew that if I slowed down I was going to nose into it and go over the bars so I stayed on the gas, shot off the woop and flew over the top of the hill, the front end dropped, I was almost sitting on the rear fender when I landed front wheel down off the trail. I pulled that one out also and decided I would not do that trail again knowing the third time would probably be the charm. I soon headed back to the truck and pushed the front end out on a turn dropping it on the left side and braking my clutch lever. I blame that one on the fact that I had now acquired a flat rear tire. During my ride I decided that "The problem is not that I am not as fast as I used to be, but rather that I am not as fast I think used to be"
8/28/05 It has been about two months since the last race in Espanola that I have ridden my bike. I have been wanting to ride but one thing or another always comes up. Thursday was the day to get back on the bike. There is a guy at work that has been wanting to go riding so I invited him to go. He rides a dual sport bike so I figured that going riding with him would be safe. Rather than diving right into the pool by going riding with other racers I stick my toe in the pool by going riding with a true novice. I showed up at the end of southern and he was not there yet. He lives in Rio Rancho and told me he was going to ride his bike over there. I suited up and took off down a few woop trails to warm up then headed east on a single track trying to shake the rust off. Going east there are dirt roads that are crossed by the trail. I do not know the trail that well so I blew a few turns and was surprised every time I crossed a road. I was leaning to the left going around a corner at a decent speed when the trail dropped out onto a road crossing. The other side was higher and I was leaning too far over. The front end struck the other side and I went over the bars slamming my head into the embankment. I sat up and went WOW that hurt. I got up, apologized to my bike for dropping her, remounted, and took off again. That slam knocked off the rest of the rust. I turned around and headed back. When I got back to the truck my friend was there and he was already tired from riding the dirt roads out to the trail head. I knew what I was in for then. We headed south along the trail and when I could follow him no more I passed and started doing some fast woop riding. I was feeling good and as I was sailing over a woop I got a sudden sharp pain in my lower back and said to myself "what the hell is that". I was in the air when it happened and had not hit it in my earlier crash. After a while I stopped so my friend could catch up. My back hurt so bad I had trouble getting off of the bike. I tried stretching it out but that did not help. My friend caught up but said he was wasted and wanted to go back. After a rest he headed back to the truck and I went for a spin down into the Puerco to give him some room. My back was killing me so I kept ridding to try and get the pain out. I turned around at the bottom of the trail and headed back to the truck. I traveled back to the truck at a good clip and started feeling pretty good. He said he was going home and I took off back into the Rio Puerco. I had another reason for going riding out there. There is a particular hill out there that has a memorial to Charles Gregory. There will be more on that when Dan sends me the photos. The trails out there have gotten pretty wooped out and hard packed. I was winding my way down when I came over a particular woop sideways and was going at the next one completely sideways. I was looking for that softest spot on that solid packed ground to land and I knew it was going to hurt. The bike hit, I started going over, the bike kicked back and I some how managed to stay on without falling. It was just like when you are watching the pros on TV and they are wiping out in the woops and some how they stay on. I kept on trucking down the hill and made my way over to where I was told the monument was. I circled the mountain until I found it. I parked the bike and had a quit moment out there. DR was the first to tell me about this monument and how they had to carry this slab of marble up the hill, dig out the side of a mountain, haul a wheelbarrow, water, and cement up the hill to place the monument. I called DR from the side of the hill and told him that they should have put it up higher on the side of the hill for all the griping he did about how difficult it was to get it there. He let me know that I was welcome to dig a new hole, did up the slab and move it higher if I wanted. After a good laugh I remounted the bike and headed back to the truck. It takes me about an hour to get home and I had to make it home in time to take the kids back to town for football practice. I loaded up and started for home. It turns out that my back felt alot better when I was riding that When I tried to walk or sit down. I was cruising along in my little truck Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr when about Eubank the truck went _________________________then Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr_____________Brrrrrrrrr________ and kept doing this long enough for me to get over to the right shoulder where it went _________________________________________________________. Yep, it was dead. I was hurting to much to try and do any diagnostics so I just called triple A. The nice lady told me it would be 30 to 50 min wait for a tow truck. I walked back about 20 yards to the walking bridge that provided me shade to sit under. about 15 min later the DOT H.E.L.P. truck stopped to see if I needed help. I told him what was happening so he offered to let me sit in the AC of his truck till the tow arrived. After about 5min my phone rang and it was AAA letting me know the normal tow service was to busy and they had to call an alternate which was going to be another 50 to 90min. The DOT guys eyebrows went up and he told me he had to get back on the road. he said it would be a good idea to push my truck up to a portion of I40 that had a wider shoulder. I declined telling him that I did not want to loose my shade. He left and I climbed up on the cement barrier and laid down in the shade. I woke up when I almost fell off the wall. I sat there for some time watching all the school kids cross the bridge to go home. After awhile I saw a truck that I recognized pulling over. It was the Thornhill family who had seen me sitting there and doubled back to see what kind of help they could offer. Since I already had a tow truck coming they gave me a few bottles of water and some Dum Dum suckers. Soon after one of my bosses came by after his wife had seen me there and called him. He waited with me till the tow truck came and took me home. In the end waited two hours for the tow, had three people stop to offer help, got home to late to take the kids to practice but did get invited to go riding with Wade on Sunday. It's good to have friends. Keith
6/1/05 We had a 4 day weekend so we loaded up our
camper, a backhoe, bikes, 4
wheelers, dogs, flagging tape, and away we headed Friday for our new
riding area. This area is on the Corallites ranch but it is called Aden Hill
because there is a hill there called Aden Hill with about 6 towers on
it. It had rained Thursday night and the road was really muddy in places but
the riding area was great. The temp was only in the high 70's Friday, low
80's Saturday, mid 80's Sunday and Monday. Perfect weekend. We needed to get
the rest of our riding track marked so we could get it GPSed and turned in
to the BLM for our permit. It was just awesome. On Saturday we went for a
trail ride and it was Myself, Matt, and Marty on bikes with Ryan, Cyndi, Pat,
Art, Gabriel, Nancy, Doug, and Nancy on 4 wheelers. We rode the whole North
part of the loop. It was great. We had set up the kids track with little
rollers and jumps. Every one played on it off and on all day. Marty must have
put a million miles on going around it while Gabriel and Ryan had quite a few
them self's. I guess they liked it. Later on Marty and myself went out and
made some new trails till dark. Sunday we went on more trail rides. This
time we went to the south loop. All went well. It still amazes me how the quads
break in the trails, where the bikes just leave one little grove. It's
kind of different for us at Denco to have a trail 3 to 4 foot wide instead
of just a little single track. We kept making trails, flagging, and
breaking in with 4 wheelers. By noon on Monday we finally connected all the
trails
and ended up with 18.7 miles. It consists of sand, rocks, brush, flats,
washes, g outs, grassy rut area, and dust. Every thing less hill climbs. Even
came across a couple of rattle snakes. It was such a great weekend that I
didn't want to leave on Monday. The good thing is we get to leave Friday to go
camping in Cuba. I really want to thank all the people who came out and
help with this trail. Pat, you and your family were great. I was wondering
if you guys were ever going to run out of steam. Gabriel must have some energy
go pills. He never stopped except to get his gummy bears and watch Movies
with Ryan that one time. Oh Yea one last thing. Monday right before we left
we had not rode our bikes around the whole track so Matt, Jimmie, and
myself went for a loop. About 6 miles from the end I hit a double g out, well
the second one didn't go to good and I decided to endow and stick my head
in the dirt like an ostrich. Those sudden stops suck. My neck is still really
sore but ready to hit the race course Saturday at the Oh My God. See ya all
their. DJ
3/12/05
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Mark561 Novice level poster Posts: 11 (5/8/05 9:16 pm) 68.35.171.101 Reply | Edit | Del |
Race Ready
I didn't know that crashes were to make a person ready to race, I thought they were mostly to show off for your riding buddies. Yesterday I was riding with Pete and Paul Loose out at Rainbow and because I was in front, (which doesn't ever happen) I was riding way over my head, we came up to a wide sand wash with a bunch of whoops in it so I figured that the only way that I would keep them from passing me was to be going about 50 and start swapping so that I could use up as much of the wash as possible, it was working very well for the first 100 yards or so because neither one of them would pass. After showing them both sides of my bike several times, I thought they might like to see the front so while I was doing a hand stand on the bars I tried to get away from it before hitting the ground. That's when plans changed, the front of the bike hit the next whoop and launched it up into my chin fracturing my lower jaw. Pete says that it looked like those guys that get thrown off of the bulls, and Paul said that I looked stupid, (I reminded him of his little show on the last lap of the Sandia GP). I got a few stitches in my chin, broke my helmet and split my chest protector open down the front and I have to go to the the Ortho Surgeon tomorrow for more X-Rays, I am hopping that they don't wire my jaw. They put me on a liquid diet, which has been the hardest for me because beer (until yesterday) has not been part of my training, but, the good doctor said, so who am I to argue! CrazyYammi, does that make me ready to race, or do I need to crash again as the race gets closer? I'm still just trying to learn all of these tricks so that I can have some advantage at the races. If you have any more tips, please share. Ps. I would be willing to try something less painful to get "Race Ready" Mark
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BATMAN2696 The Godfather Posts: 239 (5/8/05 9:51 pm) 64.234.190.52 Reply | Edit | Del |
Race Ready
OUCH!!!!! Can I post this one on the bench racing page so it does not get lost? Keith
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Mark561 Novice level poster Posts: 12 (5/9/05 7:17 am) 68.35.171.101 Reply | Edit | Del |
Re: Race Ready
Sure, The only problem that I see with it being in a place where it won't get lost is that it makes it harder to embellish on the story as time goes on. It has only been a couple of days and after telling (or mumbling) the story several times it's not sounding so good to me any more. I think by next week I will start telling people that I was going about 70, yea, and after I stopped rolling, Paul ran over me, twice, because he didn't get a good hit the first time. Just kidding, he wouldn't do that, he would only hit me once. 
