White City, Illinois

Revisiting the 86 off-road events documented thus far on these pages, the Cahokia Creek Dirt Riders (CCDR) club is the only venue I've attended at least once every year. Its proximity to my home, along with its reputation as one of the most active off-road clubs in the area, are big draws. Admittedly, many races come with an element of love-it-or-hate-it, driven almost entirely by the weather. Precipitation is the club’s nemesis. While dry conditions bring joy, rainy days can make a two hour hare scramble feel like eight hours cultivating soybeans in an open-cab tractor (circa 1987). Today’s event, I wasn’t so sure. Yesterday’s steady rains had me thinking we’d suffer a slippery, slimy course, but the showers fell sparsely over the club grounds. Across the staging area, lively chatter reflected the mood of the racers, all in agreement we’d picked a good day to ride dirt bikes.

Like most of our trips across the river into Illinois, Matt Sellers’ enthusiasm reflected what he expected of the weather. Matt is normally flowing with testosterone right up to the point his pickup truck pulls into my driveway on a rainy Sunday morning. From there, estrogen surges freely. Needless to say, he shifted back into a manly-man when full sun greeted us at the club. Light rain had greased up the trail surface, but we expected a couple hundred knobby tires to clear out the slime on the first lap.

A quick stroll through a portion of the course revealed a mile or two of trail on the north side of Illinois Route 138, where maclura pomifera trees had dropped their usual fall crop of softball-sized fruit. Also known as Osage orange, these thorny hedge trees came to Illinois in the 1800s as a substitute for livestock fences. The lime-green, wrinkly “oranges” fall every October, to the dismay of trail riders throughout the Midwest. Green balls and dirt bikes mix poorly, and we appreciated the club members sweeping them off the trails. To the east of the staging area, a little 5-turn dirt track served as a warm-up area for the bikes. The KX250 really did love to be thrown into the berms in wide open, full motocross style. For a moment or two I felt like one of those seasoned rippers who tear to shreds whatever dirt lies in their path, then realized I wouldn’t be riding the bike like that anywhere else on the property.

I parked the bike next to Matt’s pickup truck and strolled to the clubhouse, where riders assembled for prerace instructions. As always, the meeting was led by the club member with the loudest voice. These gatherings are standard practice for woods races, and after listening to more than a hundred rider meetings over the years, I could probably stand in for the trail boss without knowing a thing about the course. But this time, an odd instruction was announced. The trail boss warned to "stay on the grass track." Why wouldn’t we, I asked silently. More on that later.

Once the trail boss ran out of instructions and advice, the crowd dispersed back into the shady parking area, hopped on their bikes and cruised to the starting line. I picked a spot on the far end of the first row, which included all the various A classes. To my right sat fast guy John Yarnell on a KX250 just like mine. Yarnell picked up his new ride over the summer, and its break-in period must have come with less time lying on its side. His was much prettier. Unlike me, however, Yarnell bought his bike from an actual Kawasaki dealership, probably fully assembled and ready to ride.

A few minutes later, the green flag waved and silence turned to a deafening roar of 15 bikes sprinting toward a narrow opening in the woods. My KX250 fired quickly and I joined the pack somewhere in the middle, jockeying for position within a narrow band of trees. As a club property, CCDR trails get ridden often and are intermixed with nearly continuous, crisscrossing paths throughout the woods. With no ATVs allowed, the “single” part of singletrack is (technically) what makes up most of the trails, but “multi-single-track” might better describe the scene. With a tightly grouped cluster of riders sampling all manner of alternate lines, the first half-mile of the race had me zig-zagging through a relatively straight route toward the first creek crossing.

In this initial minute of the race, we slopped our way through a thin layer of slime, toward a slick corner Matt and I had scouted earlier. We’d both noticed a shortcut which, by diving to the inside of the main line, would easily put us ahead of any rider within a bike length out front. As the slippery corner approached, I didn’t want to give away this great secret to so many riders on the first lap. Thinking like the smart racer I am not, I’d probably need the shortcut later in the race, so why reveal my superior knowledge any sooner than necessary?

Behind me, five riders took the shortcut. So much for secrets. The group jumped ahead and quickly distanced themselves while I fended off a screaming small bore 2-stroke. I soon gave into the pressure and allowed the little motorcycle to pass. He drifted out of sight and left me alone on the course.

Just beyond a flat area of trees and brush, arrows pointed straight across Cahokia Creek on the north side of Highway 138. This waterway averaged 20 yards or so wide and represented a typical Illinois creek, draining a couple township’s worth of rainwater. The only rocks of any size could be found here among the black dirt of endless farmland, in a channel winding its way through the White City area. On a dirt bike, this creek pushed limits. Where the banks leveled off, most motorcycles could safely cross, but like many of this variety, Cahokia Creek might suddenly decide to carve out a deep hole at a spot where dirt bikes had always forded, or reshape its bank to an impossibly steep angle. Like the office of the Presidency, change was inevitable. Today, however, I plowed through the creek at its usual spot at the far end of the course, same as most races here, and scaled a 3-foot bank on the other side.

