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Category: High SidesThe news items published under this category are as follows.
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Well, it's been a while since I've done much writing, or riding for that matter. The last couple of years have been interesting (well not so much) and challenging. For the most part I gave up riding. Dirt biking on the weekends and sitting at a computer all week had my wrists hurting so bad that after about 15 minutes of riding I couldn't even hold on to the bars. My doc told me to give up riding for a while to see what happens. This combined with continued arrhythmia problems resulted in me sitting around getting fat, lazy, and horribly out of shape. With that there were more arrhythmia problems, mildly high blood pressure, a few "unexplainable" ailments and all the discomforts of being fat. Now, I suspect that the riding was the only thing keeping this old bag of bones alive.
Well, the kids started hounding me to take them riding. Yes, I can't believe it but my six-year-old daughter has taken over the PW50 and loves to ride. My son stepped up into a TTR-90 and has just started shifting gears.
So with pressure from the kids and significant changes to my "day job," this January I chose to make several other changes in my life. The good news is that since around mid-January I've already lost 19 pounds and 2+ inches of my waist. It probably would be more like 20+ pounds, but a weeklong business trip and some vacation time ate into my workout schedule and briefly interfered with my diet. I hit the gym 3 times a week for 30 minutes of weights and 45 minutes of cardio workout. I do stomach crunches 7 days a week and I am also playing racquetball once a week. I modified my diet to get it down to between 1000-2000 calories a day and significantly reduced my fat intake. Yeah, this is the diet I was supposed to be on for years because of the liver and kidney problems, but I've ignored it the last few years. I feel healthier than I have in a very long time, but the most significant thing related to all this is that I can now squeeze back into my old Fox riding pants. But that however was just the first step in getting back on the trail.
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January, 1998
"High Sides" by Ev'Mon
I'd always been terrified of motorcycles (my parent's fault I'm sure). My first experience on a motorcycle was in seventh grade when a buddy and I took a joy ride on his dad's bike. I don't remember what it was, I think it was a Kawasaki 550 (something like that). Anyway we were going through downtown Milwaukie (that's in Oregon), when a cop started to pull us over. We took off, and after a VERY SHORT chase, we low-sided in some gravel. No major injuries, but a major grounding. After that I didn't go near a bike for a couple of years. In high school I was down on bucks and desperately needed a ride. A friend suggested a dual-purpose bike. I thought NO WAY. Well, she talked me into trying hers. It was a little Yamaha and after riding it around in the dirt for half a day, I was hooked. I immediately went to the local dealer. At this point I was living in a small town called Bend, and I think we only had one dealer. I perused the selection of used bikes and found the perfect one (the only one I could afford), a '70 Suzuki TS 250. This was a 300 lb., no suspension, 2-stroke with a top speed of 45 mph on a downhill – quite a deal for only $250. It had a separate oil tank so I didn't need to deal with pre-mix, "COOL."
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Well where to begin? As I mentioned on the cover page of this month’s issue I'm going solo for a while. I’ll try to guilt the rest of the guys into contributing, but it hasn’t worked so far. Despite the fact that there have been minimal updates we
still get 50,000-60,000 readers a month. Wow, that blows me away –
Thanks! Also, I regularly get a lot of really great e-mail, unfortunately
I can’t respond to all of it (I get as many as 300 a day). So anyway, to
get you up to speed with what we’ve been up to, I’ll start with Bryce.
I think I mentioned, in a previous issue, that he got married. We’ll he
is now a proud father of a 1-year-old son. He is also back in school
working on his masters degree. . .
Brad finally got his masters degree
and went on to get his pilot’s license. I believe he’s currently
working on getting his instruments rating (or something like that). He’s
busy with work, his wife, and raising his two daughters.
