DS Ride 09 - Nov '07 - Recap

TOUR DE HUNGRY VALLEY

What . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dualsport Ride, full day
When . . . . . . . . . . . . . Meet Sunday, 4th November, 6:15 AM
Where . . . . . . Meet @ BMW Motorcycles of Ventura County
Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Laine_MacTague@verizon.net

THE ROLL CALL OF THE EXALTED

[Credit: USFS - John Newman]

Up like a bloody Roman candle. Every summer, that’s how this neck of the woods goes. Last year the only portion of the local National Forest that was closed due to fire was the part we were scheduled to ride through. This year, time finally came to make use of the trails that had burned last year, and two weeks before the ride, they closed the entire southern California section of the National Forest, from Big Sur to Banning.

It looked like we were going to be riding around in the dirt in our back yards, for a minute there. On a whim, I called Hungry Valley. Hungry Valley State (did you read that? Not National; State) Vehicular Recreation Area is landlocked by the Angeles and Los Padres National Forests. Last year’s fire burned very close to HVSVRA. Same again this year. But for the State, close only counts in hand grenades and budget targets, apparently. State gal on the phone:

“Nope. We’re open. Unless we are on fire, or surrounded by flames, we’re open. If you’re coming, though, let me give you one word of advice: Bring marshmallows.”

Perfect: What was going to be an adventurous loop ride designed for intermediate level riders, with optional routes for novice riders, suddenly morphed into a day of head-to-head confrontations between what was – judging from the signup sheet – an increasingly large group of beginning dual sport riders, on BIG bikes, with gang after gang of whacked-out 2-strokers on dirt rockets, able to steer over multiple sandy whoops with one hand while waving languidly at you with the middle finger of the other for dropping your 2-wheeled hippo in their preferred line of travel.

I ran the idea by So-Cool. Guess what he said.

I sent out a warning email and immediately got two more newbie signups for my pains. Beautiful. Let the Carnage Begin!

Early Sunday I strapped a handful of un-bent coat hangars on board and rode off to BMW Motorcycles of Ventura County, where the smart half of the group met for doughnuts, generously brought in by owner Gary Clark; and for the Genuine BMW 10W-40 Prime Grade Synthetic Organic Coffee, right out of the machine by the big tv screen; and to ogle the eye-candy parked on the showroom floor. As luck had it, we all showed up just about at once, and inside of 20 minutes we had mopped up after our bike-envious, drooling selves, and mounted an attack on the thick fog that descended on the area while we were otherwise engaged.

A few twists and turns aside, we met the other smart half of the group, who had stayed in bed a little longer, and waited for us in Santa Clarita – slightly brighter of eye and bushier of tail than the rest of us, who got up in the dark and got drenched in fog. Together we made a dirty dozen; lucky thirteen, Chris Craig, called to say he had messed up the time change, and would try to catch us in Hungry Valley. Big place: Good luck.


The ride up I-5: Not wanting to reveal my hand, I’ll mention only these items: We had one fall on the way up… The gate was closed for the first time but the fence was – open… The big CLOSED signs on sawhorses in the middle of the road took the wind out of our sails a bit, but not so much that we failed to catch the attention of the police… – wait, the cops?

Yes. Here’s the summary version: I am—somewhere—sitting astride my Dakar as Eric Wetherbee pulls up – hard – on his Suzy DL 650. We are quickly talking logistics before I get back on the freeway, toward which, over my shoulder, Eric is faced. As I talk, I see him looking past me, his jaw dropping. Red and blue light reflects off his glasses… “We’re doomed,” he babbled, lips quivering. I slapped him twice and he snapped out of it:

“Smile and look like you’re supposed to be here,” I told him. I rode the 30 feet toward their unit, to have a word. At some quick gesticulation from the driver, the passenger jumped out to “intercept” me.

“What are you doing here?” he began. Another rider showed up behind me. I could tell because the officer suddenly looked nervous and put a hand on his hip. “…You can’t have freeway access at random – you can’t ride dirt bikes on the freeway – you can’t – the Forest is closed, you can’t ride out there – he had so many reasons to toss me to the ground and cuff me, he couldn’t pick which one to use first – so far I was still on my feet. Another rider showed up in a cloud of dust. Big bike… The officer’s feet sort of, shuffled. “Where are your trucks?”

“These are they, I said, pointing at the bikes.” He did a double take, caught the glint of BMW logos here and there in the growing group, and either relaxed, or got nervous in a different way – it was hard to tell.