Well, I am off to the Ortho in a few, so we will see if my typing skills are about to improve. My wife (Amy 456) is loving the quiet. Mark |
3/22/04 We went down to Las Cruces over the weekend to do a
little riding. Or at least I thought it was going to be "a little" On Saturday
we (DJ and Matt Jonasson, Paul Luce, Jimmie Crawford, Konrand and myself) met up
at the Denco headquarters and then headed out to their number one riding spot.
There we were met by #301 Chris Floyd. The loop is a 32mi trail that goes
through the desert over some rough single track trail. Normally at a desert race
there are some places to rest. There is obviously a difference between what the
riders and non riders are thinking at this point. Non riders are thinking that
we pull over and sit a while. The racers know that when I say rest I mean a
place where you can sit down and just twist the throttle so your legs and arms
get some recovery time. Well during this loop the only rest section is the "drag
strip" This is about a mile long section of flat road between trails where
everybody lines up and drag races to the next entry point of the trail. When you
are doing 60+ mph this rest period lasts less than a minute. In reality I was
the only one that did not get any rest stops. The others got to stop and rest
while they waited for me to catch up. The trail starts off innocently enough
with some fast whoop sections that wind between and over bushes until you come
to the Y in the trail. At this point you could go left to do the 5mi loop but
Noooooooo. We went right. More of the whoops while dodging bushes. When I say
woops, it is not like the big wide sand woops that you can skim the top of; they
are more like pot holes covering the narrow 1ft wide track. The track is so
tight that there is no room to get off to the side and miss the holes; you have
to simply ride through them. I started off the day riding so poorly that I
should have been left back at the truck to ride the mini truck. My right arm got
so tight that it was aching and the pain would not go away. This normally
happens during the first lap of a race but goes away after a few miles when I
get warmed up. The group was being nice and stopped often since this was my
first time out there they did not want to lose me. It's not so much that they
did not want to lose me but they did not want to call my wife and tell them they
did not know where I was. This stop and go type riding kept up for a few more
miles till we were about 10mi into it then it straightened out to some high
speed sand section. Just before we hit this section I saw Konrad reaching up to
the back of his helmet and then I realized part of my problem. I forgot to turn
on my music! The pain in my arm had subsided a little bit and I was now in the
grove. The high speed sand was fun, It was very fast, had some smoother winding
section and some straight sections that would come to an abrupt turn and if you
did not know the track as I didn't you would wind up out in the bushes. I was
buried in about my third or fourth bush when I thought to myself "This would
have been a good day to bring my contact lenses so I could see what was coming
up ahead". But I hadn't so oh well. At one of the stops DJ told us that were
going to his a technical section but just before that we would cross a road that
any body who wanted to could take and skip the upcoming section and get some
rest. He will deny it but I know he was talking to me. AS IF!! It would not have
mattered if one of my arms were broken, there was no way I or anybody else was
going to call "Uncle" and take the easy way out. DJ took off first and then
Jimmie followed by me. I was doing pretty good keeping Jimmie right in front of
me for quite a while until he started to pull away a little bit. Matt cut the
corner (Not that I have ever seen Matt cut a corner, Right Matt?) and got by me
and so did Paul. Next thing I know is Jimmie is coming out of the bushes and I
am going by him. I was feeling pretty good about my new found speed until I
found out Jimmie had gotten his normal arm pump and could not hold on anymore.
After that section came another sandy dodging bushes down the narrow trail full
of holes and jumps. After quite a few miles of that we came out on a road way
later to be known to me as the drag strip. Everybody lined up and knew what was
going to happen, well I thought everyone knew what was going to happen. Everyone
took off except for Konrad who stayed behind to get pelted by rocks. I have
never had very good balance so for somebody like me it is quite sickening to see
a couple of guys go by at 50+ standing on there back wheel. Back into the desert
for some more tight trail riding at speed. During the ride DJ would warm those
of us who had not been there before of any danger spots to look out for since
there were no markers. This time he forgot to mention the V shaped crater we
would be going through. With all the corners I kept blowing through I had gotten
behind the group and was just riding the trail ahead of me without the benefit
of watching somebody else go through obstacles ahead of me. Next thing I know I
am jumping down the V. It was about 20ft down one side and 40ft up the other
side. I was on the brakes as it was truly shaped like a V with no roundness at
the bottom. I wound up jamming myself against the bars with my chest and
bouncing up about a quarter of the way up the other side. I had to get off the
bike and walk beside it up the other side. We headed off down the trail to
finish the loop. Soon after we made it back to the truck the Team Denco crew
chief showed up with the catering. Two buckets of chicken, biscuits, and apple
pies. When I found out they were planning a second loop I head off on eating.
The threat of a second loop did not scare off Matt who ate half a chicken and
two apple pies. As fast as he is it is not hard to work up an appetite but I
knew this would have to slow him down some. We saddled up for the second loop
and Jimmie took off first and I was following close behind. My camelback was not
secured properly so I stopped to fix it and let everybody except Chris go by. As
I rounded one of the surprise hidden sharp turns I pushed the front end out in
the sand and fell over. Chris came around the corner and fell over rather then
run me over. Thanks Chris. My arm started hurting again but this time it was
sharp pain with each twist of the throttle or hitting a pot hole. At this point
I got pretty far behind and this time the group was not stopping as often to
wait for me. When I got to the first road crossing the group was lined up next
to each other waiting for me. My bike stalled behind them and DJ said I could
stop for a rest. I was not about to call out "wimp" so I said no thanks, started
my bike, went around them and got on the gas. I figured if I kept going as hard
as I could they would not have to wait for me as much. I was moving along at a
good pace when the trail made a sharp right at a fence line. Another time my
contact lenses would be helpful. I was on the brakes but could not slow enough
to make the turn but did manage to stop about a half way through the fence. By
the time I got my bike pulled out of the fence Jimmie went by me. We met up at
the next gate crossing and after everybody got through the gate I took off
again. Jimmie caught me a few miles down and passed me when I blew another turn.
