Before #1: Geezers on Beemers: (AKA: Steamboat Springs 1997)

 

All Rights Reserved © 1997 Thomas W. Day

[For the last many years, I’ve said Geezer #1 "What Are We Riding For? (The original, from whence The Geezer came from October 1999" was the first thing I ever wrote for Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly magazine. I wasn’t lying, I was just wrong. I have been working on a Wikipedia entry for the magazine and as part of that I researched as much as I could find about the magazine’s history. In the process, I read through a bunch of old MMMs, sorted my own collection by date, and discovered that in the Winter 1997 M.M.M. #14 issue there was an “On the Road” article. . . by me. This article, in fact. While I absolutely remember the trip, sort of, I absolutely did not remember even knowing about MMM before 1999. Turns out, that was wrong, too. In September 1998, I contributed “Look Ma, No Feet!” an article about the 1998 US Observed Trials event in Duluth. So, now the story I’ve been telling myself and everyone else about my history with MMM is bullshit and I do NOT know what the truth is.

The version that follows is what I submitted. Unlike lots of the stuff I wrote for MMM, this article was edited quite a bit, but I’m too lazy to pick out what was different in the magazine’s version.]

Every year, since I moved out of Colorado, my expedition to the Steamboat Springs Vintage Motorcycle Week gets a little tougher. Last year, I flew to Denver, borrowed a friend’s Honda Hawk, and nearly missed my flight home when my luggage fell off of the Hawk in the middle of traffic on I-70, spreading my belongings and plane ticket all over Colorado. This year, I decided to ride the whole 2,400 miles. Next year, I may try walking.

My bike is a ’92 Yamaha TDM, which is a weird cross between a crotch rocket and a dirt bike. It’s probably the closest thing Japan will ever come to importing a Paris-Dakar style bike to the US. Out of some weird allegiance to my dirt biking past, I put dual-purpose tires on the bike this past winter. Because of that strange heritage and hardware, I actually hoped to do some real cross-country touring this trip. Some people do not get wiser as they get older.

Because I had a few days of vacation to burn up, I left for Denver early Sunday morning, September 7^th. Steamboat’s Vintage Motorcycle Week was September 10 to the 14^th. The start of my planned route was diagonally across Minnesota, via highways 169 and 60, to Sioux City. Early in the day I passed the Mennonite settlement of Mountain Lake, MN, where there is a "phone museum" and other exciting attractions. I’d always thought of Mennonites as hardworking, honest types, but this place had to be their equivalent of a Florida swamp real estate scam. There is no no mountain and no lake, as far as I could see, anywhere near Mountain Lake. I have a new sort of respect for Mennonites.

I stopped in Heron Lake for my first fuel stop. I discovered, by drenching my bike and feet in gas, that the fuel shutoff was defective. With the helmet and ear plugs in place, I nearly dumped two gallons of gas on the ground before I noticed I was creating a Super Fund site. From here out, I did my trip documentation after filling the tank. It didn’t surprise the lady at the counter though. She said, "that side don’t register, this side does," when I told her about the screwed up pump. I kept an eye on the mirror, as I left town, half hoping for a mushroom cloud to compensate me for the wasted fuel.

Just south of Worthington, I tailed a yuppie in a Range Rover who showed no fear of Iowa’s CHP. He got me through that mind-numbing state in record time. I stopped at an interstate rest stop in Iowa where an old lady with a highway department uniform told me "I used to be in the bidnez worl’, that’s why I’m workin’ here." I thought she meant the business world ruined her life, but she was just working for the exercise. Go figure. Just south of Sioux City, I hooked up to highway 77 and to some even less regularly maintained roads.

I used to live in north eastern Nebraska and I mistakenly thought that gave me some ability to pick my way across the state. I ended up on a newly graveled road, about 10 miles north of North Bend, that was terminated by a large crane and a missing section of road. When I stopped to look at the construction damage, my wheels sunk past the rims. My next short cut took me though about 5 miles of really deep gravel and sand. By the time I escaped that desert riding experience, my front fender had a 3" hole pecked into the back side and my chain picked up about an inch of slack.

After relocating asphalt, I picked up 30 at North Bend and headed west. I failed the "will to live" test and stopped for a hamburger in Columbus, NE (Actually, I figured that ought to be the safest place in the US for a beef-eater, after that city’s most recent 15 minutes of fame.) Making up for lost time, I stuck with 30 to Grand Island and jumped to I-80. By the time I got to Gothenburg, NE; 630 miles from home, I was wiped out. I stayed in a truckers’ motel that night and set the alarm for a 5:00AM takeoff.

Poor road maintenance almost bit me in the butt this morning. I had a low rear tire and thought I’d developed an oil leak when I stopped in Julesburg, CO. The tire was low, but OK. I washed the engine and discovered the oil leak was just chain lube that was heating up and dripping off of the engine cases. I promised my self I would watch my oil level and temp gauge carefully for the rest of that leg of the trip, just in case. I managed to hold to that promise all the way to Denver, about 120 miles. Later in the trip, my failure to extend this pledge to the whole journey would haunt me.

By noon Monday, 372 miles later, I was in Denver. You can’t see the mountains until you are about 55 miles from the city. Mountain cloud cover suddenly becomes mountains and the air seems cooler and fresher. The last 50 miles into Denver seem to go quickly and the horizon’s view is terrific.

When I stopped, my butt hurt. My kidneys were falling out in chunks. My bike needed about 10 hours of serious maintenance. Being the high tech, serious maintenance guy I am, I lubed and re-tensioned the chain, put duct tape over the hole in the fender, washed the bike, checked for loose hardware, washed my laundry, and hung out in a bar until Wednesday morning.

Six of us left my friend’s home for Steamboat Wednesday at about 8:30AM. We were probably the weirdest collection of motorcycles on the highway that morning: a Yamaha TDM (mine), two Honda new Magnas, a ’78 Kawasaki Scepter, and an ’83 Yamaha Venture. After a few miles, we strung out across the highway in a several mile long "touring pattern."

We intended to get to Steamboat by noon so we could catch a little of the dirt track speedway racing in Hayden that afternoon. We’ve made that plan five years in a row. Like the other years, this year we didn’t get to Steamboat until 1:30PM, our trip schedule was sabotaged by several coffee, fuel, and meal beaks. Some of the group, including me, thought the lodge’s hot tub looked more interesting than another 100 miles on the bikes. Those who stayed watched the clouds cruise the mountain tops and drank beer. Those who left got to Hayden just as the last of the racers were leaving and got caught in a short rain storm on the way back. I try to make each of my millions of mistakes only once.

The next day, I went to town by myself because none of my group was all that hip on the trials event. This is the sport with which I ended my 15 year off-road competition career. In fact, the years defined as the end of "vintage" were state-of-the-art just before I quit trying to luck into a trophy. Every once in a while, Steamboat makes me reconsider my constant fear of knee injuries and I think about buying a Bultaco Sherpa T or a Yamaha TY and doing a little cherry-picking. Steamboat’s vintage traps are almost all easy enough that a good rider could zero out on a street bike.

This is also the day where the "geezers on Beemers" sub-title for Steamboat really becomes appropriate. There seem to be an incredible number of retired executives, military officers, and other non-working class types doing the vintage-bike gypsy tour. They live in 40’ luxury campers and tow bike-trailer/work-shops that make my garage look puny and unequipped. A few of them even have trophy wives in tow. Since most of these guys are pretty near my age and I don’t have any of that stuff, I try not to make too many comparisons or I’ll get discouraged.

I really get a kick out of seeing how many ancient bikes have been modified for trials. I didn’t even know BSA or Greeves made a 125 or that anyone was riding trials pre-WWII before my first trip to Steamboat. This is like a dirty, live-action museum with some dirty, active museum caretakers riding the exhibits. It rained a little about 10:00AM, just enough to send me back to the bike for my jacket. As soon as I had two arms full of stuff to carry, the weather got hot and I spent the rest of the morning sweating and grinding dirt into all of my body parts. I don’t know who won, probably some geezer with a collection of Beemers and a Yamaha TY in like-new condition.

