The More the Merrier - Maybe

What can be more fun than a week of camping and riding with about 12 or 14 guys in the desert. The nights of partying around a big campfire with people that you do not see very often. Eating those big meals that always taste better when you are camping. Enjoying the outdoors, and swapping stories. Now all of these things are fun, but what you really came for is the riding, and that is where you can run into trouble with the numbers.

A ride in the desert is not like anything else. One loop can be anywhere from 20 to 40 miles or more. It can cover a variety of terrain and altitudes. The weather can also be rather extreme. The bottom line is that everyone has to be ready for anything.

This particular day, four of us had come back from a ride to the Jawbone Post Office to see if we could get any information on whether the store was going to be rebuilt. It was a great ride. From Dove Canyon we went to San Antonio Mine, down Blue Point down the wash and through Jawbone. The wash was in great shape do to some earlier rains, so we really got to burn it up. For the trip back, we took the Power Line Road, one of my favorites. It has many sharp turns, lots of hills, and a couple of straight sections to really turn it on.

After returning we had some lunch and a little relaxation, everyone that had a bike decided to go on a big ride. The number of riders going would be 12. The destination was going to be the radio tower. It is a trip of about 32 miles with a climb up to the 6000 ' peak in the Tahatchapi Mountains, where the tower is.

The first step is to get everyone geared up. When you think that everyone is ready to go, there is always the person that is still working on his bike and not close to being ready. Then finally when everyone is ready and there is at least one bike that will not start. It is usually the CR500.

After we finally got going, we took off and climbed out of the north side of Dove Canyon only to get to the top and find that there were only five of us there. We stopped and noticed that the rest were on the other side of the canyon playing on the hill climbs. So we just turned off our motors and waited until they were done. When we all regrouped, it was over the top of the canyon and down the trails to SC 161, which is about 9 miles of whoops. We reached the junction of SC 120 after a couple of stops for one reason or another. Each timed we stopped the CR500 would not start, and I remembered why I got rid of mine. Kicking your bike until you are blue is not fun.

Since it took longer than we thought to get this far, we decided not to go all the way to the tower, and take 120 down to the Aqueduct Road back. We took a break and checked the bikes for the high speed run back. One bike was leaking oil and he had to add some. We drank some water, and did not shut off the CR.

The trip down the Aqueduct Road was really wild, we were running flat out. You know you are going fast when you are trying to shift into a higher gear that is not there. It is also advisable to try to stay near the front since the dust can get really thick with that many bikes.

When we reached the Junction of SC103 we waited and three bikes did not show. One showed after a few minutes and said that John's YZ had quit a couple of miles back, and they thought that he had fouled a plug. Actually it was fouled with engine parts. Since the way back to camp was fairly flat, and Mark having a tow rope with him, Mark towed him back to camp with his XR500.

Well, was the ride fun? Sure it was. The fact is anytime you get a large group together for a ride, whether it is in the dirt or on the street, do not expect to get anywhere fast.