Next came the toughest hill on the property, a straight climb most humans would avoid if traveling by foot. This hill had defied me during muddy races, but today’s dry dirt offered little resistance. With the throttle twisted to its limit, I rocketed up the steep grade to higher ground. The trail soon dropped back down into the valley carved by Cahokia Creek, then directed us toward the staging area. I passed under the Highway 138 bridge about ten minutes into the first lap, relaxed my iron fisted hold on the bars and sprinted through the main part of the CCDR property.

Much of the course flowed through a series of ravines slicing through a stretch of loamy soil running several miles wide across Illinois prairieland. The CCDR property makes use of a portion of this land feature, unique within the upper 2/3s of the state, where most dirt is thick and black and more resistant to the creeks which would prefer to cut deeply and change the shape of the landscape. The White City geology, giving in to the pressure, allowed Cahokia Creek to form hills too steep for farming and too small for snow skiing, so humans of this area purposed the region for hunting and recreation. Thankfully, a healthy patch of land was reserved for dirt bikers, where we raced up and down the ravines and along ridges and side hills. Late in the racing season, summer green had turned to brown and grey, making a generally faster course. Leafy woods tend to cloud vision and slow down the pace, then fall arrives and leaves are shed and the brush thins out. Today I could make out the trail from further distances and sometimes ride a gear higher than possible in a midsummer race. The KX250 handled the extra velocity with ease, as I slammed across tree roots and rutted hills.

On the south side of Highway 138, the trail crossed Cahokia Creek once more. Two riders charged ahead of me there, and other pair raced by when I overshot a turn. By now I’d lost count of the bikes flying past me and, through the process of elimination, sadly realized some of these riders had to be from the second row B classes. I did manage to rejoin the riders who passed earlier while I fumbled my way back onto the course, and slipped by one of them by taking an inside line down a steep hill. But the other gentleman matched my pace and I followed his lead.

We entered the grass track mentioned by the trail boss in the middle part of the CCDR property, where wood stakes marked an unusually long dash through an open pasture. Most often this large grassy patch only connected certain woods sections around its perimeter, but today at least two miles of lightly marked track had been laid out for our enjoyment. Spotters helped encourage riders to remain within shouting distance of the minimally placed wood stakes, as this area was ripe for huge shortcuts and worthy of a stern warning from the trail boss.

Back inside the woods, I continued to pursue the fast guy who’d passed me earlier. We approached the scoring barrels a mile later, where he checked through the “A” class lane and continued at an aggressive pace. The north side of Highway 138 offered no opportunities to pass outright and I squandered several opportunities to shortcut my way around. Several minutes later we reached the halfway point of the lap and fatigue was slowing his pace. His lines through the twisty course remained smooth and his flawless technique suggested no change in velocity, but I could now match his speed with less effort.

Gradually my front tire nudged his rear wheel, adding pressure to his pace, and he finally gave in. Just ahead of a muddy patch filled with 6-foot reeds, he moved to the side and I sped by. This greasy section caught me off guard on the first lap, where my wheels slid out around a corner, but this time I passed through cleanly. Again, I found myself alone in the woods, charging through the trails toward the scoring barrels.

By the third lap I’d learned the course well enough to anticipate certain trail features and step up the aggression. I lapped a group of beginners who were kind enough to clear out of the way, feeling good about my pace but pushing a bit beyond my comfort zone. I often reach a point where I realize it’s time to back it down a bit, and that moment came on a well-traveled path up a hill which had been chopped up from previous mud races. Both feet slipped off the foot pegs, leaving me attached to the bike only with my arms. In Superman style, I clung to the handlebars and felt my manly parts smack against the rear fender. After that I dialed down the pace and finished the third lap without incident.

Lap four brought more of the same, with trails now offering maximum traction and the KX250 running perfectly. After bouncing around at the Warrensburg, Missouri hare scramble I’d increased rebound damping in the shock and forks, and these adjustments worked flawlessly today. Like a good set of riding gear or perfectly adjusted controls, well-tuned suspension is mostly invisible to a rider during a race. I barely noticed the forks or the shock and felt good about the large amount of money I’d paid the experts at W.E.R. to tame my motocross suspension.

Back at the grass track, I slowly reeled in a guy on a Gas Gas and passed him just before we entered the final mile of woods. The KX250 owner’s manual described the engine’s power valve as having two-stages, and on the grass track I could feel the second stage kick in. When RPMs reached a certain point, the engine would do its best to make the rear tire spin on the grass in 5th gear. Very cool. And I continued to be impressed with the KX's stability at speed. A 14/50 sprocket combo nearly matched the final gear ratios of my KTM 300MXC, but somehow the new bike seemed faster in top gear. Or perhaps the lack of high-speed headshake made me feel faster. Either way, I very much enjoyed this bike.

I also liked my finish, 3rd place in +30A, and would have collected a small cash award had I stuck around for the trophy presentation. But my ride was leaving, and by 4:00 p.m. I was home, cleaning the green bike and my gear. On a day of cooperative weather, once again White City did not disappoint.