Friday is vintage motocross day. Another of my favorite events. Again, I was up and out before the rest of the group. I spent the early morning walking through the pits, taking pictures, listening to experts talk about the history of various, long-dead motorcycle manufacturers. It’s still hard for me to reconcile Rickman, Bultaco, Ossa, Norton, BSA, and the rest of the deceased as being not only dead, but long dead. Seeing these bikes back in their prime, sometimes much better than prime, is a lot of retrospective fun.

Speaking of dead-ends, three other TDM’ers showed up for Steamboat. We belong to an Internet mail-list for our bike and some of us have been writing each other for a couple of years without ever putting faces to names. I recognized a couple of the guys by their bikes. Yamaha orphaned the TDM after importing it to the U.S. for two years (1992-93). Most of us have done a lot of little things to personalize our bikes and it was fun getting to see the mods I’d been reading about. Everyone got a good laugh of the state of my front fender and the general condition of my bike compared to those whose owners, intelligently, avoid dirt roads. We experienced our "fifteen minutes of fame" when another biker recognized us as "those guys who met on the Internet." We took pictures, talked for a couple hours, and headed in four directions for the rest of the weekend.

The actual races are almost anticlimactic. It’s always a kick watching Dick Mann win. He was a Baja hero of mine when I was a kid. He’s still heroic at sixty-something. Dave Lindeman, a Denver fireman, put on a good show in the Open Twin Expert class, dueling and beating Rick Doughty’s zillion dollar Rickman/BSA on a cobbled up Yamaha XL650.

But lots of the actual races are pretty boring. There are wads of timid, over-forty wannabes who barely turn their bikes on in the straights and come to a lethargic near-stop at every corner. The race to the first turn is often more humorous than exciting. Everyone is so concerned with avoiding contact and a crash-and-burn that they barely make it to the turn, let alone work for a decent position on the other side. In the bulk of the races, there is rarely more than two half-decent racers. The other two dozen geriatric cases are nothing more than track obstacles when the fast guys start lapping them. The upside, for me, is that I regularly get pumped about buying an Elsinore and stealing a trophy. The downside is after making a couple of deep knee squats, I remember why the majority of the riders are going so slow. Getting old is hell. The body can’t even remember how to do what the brain told it to do.

Fairly late in the afternoon, the races are over. We cruise the streets of Steamboat, looking at bikes we will never own. This really is a BMW convention. I doubt there is a bike BMW ever made that isn’t represented here. Seems like there are more Harleys this year, too. Maybe that’s why the local paper doesn’t have a single word about the events. In years past, I could read about what I’d seen the previous day in the local rag. Not this year. There must be several thousand bikers in town and the only mention of motorcycles was when a local biker got smacked by local cager. It’s not like this is a pack of Outlaws, tearing up the bars and defiling local women. A pair of women, climbing out of a Jeep Cherokee on their way to lunch, asked one of my buddies if we were a "biker gang." He told them, "Yeah, after our nap, we’re gonna take this town apart!" That’s about the speed of everyone at Steamboat. Sedate. Old. Mostly intent on finding a good restaurant and a decent hotel. I guess we still found a way to scare them.

I didn’t cruise much Friday night. We really did find a great place to stay and I headed back, well before dark, to sit in the hot tub and watch the clouds and the mountains flare and fade in a crimson tinted sundown lightshow. Beer, a good book, a hot tub, and tired, old aching joints really go well together. If a local female stripped herself and jumped into my hot tub, I might have defiled her but I’d have more likely been pissed that she got my book wet. I bought my beer at the Clark Store, so I didn’t even have a chance to think about trashing a bar. I’m a pretty poor excuse for a biker, I guess.

Saturday is vintage road racing and the first opportunity we have to look at the concourse. We buy pit passes, which are $20, and head for the pits. I’m not much of a connoisseur of street bikes. In fact, I never paid any attention to street bikes at all until I’d been riding and racing for almost 15 years. I still don’t really know one cruiser or crotch-rocket from another. I don’t much care about cars either. But there are some really neat, loud noises coming from the pits and one of my friends has a great time describing all the bikes to me. I lecture on the dirt bike days, he does the street day.

About two hours into Saturday, I got bored. This is a terrible thing for a "reporter" to admit, but I’d have rather been riding than watching. When I fell asleep and lost track of where the rest of my group had gone, I decided it was time for me to hit the road. I’d planned on leaving that day, anyway, and it seemed like the time to do it. I wandered around the course for another hour, trying to find everyone, with no luck. I stuck a note on a friend’s seat and started getting ready for the long ride back to Minnesota.

Sunday is the modern road race. I have been going to Steamboat for 6 years and I’ve never stayed for the modern road race. My justification for leaving early is that I can watch modern crotch rocketing any weekend during the summer and I never do. Why blow a good day of riding watching someone else have a good day of riding? Like all the years past, I left on Saturday and missed the really fast guys. They’d just discourage me, anyway.

The real reason I wanted to leave early was that I wanted the extra riding time so I could go back the long way, through Wyoming and South Dakota. I retraced my trip into Steamboat back over Rabbit Ears Pass. About 30 miles east of Steamboat, I turned north on Colorado 14. This is one of the prettiest roads I’ve traveled in Colorado. It’s a neat combination of mountain plains and ranch land. The road isn’t particularly twisty, but it does curve its way through a beautiful section of the Rockies. The road is well maintained and completely unoccupied by cage or cop. I made good time to Walden, where I picked up 127 and continued north to Laramie, WY.

The scenery doesn’t stop when you leave Colorado. Good roads and great views all the way to Laramie, where I copped out and took the freeway (I80). After 300 miles of awesome two lanes, I80 was a complete bummer. But I stuck to it to Cheyenne, where I swapped freeways and took I25 north to Wheatland. I spent the night in Wheatland, at another truck stop. Leaving Steamboat early allowed me to knock off 250 unproductive (destination-wise) miles before I seriously head for home.

The actual route I took from Wheatland to Deadwood is up for discussion. I know I stayed on I25 for a few more miles to Wyoming 160. I know I swapped off of 160 to 270, because I had breakfast in Lusk, WY. I’m not sure I stuck with 270 all the way to Lusk, though. A good portion of that trip was on dirt roads. I mostly used the sun as a compass and tried to keep going north at every intersection. I popped out of the last section of dirt road on highway 85, just a few miles south of Lusk. I had been on reserve for about 30 miles when I filled up in Lusk. I’d like to tell you 270 to Lusk is a terrific road, well worth traveling, because it is. I’d like to tell you that I strongly recommend this route for the scenery and adventure, because I really enjoyed that aspect of the trip. The fact is, this is a route that requires a great suspension. The road (the real road, not the dirt road) is heavily traveled by farm equipment and is pretty rough. The TDM ate it up, but a crotch rocket or cruiser would deliver a severe pounding. You decide.

Leaving Lusk, I forgot to reinsert my ear plugs. Good thing. I heard several nasty noises and pulled over for a maintenance stop. You’ll probably notice that I haven’t mentioned maintenance since just before I pulled into Denver. I hadn’t done much since then. Another brain fart. The older you get, the more of them you’ll have. I discovered the front fender had a new hole, this one on the front, from poor tire-to-fender clearance and flung gravel. I pealed away pieces that were touching the tire and "fixed" that problem. I also discovered my chain was really wearing out fast, probably due to the off-road portions of the trip. It was actually hanging up at spots as they passed over the countershaft sprocket. I bought a can of WD40 and thoroughly cleaned the chain. I lubricated the chain and made some more promises to myself regarding maintenance.

The next section of the trip was sort of frightening, considering the condition of my bike. There is next to nothing between Lusk and Deadwood, 140 miles of nothing. There are some towns listed on the map, but they are barely bumps in the road. Some of them aren’t even that. But I took this route because I was bored with the trip across Nebraska and Iowa, so I figured it was worth continuing. Not that I had much of a choice.

