Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1547331
34 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com Team Trail Rider Team Trail Rider 2026 Enduro Vintage Trophy 2026 Enduro Vintage Trophy By Lissa Aldakimov, Mike Sheetz, & Darrell Diamond By Lissa Aldakimov, Mike Sheetz, & Darrell Diamond Photos By Soloenduro Photos By Soloenduro 2026 FIM Enduro Vintage Trophy- 10th running - 09/29-10/03/2026 - Zschopau, Germany "This is the true story... Of three vintage dirt bikes, picked to race together on a team. Impounded to- gether and have their lives taped to find out what happens when vintage bikes stop running right and start ge ng real." What compels a person to sacrifice months of their life, resurrec ng a motorcycle old enough for a mid- life crisis of its own, box it up on hope & prayer that it'll run in a few months when uncrated, and possibly finish four days of fairly proper off-road compe on? You see, the FIM Enduro Vintage Trophy, unlike most any dirt bike race, starts almost a year prior. In garag- es, sheds, and at swap meets. Acquiring the crusty steel and ashy aluminum piles, si ing through boxes of random bike crap, months spent cleaning, sanding, rebuilding, and salvaging, mail ordering, etc., to end up with a massive hangover and something that looks raceable if you're lucky. But wait, did you check the FIM governing body's rules about the bike, the lights, the sidestand, the forks, your levers, etc.? All hang-ups for scru neer- ing before entry into impound, let alone racing. If you've managed to get this far, you now have a de- cent lower-mileage, used mid-sized pickup wrapped in what you just spent to enter, build, and ship this heap. Now, the big ques on: can it run for four days and a couple of hundred miles, or is it going to be the most expensive DNF of your life? I'm going out on the ddler branches of a tree here, far too thin to support my solid girth & a bit uncomfortable, to tell the story of not just "a race," but our race. My approach to events has always come from a perspec ve of telling the story of the race itself, not about the individuals compe ng and definitely not about myself, but this is different. It's not every day a washed-up racer & mixer truck driver from West Virginia finds themselves along- side some genuinely fast & legendary company in Germany to race classic dirt bikes.