Shortly after that he waited for the group and I went by him and took off. After
a while he caught me and then DJ went by me. This is the point where I had a
talk with myself. When Jimmie and I used to race in the novice class but now
can't even stay with him. As I saw DJ ride away from me I realized we were here
for his 46th birthday and he was kicking by butt. Now that's depressing. Anyway
we finished the loop and I was dead tired by the end and my arm was killing me.
I went back to the in-laws where we were staying and sat on the recliner for a
few minutes and could not get up. I told my wife to wake me in 30min. When she
did I forced myself up and took a shower and we all headed out to the Denco
resort. My nephew's were already there riding their little bikes, Ryan was
riding his quad. My boys jumped on a couple of the Denco quads and all the kids
were racing around for quite a while. It was fun to watch all five of them
racing around in circles. The food was great but I was ready to go back and
sleep.
The next morning I got up and my arm was still hurting alot but I was not going
to call "wimp" and not show up for the next ride. We met out in Anthony to have
Sunday "Church". There were already some riders there. Paul had gone home and
Chris went riding elsewhere but a new rider Brian was there to fill in. Brian is
still learning to ride so finally there was somebody slower than me out there.
The trail was some soft sugar sand whoops that threw Brian down a few times. I
stayed back with him since my arm was still hurting. We came to a gate where the
trail split. DJ was sending Brian down the easy way so I went with him so he
would not have to be alone. DJ said we would meet up at the other end so Brian
and I took off down the road while the rest of the crew went down the trail. At
the other end we could hear the bikes and then they disappeared. I could see a
trail from where we were sitting so I decided to go give it a try. After we went
down the trail for a while and came back Matt had followed us back in and said
that DJ was mistaken and the two trails did not meet us so the rest of them had
already headed back. We took off back down the road which was pretty easy with
an occasional bump and a few arroyo crossings. There was one particular rock
sticking up out of the ground in the center of the road that kicked me up in the
air pretty good. We pulled up and waited for Brian but he did not show up. Matt
went back and I waited for another minute. When I went back I could see someone
walking in the road so I headed over there. Matt had just picked up Brian's bike
and Brian was just getting up off the ground. Brian had hit that rock and went
over the bars for a wild ride. After we got back to the trucks Brian had enough
and was calling it a day. The rest of the guys had gone out looking for us. My
arm was now swollen and in pain so I took my nephews' who had also come out to
ride over to an erosion to teach them how to go through it without crashing. We
headed home soon after that. Monday morning came and my legs and my back are
quite sore and my arm has tendonitis but what a fun weekend. Lets do it again,
but we will wait a year. Keith
The Bar-B-Que
It was a great morning for a ride. We left Las Cruces at 5:45am
and headed for southern to ride. We got there at 9:30, unloaded and got ready to
ride. Had to wait 45 minutes for Jimmie and Pat. (they forgot to set there
alarm). There was 10 riders leaving the camp on a ride at 10:30. Paul Scroggie,
Pat Hudman, Daniel Walker, Matt Jonasson, DJ, Paul Luce, Jimmie Crawford, Dennis
Woerner, Pete Allen, and 1 guy I didn't know. What a blast to have all these
riders yipping threw the hill at a great rate of speed. We took off and every
thing was going good. I was following Pat for about 2 miles when he decided to
do a little tank swapping and slid under a tree and landed in front of my front
tire with his eyes as big as a soft ball going don't run over me. I had plenty
of time to stop, but he didn't know that. He was ok so I went on. I went about
an 1/8 mile hit a corner and slide my front tire out and did a good head stand.
Got back on and headed down the trail , went about 1/2 mile and Daniel had did a
little get off. Every one was having a little problem with dry dirt. We had been
so used to railing on good moist ground that a little adjustment was
needed. After that, the ride went well, only a few more slide outs but nothing
bad. We did about a 35 mile loop and came back into camp. A couple of lady
friends of Paul Luce had went out for a trail ride and were not in yet, so we
gassed up to go find them. Also a friend or something like that was out for his
first time on a 125 and was now were around. We went out for another ride to
find them. The girls were heading in about a mile down the road. They had gotten
into a tight spot and got hung up for about 45 minutes. They had to stand there
bike up on end and spin it 180 digress to get back out. Good job girls. The guy
on the 125 was dead to the world, lost, and exhausted out in the dunes. Paul and
Pete found him. Out of gas and no water. Paul and Pete got him gas and water,
had to ride his bike out of were he was and headed him home. The rest of us went
on a loop around the sand dunes and came back in. It was a great ride. I checked
my temp gage and it was 72 digress. Doesn't get any better then this. The NMDRC
is the only place I know of were you go ride with your competition, have a great
time, and are good friends. DBR180. DJ
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Rex's dislocated knee last Sunday resulted with these beautiful
colors. I was lagging behind after 5 weeks of down time when I
came upon the crash We were on the single track whoops just
north of the Widow Maker. Some spots were sticky while the
others were slicker than baby....snot. Apparently, Rex had been
bucked ejection seat style over the bars. Either while tumbling
or upon landing, the bike made contact with Rex's leg, popping
the knee out at a 45+ degree angle. What was thought to be a
knee guard poking up was actually his leg bone. Jack stabilized
the knee while Charles, Lucas and I (Marek) raced back to the
trucks. I won't stop catching hell for beating Charles and
Lucas back to Rex and Jack in my truck! What can I say,
the dude was hurting. We ended up strapping Rex to a bike ramp
using tie downs and supported his leg with my riding boots and a
fanny pack. Professionals at work. We then loaded him into the
back of my truck and as I stepped back, I thought I was watching
a MASH episode with the injured on the back of a Jeep. Yet,
this was a Toyota at the top of the Widow Maker. Reality check
for Jeep owners. It took us over 30 minutes to idle out to the
pavement on Southern and another 15 to get to the Westside
Hospital where we caught grief for not calling 911.....wasn't
looking for a helicopter ride. All the while, Charles and Jack
were helping stabilize Rex from moving. In the end, we just got
some more stories to tell....But that's what living life will
get you, right? Late! MLC (Pikachu)
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Just a picture of the starting line at the Tarantula. They got rain for two weekends in a row. Should be good traction for the race. We road over at the Tarantula area on Sunday. Matt, Daniel, and Myself (DJ). First of all if you want a good training program or a little humility, ride with Daniel and Matt. Also if you want to get hurt (talking from experience) try to keep up to them. We left the pits at 10:30am. Sun shinning and about 55 out. Great day.We rode a couple of laps and didn't have any mishaps. The low area's were quite interesting because they had water standing in them. We tried to go around most of them but we had to go through a couple. Thought I was going to go down a couple of times but made it through. Matt decided to banzai one and figured out that in mud your front tire sprays out forward and dumps right on your head, yep, kind of hard to see so he had to find land and clean his goggles. The only other interesting thing was the sand was wet and loose, so it felt like you were in the woops at Carlsbad the whole way around. When the sand is that wet it sure gives you a great workout but 60 miles of it and this ol man was beat. Yep time to go home and find fuel for the good ol body. Another great day at Church.
