Trail Rider Magazine

38 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com Keep Your Friends Close… So I needed to head up to the Sierras for a work weekend with my old club, the California Enduro Riders Associa on, to prepare for their upcoming Fools Gold Enduro. You know, the kind of thing where you clear trail, mark trail, and then com- plain about clearing and marking trail. There's usually a quality dinner involved and some great bench racing so I had to go. The only problem is that my truck was on the fritz. The ba ery leaked and ate through the cables and the ba ery tray. I was working long hours at that point so I turned it over to the dealership who gave me the bad news "not un l Monday". The good news is that a club member that I didn't know well, DaveyB, stepped up and said he'd transport my bike and I to the mountains. When DaveyB showed up I was a li le taken aback. He was a mechanic at a Dodge dealership, but he drove up in a rough-looking old pickup. I would soon learn that it didn't have AC so we had to drive the whole three hours with the windows rolled down in the 80+ degree heat. That was bad enough, but DaveyB only had one offering for his in-dash Kraco casse e deck – Dick Dale & the Deltones' Greatest Hits. Now I pride myself on enjoying a wide range of musical genres, but three hours of instrumental surf music can't be any worse than waterboarding. At least the wind noise drowned some of it out. When we got to the event site we immediate- ly went out on our bikes to work on DaveyB's sec on. Glad to be out of the truck, I was immediately beset by a dense, smelly white cloud. DaveyB was riding a clapped out IT175 which I ini ally thought might be steam-pow- ered. When I finally braved the cloud and caught up to him, he explained with great pride that he mixed pump gas with bean oil at 20:1 to preserve his top end. This guy's a mechanic? His exhaust had belched enough crude oil on his swingarm to cover Lake Tahoe with an oil slick. I hung back a er that to avoid the assault of Blendzall fumes but was s ll a li le nauseated when we drove to the club dinner at a nearby steak joint. It only got worse as DaveyB was telling everyone how I couldn't keep up with his "trusty IT" on my "overrated" 300 EXC. I didn't want to seem upset, so I swallowed it but began to formulate my escape plan. The next morning, we ventured out again, adding another club member Steve to the crew. To get to DaveyB's sec on we had to climb a par cularly nasty set of rocky ledges known as "Rock Lobster". Unfortunately Steve, who hadn't ridden in over a year and undoubtedly overcome by DaveyB's fumes, wheelied over backwards and blew out his knee. I saw my opening. "I'll ride with Steve back to camp", making every effort to sound like an empathe c adult. DaveyB soldiered on alone with his cloud, and I limped poor Steve back to our trucks. The minute I saw Steve's swank new F150 Lariat I suggested I drive him home and unload his bike for him. Steve was grateful for the help and only lived a few miles away from me. Be er yet, his truck had both AC and this newfangled thing called a CD player with discs featuring Black Sabbath, Van Halen, and other bangers. The ride home seemed like it was over before it began. Trail Tails Trail Tails By Chris Burton By Chris Burton

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