Wyoming is a great state. I suppose every state has a motto. Nebraska blabs about some mystical "good life" that no visitor or resident has seen any sign of. Iowa yaks about "liberties" and "rights" and parks a cop on every road to make sure no one ever even dreams about freedom. Colorado’s "nothing without providence" is totally meaningless. But Wyoming is the "big country" and you don’t have to look far to find real cowboys just like the one on their license plate. Some of those cowboys drive farm trucks on highway 85. I only saw four vehicles on the road between Lusk and the South Dakota boarder. All of them were doing 90+ mph and they all waved when they went by me. I would have stayed with them, but I wanted to live through this section of the trip with chain intact. There is nothing, in any other part of this country, like the concept of "safe and reasonable" as a speed limit. It almost makes me feel like an American. Out there, Mamma Government is in short supply and nobody misses her.

The weather totally cooperated. From the beginning of this day until I hit the plains, just west of Wall, SD, the sky was clear, the temperature was in the low 70’s, and the wind was nonexistent. South Dakota’s Black Hills are a national treasure. South of Deadwood, 85 winds through the hills like the best Rocky Mountain highway. There are miles of twisty, narrow highway that parallels beautiful streams and cuts through wooded valleys and farm land. I could take a summer long vacation, traveling the roads of the Black Hills, and never grow even a little tired of it.

I made it to Deadwood in one piece. Stopped for gas, lubed the chain, washed the windshield, checked the tires, and thoroughly inspected the bike. Then I walked to the Deadwood Historical Society museum and wasted an hour looking at the coolest of western history. There are Harleys all over Deadwood. It’s only a few miles from Sturgis, which must account for all the heavy iron.

I still hadn’t eaten when I left Deadwood. I was making, and having, such good time that I couldn’t convince myself to waste any of the day in a restaurant. Slightly north of Deadwood, I struck interstate and there I stayed until Minnesota. Once you pass Wall, the home of Wall Drug, there isn’t much to say about South Dakota. Every diddly-butt town has some kind of tourist trap. None of them are worth stopping for. It’s not just that there’s nothing to see in those towns, there’s nothing to see in that part of South Dakota. It’s just miles and miles of flat, boring plains. Most of the state’s rest stops are "out of order," probably to force travelers to waste time and money in the state’s tourist traps. I stopped for gas at Wall, Chamberlain, and Sioux Falls. There isn’t much more to say about the space between any of those cities.

The wind was killer, once I passed Wall. It was 50+mph and I felt like I was making the world’s longest right turn. 420 miles of right turn. I wanted to make Sioux Falls by nightfall, but I was forced to take a stretch break every 50 miles. My arms, back, and butt were going numb and the road never seemed to end. I swear that some of the mileage signs increased the distance to Sioux Falls as I drove east.

The only break in the monotony comes a few miles before Chamberlain, SD. The Missouri River valley almost instantly changes the scenery. It takes you from flat, barren plains to green rolling hills in only a few miles. The river is awesome, especially after 200 miles of desolation. It’s as wide as a lake and as blue as an ocean. Unfortunately, 10 miles east of Chamberlain, I’m back in a windy desert. That evening, 650 miles from where I left that morning, I pulled into Sioux Falls and headed for a Super 8.

The next morning, I tried to sight-see in Sioux Falls but failed to find any interesting sights. I left town at about nine and headed for home. I repeated the original leg of the trip by exiting I90 at Worthington and take 60 to 169, through Mankato, and on to the Twin Cities.

I got home a little after noon. I popped the cap on a beer, filled up the hot tub, and fell asleep dreaming about high mountain passes, unlimited speed limits in Wyoming, and gorgeous snaky roads in the Black Hills. I woke up, sweating, later that night when the dream turned to wind blasted, straight and boring South Dakota interstate dotted with hundreds of Iowa Highway Patrol cars.

Being Customer Hostile

All Rights Reserved © 2007 Thomas W. Day

No sport works harder to be spectator-hostile than US observed trials. If you aren’t a big mile hiker, you might as well stay home since you have no hope of enjoying more than 20% of a typical trials event. If you aren’t an expert puzzle-master, forget about deciphering the “spectator map” typically handed out at these events. If understanding the rules to the sport you’re watching is important, forget about that, too. After a few minutes of watching any US observed trials, you’ll quickly come to the conclusion that there are no real rules to this sport.

After watching the dismal performance of US riders and the terrible spectator turnout at the absolutely amazing 2004 and 2005 World Championships in Duluth, I took a hiatus from the sport. We, clearly, suck at this as a nation. If there were 100 riders competing in a world event, our riders would be in the last dozen finishers, consistently. Usually, US riders don’t even have the balls to compete in world rounds, at all. This year, for example, Pat Smage was the only US pro rider in the Trials Training Center event at Sequatchie, Tennessee in the first US World Round event since 2008. Smage finished 12th and 11th of 13 riders. Pat scored well over 100 points in each day while the top 3 riders had less than that his point count, collectively. Points are a bad thing in trials. A perfect score is zero; think “zero errors.” When our guys try to take on the world-level competitors, it’s pretty obvious that trials isn’t even a third-tier motorsport in the US. I suspect if there is a Hoverround Mobility Scooter Olympics, it gets a better participant and spectator turnout than trials. The last time we didn’t suck at the international level was 1979, King Bernie might be our only trials accomplishment; ever.

Part of our poor showing in the sport is that, nationally, the sport is not well promoted; and never has been.

Sections are designed to be obscure and confusing to the uninitiated; i.e.. spectators. “If you don’t care enough to know the codes, you aren’t welcome” is the message broadcast loud and clear to every new visitor to an observed trials event. For example, identically numbered sections are side-by-side with the “understanding” that spectators should know that if the section start is roped off it is a Sunday section, although on Sunday the Saturday sections were still open and unmarked. I walked by more than a few frustrated spectators on the Saturday event who were patiently waiting for riders who wouldn’t come for another 24 hours. When I mentioned them to one of the checkers, he muttered something about “fuckin’ rubes” and went back to examining his navel until the first batch of riders arrived. When I walked my dog back to the stranded spectators and told them the real section was just a couple hundred yards down the trail, they decided it would be more productive to head back to the Aerostich rally and watch a few of the presentations in the air conditioned chalet. To be honest, I had some of the same inclinations after waiting for an hour and a half for the expert and pro riders to get to sections 4 & 5. I’ve been putting up with the rock and roll star character of observed trials for 40 years and the prim donna attitude toward spectators still gets to me. (Just like waiting until 9:15 for an 8:00 show to start will remind me of why I rarely spend much money to watch a rock show in my impatient old age.)

The worst-riders-first order of events is super rider-friendly, but makes for long, boring periods for spectators. Mixing experts and pros with the intermediates, support riders, and other classes would make waiting a section more rewarding and would force the pros and experts to be more creative in their route planning, since they wouldn't be able to make a committee decision on the test route for a section.

I fear this is all pretty academic judging from the current state of decline in US observed trials. There were a single handful of “pro” riders and not that many more expert riders in Duluth for the last two events of the 2013 NATC/AMA championship season. The people participating seemed as dedicated to the sport as ever, but their numbers are depressingly small. I heard factory guys complain of bare bones support for their riders and it’s pretty obvious that the incredibly costly commitment pro riders take on to ride the US series isn’t even close to a paying venture. Trials has become a motorsport of the bored rich, at the national level. That is never a good thing for a sport that pretends to want to become popular, just ask polo players about that, if you doubt my opinion.

My Motorcycles: 1986 Yamaha TY350 Trials

For no good reason, I'd barely used this bike when I gave it up. (Ok, there was a pretty good reason. I’d bruised my right knee badly enough that the bone was beginning to atrophy. My orthopedic surgeon recommended that I buy a crutch and lay off of physical activity for at least a year to let the bone heal. If that didn’t work, I’d have bought a fake knee about 1998.)