DBR180. DJ
2/6/05 Yesterday I realized that it is only two weeks until the race. Wow does time fly. Today I started my training. I got out of work at 07:30 and was riding my bike by 07:50. I took off from the Fire station and headed out to Montessa park. It really showed how long it had been since I had been riding. Along with being out of shape I realized how out of sync I was with my bike. Things just were not clicking, and we were not riding as one. On the MP3 player I have some music from the Blues Brothers CD. The song Aretha Franklin sings in the dinner (Freedom) came on and that is the way I felt. At 08:00 on a Sunday morning there is nobody else there and I have the whole area to my self. After a while we got in rhythm and we started riding well. I was down in the arroyo practicing my sand turns when I pushed the front tire over a berm and fell over. Since I am not a very good rider this is something that happens often so it is normally no big deal. This time I noticed my clutch leaver laying flat on the sand with the rest of the bar stuck in the sand. Yep, broken clutch perch. The rest of the ride I had to hold the clutch while riding so I decided to call it a morning and head back to work. Out behind the station there is a big pile of dirt. Trucks have been making circles back there all day for the past couple of weeks. They are belly dump trucks but I had not been back there to see the pile. When I got back to the station I still had 20 minutes before I had to be at work so I stopped to check out the dirt pile. half of the pile had been graded flat but the other side still had the rows that are created when a belly dump truck opens up and keeps driving. It was like the Yamaha ads where a person sees stuff at the construction site and imagines riding across it but this time I was on a Honda so I would actually ride across it. The rows were about as tall as my front tire and soft so it was as close to supercross woops as I will ever get. I could go across them pretty good but if I slowed down the soft dirt would grab my front tire and make it difficult to cross. I did a couple of passes then went to the flat part to practice my starts. It was almost time to start work so I did a few more passes in the woops and headed in. Tomorrow I will do it again without the broken clutch perch part. Keith
1/31/05 On Friday afternoon Jimmie, Daniel, and myself (DJ) arrived at Southern in Albuquerque. Since we only had a couple hours of light we just unloaded the bikes and decided to go riding and set up camp when we got back. We decided to go on the north loop and come in on the south loop. It was great riding. After the rain the ground was perfect. We were hauling butt all the way around. Daniel was leading, I was second trying to keep him sum what in site and Jimmie was third. I myself was having a great day, felt good and the bike was doing great. We made it all the way around and were coming in on the woops on the South end. About 2 miles out some how I was leading and I thought Jimmie was right on my butt. No way was I going to let him pass me. He was really pushing me. I thought were in the hell did he get the spunk. Well it was Daniel and like a big dummy I still tried to hold him off because I thought it was Jimmie. We came around a nice corner hauling butt hit a couple of jumps and next thing I new I was fling in the air (way to much for my skills) and cased into the side of one of the deep woops, Hit the bars with the side of my head, flew up in the air and headed for the desert right into a 3 foot clump, over the bars I went with my head into the sand sideways. Finally stop and then came the bike with a foot peg in the back. Wow Mr. toads wild ride. Pulled my head out of the sand and my helmet was on my head sideways with blood running down my face. I could still move so I jumped up and every thing out of my right eye was blurred. I always put a paper towel in the side of my boot just in case. Wiped my eye and could see a little. Daniel and Jimmie came zipping up. Always nice to ride with a fireman. Jimmie looked at it and said I would live. Well lets go so I jumped on my bike and headed for camp. Blood was running in my eye so I couldn't see very good but made it to camp. Went in and washed out my eye to find a 1/4" deep cut was next to my eye. Once again had the fireman check it out. Yep better go to the hospital. The other thing about the NMDRC is the people you meet and there occupation. Well Keith is a fireman around Albuquerque to, we called good ole Keith to find out what hospital to go to. 3 hours later and 5 stitches we headed back to camp. Oh yea, in this time I also had to let Cyndi (Mrs Denco) know what was going on because she was on her way to Southern. Every thing went well Friday night. Saturday Morning time to ride. Hell yes. Put on my gear and told Daniel, Jimmie, Matt, Pat that I was going to take it easy if I could ride at all. Away we went. 28 miles later and 1 hour and 15 minutes riding like a Denco rider we came back into the camp. Ate lunch and went and did it again. Both rides on Saturday were great. Daniel felt sorry for me on the second lap and laid his bike down in 3 or 4 corners just so I could get a break. Went to the banquet Saturday night, great time. Camped out, got up Sunday morning with 1" snow on the ground. Started a camp fire around 7 am, stood around and drank coffee and had breakfast until around 9:30am. Loaded up and went home. Another great weekend in the dirt. DBR180. DJ
01/22/05 As you probably know, Santa was really good to Team Denco this year. We took delivery of 4 new Yamaha’s for the race season (One of which was mine). We have been really taking care not to ride and destroy them, as we still have last year’s bikes to ride and practice on. We took them out a couple times to “break them in”; otherwise, they have just been sitting in the garage. Well, Pat Hudman and I decided (Since the majority of our race team was either in Phoenix at Supercross, or in California) to jaunt down to Socorro where the temperature was a little better and get in a few laps. I (against my better judgment) decided to take the new bike there and introduce her to Socorro (she’ll need to become familiar with the place sooner or later anyway). We put in a good fast lap on last year’s race course without incident. That new bike is lightning quick, I love it. Well, we weren’t going to drive all the way to Socorro from Farmington for just one lap. So we took off for the second lap like a couple bats from hell. We were flying down the fast wash (the one right after the fast road section) when I noticed my left boot was covered in oil. Thank God I noticed it!!!!!!!!!! I quickly stopped and shut it down; thankfully oil was still gushing out of this GAPING HOLE in the side case cover, so I knew she hadn’t run completely out. Pat took off for the truck and I started pushing. Pushing a dirt bike through a sand wash is a REAL GOOD indicator of how good of shape you are in physically. It seamed that I had pushed for 30 or 40 miles before I heard and saw Pat coming down the wash in his truck. That was a joyous moment (seeing the truck round the corner) and came near putting tears into my eyes. When I priced a new side cover, IT DID PUT TEARS INTO MY EYES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seemed a rock (probably a Honda rock) had jumped from my front tire at a high rate of speed into the magnesium side cover and knocked a quarter sized hole in it. That is a really fast way to end a good day’s ride. Pat did not wish to ride alone, so we headed back to the North (stopping in Cuba to eat at El Bruno’s------what a yummy place to eat ) and then back to the winter wonderland of Farmington----brrrrrrrrrr……………………..Jimmie Crawford (DencoBlueRider355)
01/19/05 On Sunday the 16th I went to Arizona Cycle park to practice for the race on Monday. The first lap around I rolled over every obstacle so I could learn the track. The more laps I did the more of the jumps I started doing. I got to the point where there was only one that I would not do. There were quite a few doubles with some going up hill and others going down hill. There were also some table tops. The one particular one that I could not make myself do was a table top that came right after a 160 degree right hander. it had a lip at the top of the table top, was about 30ft across then another lip to jump about a 20ft double. The first lip would put me to far into it to get a run at the second lip to clear the table top. I decided to wait until the race to do this jump since I was alone at the practice and my family would be there during the race to pick up the pieces if I crashed and burned. For the first moto I got about 4th out of 14 to the first turn but stayed on the gas longer and wound up second leaving the turn. I stayed with the leader for the first lap and a half before he started to pull a gap on me. I noticed on the first lap that he did not do the jump I had not been doing but I went for it and almost cleared the gap but good enough to keep trying. On the third lap I caught the leader because he was stalled in a corner. Just as I was passing him he got the four stroke started and I said "Damm". He caught me by the end of the third lap so I finished second. We were doing 4 laps per moto with the lap times at about 3 and a half minutes. For the second moto I got a bad start and got to the first corner in about 5th when some one hit the brakes and cut over taking my front end out. I picked up the bike and took off almost last. I started passing people until I got tired and slowed down. I passed a few more people who had fallen and got passed by one or two others. On the third lap I did not make the gap on the double I was having trouble with and cased it jamming my knee. Now I was in pain which made me go slower. I ended up in 5th which gave me a third overall for the day. I was happy with that since motocross is not my thing but I have fun trying it every once in a while. Keith
12/20/04 Sunday we meet with Paul Luce, Paul Scroggie,
Ron Swartz, and 3 other guys I've seen but don't know that well at Southern.
What a beautiful day. Any way we started out around 10 am and all was well. I
myself tried these new gloves you wear under you regular gloves to stop
blisters. What a mistake. I couldn't feel my grips and my hands went numb right
away. Not a good thing when trying to keep up to this guys. We finally stopped
about 5 miles in. I threw those liners away. Much nicer now I could fell my
grips and hands. (so much for that experiment). Next Matt had a rear flat.
