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California Desert Trip III - 2000
| Part One: The Trip Out |
| Part Two: Lucerne Valley |
| Part Three: A Day of Rest |
| Part Four: Red Mountain |
| Part Five: The Race |
| Part Six: Epilogue |
The day had finally come. Departure Day for the third annual trek to the California desert for the District 37 Jackrabbits MC Hare & Hound. Year One found me toting a three-rail bike trailer behind my Nissan pickup, and driving out by myself, to be joined in California by Cindy and Rob. Year Two was a bit more high-tone, as I drove out with Cindy, sharing driving duties in Rob's Ford Explorer and pulling a large flatbed trailer. Rob, being the factory rider he is, arrived mid-week via plane. This year was to be different. This year Rob and I shared driving duties, and we had Rob's brand new trailer/bike hauler, complete with shower, microwave, the works. We even brought along a TV and VCR for nightly entertainment. Yeah, you could say we were gonna be roughin' it. And the best part of all was...we had our new helmet-cam to document the week's riding at Lucerne Valley and Red Mountain.
Thursday, 8 A.M., Arlington, TX
We departed right on schedule, pulling away from my home in Arlington, TX at 8 A.M. sharp. The drive out isn't a barrel of monkeys, but at least it's better than the drive home in that you have riding to look forward to.
Thursday: Pecos, TX
Setback Number One. While stopped at Wal-Mart in search of Coleman lantern fluid (the stock of which had been depleted in what seemed the entire Southwest due to Y2K mania), we noticed that the trailer's electrical hookup had a bit too much slack in it and had been dragging the pavement since, oh, roughly...Arlington!! Following a unscheduled purchase of some electrical connectors, a little wire cutting and lots of electrical tape, we were back en route after a 45-minute delay.
Friday: Yucca Valley, CA
Hmmm...perhaps this shortcut up Highway 62 to Highway 247, which would drop us right into Lucerne Valley, wasn't such a great idea after all. My plan was to avoid the steep grade up Cajon Pass on Interstate 15, while at the same time cutting a little driving time. Bad idea. Having never driven up Highway 62 out of Palm Springs into Yucca Valley, I was unaware that the grades were even steeper there. Then we pull into KFC for dinner and they're out of chicken strips. Then we turn left onto Highway 247 and suddenly it is no longer up a grade. It's straight up a damn mountain! No problem, we're less than an hour from Lucerne Valley and I shan't let this bother me.
Saturday morning: Lucerne Valley, CA
Following the arrival of Mr. Big, Husqvarna off-road team manager (giggle, snicker) Matt Burroughs (yes, relation), we were led to our weekend campsite and proceeded to unload everything, ready for a week's worth of desert riding/racing (well, not all in one day, but you get the idea). Which leads me to our first major setback of the trip. I was so anxious to get that helmet-cam slapped on Rob and dispel some myths about riding in the California desert that I nearly peed my pants. All right, camcorder in fanny pack, batteries mounted and wired, cam on helmet...OK, let me check our viewing perspective...what the?...nothing. Hmmm. Camcorder set to input - check. Camcorder on VCR setting - check. All wires properly connected - check. Damn, I must've drained the cam battery doing all that trial-running at home. No sweat, I'll just hook up the battery to the charger and we'll be cam-ready in no time. Uhhh, hmmmmm. The charger seems to claim that the battery is completely charged. All right Rob, unhook everything and lets check it again. Everything connected properly (no guys, I'm not a dummy, this stuff did work at home). We got nothin'. Dammit!!! All right, the hell with it, let's just pack up the whole damn thing and go back home.
Saturday: Lucerne Valley, CA
I don't even feel like riding now. OK, well maybe. We take off and The Thrill returns. Weaving through bushes at high speed for miles at a time, slamming whoops, ripping through small chop, cresting small rises and gassing it, blasting up a sandwash, making the bike scream and the suspension shine. This is why we drove 1400 miles. But still, no helmet-cam to document it. Minor setback: a leaking fork seal. Not a problem, however, with super-mechanic Rob along, the seal is no longer leaking in very short order. Did I mention the part about the helmet-cam not working? Oh yeah, I did. Sorry.
Sunday: Lucerne Valley, CA
The wind continues to howl unmercifully, as it has since we arrived Friday evening. I begin to suspect we'll be blown clean out of the desert by nightfall.
More minor setbacks. I got a rear flat (tire, that is) and Rob's mysterious disappearing air-boot-carb-clamp-screw (got a better suggestion what to call it?) had once again vanished like a fart in the wind. After a panicked inspection revealed that no dirt had entered his motor, we were back on the trail.
The riding, as usual, was incredible, more fun than the law allows. We rode all over the 157,000-acre riding area, up hills, down hills, sandwashes, open valleys, rolling terrain, rocks, bushes, the widest variety of riding anywhere. Along the way I picked up some seriously sore muscles and a particularly nasty case of monkey butt.