I bought it in Colorado, when I thought I might take advantage of the nearby Ramparts Motorcycle Park. I didn't. I moved it to Minnesota, where I built a small trials course in our yard. I'd probably used the bike a total of 20 hours in the six years I've owned it. I sold it in 1998, after wreaking a knee in my backyard (doing yard work, not riding). In retrospect, this was another bike that I wish I'd have hung on to a while longer. At the time, I was told I wouldn't recover from the knee injury and would, probably, end up with a plastic knee. With careful exercise and Glucosamine, I discovered there was an alternative. Almost ten years later, my knees are fine; better than they were when I was 30, in fact. Now, I wish I had a trials bike.

If I'd have had a bike like the TY350 when I was young and actively riding trials, I'd have loved the sport much more. Since I had the RL250 at that time, I learned to love watching trials but sort of lost the drive to do it myself. After the knee injury, I let the TY sit in the garage, untouched for three years and, on a half dozen kicks, it fired up and ran like someone has been taking care of it all along. I bought a new rear fender and a pair of half-decent air filter elements, which brought all of the TY's pieces up to decent standards. When I sold it, the bike looked great, ran strong, and started on the 3^rd kick on a 35F day, once again after being left unattended for months.

Its old fashioned drum brakes aren't up to doing modern trials tricks, but they worked well enough for a plugger like me. The TY350 seems to be indestructible, based on the abuse I'd given it, something I'm definitely not. I needed a time machine and 25 fewer years on my joints. The engine is obsolete, a throwback to the slow rev'ing, high torque days of trials engine design. The bike is way over-weight, by modern standards. The engine didn't rev instantly, launching the bike up a vertical incline like a wheeled cougar, but I could putt up my backyard pile of rocks with confidence. The brakes weren't 1-finger tight, but I could control the TY350 on a downhill slide into a creek bed.

The suspension is equally backwards. However, all of the parts worked together pretty well. I might never be able to hop a trials bike, but I could get over a 4' tall log. With all that, I might have been a half-decent novice rider on the TY if I'd have known I'd be getting my knees back.

My Motorcycles: 1975-76 OSSA dirt bikes

For two years in the mid-70's, I ran a microscopic dirt bike shop out of my garage, code name "Dirt Shop." My wife hated the name because she was constantly receiving packages at our home addressed to the Dirt Shop.  She thought the UPS guy might think the name reflected on her housekeeping. I didn't see the problem. We had two insanely active little girls, a house full of toys (the kids' and mine), and my wife is a sculptor and artist. My day job was servicing mobile electronic scales in cattle feedlots and grain mills. There was never a shortage of dirt in our household.

  I, mostly, fixed other guy's bikes to earn enough extra cash to support my own habit. On occasion, I found a sucker/customer for a line of Spanish motorcycles, OSSA, for which I had a wholesale deal from the Kansas City distributor. Most of the likely OSSA riders lived in Omaha or Lincoln, where there was already an OSSA dealer, but most dealerships actually needed to make money to maintain inventory. I found a few customers out in the sticks who would take that inventory off of the big city dealers' hands.  I didn't expect much out of my "dealership." I just wanted to get to fool with cool, new bikes and spend as little money as possible for the privilege.

I snagged the two pictures above from the net. Sorry, I lost the original links and haven't been able to reproduce the search since, so I can't give proper credit for the pictures. These are the two bikes I sold and enjoyed the most. I sold a couple, each, of the 125 and 250 Phantom motocrossers, a pair of Mick Andrews Replica Plonker trials bikes, and one 250 Pioneer enduro. I really thought I was doing my customers a favor, at the time. There was still some residual anti-Japanese Euro-arrogance still left in dirt biking and OSSA's were good, general purpose dirt bikes. The Phantoms were moderate suspension technology (canted and moved slightly forward) and a great rider could still hang in with the front of the pack. The Plonkers were not so easy to sell. They were under-powered, heavy, and hard to maintain. The Amal carbs were a detriment to all of the OSSA bikes, but the Plonker suffered the most from that primitive and unreliable hardware.  And trials was a sport that never caught on in the States.  The Pioneer was a really pointless motorcycle.  It wasn't a competitive hard-core enduro bike and it was not reliable enough to be considered a useful dual purpose bike.  To this day, I don't know why anyone would buy one.  But someone did.

I rode almost every bike I sold, at least a few miles, before I found a buyer. Except for the 250 Phantoms, I usually had a bite before I placed my order but no money down. So, I got to play with the bikes like they were my own, because they were, until a buyer with cash appeared. I especially loved the Phantom 125, but never found the motivation to own one myself. The worst I ever did on an OSSA deal was break-even, including shipping, interest, and my setup labor. I thought that was as good as I could expect, considering the sloppy circumstances under which I operated.

I'm afraid that I probably left the Central Nebraska area and dirt biking about the time my customers were due to need serious dealer support. I moved about 120 miles from where my shop had been and, over the course of the next three months, sold my own dirt bikes and stopped attending events. I have no idea what became of the bikes I sold. I know that OSSA bit the dust not that many years later, leaving some resentment among the few riders who'd stuck it out over the years. I still see OSSA fanatics and bikes at the vintage events, so I guess they didn't all explode into Hollywood flames when I abandoned ship.  I don't think anyone buying a bike out of my one car garage, behind my obviously low-income house, could have seriously thought I was FDIC insured.  On the other hand, nobody ever went broke underestimating the American consumer. 

That was a weird period in motorcycle history. The Boomers were at their peak, physically and culturally. We were riding a lot of motorcycles back then, on and off-road. Unless you've been to a 1970s event, it's hard to imagine how popular, well-attended, and disorganized those events were. It was the beginning of the end for an aspect of individual freedom in the United States, mostly due to overpopulation. A half-dozen years later, the boom crashed. We quit buying, riding, and caring about motorcycles, especially off-road motorcycles in the quantities that manufacturers enjoyed during those years. The world shed itself of a dozen motorcycle manufacturers and Japan ended up owning what was left of the market.

Ossa was a crappy company with non-existent customer or dealer support, but their bikes were interesting, competitive, and distinctive. Parts were hard to come by, bikes were delivered in non-functional condition, but there was something cool about being a dealer, even at the marginal level I experienced. Uncrating a new motorcycle, with an expectant customer either calling every couple of hours or breathing down my neck, is a lot of fun.

My Motorcycles: 1974 Suzuki RL250 Trials

The Suzuki RL250 was one of the few bikes I've owned that was a constant disappointment and a complete competitive disaster. The RL was an awful trialer, with little torque, a poor suspension, too much height, and poor reliability. It was my first trials bike and my first Suzuki. After the Rickman 125 ISDT, the RL250 was the second new bike I ever owned, and the last.

Since the bike sold so poorly, Suzuki dumped their inventory, in late 1974 for almost 1/3 what I paid for the bike. That left a taste in my mouth that has only recently mellowed, allowing me to buy my 1999 Suzuki SV650. My $1,100 investment was instantly devalued to something less than $400, the revised, devalued price of a new RL in 1975 & 1976 (it was still the 1974 model, but they dumped their mistake in Suzuki dealers for another two years).

The only reason I can think of for owning one of these things, today, would be as an example of 1970's crappy Japanese workmanship. The welds were embarrassing, a few weeks after buying the bike I re-welded a significant portion of the bike frame. There were spots where the welds actually missed the seam. It was probably one of the first Japanese production bikes with a chrome-moly frame and it showed their inexperience with their new welding equipment. Their faith in chrome-moly was dramatized by the spindly character of the RL250's frame. Several other RL250 sufferers discovered that hard riding of this bike would result in busted frame members and one co-Suzuki trialer managed to snap off the swingarm at its frame attachment point in a Nebraska event.