Figured he would take it easy and finish the loop, Riiiight! at mock 6. We road
for a long ways before he had any problems. We were about as far West as we
could be when the tire wouldn't stay on the rim. Lucky enough we had a spare
bike back at camp to get a tire from. Off we went to get it. Thank God for
firemen. With all of our Ideas together we strapped the tire on Jimmie's back.
If you have ever ridden at Southern you know about the whoops. Jimmie took off
wide open, the tire road really good until about 3/4 of the way there. The
straps pulled back on Jimmie's shirt and started chocking him. Pulled over,
adjusted and away we went. Got to Matt and he had found a bunch of rocks and
propped the bike up. Changed the tire and mounted the rim on Matt's back. Tire
was a goner. I went with Matt and the rest went on to finish the loop. Matt was
hauling butt on the way back. We came to a fork in the trail and I guessed going
to the left would be the best. Yep wrong chose. This took us up the main whoops
(miles of deep whoops) along the fence up along the cliff and into camp. We made
it to camp before the other guys returned. I asked Matt if he wanted to go out
and find those guys and he gave me this weird answer which I took as a NO.
Something about a lot of whoops and a rim on his back. About 20 minutes later
the rest of the crew came in and we loaded up. The best part came next. Jimmie
took us to lunch at Golden Corral. Then we headed home. A great day at church.
DBR. DJ
PS. Paul changed Matt's name to Flat
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12/10/04 On Tuesday the 7th was the day we had been planning for. I say planning because I definitely know we were not prepared. We got to the track about 06:30 and found a nice parking sport right behind the starting gate. A yellow and blue van with the "Suzuki Off Road Racing" logo pulled up and parked next to us. Another nice van pulled up and parked next to that one. That van was plain silver except for the license plate that said "MX KIED". Another Suzuki bike was pulled out of that van. We did one parade lap to see the track. It was a great track that had a few single jumps, a few double jumps, and some table tops. There was nothing scary on the track. Any jump you might come up short on would not kill you. OK there was one scary part on the track. There was an uphill on the back side that was about twice as long as that nasty up hill in Socorro. This hill was at about a 70degree angle with alot of holes and bums in it, It was also hard a rock which made traction tough and if you did get some traction you had to work the power so you did not wheelie over backward. The scariest part of that was once you were at the top you had to turn around and go straight back down. The down hill was just as steep, hard, and rough as the up hill but with a small jump at the bottom. There was alot of speed to be gained going down the hill and would suck to crash. Konrad used his trip computer and clocked the track at 2.8mi. Our first race started at 9AM. All the races last an hour. We lined up three rows deep with the experts on the first line and us beginners on the last line. The start was a dead engine straddling the front fender. There were about 20 bikes on our line, when we went I jumped on my bike fired it up and took off with the hole shot. Around the big Talladega turn and I knew I was in the worst position I could be in. My mind goes crazy not knowing where everybody else is. About 4 or five laps into the race I got lapped by an expert on a Suzuki. About a lap later I got lapped my another expert on a Suzuki. The bad part that the second guy that lapped me was a kid on an 80. Yea I know he was on an 80 but he was flying. By the end of the race both of them had lapped me again. It turns out the first Suzuki was the one that came out of the grey van and was ridden by Mike Kiedrowski. Yes the same Mike Kiedrowski that we watch on television that now does the GNCC races. The kid on the 80 was named Caleb Gosselaar. The younger brother of Chris Gosselaar and the son of Ricky Carmichael's mechanic Mike Gosselarr who was also out there racing and is pretty damm fast himself. Konrad wound up breaking his sub frame at the upper bolt. None the less both HONDAS finished the race first in their respective classes. I told him to switch the plates and use my bike but instead he opted to tie his subframe up and save it for the team race. I lined up for my second race at 1pm, straddled the front fender, and when the flag dropped I jumped on the bike and that is where things went wrong. My bike started, I dropped the clutch and Bluuuuuuhhhhh it died. I kicked it again and away I went, The bike was sputtering as I watched everybody leave including the kids on the eighties. As the bike continued to sputter I remembered why she was acting up so I reach down and turned off the choke and then she ran fine. This actually turned out to be a good thing because now I had people to chase instead of wondering where they were. By the second turn I started passing people and enjoyed riding the rest of the race. With 4 classes in two catagories starting in three rows you really don't know who you are racing against so it is just trying to do your best. This race Kiedrowski lapped me twice again. The first time was in the back section where I got in his way, but the way I tell the story I was racing with him and held him off for a while. The second time was at a table top that had no run up and I could only make it about half way across. We both jumped at the same time except he cleard the whole thing and was gone in a flash. Since Konrad did not race this one he was doing some video taping. At the end of the hour I was tired and knew I had passed most of those that I had started with but it turns out one got away so I got second in that one. When I was done Konrad and Jeremy were laughing at me because they said I would have been lapped three times by him if he had not stopped for fuel and a sandwich. For the team race you and your teammate take turns doing laps. Konrad made me go to the line while he waited for the hand off. This time there was only about 8 others on the gate with me but I screwed up the start again and every body left ahead of me. I had passed all of them by the end of the motocross section I had passed all those who started with me and came in with a good lead to hand off to Konrad. When Konrad came in he had lost a little of the lead and handed it back to me. While I was waiting for him I had pulled my goggles down over the lower part of my helmet because they fog up if I keep them on. When I left I forgot to put them on so I reached out and put them on. At that point I realized I had put them over the mouth guard and instead of being ventilated I had been breathing on them and now they were fogged so bad I could not see the ground in front of me. I had to go slow through the motocross section because I could not see what I was hitting this of course decreased our lead even more. By the time I left the fog started to clear but it felt like I was on ice. Appearently I hit something and blew out my rear tire. I was able to finish the lap but the steep uphill was a very scary thing by its self and even worse with a flat. I told Konrad about the problem and told him that I did not know if I could ride his bike in its comprimised condition because I have trouble riding that thing when it is not comprimised. He did his lap and gave me the bike. I again forgot my goggles but this time they were on top of my helmet instead of fogged in the front. I was able to do the lap and we contined to take turns on his bike and I continue to forget to put my goggles on when I left every lap. We finally finished the race and came in second in the beginner class. It was a long day but well worth the trip just to compete. I encourage everybody to try it at least once. Race on...........Keith
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11/28/04 The family was out of town for the thanksgiving weekend so I went riding this morning in Rio Rancho. When I arrived at DR's house I was quite surprised to see Wade's trunk out front with his bike in it (That is Wade in the picture above). Every other time I have invited Wade to ride he cancels on me. In fact the last time we went riding out at Rainbow, Wade canceled to spend time with his wife and wound up in a car accident where he got to use his medical training to its full extent and called 911. It turned out to be a costly call since he first had to call 411 to get the number. He rides a Yamaha so you know I am not telling a lie. Anyway Marek and DR were also waiting. Last time we went out it was cold at DR's house and this time was no different except for the fact that it was also windy. We headed out to the parking area each with our bikes in our respective trucks. Once the road turned to dirt it was like the green flag had dropped, DR and Marek hit the gas and were soon gone out of site. I was spying the horizon for our drag racing buddies when I realized I was rapidly approaching the cattle guard. The guard is not embedded in the road but rather high above the road level forming a peak. I quickly applied the brakes hoping not to catch air and see my bike coming over the top and landing on the hood of my truck. I made it past that and soon found Marek sitting sideways in the road to make sure we did not miss the turn into the parking area. As he moved into the parking area I could see that DR almost missed it. There were skid marks from all four tires for about 40ft ending in a hole about 8in deep the width of DR's tires. Once we parked and got out of the trucks it was still cold and windy. When I say it was cold I mean it was COLD! Wade complimented me on the air that I had caught going over the cattle guard. Brother