White City, Illinois

With motorcycle maintenance, and perhaps life in general, the big picture has a way of disappearing into my rear view. The minutia of a clutch lever flopping around the pivot bolt can take priority over a cylinder with almost no compression. At the Eugene, Missouri hare scramble last month, the engine kicked over a little too easily but still fired up, so where’s the problem with that? A late-September fun ride with my buddy Jeff Smith at St. Joe State Park verified there was, indeed, a problem: The engine would not run. But I proved myself right in owning, and through dumb luck actually bringing, a backup bike to the park. My brand new 2002 KTM 300MXC was along for a couple of break-in cycles and quickly filled in for the old, dead 300EXC.

Ahead of the Big Red enduro near White City, I tore into the cylinder and measured ring-end gap at approximately 0.090”. Just a smidge above the factory spec of 0.020”, the rings were beyond shot to hell. The tear-down also revealed a severely kinked radiator hose, which explained why the coolant level dropped after the Eugene race. Somehow I’d won my class and finished 20th overall, with a piston barely compressing the cylinder and a radiator leaking coolant. Thankfully, this engine was built tough enough to survive its beatings and my 8th grade shop class mechanical ability.

Around 9:00 the night before the enduro, nearly finished with several hours of bike maintenance, I noticed one of the cylinder head bolts wouldn’t tighten to torque specs. Never mind the fact I’d referenced the wrong specs, or my mental rationing that the cylinder head contained another five perfectly good bolts to hold everything in place. The engine fired up, the race was tomorrow morning, and I would be there.

The most important reason for making the Big Red was online rumors of a dry White City. I’d seen these conditions before, and missing such an opportunity was the same as turning down grandma’s cherry cobbler because it won’t fit on your Thanksgiving plate. Sure enough, the Cahokia Creek Dirt Riders (CCDR) club grounds kicked up a light dust as trucks and trailers convened. Gone was the slop-fest of the previous two years. Perhaps I’d finally finish this enduro, if I could survive 6 hours in the saddle.

The route sheet’s 18-mph speed average suggested the trails would be tight as ever, and I had every reason to believe it. Most of the properties pieced together for this race saw motorcycles only once a year. In Illinois, this is plenty of time for thick underbrush to retake last year’s trails and leave riders nearly blind around every corner. Challenging conditions such as these had finally been revealed to the masses through affordable helmet cameras, shaky and grainy as they were, showing all manner of woods obstacles never before seen by lay persons. New Jersey fast guy Mike Sigety once broadcast several minutes of aggressive riding with several buddies in the tight woods of the east coast, and when I showed his helmet cam video to my coworkers, they marveled how the ends of Mr. Sigety’s handlebars nearly clipped about 100 trees throughout the four-minute video. Such was White City, but at least we’d be narrowly missing the trees without sliding through mud.

We would, however, deal with the complexities of an old school timekeeper enduro. I’d printed out a paper roll chart based on the 24 mph speed average common to many enduros, only to find the club laid out the route at 18 mph. The $400 computer guys had no need for worry. With a push of a button, their microprocessors did the math, while I anxiously grabbed a pen and chicken-scratched across 12 feet of narrow paper strips meticulously taped together in a long line, modifying minutes to properly match the miles to the club’s designated speed average. This exercise added 15 minutes to my preparations and confirmed that no matter how early I arrived at White City or just about any other enduro, I’d feel pressed for time. After loading the roll chart into its handlebar-mounted holder, filling my Camelbak with cold water and gearing up for the long ride, I sped to the starting line with only minutes to spare.

On row 20, my trio of similarly equipped riders set out into the CCDR club grounds for an 8-mile special test. The familiar land and loamy conditions put me in a smooth groove, sliding predictably around corners and blasting up steep hills with flawless traction. In such perfect dirt, even average riders (such as myself) can feel as if they’re knocking on the door of the A-class.

Then came local legend Jeff Fredette from behind, serving a hot batch of humble pie. At roughly 44 years of age and recently returned from the International Six Days Enduro (ISDE) in the Czech Republic, Mr. Fredette’s style was efficiency in motion. In the brief moment he remained visible, it seemed the hand guards on his Kawasaki were mounted purely for aesthetics. He navigated the trail as if trees had been instructed to move out of his path. Without a shred of wasted energy, the enduro master simply ghosted me in about the same time it takes to read this sentence.

