Trail Rider Magazine

28 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com Stories of Six Days Stories of Six Days Jon Seehorn Jon Seehorn New Zealand Was Rad New Zealand Was Rad By Rachel Gutish By Rachel Gutish Jon Seehorn ('01 France, '02 Czech Republic, '03 Brazil, '05 New Zealand, '22 France) The sun beats down on the parking lot in Kellogg, Idaho, leaving a heat haze shimmer just above the blacktop. It was a hot day for the riders par cipat- ing in the Silver Kings Hard Enduro prologue, and for Jon Seehorn too, who spent most of the day helping set up the next day's mountain course. I'm cha ng with his wife Nicki, when he comes riding up to his SXS pit setup. We say hello, and I ask for an interview. He flashes a smile, says "just a min- ute" then walks over to his van. When he comes back, he's wearing a ISDE fundraiser hat for the SXS/Mojo ISDE Club Team and an even bigger smile. "I thought I should put this on to get into the spirit… glad it's not video though, means I can sit down!" We laugh, he collapses into his lawn chair, and I ask him to begin his story. "We were on our fi h day in New Zealand. Coming back, almost finished up. They had apparently can- celled the transfer sec on that Brian Sperle and I had just ridden into, but we had no idea! There was a bunch of people si ng there at the start of the sec on, everyone was confused. Brian and I start talking, do we go through, do we go back, it was all really unclear. They said they were going to reroute, but… Jon trails off, but I understand exactly what he means. In the moment, it's hard to rely on hearsay, and during the ISDE, a vague sense of confusion and uncertainty is o en an unwelcome copilot. "Sperle and I decide to just go. Like now. We're run- ning out of me, we need to get to the next check on me. That's really all we knew. Even now, si ng here in a parking lot thousands of miles away and years removed from that ISDE, I can hear a trace of urgency in his voice.

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