Ride Report / 125 Hodakas are Great!

[Jim Cook]

Foreword:
I have been enjoying the ride reports so much that I decided to repost one of my more recent ride reports here. I hope you all enjoy it.
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(start of ride report, dated April 4, 2008)

As the subject line says, "125 Hodakas are Great... but I'm glad
there were not any of them on the 2007 VIDST (Vintage Dual Sport) Ride
this last weekend. I didn't have to tow any bikes out of the woods,
this year.

Lynn Burton took up the reins for Androv Mingslav on this year's
ride, as the former European enduro ace has gone to work for the
railroad, and no longer had the time or place for the ride in
Oklahoma.

The attendees gathered at Hot Springs, AR and rode Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday, last weekend.
I was scheduled to ride guide/sweep/support for Saturday and Sunday
(on my GasGas DE300). As it turned out, I had to work on Saturday,
and only made it on Sunday's ride.

I jumped out of bed (yeah, right) at 5:15 am on Sunday morning.
I was packed, fueled, loaded, and only had to dress and leave; so...
I drank some coffee, checked for "late Saturday night" rmd posts, and
got dressed. Brmmmm Brmmmm!

Leaving the house, I stopped by the local "quick rip" and picked up
a breakfast sandwich to balance out the coffee.
It was now 5:50 am, and I'm past the city limits. I'm on schedule
for a change.


After two very pleasant hours on the road, I arrived at the turn-off
to the TrainRobbers Trail, just south of Hot Springs, Arkansas.
I was listing to Sirius Sat Radio's classic radio shows on the way.
(Gun Smoke, The Shadow, X Minus One, The Whistler, and Have Gun Will
Travel. Damn I like those shows for driving.)
I also found the Rolling Stones channel on 12. "Won't you help me
dear doctor, I'm damaged? There's a pain where there once was a
heart. It's beating. I'm hurting. Won't you please tear it out, and
preserve it right there in that jar?"

It rained on me a bit, a couple of times on the 100 miles drive north
on hwy 7, but nothing too serous. Calls to Lynn Burton (Benton),
Chris Butler (Hot Springs), and Bob Diffee (Little Rock) told me that
it had been raining like hell everywhere north of me. Thankfully, it
had quit before I got there. The storm was moving north.

The TrainRobbers Trail is in the Ouachita Mountains, and
subsequently very well drained in most places. I figured it would
still be a good learning experience for me with the trials tire. (I'd
be able to gather more data.)

As I drove the 6 miles of moderately bad road from the pavement in
to the parking area, I realized that I was the first one on the road
that morning. There were no tire tracks in the road before me.
Hmmmm.
I decided to pick up a bit of beer trash on the way in, and pick up
some rocks out of the road and ditches (to carry home for a project).
With DUI being illegal, most casual backwoods driving drinkers will
get rid of the evidence before they hit pavement. Someone needs to
pick it up, so why not me. They let me ride here, so it's the least I
can do.
I wish that the driving drinkers could be granted some sort of
immunity, if they picked up twice as much trash as they would have
normally thrown out.

By 8:15 am, I was parked at the campground, and unloading my gear.
It was cloudy, but not raining. I was the first one to arrive.

Being the last day of the VDS ride, and the ride on Saturday being
held almost entirely in the rain, some of the visitors had already
pulled up stakes and headed for home. There were only 8 riders of
Vintage bikes left. The remainder of our group of 13 consisted of
Arkansas Dirt Rider club members, who had volunteered to ride support.
With everyone but me traveling from the north, most of them were
dragging their feet just a bit, waiting on the rain they thought was
going on, to quit.

Everybody finally arrived and got ready to ride.
We finally left camp around 10 am.
I was the first leader. I kept us on fire lanes at first, as I
gauged the traction conditions, and also how well the vintage bikes
were traveling the terrain.
We had a bunch of post-vintage bikes to guide, instead of true
vintage bikes. That was okay by me, since I would be able to take
them on most of the really fun trail, and just have to sidestep the
really gnarly stuff.
There were two pristine looking open class early '80s Maicos, a
couple of silver frame early '80s Huskys similar to mine, three SWMs,
and a newer GasGas Pampera 250. The smallest displacement bike was
the SWM 175 loaner that Bob Rigby had brought for Californian Paul
Johnstone to ride. Paul had no problems at all during the day.
The two bikes that had the most trouble with the mountain trails
(that I picked for us to ride) were the Pampera (ridden by a less
experienced older man) and a KDX200 ridden by a fine looking lady club
member. She is really good and aggressive mx'er, but her motocrosser
boyfriend really doesn't know how to teach her to dodge trees. Give me
three more rides with her, and I'll have her dancing and dodging the
trees. I wonder if her boyfriend is the jealous sort? (Hmmmm)

***********continued in the next post/reply****************