Since the bike was worthless as a trialer, I added a little padding to the seat and used it as a weird trail bike. It was more fun, with that intent, but still unreliable. If you dropped the bike on its left side, and the motor kept running, the main seal on the opposite side self-destructed. I've witnessed this a couple of times at recent "vintage" events and, apparently, there is still no fix for this sad design. The forks leaked constantly. The air box was far from water-tight. The suspension was awful, at best, for any purpose. The engine lacked torque and blew up if you tried to overcompensate with revs.

The only claim to fame Suzuki made for this bike was its inventory-dumping price. In mid-1975, I saw them, new, on showroom floors for $400. I believe it was only imported into the US in 1974, although it took dealers at least three years to unload the inventory.

I am amazed to see these things at vintage events, usually grossly overpriced and often in like-new condition. In competition, the rider will be an old geezer who decided to pretend a 1974 bike is a time machine he can use to recover some missing piece of his youth. Typically, the rider is stumbling through the course, missing corners, rolling over tape, hanging up on 6" logs, and sliding down hills heading for a painful high-side at the bottom. Anyone who can win a real trials event on the RL is, either, cherry-picking or an amazing rider. I've never seen anyone win on an RL, but some of the "vintage trials" events are so undemanding that I'm sure it's happened in the last few decades. 

The happy side of all this is that most of the current RL owners are retired executives or other idle rich characters. I couldn't wish a better bike on that class of scumbag.

Standing on Two Feet on Two Wheels

All Rights Reserved © 2013 Thomas W. Day

The local trials organization is the Upper Midwest Trials Association (UMTA, http://umta.org/), where you can find the year's schedule (6 two-day events for 2013, since the first one was cancelled due to snow), see this and past years' event results, find used trials bikes, locate local dealers and parts suppliers, and join forums to talk about trials bikes and riding. There are excellent pictures of local riders and events on the UMTA site, too.

A lot of really knowledgeable people (including our publisher, "AKA the World’s Largest Trials Rider" and the UMTA's secretary) might argue that the ultimate off-road motorcycle sport is motorcycle trials, traditionally called "observed trials." While the fine-points of trials rules are sometimes as hard to fathom as golfing rules, the basic idea is you ride over ridiculously difficult obstacles without stopping or putting your feet on the ground or the obstacles. Do either and you collect unwanted points. If you manage to avoid collecting points, you win. If that sounds easy, you should try it.

The Winterers (Jim and Ben) are one constant in Minnesota trials is that you will unavoidably run into. Jim is a consistent Senior class competitor and Ben is a regular top-3 in the Champ class. Jim was gracious enough to introduce me to several wonderful sources and and he pretty much wrote the article for me in a couple of email responses. Mark Dittman, the UMTA treasurer said, "Ages in our club range from 7 years old to 70 years old. Our club members come from all over the state of Minnesota and some from Wisconsin . . . we have 9 different classes to compete in and there is a skill level for everyone.

"The biggest misconception is that everyone hops the bike around. Ninety percent of our club riders do not hop the bike around. I think people feel a little intimidated by that. There are some expert class riders in our club that do not hop, but they can turn the bike on a dime and do some incredible things on a trials bike."

In the US, participation in trials peaked in the mid--to-late-1970's. At that time, there were several world-class American riders, Martin Belaiir, Marland Whaley, Lane Leavitt,  and the one-and-only American World Champion, Bernie Schreiber (1979). In recent world events, US riders consistently fill out the tail-end of every US event (the Wagner Cup) and few Americans have made the effort to compete on the world stage. Outside of the US, trials has maintained a fair presence, especially in the indoor format (X-Trials), and world events draw large crowds in several countries.

Trials is the kind of sport that attracts riders of all ages. Due to typically low speeds, extraordinarily light motorcycles, and short sections with minders, helpers, and observers who sometimes morph into catchers as do the spectators, people compete well into their 60's and 70's at a variety of competitive levels. Minnesota and Wisconsin are specially blessed with a strong, if small, group of dedicated trials competitors and if you are interested in trying this sport out, you'll find it is a great group of friendly and helpful people.

Due to the light US participation, manufacturers make a half-hearted attempt at importing bikes to the US. Currently, Sherco, Gas Gas, Beta, Ossa, and OSET (electric kids' bikes) are imported to the US. The US Montesa-Honda distributor was based in Minnetonka until Honda discontinued importing in 2005. On the upside, there are still a fair number of used 1970's to 2000's trials bikes for sale for reasonable prices. Many trials bikes are in pretty good shape even after a few decades of competition and will be more than serviceable for many years. The only motorcycle I've ever been sorry I sold was my 1986 Yamaha TY350.

It Ran Through A River - 2005 World Championship Trials, Wagner Cup, Duluth, Minnesota

All Rights Reserved © 2005 Thomas W. Day

[Once again, into the Duluth/Spirit Mountain breech.  2005 was the best year yet for the world trialers.  The sections were incredible, the weather was British, and the riders were serious.  The spectators were few and far-between.  It was probably the last world event to be held in Duluth. This article never made it to print. Still, it's one of my favorite events and I'm still happy with the article.]

On Saturday, June 5, 2005, the first round of the two-day event could also have been called “Trials in the Mist.”  For that matter, the second day also began in a heavy fog.  Real observed trials happens in inclement weather and, because of that, Duluth in June provides the world’s best trials riders with a real test.  The last two years this incredible event has provided some of the best riding in the world.  Last year, we were rained on all day Saturday.  This year, Saturday, again, provided a purist trialer environment: heavy mist and light rain to outright downpour, limited visibility, deep rushing creeks, walls of mud, and huge moss-lubricated rocks.  For mortal humans, nothing about the sections in Duluth would indicate ideal riding conditions.  For the class of motorcyclists who compete at the world championship level, the weather and the terrain was nearly perfect.

At the end of Saturday, Dougie Lampkin described the exact opposite conditions with more than a little distain.  An earlier 2005 round in Japan was so easy that the top riders were separated by a handful of points at the end of the day.  Even worse, the top riders barely collected a handful of points, with the fifth place rider, Antonio Bou, scoring only eight points.  Like golf, observed trials competitors collect points for screwing up.  A perfect score is zero, the worst possible score in a section is a five.  A World Championship trials round consists of 15 sections that each competitor attempts two times (in two laps around the course).  Scoring eight points in 30 sections is equivalent to shooting a hole in one in 15 of 18 holes on a golf course.  If pro golfers played your local three-par rural course, they’d be as disgusted with the experience as Lampkin was with the Japanese event. 

The Duluth organizers did not make that mistake.  Saturday’s scores ranged from Lampkin’s 72[1] points to fifth place, Graham Jarvis, with 93 points.  Any event that makes the world’s best drop that many points is seriously difficult. 

With the above background, comparing the world event to a US national event is like comparing a McDuck’s burger to . . . food.  In 1998, semi-retired, ex-World Champ Tommy Ahvala rode with the US national competitors at Duluth, in exhibition.  While screwing around for the local press, showing off in the sections (often riding them several times to provide photo ops for camera hounds), Ahvala scored nine points in 27 sections, and finished nearly a half-hour ahead of the best US competitor.  In the same event, the top US rider, Geoff Aaron, picked up 22 points and the fourth place US rider collected 53 points. 

Fast forward to 2005, where the best riders in the world are seriously working at keeping their feet on the pegs and the best they can do is 72 points and you have some idea how incredibly difficult this event was.  On Saturday, the only US rider with the motivation to compete in Duluth this year, Chris Florin (the #3 US rider), came in 14^th of the 15 finishing competitors with 147 points.  South African, Bruce le Riche (#5 US rider, riding for the US Trials Training Center), finished 15^th of 15 riders with 148 points.   The rest of the US trials champ riders were absent that weekend.  I suspect lawns needed mowing, cars needed washing, video games needed playing, and other equally pressing tasks were accomplished. 