The timed test section ended at a checkpoint near the edge of the CCDR club property, where we switched to country backroads. Normally these byways offered a stress-free cruise to the next sprint through the woods, but the Big Red enduro has always found ways of throwing me off course. In past years, many an arrow had been overlooked in these transfers, sending me into a panic upon realizing I’d set a path toward nothing related to enduro racing. With a laser-eyed focus on arrows stapled to electric poles and fence posts and stop signs, I cruised over an Interstate 55 overpass toward remote trails near the town of Mount Olive. The 18-mph speed average made for an easygoing pace, leaving enough time to stop for a snack and also witness Mr. Fredette on his knees in a ditch, perfectly balancing his motorcycle against his back while relieving himself in the tall grass. I imagined him learning this technique from his 20 or so trips to the ISDE, which are heavily attended by European racers well accustomed to dealing with such urgencies during 120-mile days.

Today wouldn’t be quite that long, but it would certainly be slow. The second test section resembled a tunnel through bushy undergrowth. CCDR club trails were a Cadillac drive on a four-lane highway, compared to this mess of vines and saplings and a random smattering of thorny Osage Orange trees. Their light green, globular “apples” laid about on the ground, in wait for an unsuspecting front tire.

The winding path loosely followed a creek for several miles in a narrow band of trees, where cattle may have roamed a generation ago. As nature slowly fills gaps left by the grazers, someday the woods will be mature again. But the land’s current condition was best suited for hunting and dirt biking, and perhaps the hunters would thank us for leaving walkable paths to their deer stands. In the present moment, I was simply grateful to see a trail ahead, lightly blazed by a few dozen riders on earlier rows.

I found myself leading row 20 through here, and soon enough the echo of motorcycle engines faded to mine alone. Back and forth, I weaved among the fading green of a Southern Illinois fall landscape, across endless tree roots and branches slapping against my goggles. In here, the clutch became my most important asset. I’d reached the point of my abilities where downshifting to 1st gear was an insult to my ego, and even though this entire section might have been ridden just as fast in the lowest gear, that was for C-riders. I wouldn’t accept anything less than 2nd gear, which exercised my clutch hand as I grabbed and released the lever about a thousand times inside the test section.

These 20 or so miles of outlying trails came interspersed with checkpoints and odometer resets and wide open runs through harvested corn fields. Each timed section seemed tighter than the previous one, and Mr. Fredette caught up to me in even more frequent intervals. His speed was simply baffling. How can one maintain such a pace with no preparation or advance knowledge of what lies ahead? He was Liberace in the woods, sight reading a Hungarian Rhapsody, and I was his biggest fan.

My pace, on the other hand, was more like a 5th grade band playing Three Blind Mice. The CCDR tends to treat arrows like an investment in gold futures, which is to say their placement was calculated for efficiency. Every so often, the trail crossed an ATV-like path, with one lonely arrow directing riders toward the marked course. Occasionally I’d miss the arrow but feel nothing wrong for some time, given the wide gaps in trail markings and the visibly beaten path of other riders similarly off course.

But to my satisfaction, those miscues were few. I caught myself counting down the miles and imagining the joy of finishing what road bicyclists might refer to as a Century Ride. Just as my enjoyment and anticipation peaked…WHAM! I found myself on the ground. Twenty feet ahead, my KTM lay on its side, engine running and rear wheel spinning horizontally. A massive, low hanging tree had whacked my helmet and sent me into a daze. In a less than straight line, I wandered toward the bike and gave a couple of thumbs up to passing riders asking if I was alright. And I was mostly ok, other than seeing two of everything. About the time I uprighted the bike and hopped on the seat, the haze subsided and I continued. Trees be damned, I would finish this race.

Then came the slight aroma of radiator coolant. In a road transfer section I paused to check the cylinder head, and sure enough, coolant oozed from the bolt which would not tighten to torque specs. The stripped threads disproved my theory that 5 out of 6 bolts was good enough.

At the entrance to the next woods section, I glanced one more time at the weeping bolt. Why not, I asked nobody in particular, and charged into the trees. This timed test took me back to the club grounds, where my race would have continued with a quick splash of gas, if not for that nagging feeling which comes when one senses he has pushed his luck to its limits. I shut off the engine and packed up for home.

My record at the Big Red Enduro extended to 0 for 4, a new milestone of futility. The previous three DNFs could be attributed to bad luck, but this one was all on me. Even so, I’d experienced the most pristine trail conditions known to the White City area and left the CCDR club grounds with a giant smile.