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Since we last spoke, I’ve been really trying to get into good shape. My routine includes a 6-11 mile bike ride daily. It also includes 45 minutes with weights and 45 minutes on a cardio machine (or my mountain bike) on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. On top of that, I ride my mountain bike as much as I can. Unfortunately, that seems to be a big part of the problem.
 | | 2000 Kona NUNU |
You see, I really I haven’t been much into bicycles since high school. After getting a little bored with the usual cardio workout, I decided to give mountain biking a try. I had an old, cheap, heavy department store bike that convinced me that pedaling was hell. After checking out some of the newer bikes, I ended up getting a nice new Kona hardtail. I had no idea how much fun a bicycle could be.
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Well, I sit here stumped. Mulling over several ideas to title this month’s High Sides, I have no idea. Yeah, I know what I want to write about. However, I don’t yet know what my point is.
I had been planning on riding the Jackhammer Enduro last year. I spent a few months seriously preparing for this. So seriously that I hired a personal trainer and started working out. I modified my diet to lean more towards the healthier side, all things being relative, including reducing my beer consumption. To my wife’s dismay I actually had ridden nearly every weekend for about two months. When it looked like George wasn’t going to make it I talked Brad into going with me.
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I've never been one to buy into New Year's resolutions or setting personal goals. Most of my life has been, basically, career driven. I also figured that if I were successful in my professional life, the personal stuff would fall into to place. Don't get me wrong -- my personal life is important, after all I'm writing this on a plane to Las Vegas while the rest of the All-OffRoad crew are already there hanging on to their XRs as they fly through the 106 degree heat in the Las Vegas desert. Why? Because I chose my daughter's first birthday party instead of attending an epic send-off ride for Bryce (you see this Las Vegas trip is his bachelor party; he's the last to get hitched and this is probably the last of a series of unbelievable bachelor parties). Anyway, the point I'm headed towards is that I've always had an idea of what I wanted out of my personal life but never really worked for it -- it just fell into place. All in all, this isn't as bad as it may sound to some. However, all that's changed.
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Working at a competitive high-paced software company in the Silicon Valley, being a husband and a father of an almost four-year-old and a 9-month-old, and taking care of All-OffRoad in the evenings (assuming the kids get to sleep early enough) takes up most of my time. The rest of my time is used up playing guitar, taking pictures, riding motorcycles, and any other hobbies that I can think of. This means that I don't have time for everything -- certain things must go. So far, in my case, it has been health. I have asthma, a bleeding ulcer, had a minor heart attack, and more kidney stones that I can count using my fingers and toes. I’m overweight, out of shape, and generally lazy. I avoid going to the doctor at almost any cost. Even when I go to the doctor I’m not at all convinced it’s worth while, except for the pain killers.
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 | | Me, before I started to suck . . . |
OK, as a dirt rider I suck. Well maybe "suck" is too strong of word. After all, I’m usually pretty hard on myself. Lame may be more appropriate. I’m certainly not fast. OK, so how’s "technically competent but slow" sound? Pretty pathetic, huh?
Over the past several years, due to having kids, buying a house, and increased responsibilities at work, my seat time has diminished considerably. In 1998, aside from a couple of half-day rides at a local county park, I went riding twice. The first was a ride in Rasor Valley and the second was to Ocotillo Wells. By the time I had gotten to this point of only riding twice a year I was very frustrated. As much as I hate to say it, I wasn’t having fun. I had gotten fat and out of shape. A three-day trip was thoroughly exhausting. This combined with problems with my RMX had me about ready to give it up altogether. On our 1997 annual Rubicon ride I rode for about an hour the first day. During that time my RMX wouldn’t idle at all (a long-standing problem that’s finally been fixed). I spent the rest of the long weekend sitting at camp, drinking beer, eating chips and either reading or playing solitaire. It was actually a nice vacation but I was very bitter about not being able to ride.