The unhappy fact is, after watching a world event, you can’t go back to a US national without experiencing some kind of letdown.  The quality of riding and the level of difficulty of a US event is drastically downgraded from the world competition.  For example, the most points Chris Florin collected in the 2004 US Pro AMA series was 94.5 in Cotopaxi, CO for 45 sections.  He placed 3^rd in that event.  His easiest 2004 event was in Sequatchie, TN, where he picked up 25 points in 45 sections and finished 2^nd.  In two sets of 30 Duluth sections, he collected 148 points on Saturday and 131 points on Sunday (several Sunday sections were eliminated due to flooding).  Currently, after eight 2005 US AMA rounds, Chris is in 3^rd place and Bruce is in 2^nd, so they are clearly among the top US riders.  The two US riders took up the last two places in Duluth, a few points behind 13^th place Spanish rider Jose-Maria Juan on both days.

Sherco has a new 220cc 4-stroke, but no one was riding that bike in this year’s event.  Sherco was still fielding their solid 2-stroke with the hope that another year of development and seasoning will bring the 4-stroke to competitive status.  The downside to the 4-bangers is “spitback” (what happens when the throttle is applied between firing cycles), weight, complexity, and overheating at low speeds.  Honda, obviously, has overcome those handicaps since they snagged the top spot for the weekend with Takahisa Fuginami and two of the top three spots on both days.  Honda-Montesa is the only company running 4-strokes this year.  The rumor was that the FIM was “encouraging” bike companies to phase out 2-strokes and would be following that with an outright rule.  The rumor is a suburban legend.  Martin Belair, the US importer, said Honda-Montesa is going 4-stroke voluntarily. 

Saturday’s sections were wet and incredibly difficult.  At some times, they were even difficult to see and practically impossible to approach without getting wet and muddy.  Saturday ended wet and with Honda-Montesa holding the first (Dougie Lampkin) and second (Takahisa Fujinami) places.  Spanish rider, Antonio Bou, on a Beta, snagged third place with 88 points and Adam Raga, another Spaniard, took fourth with the same score but three fewer cleans.[2]

Saturday evening, I made it back to the room wet, muddy, and tired.  Apparently, the night before the MMM crowd drank themselves silly and enjoyed a night of unrivaled debauchery.  The night I spent with those folks was . . . uneventful.  Probably it was because the living room couch was also my bed and I ruined the decadent mood by falling asleep on the floor, curled up at the foot of the couch.  Old and in the way.

Sunday morning, after a day of the most incredible motorsports action ever witnessed in the US, the local Duluth newspaper had a single picture of the event with a caption.  That’s it.  The rest of the sports section was devoted to AP articles describing the NBA playoffs, pro baseball, and even stadium football.  If the event had taken place in Detroit, the Duluth paper wouldn’t have said much less about it.  Are Duluth citizens that much more concerned with what’s going on in other cities’ backyards than their own?   Maybe I don’t watch enough television to know what’s really important. 

Sunday’s round was a completely different event.  The start was reset from 10AM to 11AM to give the sun a chance to burn off dense fog.  The strategy worked and by noon we were all enjoying a warm, clear spring day on Spirit Mountain.  The terrain was still world class because it was saturated with water from the previous day’s constant precipitation.  That only made it easier for spectators to see the riders attempt impossible sections. 

Sections 3 through 11 were all part water ride.  The Knowlton Creek ran through the middle of each of these sections and it was running high after a night of non-stop rain.  At the start of the day, Sunday’s section 5 was running 4-6” deeper than Saturday.  That turned out to be the low water mark for the day.

On the first lap, Dougie Lampkin was only a few feet from the top of section 12 when he lost his balance and toppled over backwards, tumbling nearly twenty feet to the base of the section.  He took a trip to the medical tent, came back with a brace on his hand, and returned to race for the finish.  Last year, Dougie suffered a nearly identical fall in an equally dramatic section, breaking his bike and himself.  To catch up, Lampkin had to race to the finish.  The medical-treatment time he’d spent put him in a position where he might not have been able to stay within the time limit allowed for the event.  In that case, every section he didn’t finish would add five points to his score. 

Nature must love the Brits. 

After a foggy, late start and five hours of beautiful Minnesota spring weather, the temperature fell and the fog returned at 4PM, an hour before the last rider, Dougie Lampkin, ran out of time.  The fog dropped on us like a curtain and was followed by a strong wind, driving rain, and the thermometer lost at least 15^oF.  The wind picked up, thunder boomed, and the familiar feel of winter came back to Duluth.  As if we had received an unearned blessing, the sky fell.  From warm, sunny spring day to Noah’s flood in less than 15 minutes.  I was perfectly positioned to follow the leaders from section 12 through 15 and the end, but to protect my camera and video gear I ran a 500 yard dash to the Chalet, where about half of the press corps was sheltered and wringing itself dry.  My notebook had barely begun to dry before it returned to wash rag status.  Two days of clever insights turned into a huge blue smear across a dozen pages.  In the press room we were entertained by reports of tornado sightings a few miles south of Spirit Mountain. 

Fujinami dropped his Montesa in the raging waters of section 8 and his bike was totally submerged.  The minders had to rescue both rider and bike and “a team of bike doctors did CPR and brought it back to life.”  (I’m quoting Jim Winterer, who provided this story.)  By 4:30PM, the report was that the creek was “waist deep and rising” at section 10, the next-to-last water section.  It was, by all reports, a flash flood on the course.  Sections 3 to 11 all had some sections of water to deal with, so a short discussion between the riders and the FIM authorities determined that four of the water crossing sections would be abandoned and the scores of riders who had finished those sections would be dismissed.  This decision was fortunate for Lampkin as it allowed him to skip several sections and rush to section 12, where he’d crashed on the first loop.  Lampkin cleaned 12 and made short work of the next three sections. 

In the end, Fujinami won the day, with 44 points, Albert Cabestany took 2^nd with 49 points, and Lampkin took 3^rd and the last spot on the winner’s stage with 53 points.  This created an international incident as Adam Raga’s folks protested that Lampkin had intentionally ridden slowly enough to allow the water sections to flood, saving himself the time and points that those sections would have cost.  The judges thought that was pretty devious, even for a Brit, and ruled against Raga’s protest.  The sections were clearly unride-able, since the observers had abandoned their posts for higher ground and the section markers were either underwater or had washed away. 

For some reason, this best-of-world-class event was grossly under-attended.  Maybe it was the weather, but that would only explain local attendance.  Maybe it is the location, Duluth isn’t exactly nationally known as a vacation hot-spot.  Maybe it’s the sport.  Only 1,500 spectators were on site to see the best motorcyclists in the world challenge impossible terrain on the world’s most maneuverable vehicles.  That resulted in a $15,000 loss for the Duluth organization and that would seem like an insurmountable problem for the local supporters.  After sponsoring three world class events in four years, the Duluth folks are solidly in the red.  In comparison, the 1^st round, in Portugal drew about 2,000 spectators, the 2^nd round, in Spain, drew 5,500, the 3^rd round, in Japan, drew 17,000, and the 5^th round, in Andora two weeks after Duluth, drew 7,000.  This year, the U.S. World Round will be in Tennessee.  I hope they have better luck than the Duluth folks experienced.  Observed trials is, obviously, not an up-and-coming Monday night on NBC sport.  I can’t figure out why.

For those who left Duluth on Sunday night, the city provided us with a dense blanket of fog that didn’t dissipate until about Hinkley.  Visibility was about 20’ for most of the first 20 miles south.  I hadn’t biked to Duluth because I’d brought along a couple of large video cameras and my wife.  I felt fortunate to be enclosed in a cage, listening to an Elmore Leonard novel on CD, and dozing while my wife drove us home.  Like last year, I rented a Jackie Chan movie when we made it home and was bored, once again, that Chan was still doing his stunts on foot.  Once you’ve seen martial arts performed on a motorcycle flying up a muddy cliff, you can’t go back to Hollywood.