Brian's truck was there and so was another truck that I had seen before but not sure of where. We saddled up and headed out to the west. We were moving along a good pace up the arroyo getting pelted by rocks from DR's bike. We got out of the arroyo and headed up a trail, we did some single track trail and then followed some road until we got to a fence line. We followed the fence line and checked out the canyon but did not see any trail down below so we continued along down the trail outside the fence line. As we were moving along DR put up his hand and came to a stop. I figured he saw something he wanted to try and was going to turn back. No, like son like father, it turns out he hit a cholla cactus and had many needles in his left arm. After about 20 min of pulling these needles out we were on our way again. We caught a trail and started doing some fast riding over some rough trail. We met up with Brother Brian on the trail and stopped to talk. He said the other truck in the parking lot belonged to Dan Natal. Dan is an old time NMDRC'r that occasionally shows up at the races but mostly does the big races in Arizona and Nevada at which he has done quite well at. Anyway we continued down the trail for quite a while. I could tell Wade was getting tired because he was starting to fall back so I would stop every once in a while to let him catch up. After some more tight single track we found ourselves back in the big arroyo that we had came in on. A few miles into it DR started to slow up so Marek and I went past and started some high speed runs. I was following close to Marek when I blew a turn and found myself in another part of the arroyo so I got back on the gas figuring to get in behind Marek again. I came around a corner and found a rather large log across the path so I was on the brakes and pulled right winding up in a tree. After I made my way out of that and caught Marek we both decided to stop and wait for the Yamahas. Marek went left and I went right out of the arroyo. The two Yamahas went by and did not see us. Marek and I jumped back in behind them and got on the gas to catch them. As I was going full speed I moved to the left of Wade to go by him, just as I was going by he moved left not knowing I was about to pass on that side. I leaned my bike hard left so we did not hit handle bars as I stayed upright for balance, Wade and I brushed arms at about 50mph. The rest of the trip was uneventful. We made it back to the truck and talked to Dan for a few minutes then Marek and I fuel up to head back out again. Wade and DR loaded up to head home. We headed out to the east looking for a trail to ride and after a few miles we did not find any thing worth riding. We headed back, this time with me in the lead. I had only been here once before so I had no idea where I was going. I found a trail that was pretty rough but wound up back near the trucks. Marek said he remembered that he hated that section of trail. We started moving west looking for some more trail. We followed a lot of unused dirt roads that will some day be downtown Rio Rancho. We made it back to the big arroyo and I took the lead moving up the arroyo. We jumped out to follow the same trail we had done a few weeks earlier which included some of the stuff we had done earlier in the day. We got to one point where I could not remember which way to go so I chose left. That turned out to be where we had been earlier and not where I wanted to be. As we were moving along I spotted a cow trail that was going where I wanted to be so I went down it. The first thing I did was hit a cholla with my left knee, OUCH! I pulled my pants away from my knee so they were not stuck to me. We moved down the cow trail till I came across another bike trail and followed that one which turned out to be the trail I was looking for. The rest of the trail went fast and without further incident winding up on the same trail that we started on (Yea the one Marek said he hated). We made it back to the truck and it was still COLD! But this time I was wet from the sweat so It was extra COLD! Each loop was about 40 miles so it was a plenty long day. The pain from the cactus went away after a few miles but on the way home every time I lifted my leg to use the clutch I was reminded through pain of all the needles still in my knee. I know that my stories can be long but Damm, When a ride is this fun I just cant' stop talking. I know you had a good ride also and you can share it here with the rest of us.
11/11/04
Shrinkage
This was a post by luv2shred I thought it deserved a spot in the bench racing column (besides, I am tired of being the only person to post anything).
No, not exactly
what you might have envisioned, albeit with the on coming cold weather that’s a
definite possibility. 
I’m
referring more to the inevitable loss of our beloved local riding areas. On
Monday a couple of friends of mine just recently completed a ride out at the end
of Southern where they were confronted by the “Rancher” of all people. For those
of you not familiar with this person, he is the supposed owner or foreman of the
ranch land that encompasses a majority of the areas we ride on through out the
Rio Puerco Valley. There are actually two ranches, one which starts just
northeast of the parking area bounded by a barbed wire fence and extending north
to 550 and west to the Laguna reservation. The other is the Benevidiz ranch
which extends South. Both of these ranches have “Ranchers” patrolling the areas,
checking on cattle and what not.
At the time my friends were finishing a ride that included the North loop which
happens to be on the ranch in the northern part of the Valley. As would be
expected he was very irate with them for trespassing on his land and they of
course used the usual excuse that they got turned around and didn’t know where
they were....etc….etc….which seemed to pacify the rancher but only mildly. (I
seem to recall the breakfast run recently had a similar incident) He then
lamented to them that the reason we are so unwelcome down there is that we are
destructive. He went on to say that we bikers are constantly cutting his fence
lines at the southeast corner of his property which happens to be just northwest
of our parking area. He also said that he has caught dirt bikers chasing his
cows on numerous occasions and he’s had enough. He is currently working with the
Sandoval County Sheriff’s department to do something about it. In fact I happen
to know that the Sheriff’s dept. has been out at the end of Southern checking
registration information on dirt bikes and ticketing those who are not in
compliance, so beware.
Now as I see it, it’s just a matter of time before there will be a joint
collaboration between him, Benevidez and the sheriff’s dept and we’ll all be
kicked out of there just because of some “Idiots” and I do mean that sincerely,
that choose to cut fence lines and engage in bovine fetishism. This isn’t the
only area that is threatened, if anybody has been in West Honda lately they’d
have seen the flyer that states that the Santa Ana Pueblo is now prosecuting
trespassers on their land just north of Bernalillo for the same reasons,
destructive behavior and fence cutting. Having ridden that area on many
occasions I’d have to say that is a tremendous loss because that area was
awesome.
I’ve been riding out at the end of southern for 20 years and in all that time
I’ve run into the “Rancher” a grand total of two times. The first time was a
number of years ago and the person I talked to was actually the foreman of the
ranch. He was a very pleasant fellow and didn’t have any problem with us riding,
as long as we stayed away from the open grassland areas and stayed far away from
his herd which meant staying up in the foothills….not a problem. Since then,
many trails have been busted through out that region and I for one am guilty of
helping to trail bust quite of few of them.
So now we’re left with perhaps losing access to this area because of a few
boneheads who can’t seem to leave well enough alone. I think perhaps, as veteran
riders we need to police our own and watch out for boneheads messing things up
for all of us. Stay away from the grasslands, stay up in the hills, God knows
there are plenty of trails up there, and most importantly, stay off the main
roads…out of sight out of mind. The last thing we need is for someone to get
hurt because one particular party is feeling that matters need to be taken into
ones own hands because nothing seems to be getting done. Think this couldn’t
happen? Think again….a few months back we were hauling down Carcass wash or
Bart’s wash whichever you prefer and at the end where you exit on the road, we
noticed something buried in the said right in middle of the trail. Upon closer
inspection we noticed steel spikes buried in the sand pointing straight up. We
dug them up and discovered they were steel plates that someone had welded steel
spikes to and sharpened, clearly designed to shred any motorcycle or ATV tires
that should roll over them. We dug them all up and disposed of them in a nearby
offshoot arroyo and covered them with sand. I don’t know if this is just an
isolated incident but it certainly is something to be wary of when riding out
there.
Okay, okay, I’m done ranting, but dang it I’m ticked. Every time you turn around
it seems like some bureaucrat somewhere wants to deal OHV use another blow by
coming up with more land closures and restrictions and what’s worse is the
idiots among us that are giving them the ammo to do so. I know one thing, as a
serious rider who enjoys his freedom and right to ride, I’ll be looking for
those “idiots” and I won’t pass them by shaking my head and thinking what dorks
for doing what they’re doing, because ultimately what they do effects me as
well. Ride safe and keep your rubber side down.
D.