Monday: Lucerne Valley, CA
Monday morning dawned bright and clear and...not windy! While walking around searching for a good spot to do my morning business, I came across a ribboned trail, so when we got all geared up, we commenced following that marked trail. Turns out we had stumbled upon the course for the National Hare & Hound to be held later this month. Talk about nasty. Just brutally rugged terrain. Then we hit the difficult part of the course. We climbed up rock-strewn goat trails to the top of a mountain, and of course you know what comes next. A truly butt-puckering downhill. Large rocks everywhere, a one-foot-wide winding trail down a mountain. Not a get-off-the-bike-and-bulldog-it-down downhill, but the next closest thing. Dammit why isn't that helmet cam working?!?!? The course proceeded to cascade down into a valley, then headed toward the Bessemer Mine Road area, where it wound through large boulders, and dropped us into a looooonnnngg high-speed valley, with slaloming fifth- and sixth-gear chop for several miles.
We decided to pack up and head for our one-day rest in town, and headed for Ontario.
Today's mission was to figure out what the @$%*&! was wrong with the helmet cam and try to salvage some filming time. After visiting Montclair Yamaha and procuring the necessary parts to rebuild my leaking forks, we set out for an electronics store in the hopes that they could diagnose the camera problem. The guy slapped our battery on a tester and pronounced it nearly dead. Woo hoo! It's not the cam! We then had lunch with my mom and after stuffing our guts, set about finding an electronics supply store for a new charger. The first one we tried was the jackpot. Not only did they have a charger, but they had a second battery for us and even did the necessary soldering free! Thank goodness for nerds! A quick check with the new battery, and voila! A working helmet cam! Now we were ready to ride.
We arrived at the Spangler Hills OHV area at about noon anxious to ride and especially videotape. We unloaded, slapped the cam on Rob and took off. We found some great sections to ride through, rolling terrain for miles, hopping off rises and gassing it toward the next. However, when we returned to the trailer to "review the tape", we were rather unpleasantly surprised. The tape was extremely grainy and very blurry, pretty much unwatchable. Turns out that while in panic mode at Lucerne desperately trying to figure out what was wrong with the camera, we had unwittingly messed with the focus adjustment and completely screwed it up. A quick adjustment fixed it up. However, there wasn't enough daylight left for any more riding on this day.
Thursday: Red Mountain, CA
We threw our gear on as soon as we were sure we wouldn't freeze up solid (damn it was cold in the mornings), I donned the helmet cam and took off on a short warm-up ride. I came back and checked the tape. SUCCESS!! We took off together and eventually found the 2nd loop of the race course (video clip) near the Spangler Hills. We had planned on riding this part of the course, as last year it proved to be the most difficult part of the course, with two massive sandy uphills. To our surprise (and delight) we didn't have to traverse the huge uphills this year, as we turned left out of a wash at the west end of the hills, went up a short sandy hill, then traversed the entire length of the hills along the ridge. The drawback was that this meant we would have to tackle roughly 3-4 miles of four-foot whoops that ran along the rolling ridge atop the hills. After heading back for camp at a road crossing, we again checked the tape. Woo hoo! Looked great (video clip). We slapped the other batteries on the setup and set out on the second half of the second loop. This was the difficult stuff. After a couple miles up a wide, fast sandwash, we headed into the hills. Nasty, rocky, one-lined goat trails up and down the sides of the hills. Then, more whoops. Big-uns. Boy, will this be a treat on Sunday after having ridden 70 miles. Unfortunately, we discovered that our second camcorder battery didn't work properly. Crapola.
Friday: Red Mountain, CA
Friday was a winding-down day. We were just trying to avoid breaking ourselves or the bikes while getting a little practice in. Mission accomplished. The afternoon was spent in Ridgecrest scouring for another camcorder battery. After a couple of failed attempts, Wal-Mart came through in the clutch. WE ARE NOW READY!
Saturday: Red Mountain, CA
Today was spent watching everyone roll into the camping area, including the entire roster of Team Husqvarna Off-Road invading our camping area, led by Team Manager Matt Burroughs (chuckle). A couple of tire changes and top-end jobs later, some motor break-in, and we were pronounced ready to race. However, there was still the pre-race Saturday night campfire scene to tackle. We watched with growing concern while our new neighbors proceeded to build and ignite The Towering Inferno perilously close to Rob's truck and trailer. We moved the truck twice, considering that flying embers were getting nervously close to...a 55-gallon drum of racing fuel! We finally got the truck moved to safety. Then I proceeded to wow everyone with my $20 Spencer's Gifts purchase, The Fart Machine, a remote control gizmo that makes...well, fart noises. It proved such a hit that someone HAD to have it and purchased it from me.