---

[1] Trials scoring is a little like golf.  The better you do, the fewer points you “score.”  Each rider starts a section with zero points (clean) and picks up a point every time a foot touches the ground up to three points.  If the rider stops moving forward, crashes, rides or puts a foot outside of the section boundaries, five points are charged to the section.  So, in two loops and fifteen sections, the worst score a rider could earn in a World Round would be 150 points by either failing to attempt all sections or by crashing in all of them.

[2] A “clean” means the rider managed to ride the section end-to-end without stopping or touching the ground with a foot or other body part, scored as a “zero.”  If the point totals are tied, the rider with the most cleans wins. 

Another Incredible Weekend in Duluth - 2004 World Championship Trials, Wagner Cup, Duluth, Minnesota

All Rights Reserved © 2004 Thomas W. Day

[Due to a website snafu of entirely my own making, this beautifully written, totally professional article (Geeze, I'm joking.) didn't see the light of day until nearly a year after it was written.  However, I still like it and proudly present it here, in its original glory for your consideration.]

Last year, Takahisa Fujinami told us that he likes the United States “very much.” He says it’s because he likes American food, especially breakfast (“ham, eggs, and toast”), but I think it’s because he can beat World Trials Champion Doug Lampkin here and has done it three out of four times in the last two events in Duluth. Victory adds a positive aftertaste to just about any meal, even, or specially, breakfast in Duluth.

Due to the success of the 2002 and 2004 events, the Duluth trials organizers were awarded with a third FIM World Trials event, that will be held early this June. The Spirit Mountain course went through dozens of tweaks during the weeks before last year’s event. Steve Alhers and his team combined natural terrain and two “stadium sections” to reduce the hiking spectators would have to suffer. Friday, the FIM inspectors made a lap around the course and did some tweaking of their own. I was amazed that anyone would think this course needed to be more difficult, but they did. Later in the day, the riders made the same lap and there were comments on how the course was “too easy.”

The Iron Range accommodated the riders by providing ten hours of hard rain from early Saturday morning until a little before the last rider struggled through section fifteen late Saturday afternoon. Lampkin’s press release called it a “torrential rain,” but it just seemed like a normal Minnesota drizzle to me. One section was so hard core (submerged in 4’ of fast moving water) that the FIM closed it after the first rider practically drowned. By the second loop, all of the top riders were “taking fives” on at least one other section because it was impassable, even for the world’s best.

One section that they did ride, section three, was so complicated that Doug Lampkin, the world champ, crashed into a wall, broke his forks, and injured his right leg. That crash cost him a dozen points as he recovered, five’ing the next section and following it up with a five on ten and a pair of threes on six and eight. When the day was finished, Lampkin was still only eight points back of Fujinami (45 points to 53), but he was off the podium and the championship race tie was broken with a Fujinami lead of seven points. England’s Graham Jarvis (49 points) finished in second and Spanish “rock star” Adam Raga (52 points) finished third. The only North American competitor, Chris Florin, finished with 158 points).

The wet weather was especially hard on spectators slogging through intermittently marked trails, sliding and stumbling from section to section, often arriving at the section in time to see the last champ rider vanish into the mist. However, Martin Lampkin, the ex-champ and father of the current champ, said this was “real trials” weather and commented that spectators were privileged to see the world’s top riders struggling with the weather and terrain. He wasn’t being politically correct or condescending to the even. I heard the same sentiment repeated by Spanish, Japanese, and other international trials experts.

Lampkin was still limping as he walked the early Sunday sections. But he was back into his game quickly and Sunday was a totally different day, weather-wise. Sunday’s fog and rain were replaced with bright sunshine and considerably more heat than I’d expected for early June in Duluth. That did a lot to reduce the problems for the riders, too. Fujinami’s 45 Saturday score earned Marc Freixa a seventh place finish on Sunday. A little change in surface conditions goes a long ways in world class trials.

Saturday’s section-by-section battle between Fujinami, Lampkin, and Raga was unbelievable from the first section to the end. The lead changed several times and spectators were running from section to section to see the action. Scores of the top three riders, through two laps around fifteen sections, were 15 and 17 points. Lampkin misread a section and crossed the tape, thinking the section was the same as the previous day. In the press conference, Fujinami admitted he would have made the same mistake if Lampkin hadn’t gone first through the section. That mistake cost Lampkin 5 points, which more than gave Fujinami the points he needed to win the day and the Wagner Cup for the total event win. Saturday ended with Fujinami in first (15 points), Lampkin in second (with 17 points and 23 clean rides), and Raga in third (with 17 points and 21 cleans). Fourth place was Albert Cabestani with 33 points, to give you an idea of how tight the top three positions throughout the day. Chris Florin, again the only North American rider, finished 16th of 16 champ riders with 133 points.

I was told, repeatedly, that US riders don’t participate in world events because they don’t want to be embarrassed or jeopardize their endorsements. Florin is the #4 US Champ rider and if his finish was an embarrassment, you’d think those who didn’t find the time/motivation/guts to take a shot at competing with the world’s best would be even more embarrassed by their absence. Last year’s standing US champ, Geoff Aaron, was in Duluth, putting on a stunt demo at Grandma’s Sports Bar and trying to obtain a press pass to the event. If the other top US riders were in town, I missed seeing them, but they were missed in more ways than they know. Chris was cheered every time he rode, regardless of how he finished the sections. He wrestled with terrain that was impossibly more difficult than typical US champ sections and never gave up. By the end of Sunday, he was more angry than defeated when he failed to complete a section and was riding with more confidence and purpose at the end of Sunday than at the beginning of Saturday. The only way to be the best is to compete with the best.

For the spectators who braved Saturday’s rain and fog and Sunday’s mud and heat, this was the most incredible Spirit Mountain trials event yet. When I got home, I shagged out in front of the idiot box and saw an ad for a new Jackie Chan movie; and was bored. After a moment, I realized I’d seen all those moves, live and on a motorcycle, dozens of times through the weekend. Real life tops Hollywood special effects every time the world’s best trials riders are in Duluth.

Trials in the World Court - 2002 World Championship Trials, Wagner Cup, Duluth, Minnesota

[Originally published in Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly, July 2002 about the FIM Observed Trials World Championship rounds held in Duluth, MN. ]

Right here in Duluth, Minnesotans hosted a World Championship Observed Trials. Twice in the last five years, I've written up my experiences at national trials championships in Duluth. This event was my fourth professional trials event in the last eight years. After twenty years of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, it's been more than a bonus to have these events practically in my backyard. If this year's world round hadn't messed up my perspective on what I'd seen in the previous three trials, I'd be happy as a politician in a pork barrel.

The fact is there's not much comparison to be made between the world-class riders and the US-class guys. As good as our riders are, they don't come close to riding at the level that 6500 of us witnessed in Duluth, June 1^st and 2^nd. If you missed it, don't worry, we'll probably have another one in 10 or 20 years. Maybe. The last time a world round came near Minnesota was in 1979, when the event was held in Michigan. Around that same time, the United States' only world champion, Bernie Schrieber, was finishing up his career. I hope there isn't a connection between having a world champ rider in the country and having a world round in the Midwest. It doesn't look like there are any US champions on the near horizon for some time to come.

USA World Round Committee Chair Steve Ahlers designed the course and sections, with help from a lot of folks from the Upper Midwest Trials Association and the Wisconsin Observed Trials Association. Last summer, Steve visited the FIM technical people in California and attended world rounds in Washington and Europe for his training in world class trials course layout. He must have got it right because the FIM crowd visited the Spirit Mountain site a week before the event and approved nearly every section as Steve planned them.

Two days before the event, the riders began arriving for practice. On Friday they were given an opportunity to suggest course modifications. At the riders’ request, section 3, which was considered to be impossible for anyone except, possibly Adam Raga, was slightly modified. The FIM officials added some crash-protection hay bales to the bottom of section 12's monster jump. That modification was tested by some of the earlier riders and they found it to be useful. The riders were also allowed to position some "kickers," rock launch-ramps at the base of specially difficult steps.