11/7/04 Today I was supposed to go to j5mx track with CrazyYammi but after a discussion with the wife it was impressed upon me that she did not like the fact I was out riding but did not want me going to a place that would put air between my tires and the ground. Instead I went out again with DR and Ben. This time we went out to the Rainbow loop where the OMG was held in 1996. It took us a while because DR had his Mayor duties to perform and had to chat with everybody there before we left. Today DR's boys went with us, Travis is 11 ( I think) and Ryan is 8 (I think). We were also joined by somebody I did not know but he was on Honda so it was OK. The boys were riding their yz80's. Now you might think an 80 ridden by an 8yr old would be out of place on this loop with deep sand, loose rocks, big woops, and dangerous down hills, but these boys can ride well and we were not much slower than when we ride with any other Yamaha (LOL). I had never been here before so I was bringing up the rear to keep an eye on the boys and collect any Yamaha parts I find. We jumped out of a wash and everybody was stopped. A quick head count revealed 7 guys and 6 bikes. I know we had only left with 6 guys and 6 bikes so thrugh my brilliant powers of deduction I figured something was up. It turned out to be a fellow desert racer and his bike was parked under a tree just off the trail. He needed a screw driver so DR jumped right in to help, Being a Yamaha rider he is accustomed to fixing bikes on the trail which causes him to carriy plenty of tools. DR did point out that the bike needing help was not a Yamaha, KTM, Kawasaki, or even a Suzuki. But enough about that. While DR worked on the bike, the rider that had left with us introduced himself as Brother Brian and the Rider with the bike problems was DJ and open Novice racer. After all bikes were working again we headed down the trail. As DR and I came around a corner we found Travis face down half in a chollia (or however you spell that long skinny type) cactus with his leg under his bike so that he could not get up. DR helped him up and Travis started picking needles out of his leg. I went ahead to let the others know what had happened. When they arrived, we left again down the trail. After about 20mi of trail DR and the boys broke off for the truck since the 80's fuel tanks are not that large. Ben, Brother Brian, and I sped off on the trail until we caught up with DJ and all of us headed down the trail back to the trucks. Riding along some through some big whoop sections, listening to some "Rock Lobster" on the mp3 player I was thinking what a great ride this are has been. We had been through some washes, some loose rocky hills, Some flat cactus infested area, and some tree area with a great canyon view. Then I realized I had not done my football picks for this week. That is OK though, I do just as well when I pick as when I don't pick any team at all. There was no mud this week but plenty of dust so you could imagine what my teeth look like after riding 25miles in the dust with a smile. Have a nice day, Keith
10/31/04 Today we went for another Breakfast run out in Rio Rancho. We were going to do it faster today since we had learned how to get in and out of the Rio Puerco last weekend and we all had Halloween stuff to do later. We were not even stopping to rest. The single track out to the end of Southern was just as fun as last week, then we followed the ditch to the river bed. Figuring that it had a week to dry it would be a quick trip down to I-40. Last week we had to go through a couple of patches of mud but most of it was dry enough to get through easily. It must have rained somewhere because there was a lot more mud in there today. So there was going to be more mud slinging than the presidential campaign. We took off down and had to ride the side because all the way down there was mud in the middle. We crossed the mud often when the dry bank ran out. A mile or two in we made it to a long straight away without a dry bank on either side. We got in the middle and started to move. I figured one of us would do it eventually so I rolled on the throttle and started shifting gears. It was not long and I was wide open in fifth gear running down the mud. DR and Ben were laughing at the sight of me flinging mud at over 60mph. After that when ever we would run out of dry sand we would jump in the middle and run. At one point DR was leading followed by Ben then me. I saw they were hitting some soft stuff so I went up the steep bank to get out of the mud. At about that time the mud got so soft they were coming to a stop with Ben right behind DR. To get up the bank DR twisted the throttle and dumped the clutch. With Ben about two feet behind him you can guess what happened. Ben dropped his head just in time and now his number plate, chest protector, and helmet were covered with mud. Since I had already moved to the side I had a great view of the slinging. Ben just shut off the bike and shook his head. I had a great laugh but did stop long enough to snap a picture. I forgot my camera today but I use my camera phone so the pictures are not that great. DR had parked his bike about 20yards up and came walking back to see what we were up to as he did not now what happened. Ben got a couple of hand fulls of mud from his chest protector and threw them down in disgust. After we were done laughing at him DR said his bike (The only Yamaha out of the bunch) was starting to act up. When we left Ben took off pretty fast leaving us behind. DR disappeared so I went back to look for him. He was parked trying to figure out why his bike had died. After pulling off the seat and checking the electrical connections and fuses Ben finally returned and was pleased with the revenge inflicted on DR for the mud dousing. He then pulled the tank off and he pulled the plug but that looked OK, so he thought he figured out what was wrong. The vent tubing under the bike was covered in mud. After cleaning this off the bike started. So now 45min later we were on our way. Now every time we stopped DR had to clean off the tubing to get the bike started again. Around the turns I was cutting across the sandy banks which would sometimes wind up pretty high above the river bed. I was moving pretty slow and came across an erosion. We have been crossing these all day at speed but this one was a little wider and I was going slow looking for a way down. About a foot away I noticed this particular erosion had a hole straight down right in front of me. Of course the bike went in with the front end dropping straight down and I went over the bars with the rest of the bike falling over on my leg. So when Ben and DR came around the corner I was trapped under the bike. After pulling myself then my bike out we were once again on our way. Crossing at another soft spot DR did not want to roost Ben again so he was going slow and slid down a small bank as Ben went around him. I noticed DR had not come out from around the corner with Ben so I went back to look. I found DR with his helmet off, an exasperated look on his face, and the Yamaha buried up to the frame in mud. DR and I pulled and yanked on the bike for a while until the bike was out and we were covered in gooey mud. After cleaning up we made our way down and finally made it to a point that was getting to muddy to go through. We climbed out and found ourselves at the Rio Puerco 100 track. We made it to the Dinner at 1pm after leaving Rio Rancho at 9:15. Remember this was supposed to be a quick ride and we should be done by now and we were only half way done. The choice now is how to get back, 1) Take the road back through private property and risk getting shot at. 2) Call DR's wife and have her come pick us up (Not the manly thing to do). 3) Jump back in the Rio Puerco and hit it. We decided to jump in the river at the track. We found our way back in but we were all pretty beat by now after fighting all the mud. On one particular bank that we had to climb turned out to be a little steeper that it looked and Ben did not have the energy to muscle it up so the bike stopped and he went over the bars in slow motion. After he mustered the energy he got the bike going and away we went. The rest of the river went pretty good and we started up an arroyo off the end of Southern. I passed Ben then started working on DR. I finally passed him then a few turns later I washed out the front end around a corner and fell straight down on my left shoulder hard enough to jolt my body. The good news? That is the side with the broken collar bone and it did not hurt a bit. DR and Ben stopped while I picked up my bike, after working on the Yamaha again for another 15min he got it going and said we were not stopping till we made it to his house. The single track went pretty fast and DR pulled away while Ben and I did some cruising. I was leading Ben in an area I was not real familiar with when all of the sudden we came to the paved road crossing. The road is at the bottom of about a 10ft steep decline over loose sand. I locked up the rear brakes, looked left saw a police officer coming at me about 80yds off and nothing to the right so I let off the brake and hit it. The officer slowed down and was looking at me on his left when Ben popped out on his right and surprised him. Ben passed right behind him and we were gone into the desert. We made it back to the truck (at 4pm), loaded up and made it home just in time to take the kids trick-or-treating. The ride was a blast, for most of the ride we played follow the Yamaha, not because it was the fastest but somebody had to be there because we did not know where it would leave DR.
