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.
*********************
(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****************

[Jim Cook]

********** continued from previous post*************


The short version of the day's ride was that we had relatively dry
conditions for the first two hours. Most everyone did well during
this part of the ride, and there were only a few deep mudholes and
slick places that had some of the riders develop "photo moments".

Then, it started misting just a bit.
Then, it started sprinkling on us.
After another 30 minutes, it started raining steadily. I shucked my
goggles, and rode with glasses only for a while. Later, I wrapped the
glasses in a rag and stowed them in my fanny pak. Damn! I could see
again.
We hop-scotched all over what I call the fun stuff around the middle
of the property. It is a bit hilly, and has a nice flow to it.
Nothing was extremely difficult, and none of the trails where I led
them was extremely rocky. The rain kept increasing, but the trails
were still fine. (It's surprising how much traction a rear trials
tire gets on wet roots and wet rocks. Those sections with tiny
crumbling rocks comprising the surface were almost like dry pavement.)
The lower gearing, combined with the trials tire and Rekluse were
almost like cheating.

It became 1:30 pm, and my stomach started growling. I had fixed two
fried baloney sandwiches (whole wheat, mayo, and plenty of lettuce) at
midnight, the night before, and they were calling me. (Actually, I
made three of them; one for my biddy Bob Diffee, since I knew he would
just have junk food to eat for lunch.)
We were now in the "northern middle" of the 10,000 acres on which
the Ross Foundation lets the ADR maintain a trail system.

I took a vote as to whether they wanted to:
a. road it back to camp for lunch, and then hit it again in the
afternoon.
or
b.ride till they got all they wanted, and then head in for the day.

It was unanimous. They wanted to keep riding. I just ate one of my
granola and honey bars, and kept grinning.

After another hour, the older fellow on the Pampera was starting to
fade. The miles and conditions were telling on him. At a strategic
road crossing, one of the club members pealed off and led him back to
camp.

The rain was steadily increasing, but the thick tree cover was
giving us some shelter, and there was no lightning, so I was still
having fun, as were most of the troops. These were mostly a seasoned
bunch of old dirt bike junkies. It wasn't their first rodeo. And, I
wasn't the oldest one in the bunch today.

About three o'clock, at another well located road crossing, we had
two more defections, and another happy ADR member led them on a
shortcut back to camp.

While I was eating another granola and honey bar, the rest of the
Vintage Dual Sport riders said that they were almost full (had a belly
full of riding in the rain), but wanted to take "the long way around"
back to camp. Bobby, Chris, and I charted a path, using the trails to
the east and south to give the riders some excitement and fun on the
way back to camp.
This course would take us over two of the roller coaster sections
(in the downhill direction) and cover about 6 miles of single track
and about 4 miles of fire lane and gravel road. I was really raining
hard now. WoooHooo! At 75F, it wasn't too cold, so the rain just
made it interesting (except for the lack of eye protection).

As we arrived at the parking area and started loading the bikes, the
bottom dropped out of the skies. It wasn't a problem loading the
bikes, but it was terribly difficult getting dressed without getting
drenched all over again. It took me a while, but I managed to get
finished and in the truck with a dry butt and back, and was able to
keep the truck seat dry in the process.

I had said all my goodbys before starting to change clothes, so I
just waved out the window as everyone but Bobby left. We had a picnic
lunch in the front seat of my truck.
Those fried baloney sandwiches were marvelous.

It was another fantastic fun day of dirt bike riding in Arkansas.
I highly recommend it to anyone that is able to muster up any sort of
excuse to ride at every opportunity.

Boomhauer, I thought about you several times during the ride. At least
ten of those miles were dedicated to you. (These were the miles where
I was riding sweep, and following right behind the good looking blond
on the KDX.)

Now, the stories I heard from the White Rock Mountain Enduro near
Fayetteville were not so pleasant. It was a wet wet wet sloppy mess,
with deep ruts and log crossings on uphill slopes. Many KTMs were
drowned. I heard that Purdy Boy Jahelka earned overall honors
for the shortened race.


Life is Good!

Good Riding and Reporting to All Y'all!

Jim

[lukachuki]

Great write up Jim. You manage to capture that magical something that makes riding motorcycles so much fun. Thanks for taking the time to write and post that. Also glad to see you posting over here more!!!

[KiwiGasHead]

Hi,
As my first post on this forum I would like to thank Jim Cook for a brilliant ride report - excellent reading.
cheers gassers
A

[Jim Cook]

Tim and Kiwi,
Thanks for the kind words.
I'll try to share more of my rides in the future.

Come ride with me.

Jim

[mountain thumper]

you shouldbe a a writer! sucked me right in like i was there!
my ride reports are like
we rode, it was nice, we had fun, i did/didnt crash, bike acted this way went home...
lol

[Boomhauer]

Jim,

Great ride report as always. To bad I was not there to see her for myself.

Since I am not going to race anymore this year maybe I can talk the wife into a weekend trip to Hot Springs so she can go to a bath house and I can ride in the woods.