Phantom Duck 6, Bad Guys 0
PHANTOM DUCK 6, BAD GUYS 0
UP FRONT
Allan Girdler
Just at the instant the sun dropped behind the mountain the clouds parted and a lovely burst of gold blazed forth on the mountains ringing the dry lake to the east. Travel posters could take lessons from sunsets like that. But the beauty was lost on me. Night comes fast in the Nevada desert and the fading light found me and Mike standing next to his bike in the middle of Roach Dry Lake. His engine had seized. The finish of the Phantom Duck of the Desert's Annual Barstool-toVegas ride was 30 mi. of trail away. “Oh, Lord,” I muttered, “we are the people I used to feel sorry for.”
If the prophet is right and pride does goeth before a fall, imagine what happens to pride after a fall, two flat tires, one
ruined rim, several seizures and I-lost-
► 7
count-how-many-times getting lost.
You've already guessed. You know how nothing makes a dirt rider happier than telling how tough it was, so all the whining must mean the Phantom Duck's annual ride, picnic and political protest was another rousing success.
The 1980 ride was different, though. The event began in 1975 as a memorial to the old B-to-V race. A former racer, Louis McKey, simply went out and rode trails, with a few friends. The next year there were more friends. McKey adopted the Phantom Duck of the Desert nom de guerre and let people know and the feds tracked him down and slapped him with a " lawsuit. They wanted it stopped.
As anybody who knows bikers could have predicted, that made the ride more popular than ever. There were hundreds of riders, counter-lawsuits, threats of closure and jail and confrontation. But McKey won in court. In 1980, prior to the tradi► tional date, Saturday after Thanksgiving, one BLM man even suggested the Duck might want to do some scouting, just in case a race course could be put together under the proposed BLM desert plan. One mountain pass was closed, in case it rained, but in general all seemed peace and harmony.
Wrong. As I turned off the highway onto the old road leading to the traditional starting area, I saw a row of highway patrol cars. One saw me. He motioned me over and asked not how fast was I going, but would I mind showing him the registration papers for the motorcycles I had in my truck?
Yes and no. We had off-road stickers for son Joe's bike, of course. And my future son-in-law, Mike What's-his name, had just bought his RM and had the sticker receipt right there in his jacket.
Me? Every previous ride I expected something like this and rode my own XL, license plate, rear view mirror and all. But with the troubles solved, I'd brought a test bike, a pure dirt bike so I could keep up with my son.
I explained to the trooper how I didn't own the third bike and thus had no way to register it. I showed my business card. I gave name and address of the legal owner.
I got a ticket.
Remarkable. While he wrote the citation one slow letter at a time, the airwaves crackled with reports on ownership of Bultacos, Husqvarnas and the like. The patrol was out in force, six cars at least plus two airplanes, all concentrating on where the dirt bikes were. I'd say they were picking on us, acting on orders, except that I believe in coincidence. I also believe snakes don't die until sunset and the check is in the mail.
So as not to crowd the official trail or risk using closed lands, the CW party laid out its own route. Jim Hansen, ad man and demon rider, said we could surely get through the long canyon and over the dunes and to the other end of the first lake. Plenty of time, he promised. You know what a trusting person I am, so he led and Joe and I swept and we didn't see the front half of the party until the next day.
Lost, no, I couldn't say we were officially lost. I knew where we were, mostly, and I knew where we wanted to go, sort of, but it did take some time getting the details worked out.
By comparison, we weren't lost. Not like the two guys on Rickman Triumphs— lovely sound, that 500 Twin—who were so lost they passed us four times, twice headed east and twice headed west, in less than an hour.
At any rate Joe and Mike and I had lunch where we should have had coffee. We were heading up toward the Joshua trees when I looked back and saw Mike waving. Joe's rear tire had gone flat, second year in a row. I knew we could find pavement and a gas station a couple miles further on so we decided to fix the tire there.
Joe offers me an alibi. He was right behind and says I hit a rock. >
My own version is that I probably was thinking of the tire when I should have^ been thinking of the trail. Quicker than I can say it, the bike dove left, buried the front wheel in deep sand and low-sided. Me and machine whumped into the opposite embankment.
First thing I thought was, Thank Goodness for the Moto III. Then I wondered if my teeth were intact (they were) and if I'd1 smashed my wonderful prescription goggles. (I hadn't. They looked like that because they were full of sand and gravel.) Then I looked down and was surprised to hear the engine running, so I shut it off. Then I had some sort of keen and magic insight, but I forget what it was. Mike is a^ big, strong kid and he plucked the bike off me. Nice, in a way, having the kids all worried about me. Usually it's the other way 'round.
The forks were tweaked, my nose had a spectacular but painless cut. We rode to the gas station where it turned out Joe had* two flat tires, one ruined rim. Mike rode to the next fuel stop, came back with the truck and we got to the last stop just as the sun edged toward the western mountain top.
The true adults in the party arrived and retired for the day. Mike, three motocross kids and me decided we'd make a run for it. As we left I spotted a little hummocks and jumped over it. Only my daughter noticed. “Show off,'' was her comment.She has my number.
In 1976 I was a follower. I made the run behind an old desert hand. We got in at mid-afternoon. On the way home we saw lights bobbing across the desert and F thought, poor devils.
In 1980 the poor devils was us. Mike's engine died but a Husky rider gave us a rope and we towed it into action. Because the sensible thing would have been to quit, we plugged on, into the foothills. When the going got rough, Mike's front tire nib-^ bled at my boots. I thought it was because I had the light and he couldn't see how bad it was. He tells me no, he knew how bad it was. He also knew if the engine fell off the pipe, it would never run again, so he didn't dare slow down.
We finished an hour after dark. I never thought I'd be happy to see the tasteless^ glare of Las Vegas neon, but I was.
Next morning's paper said the county sheriff had reported no trouble at all. No injuries, no fights, no complaints of trespass. A Sierra Club spokesman was furious, although I couldn't tell if it was because we'd used public land or because"* we hadn't caused any trouble.
If it makes those guys mad, next year I'll do the whole trip in the dark. Singing “This Land Was Made For You and Me.”