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 | | The Early Years |
Having a one-hour commute gives me a lot of time to reflect. Tonight, on my way home from work I had an epiphany. When I was a young child my father worked in a service station. This was when a service station was just that. There was no AM/PM, Taco Bell, Carl's Jr, or Baskin-Robbins attached. It was a sheet metal building with a glass front and a garage, used for repairing cars. There was no little booth with bulletproof glass. There wasn't some idiot sitting in said booth that didn't know the difference between the hood and the trunk of a car, not even capable of changing a cash register tape, and afraid for his life to leave. There wasn't pay-at-the-pump. This was when you pulled up and a guy, or two, came out and pumped your gas, checked your oil, checked your tires, and washed your windows. I spent many days sitting in the office with a coloring book and watching the goings on. This was the greatest.
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I'd like to take a moment to talk about friends. I don't have many; I'm rather antisocial. The ones I do have are the types of guys that I'd bet my life on. It's not that I think that anyone of them would take my place in a Mexican prison. It's more like I'd bet my life that I could predict how they'd react to most situations with a 95% success rate. My closest friends (other than my wife) are my riding buddies. Brad, Bryce and I all used to work together, Bryce and Brad still do. We worked closely with each other for about 10 years before I took a job elsewhere. As a result, we spent more time with each other than we did with our significant others. For a while we spent 8 to 14 hours a day during the week with each other plus about every other weekend camping and riding. Paul is married to my wife's cousin and as a result we find ourselves spending a lot of time together also.
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Ok, I’m the first (right after my wife) to admit that I’m a hardware junky. I have a cell phone, a pager, a PDA, a GPS, a laptop, two UNIX workstations, 5 PCs, a scanner, color printer, ISDN, gigabytes of disk space, and hundreds of megabytes of RAM. It doesn’t stop there, there’s big TVs and Surround Sound™. Moving to the garage, we have power tools galore. A table saw, band saw, power miter saw, jig saw, and just about every power tool you can imagine. There’s the three-piece Craftsman rollaway full of nearly every tool imaginable. There’s an air compressor with a full assortment of accompanying pneumatic tools. I have three motorcycles, none of them stock. The modifications I make to everything I own are strictly limited only by lack of funds (and the lack of my wife’s permission).
However, I sit here reading some of the latest "print" dirt bike magazines and I can only wonder "why?" What am I babbling about? It’s all of the new aluminum, titanium, & unobtainium dirt bikes. Ya know, I really don’t want a "works" bike. You must be thinking "what kind of idiot is this guy?" Well to begin with, I can’t spend $6000-$10,000 (or more) on a new bike. Why? Because I couldn’t afford to modify it. Why would I take a brand new, high-tech machine that’s far better than I could ever push to its limits? Because "I have to!" It’s a genetic defect that I must live with.
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Well I haven't had much of a chance to go riding lately. With the birth of the baby and moving, I haven't had a whole lot of time for other stuff. I'm sure if I were single I'd have other priorities, but after over eleven years of marriage and now two kids, I've learned which battles are worth fighting and which ones are not. The ones you can't win are not worth it. I choose to save my energy for the ones I have a chance of winning. Let's face it, two months of down time, looking at the big picture, is a small price to pay for a little peace and a few hot meals...
When you have a three-year-old, pre-ride inspections become more important than ever before. When I’m out in the garage, doing anything at all, Eric MUST join me. His one and only task is to work on any of my bikes. If I leave an 11mm wrench on the floor, he’ll find the only 11mm bolt on my Suzuki and attempt to remove it. He loves to use hollow axle bolts as screwdriver storage cubbies. For the longest time Paul had an unusual rattle in the exhaust of his CB500. He discovered three 16-penny nails in his exhaust pipe. We know that this was Eric’s doing because we saw using the nails to fix Paul’s bike. Yes, we should’ve known…
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This is a really hard thing to write about. I’ve always taken great pride in the fact that I’ve lived a life complete with no regrets. Recently, current reflection has proven that I’ve been living a lie. I DO have regrets and I can’t put into words how nearly devastating this is. Even worse is the fact that all of my regrets involve dirt biking! How can this be? Well, continued reflection has proven that (on rare occasions) I’m not all that bright. I realize that this comes as no surprise to the All-OffRoad crew -- in fact we laugh, on a regular basis, about the secrets I’m about to share.