4500 people attended the first US round, a pretty good turnout considering the couple hundred who usually spectate at US national events here. I heard several people comment on how few "locals" were at the event, Twin Citizens are not considered local. But even with non-Duluth Minnesotans counted, I think locals were pretty significantly outnumbered by visitors from as far away as our right and left coasts, Europe, Japan, South America, and, of course, Canada. I met reporters from Great Britain, El Salvador, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, France, and Germany in the pressroom and on the course. Thanks to MMM, Martin Belair, Steve and Sarah Ahlers, I got to hang out with those folks and step inside the tape for pictures and interviews.

One big difference between national and world events is the manufacturer participation. Every bike manufacturer was not only there; but there in force. Instead of a rider and his minder/mechanic and a U-Haul trailer, the manufacturers brought a significant portion of their engineering staff, a fully equipped 40' trailer, extra bikes, marketing and sales people, and one team brought their own chef. Honda-Montesa had a larger staff in Duluth than all of the 2000 US national teams, put together.

Saturday was a hot, dusty day in Duluth. The sky was slightly overcast, the sun bore down on the ski trails as if there was no ozone layer or atmosphere to protect bare skin, of which there was more than usual for this part of the frozen north. Even with the ski lifts running (taking passengers uphill only), walking a trials course is a workout. It was pretty easy to tell experienced trials fans from first-timers; the people hustling from section to section were the ones who knew how much there was to miss if you didn't get to see the leaders at each section on the first lap. The riders carefully walk the sections, the first time around, inspecting their routes and rearranging pebbles and dirt to hone their planned path. The second time around, they cook. You have to pick one or two sections to watch to see the best riders even once.

My favorite day one sections, on day one, were the wet and rocky sections, 4 through 8 (Winterer's Wonderland) and 9, 10, & 11 (Deck's Landing). I didn't make it to 12 or 13 before the leaders had past those sections, so I saved them for Sunday. I specially liked the wet sections when the temperature sailed past 90 Saturday afternoon. The bugs liked those areas, too, and I lost a bottle of Gatorade that two mosquitoes mistook for a full vein. No kidding, Duluth blood suckers are that big. Really!

Watching the world champs climb, leap, bounce, fly, and slide over and through water, rocks, and boulders the size of a living room is my idea of a perfect way to spend a spring weekend. The most common phrase heard on section 8 was "no way!" or "impossible!" After watching the first ten riders (the lower ranked riders go first), fumble, fall, and end up drenched to the neck, the first guy to clean the section left the crowd speechless. He was checked, scored, and heading to the next section before we all snapped-to and started cheering. From then on, the section seemed as tame as a highway. The top ten riders barely slowed from start to finish in a section that was impossible, even for them, to walk.

The whole afternoon went that way, the lower ranked riders made sections look as impossible as they were and the top ranked guys rode over them like they were paved. Since the top ranked US guy is Chris Florin, at #40, that didn't give the home crowd much to cheer. Most of the uncomfortable-with-prime-time US riders didn't even show up. The general feeling was that they're getting old and intolerant of losing badly. Geoff Aaron had a conflicting Team Extreme event, but no one I talked to said they believed Geoff wished he was here, instead of hopping minivans and portapotties at a mall. The 2001 US champ, Fred Crossett of Belgium, is a privateer and, being unsponsored, he's ineligible for FIM competition. The US riders who were in Duluth represented the youngest, hungriest riders who were willing to risk their reputations to be schooled by the world's best. And schooled they were. Our best showing, for the two day event was Chris Florin, who finished 25th of 26 on Saturday and 21st of 25 on day two. As a quick reference of the level of riding we saw in Duluth, Chris collected 120 points on Sunday while Takahisa Fujinami and Dougie Lampkin touched rock for 11 and 15 points. Fujinami put a stabilizing foot to the ground 11 times in two rounds of 15 sections, including 5'ing section 4 in the first round! In-freakin'-human!

At the end of day one, the winners were Dougie Lampkin, Takahisa Fujinami and Adam Raga. Points-wise, Lampkin and Fujinami tied, with 21 points. They tied on the number of cleans. Lampkin had six "ones" vs. Fuhinami’s four, so Lampkin won the day's trophy with a technical knockout. It took a little while to be decided, too. There were rumors that political games were being played, that the Lampkin family were haranguing the judges. The issue was less vicious and messier. A section was contested and the original scoring stuck. Since both of these guys ride for Montesa, I‘d guess that serious protests are reserved for the competition.

Riders, dealers, observers, and organizers do this sport for love, in the US. There is practically no money in it. In Europe, it's another story. This is a real pro sport, there, with millions of Euros at stake on the outcome of every event. So the level of gamesmanship is increased proportionally. Riders, minders, and mechanics whine and moan about every lost point. They'll do anything to get an inch on the competition. You know that people this involved know the rules of the game, but if they think there's a chance of intimidating an observer into giving pack a point or five, they pretend they're completely unfamiliar with how points are scored.

In years past, I've been a little discouraged with and disappointed in at the consistency of our observers in national rounds. In my opinion, they've been a lot too Minnesota Nice. Not this trip. Every observer I observed was downright testy when their opinions were contested. They called points quickly and, apparently, knew the rules better than the minders or some of the corporate guys who were trying to squeeze a few points out for their riders. Still, the mushy quality of some of the rules trips up the casual fan. When is a stop a stop? A stop gets either a point or five points, depending on the . . . stoppiness? (Jim Winterer says: "Actually, a very, very brief stop gets zero points, but a total, undeniable stop gets just one point. Going backwards is a five, but it has to be a pretty clear backwards.") Ok, the horse is dead. It was fairly clear that most observers ruled rolling backwards as "cessation of forward motion." Newton and, maybe, Einstein would be happy to see that. I was happy to see the cranky Europeans didn't take advantage of the nice Minnesotans.

While it's always true that trialers are the most meditative of motorcyclists, it's less true at the world level. These guys take their time walking and surveying the sections, but they flat out cook on the second lap. Riding the press truck, we couldn't catch the leaders simply driving from the end of one section to the end of the next group of sections. We rolled in about the time the last riders rolled out.

The Duluth organization could have changed up to five sections for Sunday. They picked two for slight modification. They made the top of section 12 a little more difficult and the top of section 15 a little easier.

The second day was completely different from the first. Sunday was cold and sunny, but quickly turned colder and overcast. It must have been a die-hard day, because about half of the Saturday-sized crowd turned up. It was a perfect day to be hiking Spirit Mountain, though. About 1/2 way to my first section and I was unzipping my jacket. I, mostly, hung out at sections 12-15 for the first lap. Twelve was nicknamed "up, up, and away (to the hospital)" for its 15' first step, terminating in another wall about 20' from the first step with another 10' step. Again, the US riders appeared, looked at the section, and moved on without making an attempt. The first few world riders took at shot at it, all made the big jump, but most failed to clear the 2nd ledge. The first rider to clean 12 was Spain's Marc Colomer. He ripped up the mountain like he was riding a rail. After Colomer, we saw 12 cleans in a row from the world's best.

Being the predictable sort I am, I headed back to my favorite sections at the bottom of Spirit Mountain and watched the water rides. I still consider section seven to be impossible, even though I saw it cleaned a dozen times and, on Sunday alone, riders took 22 zeroes on the section. I don't care; it's still impossible. After wandering around in the rocks and water, I hustled back to the last four sections to watch the leaders roll through to the finish. In the end, #2 plate Takahisa Fujinami beat World Champ Dougie Lampkin by 4 points for the day's win and for the Wagner Cup. His expression as he cleaned and cleared the top of section 15 will be stuck in my mind for a long time. I have probably never seen a happier person.

I stayed for the trophy girl kissing and the Champagne-squirting, took some more pictures of beautiful motorcycles, and came home. For those of you who made it to Duluth, I know you're still trying to comprehend what you saw there. For those of you who didn't, I think I heard this quote almost as often as "no way," "(insert friend's name here) is going to be so pissed that he didn't come." And so he should be.