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10/28/04 On Sunday the 24th I went with DR and Ben for the Breakfast run. It was two days before my appointment with the orthopedic doctor and I had not ridden the bike in five weeks. I needed to test the shoulder so I would have a report to give the doctor. We met at DR's house at 09:00 to start the ride from there. All dressed and ready to go my throttle was sticking. I had just tested it earlier in the week and it worked fine. we took it apart and found it had ground up sand in there so after cleaning that out and sanding the bar a bit it worked fine. Now the bike would not start because of all the work on the throttle had flooded it. Was this a sign from above that I should not ride or did my wife have something to do with it? Well we left from his house we crossed about two streets before we hit the desert. From there it was some single track (And I mean single as in about 10in wide) with a some pot holes and woops that wound around the bushes. My shoulder was doing fine but I could tell I was very apprehensive and scared I was going to fall and get hurt. We went off of one ledge and the front of my bike dropped pulling on my shoulder, that hurt a little but I was good to go. The trail continued out to the end of Southern going up a lot of single track, jumping across some dirt roads, and blazing up some arroyos that included a few Rio Rancho used car lots (an easily accessible spot to dump junked cars) where I did find a car that I think I am going to go back and get the seats. When we got to Southern we dropped into the valley and rode some trail with woops, some more single track, and them some arroyos. When we got to the end of one of the arroyos we had to climb out the side because it had eroded so that you could not jump into it. We then followed a small whooped out trail along the top of another arroyo that had eroded to about 40ft deep (see pictures). What could be the problem with this? We all know that a whoop trail has can toss you off the track on a whim. If you went left, no problem, if you go right, 40ft drop till you stop! At the end of that trail we stopped where Ben asked DR "The trees or the ditch?" from our vantage point you could see some trees straight ahead in the Rio Puerco or follow the little arroyo to the left down into the Puerco. DR said "ditch" so Ben headed off to the trees. At the trees we found mud about a foot deep. Oh well back up to the road and headed south towards the casino. Along the way we met up with the rancher who told us to get the F*** off his land. DR being the "Mayor" he is sweet talked him into letting us finish the road out. We made it to the casino and had some breakfast. We decided to try and ride the Puerco back up since it looked dry down here. We went around behind the gas station the where they usually get in and out of but somebody had put up a new fence. We followed the Puerco up looking for another place to drop in at except all that we found was about 40ft straight down. we make it to a fence where DR walked over a small dirt bridge and around the end of the fence he said he found a spot where we could get in all we had to do was cross the bridge and go around the fence. The bridge was no problem but if you lost you balance going around the fence post on the two feet of embankment you were going down the 40ft drop the quick way. I said to heck with that , I know if I go about 400yds the other way there is a gate to get around the fence. By this time we are almost at the Rio Puerco 100 track. After I came around I found the spot that he wanted to drop in at. Drop being the optimal word her. It was about a 75 degree angle down for about 30ft but there was some barbed wire about 6in above the ground about 4ft down which means you could not use you breaks until after you crossed the wire. The drop in was a little scary but fun. We headed up the arroyo for quite a while avoiding as many mud sections as possible. After a while we stopped to check where we were, we popped out and we were just short of the trees. We got back in and headed up. By this time we had gotten used to the mud so instead of trying to avoid it, we would just stand up and give it some throttle. This was supposed to be a leisure ride to test my shoulder but DR and I started doing a little racing. We got to a mud hole that looked impassable and stopped at the mouth of a small arroyo to the right. We followed that arroyo out and it turns out that was the ditch that DR had wanted to go down in the first place. Oh well, It has been fun anyway. Back up the trails to the end of Southern, just before we got to the hill to climb out we met up with a couple of riders who were coming down with a couple of new Hondas. The third guy on an older Yamaha was wearing jeans, t-shirt, goggles, no helmet, and looked like he was holding on for dear life. That was good for a chuckle and them we made it back towards Rio Rancho where DR and I did a little more racing in the small arroyos. I managed to miss a couple of berms where I washed out my front end and was very careful not to use my left arm to brace myself during the fall. The whole ride took about 4 and a half hours. I had forgotten to take my phone so I had 12 missed call all from my wife who of course worried because we had been gone so long and did not call. Sorry dear, but it was fun. Keith
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6/8/04 Since I had to work on Friday night and did not get out to the race until Saturday I took and extra day off to get and extra camping day in with the kids. You were there, you know, I didn't want to stay at the pits where it was hot, dry and full of bushes. Normally I put a cable lock around all the bikes on the trailer because I can not see it behind the fifth wheel. Since we were only going a few miles down the road I only locked the front wheel of my bike in the bike shoe. After searching closer to the mountains I found more of the same dry bushy area. I decided to go back to Cuba to and go to the forest on the north side of town. I had to make a U turn in the bushes to get back out, this knocked the fender on the trailer loose. My wife came out in her suburban because I left directly from work on Saturday. As she was following me to Cuba I noticed she disappeared. I stopped to wait for her, when she arrived she had my flattened fender in the back of her truck. It had fallen off and got smashed as it was leaving. Why she saved a flat fender that goes over a round tire I don't know but thank you anyway honey! We got to Mc Donald's to grab I bite to eat. I asked the Manager who must have been all of 15 if there was any campgrounds close by. He said there was some nice ones about 15 miles up the road. I asked if the road was steep as I was towing the two trailers. He said no and gave me the directions. What he did not tell me was that they were doing construction up there and the camp grounds were closed. As for the steep part. We climbed about 4000 feet in 10 miles, Yes it got steep! and no there were not any open camp grounds there. About 20 miles in I saw a couple of guys towing popup trailers and asked them if there were campgrounds ahead and he said "sure, plenty of them" On we went. At the top of the next hill I saw some guys from the forest service and my wife had disappeared again so I decided to stop and ask them where Fenton lake was. They said "About 4 miles", My wife comes driving up and tells me that my bike had fallen off the trailer at the bottom of the hill and her cousin was waiting at the bottom with my bike. I hurried back down in her truck to check on my bike. The only damage was a burn mark on the number plate where it fell on the fenderless tire. I rode her back up to the top of her hill and put her back on the trailer. After four miles to the lake we found no lake. We did find somebody who said the lake was another four or five miles down. When we finally made it there the camp ground was full so another 4 miles back up the road I found a spot to stay for the night. The next day when we left all went OK except when we got home my wife tells me her A/C quit and she is leaving to Phoenix in 3 days. How was your ride home? Keith
Living in Edgewood you learn to live with the wind, The mud you never get used to. While trying to get going to Carlsbad for the last race of the 2003 season we got some wet weather the week leading up to the race. Well, this of course, leads to plenty of mud. The trick is to do the traversing early in the morning while the mud is frozen. Well, unfortunately on Thursday night the clouds came in and did not leave. What does this mean? The ground did not freeze completely. I decided to load up anyway thinking the ground was hard enough. Loading up includes putting the bike across the rails of my truck before putting the fifth wheel hitch in, then loading the trailer. After getting the wing attached to the top of the truck, loading and securing the bike, and putting the hitch in the truck I backed the truck under the trailer. When I lowered the trailer, it pushed the truck down in the mud. The truck moved about four inches forward and stopped. Damn, I guess we are not camping this time. New plan, Unhook the trailer, get the enclosed trailer out, Take my wife's suburban so we don't have to stuff all four kids in my extended cab truck. So I put the legs down on the trailer, push the switch to extend the legs. Instead of the trailer lifting off the truck the legs go down in the mud. So not only can I not get my trailer out but I can't even get my truck out from under the trailer to get my bike out. After about half an hour I managed to get the trailer unhooked and the truck out of the mud. I got the enclosed trailer out of the mud and ready to go. I then made a trip to NAPA to get the required parts to hook that trailer to my wife's suburban. I had never towed it with her truck so it needed an electrical adapter. I got home and made the required adapter to hook up the trailer, then took it for a test tow. When I got home I found the adapter that I made was too long letting the connection drag on the ground and break the connector. Back to NAPA I go. Now with a new connector in hand the trailer was hooked up and ready to go. We loaded up the two little kids, went to the school to get the boys. While my wife went inside to get the boys I took a look under the hood to find antifreeze sprayed all over the engine compartment. Water pump went bad. Back to the house we go. OK we will put all the kids in the truck and go. As I pulled the new electrical connection out to disconnect it from the suburban, the plastic piece stayed in place and I now have a handful of bare wires in my hand. So having rewired the trailer connector for a second time and moving all of the stuff from the suburban into the truck we're off. This ballet of vehicle and supply swapping is happening on a 12ft wide strip of dry driveway. All of this fun only to go down and spend $60 to get my butt kicked. Have a nice day, Keith