Another rider showed up. “I’m going to need to see your identification,” he said.
The Force works:
“You don’t need to see my identification…”
Another noisy cloud of dust crowded into our little space of freeway-side.
“Let’s skip the identification.”
Another rider showed up. I waved my hand, cryptically, distracting the officer; “These aren’t the dual sport riders you are looking for…”
We weren’t, apparently, the riders he was looking for.
“I’ll just go on my way, and have these fellows follow on, shall I?” I suggested. Another bike roared up out of the dirt somewhere.
“That’ll be fine. We’ll follow you to the off-ramp.”
“You must do what you feel is right, of course…” I intoned. The officer turned on his heel. I whacked the throttle and leapt onto the pavement in front of them. They followed me to the off-ramp at HVSVRA, where I parked on the roadside under the overpass and they made a u-turn and got back on I-5, southbound. I whipped out a cigar and sat smugly on my bike while the rest of the group trickled off the freeway.

Well, it was something like that. Maybe. Or it could have been…

After a brief “How’d - you - do - that” ego-boosting period, during which I lied like a dog about my psychic powers and utterly failed to admit that I had no idea how we got out of that one, we saddled up and headed out the gravel road toward HV. Maybe we’ll stick to the freeway a little more in December…


There was a race, that day – in fact, riders from the BMW VC team were scheduled to ride in the area. The main result for us was a line of trucks at the entrance gate, hauling dirt bikes. Everybody and their mom would be out there on their quads, it looked like. We piled up behind a big white van towing two KTMs. After a minute or so – by which time I had lost my patience for this sort of thing – the driver of the van stuck his head out the window, looked back at me, and looked down at my ride, a little smirk on his face. He stared for a moment or two, then:

“Are you going to ride that here?” he asked. “In the dirt?” he added, with one of those little cough-grunt laughs that always bug you a little. I slipped the clutch until I was beside him. I looked into his van. I looked up at the gate.

“Yeah,” I answered slowly. I was watching what was going on at the gate, and I had just had an idea. “In fact,” I added, “I think I’m going to do it for free.” I idled up around his van and lane-split to the gate on the outside of traffic. There were two rangers checking vehicles and taking money. I waited for a pause in the proceedings and yelled over: “Can we just –” One of the women interrupted me:

“You’re on street bikes? Just go on in,” she yelled across the row of cars. She waved her arm forward like Brigham waving on the faithful. I turned around, caught the eyes of the front riders, and did the same. A dozen bikes flared up and engulfed that white van, passed the other vehicles, and in a few moments we were all up on the pegs, stretching our legs and looking for a good spot to gather up and talk shop before the going got weird and we started dropping like flies in the whooped-out sand. Into my helmet I gave one of those little cough-grunt laughs that always bug you a little – but no one heard since there was (for a change – see DSR 04 Recap) no one else in there with me.

When we gathered up I let out that I was dividing the group into three; the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Once I noticed that we were all incredibly beautiful and/or handsome, I cut it down to two, and changed the names to Intermediate and Novice. I volunteered Eric to lead the intermediate group; one look at the man inspires the deepest trust and faith:

The groups separated, having planned to meet up on a distant plateau for lunch in a few hours. I chose to stay with the novice group, not because I am so passionate about assisting other riders in improving their abilities, but solely for the entertainment value. In short order, the intermediates disappeared over the event horizon. Or, at least around a corner. And in no time, the novice group was doing… this:


We did a lot of standing around, catching our breath. Imagine your first experience of riding on sand is on a BMW 1200 GS with touring tires. This is what Frederic Charpentier had to look forward to, for the HVSRVA idea of an easy trail is two miles of whoop-de-doos in six-inch deep sand. Ride, fall, hoist the bike, pant, rest, repeat. Two miles. We probably spent an hour on that first mile.




But it was time well spent. Every time we hit the “Ride” portion of the process, it lasted a little bit longer. At some point, we started skipping some of the other steps. Of course, there were still setbacks:


But at this point, they provided more of a welcome break in the action, and a chance to enjoy the view. For all the machines in Hungry Valley, the plants are gorgeous in flower and the view is often quite beautiful.

