Article posted to the BMW-GS mailing list 3/23/95.
Last Sunday (3/19/95), Bill Feiereisen led a small informal ride to explore a BLM area he had run across on Little Panoche Road (off Panoche Road (J1), which splits off southeast, of off CA Hwy 25). Though Bill had seen a sign that said "No motorcycles," we scoffed that off as meaning no dirtbikes. Anywhere I can take my car I can damn well take my street-registered motorcycle!
17 riders left Cal BMW at 7AM, with two leaving after breakfast, for a total of 15 riders on this "small informal" ride. The ride was composed of 9 R100GSs (including 5 PDs), 3 R80G/Ss, one DR650, one R65 (for once, not mine) and one Nighthawk 650!
Panoche Road (J1) had "Road Closed" signs, but the construction crews we came across waved us right through. Many parts of the road were washed out and had dirt detours, a nice warmup.
Bill had topo maps which indicated a good graded dirt road that led through the heart of the BLM area, with various jeep trails leading from that main road. All the trails we encountered had similar characteristics: narrow two-track, overall fairly smooth (no clearance issues for the street bikes), dry, with shallow ruts in some stretches, no rocks to speak of, good visibility, and overall with excellent and even traction. So, no problem, right? Not quite: the one element that challenged us that day was steepness.
Our first foray onto one of these trails resulted in a dead end and a big group turnaround -- but not before the only two mud puddles of the day nailed three riders. I was the first wipeout of the day, soon followed by Dave Doudna and Stan Malyshev (on his and his R65's maiden dirt voyage) performing what Robert Kennedy described as "flying W's" when Dave slid out and apparently Stan did too in an attempt to avoid him.
Back on the graded road, Valerie came around a corner to find an R100GS/PD tipped over on the side of the road, with the rider still on it! She yelled to him, "Are you OK? Are you OK?" and for a few frightening moments, he didn't answer. When he came to, he explained that he had felt dizzy and had started to pull over, but passed out before he was all the way stopped. After some vomiting and some water, whatever it was passed from his system and he rode fine the rest of the day.
Valerie had gone ahead to tell everyone else all was OK, and I waited with him a few minutes while he composed himself. Soon Dave showed up and told me that the rest of group was stopped up ahead at the bottom of a steep hill. Dave said Robert Kennedy (on the Nighthawk 650) had tried to go up, but even Robert's skill couldn't overcome the handicap of the street tires and he hadn't made it up, and it was undetermined if the rest of the group was going to try. Dave said he probably wasn't.
After a gate, the graded gravel road turned trail with giant whoop-de-doo up and downs in the form of long, steep hills. When I arrived, some riders had gone up the big hill and now were on their way down. This included Stan on the R65, who had blown by me earlier with such speed at first I thought he was Eli on the DR650. Apparently no one informed Stan that street tires are supposed to be a liability in dirt.
But, map consultations and peer pressure resulted in group consensus to press on up the hill after all. Two new R100GS riders opted to have Chuck Brown ride their bikes up for them. I was about the 4th person to go up, wanting to get it over with since the steepness terrified me. Shaking uncontrollably from nervousness and fear, I had to dive in before I could chicken out, and before thinking about it, tackled the outside line alongside a rut. I'd recently learned in Mexico that a hard-packed slant leading down into a rut provides plenty of traction, and is much better than getting into the rut. Not daring to slow down, I kept it at least mid-throttle in 1st gear and the G/S carried me through with one rear-end kickout. I arrived at the top elated and yelling from the HUGE thrill of grunting up that hill! Fear exorcised by adrenaline, I was instantly transformed from sheepish and hesitant into gleeful and confident for the rest of the day.
Soon after me came Valerie, and she rode up with guts I can only admire and attempt to emulate with experience. But at the top of the hill, there was a bump just before the road curved to the left -- Valerie's speed launched her off the bump and projected her straight -- straight off the road and over the edge of the hill! It was a few terrifying instants before bike and rider stopped tumbling, and she was thrown about 15 feet from the bike. A group of people rushed to keep the bike from tumbling further down the hill while RK and I tended to Valerie. Just as she started to move, Kari yelled -- he'd accidentally grabbed a header pipe and put some nasty burns on his hand in his haste to stop the gas flow. Kari's burn was the only injury that day: Valerie, miraculously, was fine.