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In my ’97 Baja report on All-OffRoad I make brief mention of a sixty some-odd year old superman. In the April issue of Dirt Rider, they also make mention of one of these older supermen. Over the years I’ve heard several other similar stories as well. So I decided to share some more details of my latest experience.
We hooked up with Richard totally by happenstance. Bryce and Brad had met Howard at Mike’s Sky Ranch the year before. Howard suggested that they call him next time we’d be in Baja. He offered to show us around some of the areas we hadn’t been to. As it turned out, Howard couldn’t get time off. He gave us Richard’s number, suggesting that he’d be available.
Sure enough, he was, and he was more than willing to show us around. We arranged to meet for breakfast at Rancho Santa Veronica (this was where we stayed the first night). When he showed up we heaved a sigh of disappointment. He was friendly, but looked a little grizzled. We figured that we’d spend the whole trip waiting for him, WRONG!
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I get an e-mail from Brad asking when we’re going riding. I end up replying with several dates. Finally we decide on one. Brad starts talking to Bryce and the date changes. Meanwhile, I talk to Paul and we change the date. I finally talk to Bryce and we determine that we’re planning on two different dates; of course no one knows how we got into this position. After a barrage of e-mails we finally end up on "the same page." Once we’re settled on a date, Brad invites someone else and the process starts all over.
After picking the date, we need to figure out where we’re going. Brad wants someplace with "killer" hill climbs and single track trails with 5000– to 10,000–foot free–falls off to the side (ever been on a trail so narrow that there’s no dirt to dab on either side and a 2000–foot drop on both sides? I have with Brad, and he loved it). He also wants someplace that you can ride from sunup to sunset and not pass the same rock twice. Bryce usually wants open roads with 100+ mph cruising speeds, good scenery, and lots of opportunity to explore. I like variety and I hate hillclimbs. Actually I don’t mind the climb – it’s the coming back down that I despise. I hate big drop-offs, I’m terrified of heights, and I hate 100+ mph in the dirt. What do I like? I like tight, twisty, single track woods riding, not too steep of course. What do I love? High-speed deep twisty sand washes. Then there’s Paul. He couldn’t care less where we go as long as we shut up and get there. The whole decision process (or lack thereof) seems to annoy him. He pretty much says, "just call me when you guys decide!"
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So what would you say if all week you had to work late and couldn’t prepare for the long weekend ahead? You had been planning for months for one of the most looked-forward-to trips of the year. Your bike wasn’t ready and you discovered things growing in your gear bag because you were too damn lazy to empty it after the last ride – the last ride being one of those soggy mud baths that you were unprepared for and had to stop on the way to buy a "Hefty" brand enduro poncho. To top it off, you discover a bizarre milky substance in your CamelBak bladder.
So what would you say if you had been up till 4:00 am prepping the bike, washing the gear, and sterilizing the CamelBak? You spent all night and most of the early morning getting ready just so you’d be ready to leave immediately after work. Of course you passed out due to exhaustion, waking up an hour after you were supposed to be at work. You worked your backend off so you could leave on time. As usual, as you headed out the door, yet another crisis came up and you ended up leaving work an hour and a half late.
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It all started while we were planning our annual Baja trip. I had planned on riding my ’87 XL600. After having considerable electrical problems, I was a little concerned that I wouldn’t make it home. After all, I did get stranded in Monterey at Leguna Seca. Then I got stranded at work twice. I spent many nights troubleshooting these problems and buying expensive parts, all to no avail. At this point, I was really getting stressed. The XLs have a bad reputation for electrical problems. Of course most of them are well known and documented pretty well. But hey, I’m just a backyard mechanic (actually a computer geek) and this was way over my head. The XL was a good bike for its time but it was old and heavy. It just wasn’t fun off-road anymore. But what could I do? I already had three bikes, could I really talk my wife into a fourth? Probably not! It was time to plan. Let the whining begin. "Ok, so what if I sell the XL, could I use my year-end bonus to buy a late model used XR?" Her response "Let me think about it."
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