Soon we were on firmer ground, but that didn’t mean we were home and dry. We were not, really, even sitting on the edge of the pool, wrapped in a towel. But the tone of the ride had changed. Now a fall like this beautiful sample from Paul Beck:


was simply an opportunity to practice K-turns (look for more images of this in the Skills article on K-turns, HERE). Paul smoothly executed his with finesse as the rest of us watched – mostly from the safety of the next hilltop. There was an exciting moment on the descent when the engine stalled in gear and the rear tire locked up, sending Paul and his 1150 sliding down toward the sandy bottom of the hill. As luck would have it, though, the last ride Paul had come on with us was DSS 02, wherein we practiced skidding at length. And after that, Paul had taken the RawHyde Adventures riding course. We watched Paul surf the big GS down with aplomb, restart, and in moments we were on the road again.

There was one major challenge lurking between us and lunch; for about 200 feet, the now mostly hard-packed trail dipped down into a sandy riverbed, before climbing back out onto the dirt again. The riverbed sand was loose, and deep.

The novice group eyed the obstacle with a broad range of reactions. Danny Gold dove in and rode across the sandy stretch, and disappeared quickly around a corner after climbing out. Paul followed suit. Tomer Katz, on a GS ADV with saddlebags (didn’t I say, “Don’t bring saddlebadgs?”) had a little more trouble:


Dan Taylor crossed successfully, and the rest of the group faired fairly well. Soon Fredo (remember Frederic? First time in sand? 1200 GS with touring tires?), was the only one left to attempt the crossing. Danny, who had been riding up and down the riverbed like So-Cool during DSR 03, came back and parked in the crossing, perhaps to give Fredo a point of reference – or an obstacle. At least Danny got front row seats for the carnage (see photo right).



Paul returned as well, taking to sand like a (slightly hydrophobic) duck to water, but managed to get stuck in the same general vicinity. While Fredo caught his breath after the pick-up, we used Paul’s bike for a demo on how to get unstuck from sand. After a lot of talk about rocking the bike back and forth, teasing the throttle and clutch, timing the surges of power… we settled on the old standby method of hoisting the sucker out of the hole it was in:

Inelegant, but effective.

It was around now that Lucky 13 showed up, Chris Craig. He came barreling down the riverbed, as so many dirt bikers had, while we sat there like a load of lummoxes, hoisting dead pigs out of sand pits… Only Chris was on a bumble-bee-coloured BMW R 100.


He pulled to the side, flashing his trademark warm smile and offering to help us get unstuck. He had been riding all over for a couple hours, looking for us. No doubt he had already ridden trails that we wouldn’t even recognize as such, and here he was smiling at this group of riders already worn out from all the knee bends and 500 pound squat lifts…

It was around now that Oren Ezra sunk his 1200 down to the frame:

He got helped out in short order, but it was also around now that Tomer Katz’s bike came down with a serious ailment. Somehow, one of the quick-releases in the fuel line had broken.






You pretty much have to reach in over the cylinder and grab that line, to harm it. We were falling in sand, not bushes. Personally, I suspected sabotage. But who would have sabotaged the Israeli’s bike? I had been riding close to Paul… It could not be the crazy Italian, Emanuele Azzaretto; he was off with the intermediate group, riding circles around them on his Honda 400 XR and blowing cigarette smoke in their faces. Could it be the Frenchman, Charpentier, perhaps wanting to slow the group down? I didn’t think so; Fredo seemed to stand for everything Americans do not make French jokes about. Try as I had to get close enough to Tomer during the ride, it hadn’t been me… Perhaps one of the other Israelis?...

I pondered this as Oren got out his tools and Danny took station, standing on the seat of the broken bike, arms akimbo, barking orders. I tried to get a couple photos, but he waved me away:

“No, no photos, I will make you disappear!” He said, the only Israeli I’ve met with a German accent and a Russian Mafioso “Je ne sais quoi”. I backed off, and sent Chris to lead the others to our lunch meeting, knowing that the Israeli contingent and I would get there late if at all.

I watched the repair process, repeating interesting sounding words in the hope of learning what they meant. After one such episode, followed by copious laughter, I discovered I knew how to say “spit” – or something much like it but slightly more revolting – in Hebrew. Who were these crazy people? It was like going to a motorcycle repair class with three heavily accented versions of Robin Williams.

In a slightly amazing series of reparative events, a perfectly serviceable yet highly unusual fuel transmission route was created. We left that 200 feet of sandy hell and hit the pavement, the better to catch the lunch group. A few miles of pavement, and a couple more of dirt, found us up on Condor Mesa, the high point (ahem) of the ride. Certainly the high point for Dan “Lunchtime” Taylor, for reasons you can guess from his moniker. We parked in a heap in the center of the cul-de-sac, and fell to without delay. The Israelis and I were only a half hour late.