In case we needed final proof that Valerie is a True Rider, the first thing she said when she was moving again was, "My bike!" My Bike was lying on its side, facing downhill, with the left cylinder precariously sticking it to the hillside. It wouldn't have taken much for it to fall tens of feet farther down, and itwas already about 20 feet off the road. Eli had a 50-foot rope and about 7 guys hauled it off the hill. True to a GS, the damage was limited to a turn signal, handguard and various scratches. Valerie was shaken at first, but since we had to keep riding, she was forced to get back on the horse right away. The first few hills after a major crash like that are always hard, but by the end of the day, she had recovered her confidence and was back to her usual enthusiastic self. Mark my words, this is one rider we will be hearing a LOT of.
As for the other riders -- Robert Kennedy on the Nighthawk rode up the steep hill faster than his first attempt, and made it! Stan on the R65 went up fast and without incident. This is a serious natural talent here, folks. Dave, last to arrive, made it easily despite his earlier reluctance. It didn't seem to me that tires were separating the riders here.
But what goes up must come down, and the trail continued to roll up and down over hills. At the top of the steepest hills, groups formed as riders went down one at a time. Overall, people seemed to view the downhills as a greater obstacle than the uphills. Many downhill techniques were offered: use the rear brake more, or "dead-stick" it and go down with the engine off in neutral and just using the brakes, or with the engine on and in gear, using both brakes.
Now, I know this is something of a counterpoint in the philosophical wars about brake usage in dirt, but to take issue with the advice to use more rear brake downhill, and to out-and-out disagree with the occasional advice not to use the front at all. You STILL have most of your braking in the front, no matter what surface you're on. The quickest way for me to lose control was to lock up the rear wheel and slide sideways on a steep downhill, and the temptation to overuse the rear is huge. The danger of front braking of course, is overbraking, locking up the front wheel and losing control quickly, which is why the usual advice so heavily favors rear brake usage.
But I've found that if most of my braking is in the front, and I am willing to roll a little to give some leeway in front brake usage, then I am in more control than with the rear constantly locking and unlocking. Maybe I'm very skilled or very unskilled at front braking, because I have never once locked up the front wheel in these situations. Maybe my brakes suck. Or, maybe lack of hand strength, or finer female motor skills, translate into finer front brake modulation. Most likely, I've just been really lucky so far. But I have yet to find use for the downhill advice to favor the rear brake (now it will be the end of me, just watch).
And for all everyone moaned and groaned about the downhills, not ONE person dropped going downhill all day! ALL hill-related drops occurred uphill! I rest my case! :-)
At another gathering point for a steep downhill with a rutted section at the bottom, about half the riders had gone down only to find out from Eli's scouting that the road was a dead end. Poor Chuck Brown had just ridden down Raymond Samaha's PD, and had almost completed the grueling walk back up the hill -- only to find out we were turning around, and had to walk all the way back down to get Raymond's bike. On the way up, Robert on the Nighthawk got stuck and wailed, "hyelp" but he didn't drop! Again, no one dropped going down this hill, but there were some close calls and drops going back uphill. I was one of the fortunates in the back of the pack who didn't end up riding it at all since we turned around. (Actually I sorta wanted to try it.)
Heading back, a relatively easy uphill was now a short steep downhill, and the hardworking Chuck talked Dave and another rider down. Valerie, recovering from her incident, said, "wouldn't it be easier just to GO?" Indeed, there is a group dynamic that happens when riders see other riders, good riders, have trouble with something they might not otherwise have viewed as an obstacle.
The last obstacle of the day was the steepest, longest downhill that had stopped us going uphill early on. This time I had no fear -- until actually heading down and discovering how very, very steep it was!
