Round Up
ROUND UP
JOE PARKHURST
THE BEAUTIFUL and well trodden hills and valleys of Spain provided a setting for one of the most perfect ISDTs ever staged, and Manuel Giro, head of the Ossa factory, provided me with a new five-speed, 250 Enduro to ride the course.
Europeans have a difficult time understanding the American approach to motorcycling. Far more professional and dispassionate, they look at our fun-loving “easy come, easy go” attitude and wonder how we get anything done at all.
It’s a mixed blessing at times. We brought home quite a few gold, silver and bronze medals, but I feel that more discipline, organization, and group effort would have produced results even better than the wonderful showing our guys made.
The “International” is one of the most difficult motorcycle events in the world, ranking with other long distance cross-country races like the Baja 1000. It requires extreme durability from both machine and man. Physical conditioning is vital. Riding around 200 miles per day, on what has been described as a “six-day hare scrambles to qualify for a road race at the end,” is extremely demanding.
Selection of riders for the 1971 event, probably to be held on the Isle of Man again, should be a matter of profound objectivity. We actually sent too many riders this year, several of whom were not really ready for the test. We can only improve our team performance with a tougher approach. Only a few riders, such as Malcolm Smith, Steve Hurd, Ron Bohn, Gerry Pacholke, Bud Ekins, the Pentons, Billy Uhl, Dave Ekins, Mike Patrick, and several others, are really qualified.
We have developed a tendency to send riders that can afford to go, since it does require that each pay his own way. Several people close to the ISDT are already talking of such things as qualifying enduros, organizing a financial effort on behalf of a team, seeking industry support for the teams, and a
number of other approaches that, hopefully, would improve our chances next year. I hope to be able to report on progress later on.
Since the American Motorcycle Association is the Federation Internationale Motocycliste affiliate organization in the U.S. for 1971, I expect the situation to be even more difficult. The AMA will, of course, try very hard, but they have very little experience in international motorcycle affairs. And while they are at present seeking the best possible advice in all areas, the ISDT team and rider selection is a touchy and personal subject to a great many people.
GETTING BACK TO THE LAND
CYCLE WORLD contributor Bill Kaysing, who is best remembered for his “Intelligent Motorcycling” series a few years back, lives in one of several areas in California I regard as a “paradise.” Bill lives and works in Santa Barbara, around 100 miles north of Los Angeles on the coast, nestled between the ocean and the Los Padres National Forest.
His trailing ground is some of the most beautiful and unspoiled in the West. Bill, like many of us, is a motorcycle-mounted amateur naturalist. He combines the pleasures of bike riding with going far into the back country to commune with nature, if you will.
Recently Bill began publishing a newspaper, called The Better World News. It’s an experiment, according to Kaysing, which he is doing largely for fun. His one-sentence description of the paper is, “Better World News is a series of positive statements on how the people themselves can live better for less money and save their environment at the same time.”
The paper is full of such items as how to grow a ton of food for 35-centsworth of seed, locating and buying low-cost land, earning money in the country, making land produce useful wild life, lists of recreational business opportunities, helpfui hints for homesteaders, how to trim and prepare fish for eating, and, of course, intelligent motorcycling. It is laced with advertisements for organic foods, candle-making suppliers, seed catalogs and, in general, the paraphernalia necessary for living next to the earth.
Though I do not wholly advocate the idea of all of us deserting the competitive business world to become farmers and full-time practicing naturalists, I have always envied those who do. There is nothing wrong with a little readjusting of our values, even when relating a thing like Better World News to our own back yards.
More importantly, we should begin to relate this concept of readjustment to our back country motorcycle riding which is involved with the huge problem of maintaining an ecological balance.
Bill has reached a lot of people, including me, with his message.
I worry about the vanishing open lands that are being closed to us at an ever increasing rate. I am also concerned about the noise pollution created by bikes in these open riding areas, and about the unnecessary damage it can do.
Be thoughtful when you make for the woods and desert. I have a muffler/ spark arrestor on all of my bikes that are not confined to use at Saddleback Park. It strikes me as a small thing for all of us to do, when compared to the benefits gained from doing so.
Chuck Clayton, publisher of Cycle News, passed on an idea to me. He wants to give a new connotation to the familiar peace symbol, linking it with motorcyclists’ attempts to make peace with conservationists and those who are offended by the noise motorcycles make. CYCLE WORLD has said it before, and we’ll go on saying it: noise is our worst offense.
If you are interested in what Bill Kaysing has to say, write Better World News, Paradise Publishers, Box 5372, Santa Barbara, Calif. 93 1 03. It’s only 25 cents a copy. [¡Q]
