Trail Rider Magazine

Wheel Spin Humble beginnings by Kevin Novello L ately I've been reminded of the humble beginnings associated with starting off in the off road world. Regardless of whether you started as a kid or adult, your first several rides were probably quite humbling as you began to understand how much work it would take just to get to a point where you weren't constantly on the ground. You especially realized it during that first organized ride, as you were at the mercy of an experienced and seemingly sadistic organizer. I am sure there are exceptions to the humbling beginnings claim, but I wasn't one of them. Like many of you vet and post-vet riders, I started out on one of those homebuilt mini bikes with a Tecumseh 3.5 hp lawn mower engine. Chicken wire was used to cover the majority of the drive chain and keep our feet from getting tangled in it. The bike's design and construction was both ingenious and horrifying. The brakes were almost nonexistent and the throttle had a nasty habit of sticking. That Tecumseh engine wasn't exactly a light switch, instead it would slowly and steadily build speed and top out somewhere around 35 or 40 mph. We rode in long circles around the yard until my Dad pulled his shoulder out yanking me off it when the throttle stuck open and I froze with fear while on a collision course with the street. The little Tecumseh was gone the following weekend. A short time later a Honda MR 50 ap- 4 Trail Rider peared in the kennel (we kept our bikes in a converted old dog kennel). Now that was a fine motorcycle(!); quiet, smooth power, and just enough suspension for us to set up a ramp in the back yard and catch some air. The problem was that it caused more fistfights between my brother and me than it was worth. Finally, after wearing on Dads' last nerve, a beat up old RM50 appeared in the kennel alongside the Honda. The RM was mine as it was taller than the MR and I was the oldest. The RM 50 was scary loud, as if the previous owner had intentionally pulled all the packing from the muffler. It was so loud that we weren't allowed to ride on the lawn anymore, and took up riding on the trails in back of the house. It was also saddled with a peaky, MX bred motor and was a bit of a light switch. After months of riding along the smooth trails behind our house, our Dad deemed us ready to enter our first Junior Enduro. It was November, 1979 and the event was the Ossipee Junior Enduro. I was 9 and my brother was 8. Despite the amount of time that's gone by, the day still hangs fresh in my memory. A cold, late November rain fell for a couple of days leading up to the event, exacerbating my anxiety. And at 4:30 a.m. on a chilly Saturday, our Dad flipped the lights on our first organized event. It was that time of year when the leaves had long since been relegated to ground cover and your breath hung heavy in the morning air. A couple of hours later we were rolling along the mountainous back roads of Ossipee, New Hampshire. Daylight was met with iron grey skies and a sandy, gravelly road that was to be the starting area. We watched Dad unload the bikes from the 3-rail trailer and stood shaking in the cold as we went through sign-up for the first time. Thankfully, we were on one of the last rows as I was worried about being trampled by the bigger bikes. We were the only ones on 50cc bikes. Our gear for the day consisted of denim pants with foam padded "knee protection" stitched to the interior. Work boots, an open faced helmet with ear flaps, scratched ski goggles, and brown leather gloves made up the remainder, while a mismatched red and white cotton sweatshirt with a dirt bike ironed on it was to keep me warm. I paddled my way to over to the start; the gravelly road pushing my front end all over the place. My stomach was a fire pit of nerves. I was constipated and too nervous to eat and felt like I might belch last night's Ground Round Fish Fry onto the ground. When the cards finally flipped, we took off at a melodramatic putt . I didn't get more than a quarter mile before crashing - and we hadn't even entered the woods yet. Absolutely nothing could have prepared us for what was to come. The woods were a nefarious, alien world of mud, slick leaves, greasy roots, huge rocks, enormous hills, and monstrous river crossings. At least that's the way it looked to a kid seeing an old school enduro course for the first www.TrailRider.com

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