Book Review

BOOK REVIEW

Edited by William D. Laichas and Thomas M. Me Far lane Published by Directions Marketing Co. in Cooperation with the American Motorcyclist Assn. PO. Box 141, Westerville, Ohio 43081 128 pages $4.95

TRAIL RIDING IN AMERICA

Publishing a book about off-road riding in any and all of our 50 states is sort of like teaching a dog to play chess. Just to do it is such a monumental achievement, a triumph of will over circumstances, that it’s unfair to be disappointed if the dog can’t play chess very well.

This is a useful book. Not the usual sort of book, because it can't be. Instead the editors have collected maps of all the states, and insets of areas within those states. They have marked these maps with symbols, after devising a code; here’s a commercial riding park, there’s a practice motocross track, over in the corner is an area owned by the federal government and dedicated to motorcycles, in the other corner is a state park with dirt trails open to motorized use, and so forth.

Each state has its own maps, and with the maps are summaries of the laws of that state, and the policies of that state. In Minnesota, to pick a page at random, there is no state policy. Each county has its own rules for riding street-legal bikes in state forests, and most of the real woods

riding is done courtesy of mining and timber companies. In Montana there’s a private riding area, owned by a club, and a BLM riding area.

And so it goes. Most of us live in one state, and we learn its rules by heart. We know the best riding areas because we explored for them or were told by other riders. In a sense, the AMA guide disappoints. It doesn’t tell as much about any state as the dirt bikers in that state know.

However. To do that, to include directions to every good trail across the U.S., is impossible. Instead the AMA and the harried men who did this book have collected a vast assortment of basic facts and put them together. Texas riders who go north for a vacation will at least know where to start in Minnesota, and Minnesotans down south for the winter will be able to explore in Texas. The AMA supports the sport, and the book is worth the money. (Especially if you’re also a road rider. Where else can you get maps of all the states for $4.95?)

At your local dealership. S