Sunday: Red Mountain, CA THE RACE
I arose early, ready to mummify myself against the cold to practice the bomb run. I tried the middle of the up-grade bomb run, but it proved fairly whooped-out, not exactly what I was looking for. I then tried the far right of the starting line. Bingo. I found a trail with just some minor chop, perfect for getting out front out of the dust. After practicing the area a couple times, I headed back to camp for some final pre-race preparations: breakfast, fender card application, clean filter installation, and hand-taping. And of course, the most important thing: instructions to my pit crew on how to go about changing out the batteries on the helmet cam when I pulled into the pits at the end of the first loop, so that Rob could don the cam for the second loop. My crack pit crew consisted of my dad and his buddies Pete and Terry, who had kindly come out to view what was sure to be a stellar day of racing. It was great to see them again after so many years.
At about nine-forty, I strapped everything on and headed for the line. My spot wasn't taken! I was ready to roll, with visions of ripping past the smoke bomb clear of dust running through my brain. Surely Rob and I would whip the rest of the Novice class, considering we'd been practicing all week! Of course! Around 10:20 or so, the banner went up, and the fun was about to commence. A minute later, it dropped, I kicked, the bike fired, and I, along with over 100 other Novice class riders, made a beeline for the smoke bomb, about a mile away where the marked course began. Right off the start, two guys jumped in front of me from the right, but I immediately got past one of them and set off after the other. Shortly after nearly getting T-boned, he veered to the right, off the trail we'd been following, and left me with...NOBODY AND NO DUST IN FRONT OF ME!!! YES!! At this point I concentrated on two things: going as fast as I could, and not crashing and breaking the camcorder stuffed in my fanny pack. Wait 'til my buddies see THIS helmet-cam footage!
Anyway, back to
reality. About fifty yards to my left, I could see a bike just
ahead of me, and knew he would hit the marked course first. I
tucked in behind him, and tried to remain upright while staying out of
his dust as much as possible. The course took a left into a
sandwash, then traversed some rolling and rocky terrain, before clearing
a hill, dropping into another sandwash (this one WIDE and very
high-speed), 
and heading for the northern-most part of the course.
A hard left after exiting the wash, and I had arrived at Check One, at the first
crossing of Trona Road. I slowed to get my fender card marked,
crossed the highway, and nailed the throttle, where the course became
several miles of winding, high-speed, choppy desert. A couple
miles past Check One, what was to become my eventual undoing presented
itself: the bike would hardly shift. I glanced down several times to see if maybe I had bent the shift lever on a rock, but it looked
fine. Turd. I'll press on, maybe there's just something
stuck down there that I can't see. I'm sure as hell not going to
stop and let everyone by. The bike was running great, but the
shifting problem got worse, as the bike simply refused to shift under
any kind of load. Each shift took five or six attempts. It
slowed me down a little, but I was able to hold my spot, and even
managed to reel in and pass a couple of Intermediate class riders.
I approached Check Two, approximately 20 miles into the race, and tried
to downshift in order to get my fender card marked. No dice.
Hmmm, well, let's just burn the hell out of the clutch taking off, shall
we? I had
no choice. After clearing Check Two and getting back up to speed,
disaster struck. About a quarter-mile after crossing Searles
Station Road at Check Two, with the engine screaming, my day
ended. Weeeeee, waaaaaaa, ..........wwwwwwwwwwwooooooooooohhhh.
Nothing. Dead motor. Seized. Tight. Done.
After sitting there about an hour reflecting on my plight, watching the entire Novice and Beginner classes go by, and loaning my rear axle nut and chain-adjuster block to a limping Kawasaki rider ("I'm not gonna be needing it today"), I started pushing back to the check. They were suitably sympathetic, informed me that I was the first overall Novice through the Check ("Thank you for that lovely helping of salt in my gaping wound"), and very kindly offered me a ride back to the pits. I guess it could've been worse, I could've crashed and broken the camcorder, or oh yeah, me.
Rob? Well, he zipped on by about five minutes after my version of Mr. Yamaha decided to take the rest of the day off, was oblivious to my waving in order to offer a quick helmet-cam rig switch, and had a problem free ride, completing an excellent race sixth in class. At least one of us did well, but I feel badly that he didn't get to don the cam for the second loop and feel the sensation of "I can't crash, I can't crash, or I'll bust that camcorder strapped above my butt". Oh well, in due time, in due time.
Despite all the nagging problems and eventual race-day failure, the trip was again a definite success. To me, there is no greater thrill than riding a motorcycle in the California desert. The terrain is so varied, and it's such an exciting, free, adventurous feeling. I've never experienced anything like it, and I urge anyone who enjoys riding a motorcycle off-road to do so before they retire from riding; it's unparalleled.
Epilogue:
I finally split the cases on Saturday, January 22, and found total
disaster. The reason the bike wouldn't shift and eventually locked up was
that...the clutch basket had virtually disintegrated!! Approximately
one-fourth of the basket broke off, including two of the basket arms.
There were three large chunks stuck in various places, and lots of
sawdust-looking metal shavings everywhere, just piles of it. I'm amazed
the bike ran as long as it did. I'll be replacing all of the bearings in
the cases, as well as the crank and possibly a gear or two. Yikes...