I had already intended to go down the same side I'd come up, then made the critical error of asking someone which side was better. The answer was the other side, which turned out to be looser, deeper and straighter -- better for those paddle-walking down, but not as good for those riding down. Paddle-walking is not in my riding repertoire, so I "rode" down, experiencing ugly slideouts as I locked the rear end locked and swung around. For once I had the presence of mind to let up on the rear brake when a side-slide got really bad, and finally about 3/5 of the way down I let it go altogether and instantly regained complete control and zoomed down. Again, overusing the rear proved to be my biggest problem. But more importantly, I shouldn't have doubted myself -- by consulting someone else, I undermined my confidence and didn't follow my instinct about which side to go down. It didn't cost me this time, but this sort of judgement is particularly important to me since I have fewer resources (legs) by which to recover from a bad decision, so I have to rely heavily on staying out of trouble in the first place. There are times it's appropriate to ask, but not when you already know. < kick kick >. Short legs is not at all my biggest problem in dirt, short thinking is.
I'm happy to say that *everyone* rode their bikes down, including the two riders who'd had the hardworking Chuck ride their bikes up for them. And Valerie too -- even though we weren't sure if she'd recovered enough, but I knew she would try anyway, and she made it fine! Bill walked with her and talked to her, and gave us a good laugh once as he held on to her bike's rear rack with his feet sliding, dragged behind the bike as a moving anchor. Raymond Samaha was beaming at the bottom, very pleased with himself for making it down himself. I watched RK and Chuck putter down the side I should have ridden down as though it was an Interstate.
Back on the easy graded dirt road, I rode as hard as I could, trying to keep up with Stan flattracking his R65! This was actually easy riding, but not one of my stronger points as a rider, since I'm (sniff) afraid to slide! In dirt! That stinks! That's the whole point! Stan was riding so well that I was compelled to (try to) emulate. Eventually Stan lost me but soon I caught up to the group waiting at an intersection.
There was a short loop there that others had done earlier, so a few of us took off on this fun detour. Conquering those hills had made me relatively fearless, and blasting through the small twists and turns and hills felt like true dirt-donking, in total control of the bike, choosing its every movement instead of just going along with it. As happens often, this is partly motivated by the desire to keep up with and harass Dave, which I unintentionally did once by cutting him off (oops, sorry), but Dave, ever the MSF's model SmartRider (tm), actually head-checked before changing tracks to take a better line up a hill!
The group had collected, so we headed out -- only to be waved into a turnout by a BLM ranger.
Mr. Ranger had just ticketed a TW200 rider for the unconscionable offense of riding his motorcycle on this BLM property, and it seemed we were about to get cited for the same thing. In disbelief, we told the ranger we thought no motorcycles means no off-road vehicles or dirtbikes, but he clarified it to no motorcycles AT ALL. Cars and other 4-wheeled contraptions are allowed, but not your street-legal bike! BLM areas are federal property, so state laws don't necessarily apply. The ranger explained that there were various wilderness areas and delicate habitats in there, and that the BLM was pretty fed up with the 4WD crowd going off designated trails too, so I suspect the outcome of a successful protest would be to forbid cars. Which I can swallow better than letting Volvos go where your K1100LT can't.
The ranger was a reasonable guy just doing his job, so we laid off the questions and acted very polite and remorseful. He didn't want to write 15 tickets, so in fairness to the TW200 rider, voided his ticket too! He took all our names, addresses and types of bikes, and we promised never to come back, and agreed to publicize that this was off-limits to motorcycles. Which we will, including to the AMA.
We were on our way out anyway, so behaved ourselves as we proceeded (illegally) out and then blasted back on J1. We seemed to have hit a window of decent weather, since it was sunny all day and only started to rain as we got back to the Bay Area (that was Sunday evening, and today, Thursday, it pretty much hasn't stopped).
It turned out to be a stolen day, but still, those sorts of rides are my absolute favorite. The attitude, enthusiasm and camaraderie of the riders counts a lot more than their skill level, and the challenge of that first steep hill just can't be found on the street. I've been high all week! Everyone really enjoyed the ride and learned a lot, and thanks to Bill for organizing it. It seems this GS riding thing is really catching on. Or maybe it's been there all along.
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