The intermediate group was grinning ear to ear, every man. Eric had taken them on some of the most challenging trails in HV, and the group was high from hours of meeting challenging riding more like a capable and well-formed team than like a bunch of scofflaws and degenerates thrown together by sheer chance. We of the novice group were feeling good too; flushed with the rush of accomplishing more than we thought we could.




The two groups spent some time getting to know each other, aided in the main by the Israelis, who revealed that one of the reasons Tomer had saddlebags was so he had someplace to put the Jetboil! Three hours eating dust and falling in the sand and repairing fuel lines and suddenly here we all were, American, Italian, French, Israeli, on bikes from Germany and Japan, drinking Turkish coffee and helping the Samoan dude to push-start his flagging dirt bike…

We talked bike for a while, and enjoyed the view, but eventually we were all ready for some more riding. Eric & I made plans for where to take our groups and where and when to meet before leaving.

Neal Knopik and John Clark, newbies to VCDSRS, had taken up with the intermediates from the start. They were joined now by Paul from our group, and Chris, lucky 13, for the second half of the day. The intermediates hit the road first, then the novice group dove back down the hills, onto some very fun curvy single-track trails, not too sandy but often tricky to navigate. A lot like riding on a slow roller coaster with a lot of blind turns and bumps. Corners were often banked high, allowing for a more – three-dimensional – approach to choosing a line. Everything went really well – until the back of Danny’s bike broke off.

Danny had followed my edict (“strong suggestion”) against saddlebags on day rides. However, he had brought a tail box, and apparently – not brimming over with faith in either the FDIC or in American currency values over the long haul – that is where he keeps his stash of gold bars (So that’s why they call him Danny Gold). Small wonder that there finally came a whoop-de-doo over which only most of his bike was willing to pass. Having put up with hours of abuse, his rear deck plate finally just snapped off in disgust, and lay there mewling in the dust, connected to the rest of the bike only by an umbilical-like electrical line.



Lunchtime, who realized long ago, after his first 10 minutes of being dragooned into the icy, snowy dregs of DSR 04 (read the recap of that one HERE) that these rides provide many opportunities to test your bike’s mettle (metal), usually doesn’t ride his BMW R 100 with us. But he still brings a few things along for just the sort of problem he would expect to have on his beemer. He handed Danny a tie-down strap.

“Perfect!” Danny lashed the back of his bike onto his rear seat, and off we went. We had not gone a hundred yards, though, when we met a blast from the VCDSRS past: There in an open space, watching us and no doubt laughing uproariously, was Richard Stark on his BMW F650 GS! Richard was fairly new to off-pavement riding when he showed up for DSR 01. We haven’t seen him since DSR 05, and here he was tearing around Hungry Valley on his F! Well met indeed.

It was good that we had the chance for another brief stop before taking off on another long trail; Danny discovered that – rear end notwithstanding – his bike was no longer making a charge. Rather than risk running out of juice in HV, he opted to head for home early. Tomer and Oren were good enough to go with him for backup. We said our goodbyes, sad to know we wouldn’t be seeing the Israelis for the after-ride dinner, and even more sad to not know who we were going to pin the bill on now…

After a short chat, Richard and his friends said goodbye as well. Fredo decided to take a break while Dan & I added another roller coaster trail loop to the ride – our loop came out close to where the three of us were standing. So Lunchtime & I bopped around the hills a bit, and Fredo got a couple shots of our return.





We took another dirt road back toward the entrance gate, and ended up jumping on and off the paved road through HV in the failing afternoon light. It was a relaxing end to an exhilarating day. We met the intermediate group just before the gate, swept through on the side of the road as the same ranger waved us by, and high-tailed it back to Santa Clarita, where Lunchtime saved us from a run-in with Denny’s by discovering a delightful little Mexican hole-in-the-wall.

We parked out front:

We parked out back:

We pretty much filled the place up, in and out:

We got Eric some iced tea, which helps ease his Tourrette’s Syndrome:

And when nobody was looking, So-Cool paid the bill. Now we have two reasons to call him that.

We tried to get the waitress to take our obligatory après-tour group photograph, but she threw the camera to another customer and leapt into my arms:


After a teary goodbye, during which Chris came back from the bathroom wondering what on earth he’d missed, we saddled up and visited the local station for fuel and air.

Not a bad way to spend a Sunday, hmmm? See you on December 2!

[Credit: USFS - Jim Ackerman]