Trail Rider Magazine

24 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com I've never been a great dancer. For someone who rides a motorcycle well, it's amazing how li le coor- dina on and grace I possess off the bike (and some- mes on it too!). I have two le feet, and I trip over them o en. But in addi on to my two le feet, I brought something new with me to the first round of EnduroGP this season – two le knee braces. I have already wri en in this very magazine about my tendency to lose, misplace or forget crucial items. Since arriving at the opener of an FIM world championship in Portugal without a cri cal piece of kit is a lot more egregious than showing up to B52 MX in Northern Illinois without riding pants, please allow me to explain. A er last year's Euro adventures, I le everything I'd need to race the series again in a storage unit just outside of where we raced the ISDE in Spain. I figured I'd be back again eventually, and rent was cheaper than checked luggage anyways. I sorted and tried to halfass clean my stuff at 11 pm the evening of Day Six, then gave the three gearbags, half a Sherco motorcycle, and assorted e downs, gas cans, lawnchairs, cooking equipment and other miscellaneous nonsense to my parents, who were kind enough to deal with the actual ren ng of the storage unit, since our team manager An seems to take great delight in flying us out at ungodly hours of the morning the day a er the race ends. Even be er, my mom agreed to take an inventory. She's very organized and knows a lot about making lists and keeping things running smoothly. Alas, she knows very li le about knee braces, and didn't catch my mistake – when I packed one set of knee braces to go home and le one in Europe, I had accidentally grabbed both the right ones to take back home. I've been sponsored by Mobius long enough that I have several sets floa ng around the gear closet, all in var- ious stages of disrepair and refurbishment, so I never no ced that I had one more right than I did le . When I saw "knee braces" on the list, I assumed that there would be two Mobius braces, a le and a right, with pads included, wai ng for me in the unit. Nope. Worse yet, there are no pads, and with a sinking feel- ing, I suddenly remembered seeing how muddy and nasty the pads were a er ISDE, and deciding that I should take them home to wash… Fast forward a few days, and I am si ng on top of my gearbag in the back of the Rieju Factory Team tent, discarded bubble wrap and a roll of duct tape in hand, fashioning improvised knee brace pads and hoping not to be spo ed by my new team manager EnduroGP-Round One EnduroGP-Round One Two Left Knee Braces Two Left Knee Braces By Rachel Gutish By Rachel Gutish Mastorgne Photography Mastorgne Photography

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