With me, it's off road or what are called enduros back in my day, and also observed trials. For while I had 47 vintage dirt bikes, and two modern bikes. Most were rescues and rebuilds, including the one modern bike, a 1997 KYM EXC 200 Jackpiner Special Edition, that was a victim of a couple of divorces and previous owners that didn't know what they had!! I had to thin out the heard a lot when my younger brother passed away so i would have some room to bring his bikes home. I still have my 1975 Husqvarna 250WR that I bought new in '75, my brother's '73 Husqvarna 250RT, his '71 Penton 100 Berkshire, , a '79 Husky 250WR, a'77 Hercules 250 GS-7 speed, a '76 Rokon 340RT-YY, three Hodakas (a Ace 100B+, a '71 Super Rat ,and a '73 Wombat), a '73 Penton 25o Harescrambler, a '74 1/2Penton 250 Harescrambler, a Penton '75 Mint 400, a '79 Can-Am 250 Qualifier, a '74 Can-Am 175 TNT, an early 60's Honda CT200, and last but not least a '71 Honda MiniTrail 70. I haven't messed with them for a while due to me knees going south quickly, but since getting the worst one fixed, I think I can push them one by one out of the shed and bring them back to life for a few more trail miles before I'm really finished with them. I have always been street qualified, but never really had any interest in riding on the road on a regular basis. The idiot population has grown way too fast!! Riding off road is different. Enduro events were run at a specific MPH average (usually 24 mph) and like a car rally, you had to maintain that average but in trails with creek crossings, rocks, logs trees, bushes and such. terrain sometimes that is hard to walk on much less keep up a 24 MPH average. That means on other trails you have to run like a scalded rabbit and at the same time, keep track of time and mileage by posted turn markers. I did this in my younger days and had a dream of making the US team to the International Six Day Trials. If you have ever seen the movie "On Any Sunday) you know what the ISDT is. Steve McQueen was on the US ISDT team in 1964. I just never had the budget and time to get to all the qualifying races all across the country that I would have needed to ride in order to qualify. I rode a few local qualifiers that were held in my area and got a taste of it. I got back involved with motorcycles in the late 1990s and the vintage movement, and through that, got to meet a lot of my heroes from back in the day and race with them. Kind of like an old timers baseball game, but you still had to have a bike that was set up correctly and able to withstand the two days of competition and special tests. I don't think I'll be able to participate in any of those events any more, but i still have the urge to get it it on riding some of the great trails we have around here. After that, then maybe I'll thin the herd some more.
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee