Raging
to Ride

“Won’t we die if we ride there?” – Jeff Tunnell

I’ve talked to my dad about ideas covering all sorts of topics on pretty much a daily basis for my entire life.  Some days he is all fired up on some awesome new idea, some days I am.  Like I said the topics range from anything to everything.  Most of these ideas never see the light of day, some of the un-executed ones probably would have ended up being worth billions if any action was taken on them at the time, but you only have so many resources.

One time I said I was going to buy a u haul cut a hole in the side of it mount a generator bolt down speakers and create a mobile stage, then use it to break into music festivals and play wherever we want, less than 3 years later I was on MTV and raging tours with bands like Slayer and Slipknot.  One time he told me he was going to disrupt the software industry he helped create by creating a system that allowed anyone to make games, 3 years later mission accomplished industry disrupted and the entire process is changed forever for everyone.

So……think of it as us throwing shit against a wall and seeing what sticks, we have a lot of shit still stuck to that wall, and even more shit slid down to the floor.  So there are times we look up at the shit on the wall and say, “you know what, we should really do that”.

Raging to live was one of those pieces of shit stuck to the wall, my dad threw it up there.  It had been there for a couple years as maybe being some sort of lifestyle blog or something like that.  It’s one of those pieces of Shit that never really slides down the wall vs time based stuff like ideas for the early internet, all those had slid down to the floor long ago which became re-constituted into other attempts at making the shit sticky, know what I mean?

I spent the last 20 years playing music, before that though I raced motocross and snowboarded.  The music career was so intense I never had the time to focus on doing anything else, mainly because I didn’t want to get hurt and have to cancel a tour.  I didn’t realize it at the time and me and my band mate always said music saved our lives, kept us out of prison, got out this aggression that there was no other way to get out.  In reality though what we were getting out of it was not a release of aggression, but an infusion of adrenaline, which under the influence of adrenaline(and alcohol and drugs) it’s easy to forget about the things in life that cause aggression.

So the entire time I was playing music without riding motorcycles or snowboarding I was thinking I was just getting out this hatred I had for the world, when in reality the reason I could “rage” it so hard is I was replacing the adrenaline rush from motocross with the adrenaline rush of music.  With motocross though in order to get the maximum adrenaline rush you have to put your body at serious risk(doing the triple, jumping over people, being crazy and out of control).  With music…..there are no consequences, full throttle, full adrenaline.  And it is strange because in order to harness this unlimited supply of adrenaline in music the depths of your brain believe you are actually trying to kill yourself, you are pushing yourself past the point of what your body thought was physically possible, like a triathlete, so it produces more adrenaline in an endless feedback loop so during your performance you start punching yourself in the head to get even more of it feeling no pain until you drive 500 miles and do it again the next day.

This is why so many musicians get so into drugs and alcohol, because you can’t physically perform 24 hours a day, so when you are not performing you are spending the other 23 hours searching for that rush, which especially when you are in a record contract you can’t go hurting yourself on a motorcycle, so you choose all the free drugs and alcohol the system provides you.  With every year that went by though I grew further away from the drugs and alcohol, where now in order to play a show all I need is a pitcher of water and a slice of pizza, maybe a joint.

Problem is though we’re 40 now and not playing nearly as many shows because the world is just not the same as it used to be, the system is different.  Once I realized it didn’t matter if I got hurt I decided to ride a motorcycle for the first time in about 20 years by just going straight up to the local motocross track practice day.  My dad who used to ride as well was like lol have fun that’s a dumb idea don’t get hurt, and I was like….it doesn’t matter if I do.

So I went to the track, he came and watched, then I raced the next weekend and he came and watched, still not wanting to ride again.  Then the next practice day he walked the track saw the dirt up close and just said fuck it I’m doing it.  A few rides later were talking new bike new gear going to the track every week, both of us racing motocross until someone died at the track and we kind of stopped the track racing.

We dabbled in some trail riding, still went to practices at the track on occasion, then I wrecked in a corner at the local track and broke 8 ribs, sternum, shoulder and took some time off.  Never really got back into going to the track much, then it was winter time and we both had gotten back into snowboarding as well so it was time to switch to winter sports.  It actually turned out to be the best winter on record here for like over 50 years such an amazing season.

It started off slow though, I wasn’t planning on snowboarding 50 times that season, but I also was getting really out of shape and started actually working out every day.  I say “actually” because working out isn’t something I do, working is what I do, and if working isn’t a workout then you aren’t working hard enough.  It had started snowing and I had a $299 season pass to the local mountain, so I figured instead of working out every day I would just snowboard every day.  Sure it’s an hour and a half drive every day each way but what else am I going to do?  Smoke weed on the couch and eat nachos?

Ok I didn’t go every day, the mountain was only open 5 days a week, but on average I went 5 days a week all season somewhere.  I re-connected with one of my best friends Scott, who is a master of everything snow and moto related, like seriously.  While I spent 20 years in a band this dude kept shredding the gnar and knows his way around the great outdoors better than you ever will, he is a human GPS and has balls as big as the extra large cage free eggs.

One day around the middle of March Scott said he was going to Moab, Utah for his yearly riding adventure and asked me if I wanted to go with them.  I didn’t have much going on and was pretty sure I was in, but also wanted to see if “the rest of the crew” was down.  The next day I was meeting my dad at Willamette Pass, we met at the bottom and got on the lift.

“Remember the piece of shit on the wall in the living room next to the top left corner of the tv that’s been there for awhile?” I asked before the lift even came around

“The one that looks like Bruce Spreensteen?” He asked as the chair almost knocked us both over

“Yeah been stuck there for awhile hasn’t slid down the wall one bit real solid idea” I say as the chair swings back and forth

“Oh yeah Raging to Live, what about it?” He says as the swinging slows down

“Well I’ve been thinking(about everything I wrote about earlier) and we should really do this shit now because we talk about it all the time and(I explained how he is doing the exact same thing as me in a different way) and we should really start documenting everything” I said as we then began jerking eachother off and going back and forth with ideas, there’s shit all over the place sticking to the pylons and some sliding down and hitting people or missing the pylon completely.  Just a complete brown stain all the way down the run below the lift from bottom to top.  And then with him all fired up to rage to live I asked the question…..want to go to Moab next week?

At that point of “business plan masturbation” I don’t think anyone would have had the capacity to reply “no” to that question, so I got a 3 second pause followed by a resounding “fuck yes”.  We then got off the lift and he proceeded to discover just how amazing Nidecker snowboards were and it was on to figuring out how this trip to Moab was going to happen in under two weeks.

Figuring no one else we know could pull off such a last minute expedition half way across the country I waited a few days then texted our friend Dave who I figured would say no, but does have the most flexible schedule.  I got a “give me a day” and was pretty surprised actually.  One day later Dave was in and was going to meet us there and travel with his wife in a Sprinter van.  You will meet Dave later in this story, he is a master of all wheeled sports, he stays away from the snow but you will find him in the 50+ class riding more laps and doing all the jumps even I won’t do in my younger age of 40, I’m going to have to give him just the large eggs though as you will discover later in this story when we get to Moab, “tour guide Scott” has the largest eggs hands down.

Now we had to figure out the when, Scott was going with his motorhome and 2 other people(his son Fisher and friend Isaiah, more on them later) for a week straight camping in the desert.  We opted to snowboard in Park City for a couple days, then go to Moab for a few days, then head home and maybe snowboard more on the way, because the snow was insane and the season was magical, kill 2 birds with one stone kind of thing.

So now that we had our plan and our dates we had to scramble to acquire all the last minute items you need to travel for a week while also starting a brand by documenting an insane once in a lifetime adventure, shouldn’t be too hard.  It was somewhat reminiscent of this quote from Fear and Loathing.

“Getting hold of the drugs and the shirts had been no problem….but the car and tape recorder were not easy things to round up at 6:30 on a Friday afternoon in Hollywood” – Duke

A solid week of a constant flow of Amazon delivery drivers and UPS trucks storming the driveway throwing boxes on the porch.  Everything from cameras drones mounts tents backpacks sleeping bags lights gloves goggles snowboard racks black plastic for kx skid plates brake guards extra levers air filters tools….and a fresh pair of OG LBZ baggy pants

There wasn’t even time to figure out how to use all the new cameras or drone, only time to charge them up, initial setup, and load in the Jeep Gladiator.

With everything loaded up on (March 27(not sure)) we headed out for our own version of a Peruvian ayahuasca journey, to find ourselves and figure out how to integrate video cameras into documenting trail rides while seeing what the southeastern Utah desert was all about.

My uncle is quite a bit older than I am and has always had the “fire” expressions, like “it was slicker than greased owl shit out there” when talking about going out in first practice at the track.  So knowing most of my life what constitutes “greased owl shit” I went out on a dual sport ride in the early spring shoulder season with my uncle to shotgun creek.  I was on an older KLR and he was on a slightly newer xr650 Scott Summers get you to the tip of Baja and back edition he had just bought.

A little background about shotgun creek and the term “greased owl shit”(known as GOS from here on out).  Shotgun Creek is where the term GOS came from, and my uncle did not come up with the term on his own, his father came up with the term and it was handed down to him from his father as this place, shotgun creek, when laced with even a splash of your own urine as you piss on a tree becomes so slick that downhill ski jumpers could use the substrate of moist red/brown clay as the runway to break world records.

Have you ever put a drop of black dye in water?  That’s how this dirt works, if you dump a gallon of water anywhere on the mountain, within minutes all trails connected immediately darken in color and become the dreaded GOS.

So there we were smashing down the asphalt at about 65-70 heading out there both dealing with the inevitable headshake that happens at those speeds with all dual sport bikes for some reason.  Turned onto shotgun creek rd to some slightly moist mossy asphalt, no problem at all.  Then we reached the parking area and trailhead.

“This one looks easy, it’s a green and a small loop” Richard says as we turn off the asphalt onto some fresh looking 3/4 minus.

“Not bad” I exclaim as we round the first corner and turn up the first hill.

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Then as we begin to head up the hill the fresh gravel disappears, the rear wheel starts spinning, the front end starts washing out and I realize where I am, what time of year it is, and what kind of bike I’m on.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Richard yells out from up ahead

“I DONT KNOW THIS KIND OF SUCKS!” I exclaim as I question if I should round the next turn or turn around

“SOUNDS GOOD!” Richard says as he peels off to complete the loop your mom did last summer on a power wheels, drunk, smoking a pall mall

Knowing I am better than giving up and turning around, I powered through it, through the .23 miles of GOS where we came to some rocks blocking the exit back to a true paved road.  This is where Richard was stopped and I had to re-claim the pride I had just lost on “grandmas trail”.

Side note, Richard and my Dad both suffer from a bit of a condition called “muffin boy syndrome” which without explaining the entire story basically means that they follow all the rules, all 105 percent of them, so if there is a sign that says “trail closed to(picture of a CZ from the 70s)” I say well my bike has a mono shock and looks more like the picture of the mountain bike that doesn’t have an X through it, and so I proceed, whereas they will freeze like a deer during hunting season and contemplate a different approach.

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Side note on the side note please respect all signs for open and closed trails when you see a forest service rig in the area, and know that mountain bikers jacked trails from the motorcycles that originally built them and sharing is caring, so if you have to borrow their precious trail for a few miles to reach your destination please, be my guest.

Back to me reclaiming my pride I rode right through the rocks blocking the exit to the road and Richard followed behind me, this was to be the one and only time during the trip I would be riding in front of him.  Tip to any forest service people out there, blocking the exit to a trail is like plugging someone’s asshole without telling them they can’t eat, the foods coming in, give it a place to go out, because if it can’t go out the main exit it will blow a hole through the side somewhere you don’t want it to.

“This one here on the left goes up the hill, it sssshhhooouullldddnnntt be too bad but I’m not sure lol, looks good here though there’s rock on the road”. Richard says as I slowly nod in apprehensive agreement.

The road had some jumps on it yay!  Despite how slick it was no moto rider can ever resist some sick air.  1 jump, 2 jump, 3 jump, ditch.  Like the Ever Given stuck in the Suez Canal my trusty steed started heading for the ditch and was not planning on going anywhere else.  If traction were a scale of 1-10 at this moment we were seeing -2 or so, momentum is your only friend with traction being a close second.

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After getting out of the ditch I started heading up the hill, where the puddles got deeper and the terrain got steeper.  Scott Summers was nowhere to be seen, even his cries for “how’s it going” landed on deaf ears.  I then slid out again, you know one of those where the front steering hits the locks and you’re still moving forward at the same speed with your front tire at a 45 degree angle and your rear wheel locked up.

Then I figured since my bike was now pointed the other direction that I would just sit there and enjoy the scenery until Scott Summers realizes the KLR paired with an overweight 39 year old man was not the best combo for the day.

I sat there for a minute and he then came back down and asked me how it was going.

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“It’s slicker than greased owl shit!” I said as he tried to explain that just a mile ahead it gets better, after getting worse for a mile.  So we headed back down to the asphalt and decided to head up the hill on the actual road.

We stopped at the top and admired the view, took a few pictures to make it feel like we accomplished something, then headed back down the hill a different way.  We turned off to the left and down a trail that was a bit dryer probably from being in the sun but still was laced with shady wet off camber turns, puddles, and jumps.  I managed alright, by now I was pretty good at anticipating a washout, getting in a very good quick reflex workout as I balance this pig on ice skates through the unpredictable forest.

At this point I did something I rarely do, switch bikes with someone to see what their bike is like, and I must tell you, his factory XR did not disappoint.

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We then came upon a bottomless puddle.  Johnny Campbell is sitting there on my pig waiting to see if I am going to want to attempt it, we threw in some rocks poked it with sticks and decided it wasn’t too deep, made sure our snorkels were up high, and went across.  I’m pretty sure at this point we switched bikes and I tried out the factory XR.

It definitely handled better and had way more traction than the KLR on the GOS.  We made our way down the hill and switched back, hit a couple more dead end gravel roads and then called it a day.

It had been probably over 20 years since I had last been to Shotgun Creek and I was reminded of why it had been 20 years, it’s just not my cup of coffee.  It would be fun for beginners or quads in the summer time but other than that it is a very small trail system that is always at least 50 percent closed for logging and is pretty much unridable in the fall/winter/spring.  If I ever want to try a bike on greased owl shit though I definitely know where to take it, and it’s right up the road.

As for my uncle Richard, Scott Summers, Johnny Campbell…he wheelied off doing the hang loose thing with his left hand heading south into the sunset and hasn’t been seen since, might have something to do with the sun setting in the South that day, we may never know.

“There’s a hare scramble tomorrow. It’s pretty fun, and I’m going to go. You should do it, it’s down by Medford.” -Scott

Sometimes when trying(doing) new things in life you just have to “buy the ticket and take the ride”. This is the exact situation I was in because the only ticket I wanted to buy was weed and the only ride I wanted to go on was my couch and a bong. But given the current situation 3 weeks after Moab all recovered and “raging to live” I really had no choice but to dive in….what did I have to lose?

So I got home and did all the research I could scrape off YouTube and some of the most poorly designed websites in the history of the internet.

Serious side note I don’t know what’s wrong with the technological side of riding clubs and moto events but all their websites are so bad that it’s not only impossible to find correct dates and times but you believe you found the correct date and time only to find out it’s a flyer from 2019 with no year date on it. Get ahold of us and we will fix your website for free, time to get away from geocities and angelfire, it’s 2023, let’s talk.

So back to my research, it got me nowhere, I knew nothing more or less to expect from this race than I did one day earlier. All I knew is I had to wake up at 3:30AM to get there by 6:30AM, signup from 7-9 I would be in the first race at 9 and it’s 1 1/2 hours long, open C class. I seriously DID NOT WANT TO DO THIS, every piece of my existence was saying Wtf are you doing? But i knew I had to. I had called Dave to see if he was going and he surprisingly responded with a yes, so was stoked there would be a few people there I know. My dad didn’t go for some reason, I think I got close to the same answer I got when I first returned to the motocross track, “that’s a dumb idea, don’t get hurt”

So first off I have this decked out Moab edition 2021 kx250f but it doesn’t have a spark arrestor, we went to Moab thinking the $500 “spark arrestor” made by pro circuit was an actual spark arrestor as it had the plaque saying it was an approved spark arrestor, but that guy Mitch is a bit shifty bastard sometimes and doesn’t send the $32 spark arrestor insert for the $500 spark arrestor if that makes any sense to you. Read another story about how the $32 spark arrestor also doesn’t come with a proper screw so you have to buy 4 of them before figuring out the proper combo of screw from the hardware store and lock tite to not lose it in the first 5 miles.

So what do I do? It’s 7pm the day before the race and I have no spark arrestor and have to pass an AMA “tech inspection”. So I turn my attention to my OG trusty steed, the 2017 kx250f, it’s been sitting for a long time since I switched to the newer bike, but it has a kick starter and a spark arrester, so I know the battery isn’t dead because there’s no battery, let’s party, I loaded it up without even starting it up to see if it ran. I brought both of my bikes because maybe I can sneak by tech inspection and ride the newer one, got everything loaded up, went to dollar general for some cliff bars, cold medicine(because I was sick), some Gatorade, and a bag of sour patch kids.

I was on the road by 4am after getting a couple hours of sleep due to the anticipation of what was to happen the next day. My plan was to stop at McDonald’s to get some breakfast as I’m heading out in the middle of nowhere, but wasn’t feeling hungry so I skipped breakfast. I had never been to that trail system before, it’s a private trail club and out past a lake up the side of a gnarly hill. As I turned on the road unsure if it was the right one or not there was a line of people and my mind was blown. Upon filtering into the front gate I realized there’s well over 500 people here, which blew my mind because I had no idea hare scrambles were this popular.

The dude at the front gate was super nice, explained where everything was and then pointed in a direction and said “good luck finding somewhere to park”. He was right there was absolutely nowhere to park, I navigated through the trees and trucks and parked my truck basically right on the side of the starting line then speed walked over to the sign up area as it was 6:45 and the race starts at 9 so I should have plenty of time to sign up.

This is where I realized the events are ran in a similar way their web dev team works. It was an absolute unnecessary “clusterfuck” of lines you need to be in instead of the line you’ve been in for an hour, go over there, pay for entry, then pay for AMA card, then get back in original line that says “start here if you didn’t sign up online” and everyone else around me is confused, and worried about making it to the gate in time. So then at approx 8:45 they announced “everyone in the 12:30 race please step aside, everyone in the 9am race come to the front”. I was already at the front so I watched as all my “competitors” or as I call them “friends” that got to eat breakfast and jerk off for the last 1 1/2 hours I had been in line come right up and stand behind me.

I was officially signed up at 9:10 with half my class standing behind me still waiting, they were nice enough to delay the start to 9:15 so at least half of the class was able to get signed up, if you didn’t get signed up then that’s your problem you should have been here at 4:15…keep in mind I was standing in line at 6:55AM, 5 minutes before sign ups even opened.

So I ran to the truck, unloaded my bike, didn’t check a single nut or bolt, fired up first kick, put on my gear, drank half a bottle of day quill(I’m sick remember) ate half a cliff bar, took a swig of Gatorade, and headed to the starting line where hundreds of bikes were lined up in 8-9 rows. At this point I was absolutely clueless as to what happens, the mandatory riders meeting was at 8:45, and for some reason they had the meeting at the starting line instead of at sign ups where most of the class was still waiting for the privilege of being able to sign up. Oh and I almost forgot, I rode through the “tech inspection” where a guy stuck his finger in my tailpipe and put a small round yellow paper sticker they sell at the dollar store on my number plate…..good thing I brought the spark arrestor, there’s a “muffin boy” in all of us.

All I know about hare scrambles is that it’s something people did before there were motocross tracks. Thinking back to the movie “On Any Sunday” I gathered that a gunshot was going to go off, the first row would take off, then would continue on down the rows every few minutes until everyone was off. I looked to my left, there was no one there because I was on the far left leaning against the front of my truck, I looked to my right and I saw approx 60 riders with camel backs on, and I realized maybe this race is longer than anticipated, I turned to the dude next to me.

“Whatsup dude you done one of these before?” I asked

“Fuck no, I’m a moto guy” he says

“Same here” as we both anxiously awaited what was to happen next

“Well, have a good race” we both said to eachother.

This is when I decided I was going to just let everyone go, I mean I’m out of shape never done one of these don’t know what to expect, and also didn’t know if anyone I knew was there, I hadn’t heard from or seen Scott or Dave yet, but they were to be in the 12:30 class anyway.

So the gun went off for the first row, then a flag a few min later for the second row, one by one working their way back to whatever row I was in for the open C class. Our flag waved and everyone started their bikes and took off, I then somehow snapped into full on motocross race mode and forgot about “taking it easy”. I bombed into the cloud of dust in the first corner in dead last, then proceeded to pass an average of one person every second for a few minutes. I was passing 4-5 people in some of the corners and on an absolute roll, in the zone, avoiding any and all carnage that was happing either in front of me or right next to me. Then I passed a sign that said mile 1 and realized I didn’t even know how long the course was, how many laps we were doing, how long I would be out there, and I began to feel the fatigue that happens once you are done passing 4-5 people in a corner and go into survival mode.

Around mile 8-9 you dip around to where the race started so I started feeling like I could handle this, maybe 10 miles and a couple laps, and then we rode off into the middle of nowhere again. It wasn’t until mile 16 that I started thinking maybe we are only doing one lap, this is the “slow” class anyway. I was wrong as I crossed the finish line only to see a flagger clapping and cheering for me instead of holding out a white flag.

It was wild, just about once a mile there would be someone working for the event clapping and cheering for me as I went by, I’d do a wheelie and give a thumbs up. I didn’t realize it at the time but I think these people knew that this overweight 39 year old stoner wearing baggy LBZ gear riding a bike with metal Mulisha graphics and no camel back or pit crew was just absolutely raw dogging it out there living life to the fullest.

As I suffered through lap 2 I was in full on survival mode, everyone had settled into their respective positions and I was totally cool with getting passed by someone or passing the occasional person slowing down. This is when the hallucinations began.

The arm pump was gone at this point, i was totally numb and on some version of total autopilot hoping the race ends at lap 2. It did not end however and I saw a white flag, 17 more miles to go. I started thinking if I was going to survive this race, that I would have to take different lines, smoother ones instead of hitting every single bump and rut and rock and root.

Back in my younger motocross days I learned quite a bit about racing through this guy Roby Leach, son of Bob Leach owner of the Albany Motorsports Park. I always called them “Roby Leach Lines” as he would show better ways to go around the corner faster and without hitting any of the bumps. His father Bob though is where this knowledge came from, because Bob raced back in the very beginning of it all, when it was hare scrambles and motocross tracks with 8 single jumps and 3 artificial mud puddles.

Bob unfortunately had passed away a little over a year earlier, and so, as per the Star Wars rule book there was Bob standing there hovering in my top left vision like Obi Wan not telling me where to go, but laughing at me and pointing at where I should have gone every time I went the wrong way. Not laughing at me in a negative sense, it was more like laughing like I knew better than to go that way. I started picking the right lines and one after another the numbness went away and the pain kicked in, but pain with no numbness is better than no pain with numbness.

Blown away with how well this was working I then realized my grandfather also did hare scrambles and so I summoned him and there he was in my top left talking with Bob, they were able to talk to each other and watch the race because no one had to tell me where to go anymore.

This is where things got weird, i was so impressed with the effects of summoning old heroes of hare scramble lore I then somehow summoned this guy Shane Trittler…..who is not even dead he is very much alive, and is a badass motocross dude I’ve known for a long time.

“THIS WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE!!” He kept saying over and over. Shane is the only person besides my bandmate Dano that will understand what Shane just said to me and it was absolutely perfect timing for where I was at.

So now I have Bob next to my grandpa on the left, and Shane in the upper right, and then out of nowhere Nick Allen shows up, yet another kick ass inspiration of mine still in the mortal realm. He just says “MAN SHIT!” As he does this thing with his teeth that he always does.

At the point of peak hallucination around approx mile 7 on the third lap, so mile 41, while whistling the theme song to On Any Sunday I round a corner to see 20 bikes lined up at a red flag and we’re all stopped. Immediately I snapped back into reality the music in my head stopped and my helpers all vanished. The guy in front of me asked “are you whistling the song from On Any Sunday?” He asked as i gave a resounding fuck yes before saying something about how destroyed i was and why are we stopped. Someone had gotten impaled by a stick and needed life flight, they had to pause the race for a bit to let the helicopter land. It was around 5 minutes we all sat there as my body started texting me saying “bro…….wtf?”. I texted back “yolo…..stfu…..10 more miles to go”. The guy that stopped us then started re starting everyone spaced out in the order they arrived somehow using an iPhone in the middle of nowhere, gotta love technology.

These last 10 miles were probably the most physically demanding thing I’ve ever done in my life, taking my physical condition and age into account. I then started getting passed by people that already passed me, perplexed as to how they were able to lap me on a 17 mile track I kept pushing on, come to find out they had stopped for fuel. This is where a 400 pound man on a DRZ with blinkers passed me….I literally laughed out loud.

Now is when I started passing people that were running out of gas, so I started thinking about how maybe I would run out of gas, but there was only one mile left. Finally nearing the end the anticipation of seeing a checkered flag was beyond any feeling I’ve ever felt, like surviving Mt Everest. Bob, grandpa, Shane, and Nick showed back up, Bob and grandpa smiling and kind of laughing, Shane Nick and now Dano were spraying imaginary Coors Light on me either to cool me down or in celebration.

I crossed the finish line and a guy handed me a pin for finishing and said “good job man we were all pulling for you!” I was like hell yes this is the most amazing thing I’ve ever done as I rode my bike back to the truck.

It was an hour and a half race, what that means is that in an hour and a half, wherever the leader is at is on their last lap is where the flag is, so if the leader crosses the finish line at 1 hour and 25 min(which is exactly what happened) that they do an entire extra lap before the checkered flags come out. Then if you don’t get lapped, which is hard on a 17 mile course, you do as many laps as the leaders, this is why people will sit before the finish line and wait for the leader to finish, as a 17th place is better than a DNF. I however did not know of this option, nor would I have taken it, so I see why they were cheering on the lazy out of shape first timer getting punched in the face by a hare scramble.

I took my helmet off first, then peeled my gloves off one hand at a time, removing some skin in the process, surveying my body for signs of heat exhaustion or overall am I going to die right now. All was good and the next moto was lined up right in front of my truck, so I went to find Dave, as Scott left a message on my phone saying he wasn’t able to make it.

Twice as many riders were in this class, more bikes than I’ve ever seen on a starting line. I found Dave and only had time to upload a bit of info on the course to him as he told me his wife was over in the pit lane. “Pit lane?” I asked confused as if I was supposed to refuel or have a pit crew. It all makes sense now, I went absolute raw dog, through complete ignorance. Ignorance is different than stupidity, had I known about a pit crew and camel bak and chose to ignore it that would be considered stupidity, since I didn’t know it was ignorance and is really the most pure way to enjoy anything. So from here forward it is stupidity, I will never race a hare scramble again without a camel back, as far as refueling goes though, I had plenty of fuel left, and came to the conclusion my bike runs on hopes and dreams, not gasoline.

Dave’s race was 2 1/2 hours, so it could potentially go 4 hours as my time was around 2 hours 45 min on a 1 1/2 hour race. The course was way gnarlier and wore out and had a few changes to make it even more catered to experts. He ended up waiting at the end on lap 3 as 4 laps on that course is understandably insane. I went over and talked to him afterwords and we were both so jacked up, we couldn’t believe no one else in the crew did it, it was a magical race and only Dave and I will ever know just how awesome it was, perfect weather, perfect conditions, unknown new different experience. We both were ready to get out of there and eat a cheeseburger or really anything that wasn’t a cliff bar or handful of granola, so we parted ways and headed down the hill.

I was just in a haze for a few days as every single bone and muscle in my body, even my eyelids suffered the consequences of going through such a ruthless activity, and in my mind such a feeling of accomplishment for having survived something more physically demanding than anything I’ve ever done in life. So we immediately signed up for the next race, along with the rest of the crew, in Heppner in a few weeks, and that is it’s own story for another day.

I have this “mobile stage” that is a remodeled 24 foot U-Haul, my band used it over the last almost 15 years to do cool things involving music. I’m 40 now and the stage has 300,000 miles on it so we don’t really use it anymore for long distance shows. Luckily right up the road from where we live there is this yearly moto event called “Big Hill Jam” put on by moto racers Josh and Justin Hill where we set up our mobile stage for them to announce the event and then play music at night when the riding is done. There’s a best whip contest with most of the same riders from X-Games, a pit bike super cross race, an electric bike super cross race, freestyle/freeride demos, and it’s round 4 of the Motoclimb Superseries.

Motoclimb Superseries is an AMA sanctioned hillclimb series that strays a bit from the traditional hillclimb races of heading straight up a hill by adding in more turns and jumps to combine motocross with hill climbing, hence the name moto-climb.

No stop on the circuit pushes this moto-hillclimb envelope more than Big Hill Jam, Josh and Justin always have some new gnarly obstacles like last years semi vertical 25 foot climb right out of the starting gate. The last few years I always sat there and watched not really ever thinking of actually doing it, also am pretty busy during the day making sure the sound is running properly, so it was easy to make an excuse for not doing it. This year though, after trying my hand at hare scrambles earlier in the year, I signed up as soon as I could, no turning back now.

I woke up that Saturday morning in the mobile stage just like any other day, I put my pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else, only this day I was going to race in a hillclimb competition and then rage a show in a mobile stage, a feat I would be willing to say NO human anywhere ever to exist on this planet has ever done, who cares about the Guiness world records, these are the Coors Light world records.

I make it sound like I woke up ready to rip and in all reality I had been there for a couple days, was up pretty late the night before, and was like what am I even thinking? It wasn’t until I fired up the generator, opened the door, turned the speakers up to the 11 setting, then like the guitar part at the beginning of Back to the Future proceeded to wake everyone up that was still sleeping by playing the entire album by White Zombie Astro Creep 2000 start to finish at 180 decibels through 12,500 watts pushing through top of the line Cerwin Vega speakers. If you are unfamiliar with being on a stage, especially not performing just sitting in a chair behind the speakers smoking a joint, while everyone “out there” is getting their eardrums pummeled with the sweet sound of a perfectly balanced speaker setup, I am basically sitting there getting laid by the sound system, and not in a sexual way, something about the bass just pummels your soul with something better than caffeine. So right around the middle of Super Charger Heaven I stood up and was ready to rip.

Crackerbox pulled up the sick old school Chevy C900 with my Moab edition murdered out 2021 KX250f in the back and we unloaded my tool for climbing to the top of the mountain. I put on my full set of LBZ K-stars gear straight out of 2001 and was ready to actually just get this over with as I was starting to question my decisions a bit, weed will do that to you, but LBZ gear will balance out the effect.

The race was supposed to start at 10, people kept asking me if I knew where the lineup was as there were 40 or so amateur riders, and we are amateurs for a reason, but everyone just kind of headed over to the starting area around that time, I had a good spot up front under a tent, because it was 100 degrees out. I then found out I was 37th, so I decided to head back to the stage and chill for a bit. It was awesome because the back of the stage was about 40 feet from the starting line and I could watch.

I mainly went there to drink some water, but then I ended up smoking some weed, I also was running the playlist in the background so change some music around, adjust some things, back to smoking more weed, watching more hillclimbs, then Craig Bentley the announcer says “hey Aaron, you’re up next!”

So I put out the joint, put on my helmet, gloves, goggles, fired up the bike and took off to the starting line. Smoke coming out of my helmet as I rode off, I felt like Ron Lechien, a true legend.

The course this year was wild for amateurs compared to last year. They had us starting out at the same spot as the pros this year going up that initial vertical wall, then over three jumps you can double, then up and to the left over a steep tall freestyle landing, up a right handed sweeper with a left handed off camber, then a right turn and straight up another wall jump with greater consequences, then if you make that it’s another couple hundred feet up a super loose and steep bank to the top of the hill.

But you have no practice, just straight into race, so here we go. I jumped way too high on the first wall jump not knowing what to expect, made me too squirly to do the next double, up over the hip, started sliding down the right hand sweeper to the left quite a bit, no time to shift down to second before the wall jump, jumped too high, landed too hard in soft dirt, wrecked but didn’t fall down the wall and got off the hill safely so I was stoked on that. I then went from not really wanting to do one hillclimb and hoping I don’t get a second run, to hoping I do get a second run because I’m making it to the top this time.

I got over there earlier for the second run and was talking to quite a few of the riders. Everyone just super cool ranging in age from 12-probably my age but I would like to think there were a few people over 40. Everyone’s just constantly trying to decide how to execute a good run, the whole no practice only two chances thing really changes the game, do you play it safe, do you go fast, but not too fast, there’s just a lot of strategy going on, mixed with gambling, and endurance doesn’t come into play, so it’s just a really good representation of any riders true ability. I went into this wondering how people drive across the country to ride for 30 seconds two times, and now I want to drive across the country to ride for 30 seconds two times. Like my reference to Ron Lechien earlier, this really takes you back to the days of out of shape dudes smoking a camel with a half face helmet on, a prostitute in the back of the truck(not like one you paid, one you met at a bar the night before that was off duty and you convinced her to quit and come with you for a better life), a case of Coors original in the cooler, 12 hot dogs, and enough gas to make it half way to the next race hoping your new girlfriend can foot the bill….sign me up. None of these people are out of shape, the pros are actually very well fit pro level athletes, but for me, an out of shape 40 year old musician with a history of motorcycle riding, I see a glimmer of hope for a good time, give me 30 seconds and I’ll show you a good time….I’ve said that a few times in my life.

Alright round 2, I’m making it to the top this time. I did literally the exact same things in the exact same places and wrecked in the exact same place…what a bummer. Oh well there’s always next year, now I had a show to play, and a world record to break.

At approximately sundown we started raging music for the fairly large group of people that had been standing in the sun for the last 12 hours drinking beer instead of water. It was an amazing show, there was even a blow up sex doll moshing around at one point that made her way into the mobile stage and slept with me that night. There’s a video of the actual show out there somewhere, I can’t really describe every detail but it was magical and amazing and awesome and a great way to finish out the day, doing two things that had never been done before.

Just when I thought my hillclimb/show record would be set for awhile, it was broken, Justin Hill and Patrick Evans jammed with us in the mobile stage to finish the night off, making them the first people to do a hillclimb, do a freestyle contest, do a pit bike race, aaaaaand play a show in the mobile stage in one day, but the clear winner of the world record ended up being Justin Hill because right after breaking the record with Patrick Evans, Justin jumped off the stage and crowdsurfed all the way up the hill. So, Justin Hill became the first person to do a hillclimb, do a freestyle contest, do a pit bike race, rage a show, and crowdsurf up a hill all in one day….in his backyard, good luck beating that.

The Trip

The first notable experience was crossing into Idaho.  I haven’t been to one of these states that prioritizes fighting crime over traffic citations for quite a while.  WELCOME TO IDAHO; put your bong away and increase speed to 80-90, and if it starts snowing please decrease speed to 70.

It took me quite a few miles to erase the speed limit PTSD I have from living in Oregon my entire life.  It feels like you are driving way too fast, and then you realize you are gaining 20 miles every hour and it’s pretty sweet.  The weather began to deteriorate around the Utah border.  Temps were dropping, and snow was accumulating on the freeway but everyone was maintaining the 80mph speed limit.  At this point I was driving around 55-60 in a jeep with snow tires, getting passed by 2wd Astro vans somehow magically narrowly avoiding disaster.

It wasn’t until we were within an hour or so of Salt Lake City that the real show started.  The snow was coming down harder, visibility was lower, that minivan soccer mom that passed us earlier was upside down in lane 13…..and people were still going 80.  I like to think I’m a “thrill seeker” headed to a new state to snowboard and ride motorcycles in the middle of nowhere, but this made me feel like I had no balls…. and I’m a very experienced driver in the snow, but these drivers were fucking crazy.

I felt like I was watching the 250 beginner class in 1999 at a local track PAC-West race…. if you know you know, but that was the exact feeling.  Instead of watching from the sidelines pointing and laughing, I was in the thick of it, getting passed by these careless humans with no will to live or make it to the end of the race in one piece.

We stopped outside SLC at a Chuck-A-Rama buffet which was the destination we had planned all day.  It lived up to its expectations, but it also kept snowing harder while we were there and now we had to turn left and head up into the mountains to reach Park City.

Like I said I am an experienced snow driver. I don’t get too crazy, but I get us there, every time.  As we rounded a turn headed up the hill in total whiteout a gust of wind shot across the ridge we were on, it blew all cars sideways including ours.  A few of the cars around us stopped or slowed down, and a few of the cars behind them honked their horns and sped by at 60, this was absolutely nuts.

Corporate Note: I can assure you this was some of the sketchiest road travel I have experienced in my life. With all of his experience piloting his mobile stage on several national tours and working at Mt. Bachelor, I trust Aaron’s driving with my life, usually sleeping most of the time, but my ass was sucking the seat cover off the Jeep during this part of the drive 😳

Shredding, Version 1, Park City

Finally made it to the exit and our hotel.  The snow kept coming down and was different from any snow I’ve ever been around.  It was so light compared to the “cascade concrete” that we are used to in Oregon.  Stoked to go to Park City the next day I promptly got online and secured the $280 lift ticket…. more than I have paid for any lift ticket ever by at least 2x.

We luckily had a guide for the next day as Park City is one of the largest resorts, it has 43 lifts.  My friend John Lease, which I knew from playing music in South Lake Tahoe years ago, lives in SLC and was going to meet us and show us around.  This was however until we arrived at the Canyons base only to find out due to weather only 42 of the lifts would be open, the one closed being the only other lift out of the base area.

So the line was at least an hour long before the resort even opened.  We decided to grab some coffee and let things move, but they moved in the wrong direction.  The line continued to wrap around until it had to have been over a half mile long snaking around up and down and around the entire area.  You could just look at these hollow individuals and families holding their skis(because no snowboarder would stand in a line that long) thinking about how much money they spent and how they are going to be standing there for 4 hours before making it to the front of the line.

So we dipped, texted John and headed over to the mountain village side. It was busy, but at least had all lifts running and could move people up to the other 37 lifts.  John met us there and took us on a grand tour of the mountain which was priceless as the navigation is very overwhelming compared to Mt Bachelor or any of the Oregon resorts we are used to.  We also caught up on about 12 years of lost time on the lift as the last time I saw John we were staying at his cousin Josh’s house in South Lake Tahoe after playing a show with their band Idekay, everyone had taken acid and went to Sheeshville for the third time that evening/early morning 10 minutes before I woke up to grab Dano and take off to the next town, in a snowstorm, with Star Wars snow, I hadn’t heard from John since then so glad to see everything turned out alright.

I did end up possibly breaking some ribs at the bottom of the last run at Park City that day.  My boot was stuck in the binding and when I went to pull it out it didn’t come out and I slipped and landed flat on my back on solid ice.  I didn’t think much of it at the time but when I broke 3 ribs 6 months later and they did the X-ray, they noticed that of the 5 ribs that I broke 2 years earlier ina different crash, two of them had been re-broken recently within 6 months and were displaced and re healed then re broken this third time.  Kind of confusing but I broke 5 ribs 2 years ago, then re broke and displaced 2 of those 6 months ago, then re broke and displaced further one of those with two more displaced fractures on fresh ribs.  Anyway I have a weed company called Itchy Ribs thinking of changing it to Broken Ribs.

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Finally Moab, The Promised Land

After a full day of shredding, we both seriously wanted to go up again the next day, but thought that the $280 was a bit steep to do two days in a row, so we took off to Moab.  We drove out a different way right through a narrow valley in the Wasatch mountain range, some of the most beautiful snow covered mountain scenery we had ever seen.  It wasn’t long until we had exited the mountains into the motorcycle Mecca below expanding in all directions with epic riding everywhere you looked.

Corporate note: Our first stop that morning was a Mavericks for gas and grab and go breakfast. If you have never been to Mavericks, you need to go. We have officially given it the RTR best travel mart/gas station in the world award. They make fresh food in a gas station!

The original plan was to camp in Moab as Scott was staying out there with his hand built 4X4 motor home.  It was supposed to be freezing and possible snow though, so Corporate spared no expense and secured us a room at the Days Inn hotel and Halfway House, DIHAHH for short.  I can’t really blame him as on Google it just says “Days Inn”, but when you check in on the sheet you sign it shows the full company name of Days Inn and Halfway House and it totally explains the vibe of the whole place.  Kind of hard to explain, and  not sure if we have pictures, but just visualize “Days Inn and Halfway House” and that’s exactly what it was, complete with the strung out dude in a leather coat behind the counter, the hot tub that has been broken for 6 months, the pool that has no water in it, the un-continental breakfast that cost money, and the rooms that still smell like smoke and cum and sweat.  It was like being on tour in The Athiarchists all over again, I was home.

After getting checked in we headed out to the camp and riding spot, about 20 min away.  We had some pretty loose directions but found our way there on the first try.  The directions were something like “yeah, so about 3 min out of town look to your right as you go up a hill, turn on the road that turns back on itself, maybe I’ll just ride up there, no you got it, just turn there and then you will kind of go down a hill, go for a while like 2-3 miles and look on the left, and we are at the base of the mountain and you’ll see us.”

As we approached the camp, the scenery we were driving through was absolutely insane, so we decided it was a great time to test out the new drone having it follow us into the camp.  Turns out that Drones are hard! We bought a bunch of fancy shit before this trip, but learning to use it all takes time.  The threat of losing a $1,000 drone makes you pretty nervous, but we managed to get a little footage, and it looks amazing.

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Danger Dave rolled in right after us as we familiarized ourselves with camp Scottie.  Dave’s knuckles were still white from the UT snow drivers?

Like I said earlier, Scott has balls the size of the extra large cage free eggs, he used those balls approximately 17 years ago to create Fisher who naturally is just an even more evolved and larger edition of the extra large cage free option, shrouded in a thin layer of brass.  And then the large eggs always end up around the other large eggs so Fisher brought his friend Isaiah and when we arrived they were both over sending it in the sand dunes.

The entire crew was ready to go, this place was rad, so we geared up, and set off for a rip.

This initial ride was such a good intro to Moab.  We were all a bit scared as we knew how sketchy things could get, and this ride was the most non sketchy one we could have done.  Just a quick couple hour loop around some sweet corners and hills and arches and WFO scenery with a sunset.  One spot we came upon a sketchy rock climb and Scott sent it, so I sent it. We giggled and laughed and had a good time and I thought that’s about as wild as it gets.

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Corporate Note: I totally agree that Moab is one of the most beautiful places I have been in my life, but I thought the riding was difficult right from the start. I’ve been riding all my life, and I’m not a bad rider, but Moab is definitely an acquired taste and it takes some time to learn what you can and can trust on the rocks. It turns out the “slick rocks” have maximum traction and you can totally trust them. My biggest problem was my bike, a fully set up YZ250f motocross bike, with tons of peaky power, stiff, stiff suspension and an Everest high  concrete seat. Danger Dave helped me turn the ECU down to Old Lady mode and softened the suspension as much as we could. It was much better, but I was still bouncing around on the rocks like a beach ball, and the high seat that is fine for motocross felt like a Death Sentence out in this rugged wilderness.

We returned from that ride jacked up and ready for the more challenging trails,and  that is when Utah and Mother Nature got together and said, hey wyd?

It started snowing hard as the sun went down, everything covered in white it looked so amazing, and hard to believe we had just ridden in clear skies not even an hour earlier.  We hung out for a bit and then went back to the halfway house all jacked up and ready to get it on the next day.

We stopped in at a pretty insane craft donut shop the next morning.  You see, Moab has become overrun with the standard issue D-bag van lifer/hiker/king of non-motorized activities/pretentious/rich assholes that use their status in society to destroy our moto culture and close our trails so they can peacefully eat vegan gluten free sandwiches and drink Bud Light on the edges of the same trails we used to ride on…. you know, the people who are convinced the world revolves around them.

Anyway one of the results of this is some pretty insane and different high end foods because rich people looooooove their food and their food pictures and talking about food and eating expensive food and analyzing their stool and talking about how great their way of life is and how EVERYONE in the ENTIRE WORLD must be JUST LIKE THEM and eat just like them and get rid of plastic bags and save the dolphins and motorcycles cause global warming and erosion and don’t shit where you sleep, recycle your shit and piss into drinking water and I could go on and on forever about this, so instead of a Dunkin’ Donuts they had a place that was like what Voodoo Donuts ever wished they could be.

Look, I am a stop at the truck stop and grab a Cinnabon or Dunkin’ Donuts type person but the motto of this tour was YOLO, so I sent it on some of the most high end donuts I have ever had.  I don’t even remember what I had but wow, it even made me think for a minute to become a vegan van lifer, but only for a minute, then I snapped back to reality as I noticed a few of these “urban troglodytes” wearing masks outside waiting for us to vacate their gullet stuffing station under the fear these rough looking dudes from Oregon brought Covid with them.  So back into our “trashy” 2022 Jeep Gladiator we pulled out to make room for another $225,000 pre-made stool and piss recycler(this is a real thing, look it up) and got the hell out of whatever happened to one of the most unique towns in the United States.

Camp Scottie, although fairly close to the Hive, somehow filtered out all the “Baggers” (D-bags) and left us with almost total isolation.   Every once in awhile you would see someone in a Jeep or with bikes, or even more strange a random lost jogger by themselves in the middle of the desert. bBoth days of riding, we only ran into about 4-5 people, and they were all on “our team” except for the joggers, you could see the joggers mouthing “fuckingmotorcyclesruiningmygoodtime” as they literally go jogging on marked OHV trails.

It’s almost like the majority of the Baggers were unable to continue down the road, like “Field of Dreams”, or “Never, Never Land” and how you have to believe to see it.  For a minute I was almost thinking maybe there is a God, maybe there is some force out there keeping the Baggers away from the bags (eggs, cage free, golf balls).  Keeping the Evil Vegan Force away from That Which Sends It, and YOLO’s and “Lives Life to the Fullest”, the ones still walking the parade despite being pissed on by people wasting their drinking water(you see what I did there).

What’s great and also so sad about all of this is that Scott has been mountain biking since mountain bikers got along with moto riders, and he also has been coming to Moab every year for almost 40 years.  You can see the amount of pain in his eyes as a single tear drops, like the weird naked Native American(PC) after Waynestock in Wayne’s World 2, as this transition went from the majority of mountain bikers being cool normal chill people to this group of people with an agenda to destroy everything that doesn’t comply with their ideals.  Every year that goes by more and more trails are closed to motorized vehicles, and they never reopen again.  A majority of the mountain bike trails were originally motorcycle trails, they took our single track and left us with two track trails jeeps can drive on, SMD you POS.

I am not referring to all mountain bikers in any way, I am saying that due to the mass adoption of their sport by these baggers with too much money and an agenda, the cool ones like Cam Zink that actually connect moto and mountain biking communities are so few and far between they make up less than 1 percent of the entire group out there.  Which only proves that status quo society is just a self centered and selfish place that will continue to attempt to bend the will of the world in line with their own every single waking moment of their lives.  There are Bagger moto riders as well, but at least the majority of them don’t try to evict the possibility of ever enjoying a motorized vehicle off the face of the planet.

Out and Back!?!

So yeah…..it’s a bummer but we are here to ride so we set out on one of the trails still open, Behind the Rocks. This one is rated Blue by RideUtah.com, so it should be a great first ride, right?

One item of note here with a picture to support it, not sure who pointed it out I think it was Danger Dave, but when I forced Corporate to put a new chain on his bike before we left, I did not tech inspect the final result.  He had installed the chain on the outside of the lower chain guard, making for some crazy noises and weird slack issues during the ride the night prior.  With this now fixed we all felt a sense of relief that nothing bad happened the night before, and that if needed to you could run a chain this way.

The ride started out fine, nothing to worry about, nothing to think about, just us and nature making love.  We began dropping off rocks, with them progressively becoming higher and more technical, but all was well, right?.  Corporate was still on his YZ250f, not really set up for this kind of riding, and no shame in saying this but he was the oldest one in the crew at 66 years old and I promised my mom I wouldn’t kill him and I’ve never lied to my mom.  So in trying not to kill him we kept giving him re-assurance that all would be well and “great job” dropping off that rock, see, it’s not that bad, you don’t want to turn around.  This was really turning into something similar to therapy for all of us, how much confidence do you have in yourself?  We came back hardened individuals for sure.

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It wasn’t absolute sketchiness until we came upon this section that no camera angle captured quite right.  It was the first section that not only seemed sketchy going up, but is sketchy going down.  This is also the point where Scott nonchalantly let slip that this was an out and back trail…..?

I think I said something like “we don’t have to come back up this, right?”

And he said something like “oh yeah, but we’ll figure it out”

And this is where Scott got the nickname for the day of “we’ll figure it out Scott”

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Corporate wasn’t even shitting his pants at this point, he was so far gone in NFW mode that he was actually squatting over by a tree, taking a shit, as to not have to change his pants.  Every single one of us went to him like “bro…..I got you bro…. don’t worry”, it was a real “broment” in moto crew development.

I do a decent job of backing up Scott in these situations as I know him better than anyone else does, and I trust him.  Trust can mean a lot though, when I say I trust Scott I mean Scott would never INTENTIONALLY try to hurt anyone, and hey, as long as the intentions are to make it home in one piece, even if we don’t, the intentions are in the right place, and there is a certain type of novelty you experience in life when you live this way. I have done things with Scott I would have never done with anyone else because Scott never says no out of fear of anything, same goes for Dano with music, it’s real easy with two people for one to sway the other in the “I give up it’s too dangerous” direction, which is safer but it is monotonous, not novelty, and novelty is where the depth of living comes from.

Case and point, I could point to a vertical climb I know is absolutely impossible and say “Scott let’s go up this” and he would say “fuck yes” before even analyzing it and send it before I start my bike, no camera, no social media, just for the sake of doing it.

What are you scared of?  You bought a motorcycle, you drove halfway across the country to ride here….. send it, fear only leads to regret, and you only live once.

So we re-assured Corporate that however we figure out how to get down this drop, we will ride his bike up if need be, no shame, you are 16 years older than the next oldest person here.  Then Danger Dave sent it down the chute that the camera made look completely safe and not sketchy at all.

I had a rough time going down as I hit a tree and lost my balance on the wrong side of the hill, two people holding me up as I had to get off my bike balancing on the front wheel, but I made it down, we all made it down safely and tried to forget about going back up and how hairy it was going to be.

As we reached each feature and dropped down I had a count going in my head of the ones I would have to ride two bikes up.  Then I lost count, and started believing in some sort of higher power.  We finally reached the turn around point and I was able to finally start counting down instead of counting up.

We hung out at the junction of Behind the Rocks and Pritchett Canyon as we watched some Jeeps conquer obstacles we were not willing to forego on motorcycles, which really messes with your head, but it is reality.  We really could have continued down Pritchett and made it, but then would have to shuttle bikes back as we would need more fuel.

Corporate Note: We are fully aware that locals, people that have ridden at Moab a lot, or hard enduro riders can take on Pritchett Canyon, Behind the Rocks and Kane Creek all in one day. Those guys are not on MX bikes and they have a lot of experience with this type of riding. We noticed that the longer we rode on the slick rock, the better we got. You learn what you can and can’t do. We’ll be way better next time we go to Moab.

We turned around and started crawling up the rocks, and made it to our first double send.  I think Fisher was the first one and had some issues… I could tell it was time to perform.  This is where I learned to just send it, because if you don’t fully commit to going up these rocks then you will hurt yourself, and the further up you go the more you stand to get hurt, but you have to just commit and go for it, so there we go, obstacle 1 is done…. 18 or so more to go.  Almost every obstacle required the rider sending it, then 3 people catching the bike and dragging it and maneuvering it up the rocks.

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Of all the climbs we were all just waiting for that one bastard to show up, that first one where we learned it was an out and back. It was the climb out of the canyon, the longest and gnarliest of all of them and the one I questioned the most.  Scott just sent it and made it with no help. Seriously, it looked like he used an anti-gravity machine. The rest of us made it up despite the camera footage not making it look cool, but definitely once all souls and bikes were at the top it almost felt like we were done, but we were not.

We came across another lost bastard we had forgotten about, in all reality if it was the first one we would have done it, but being number 18 we decided to take a route we thought went around it, but it, in fact, did not go around, it sent us in another direction and we became lost.  Lost in Moab is weird because everything looks the same, and in between every single point A and point B is a canyon or two you cannot ride through.  We had GPS but even with that it was hard to tell where we were going and ended up riding the same loop a few times.

This is when Corporate went OTB on some gnarly rocks and might have broken his hand.  The timing of it all was just super bad, we were lost, running out of gas, running out of water. In all reality we were still pretty safe, but in my head it’s like survival mode, the chances of what could happen go up a bit even though they are still low compared to what is going to happen.

Corporate was super bummed and I had to do the whole grab him by the collar, shake him a bit, “PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER LAD!”  “We’re not out of the woods yet, let’s just limp this home.”  Giving all new meaning to the phrase “we’re all just walking each other home.”

We made it back to familiar trails and arrived at camp Scotty on fumes.  After some appropriate bench racing, we were unsure if the hand was broken or if we were going to ride the next day.

Back at the hotel I thought I would be nice and get Corporate some electrolytes.  During the time I was gone, Corporate had sharted his pants, washed his underwear in the shower, took a shower, then hung his “clean” underwear on the shower door.  So I walked in and handed him the electrolytes, he said thank you and nothing else, then I had to go to the bathroom.  So I sat down in the dark and felt something on my face, it was this “clean” underwear I just described, definitely leading to a what the fuck happened and what the fuck were you thinking moment.

Look, there’s nothing wrong with shitting your pants a little, I shit my pants just last weekend riding but just didn’t tell anyone about it, so good on him for being honest and not making up some halfway house breaking and entering story involving shitting his pants, a squirrel, and some shaving cream, it happens to the best of us.

We laughed hard about this and he told me not to ever tell anyone, but then he went on to tell everyone, so I tell everyone now because it’s an awesome story.  Corporate is actually the current “editor” though, so feel free to remove this part and save for the book later down the road.  Or leave this in here and show the readers that I gave you the option and you chose to literally just send it, YOLO.

Corporate Note: YOLO!

I woke up the next morning to Corporate designing a motorcycle winch and asking me why I’m sleeping in so long, it’s time to go ride.  Stoked that the hand wasn’t broken and we were still able to ride,  we headed off to Camp Scottie.  We took a quick dip into downtown Moab for some pretentious overpriced food, grabbed Scott a case of Banquet, a can of Fix a Flat, two knitting needles, 4 rolls of duct tape, some zip ties and headed out of town.

Slot Canyon Chickens

Kane Creek was on the docket today, and it appeared at first it should be less sketchy than Behind the Rocks, and it was in some ways, but then was more sketchy in the falling into a slot canyon sort of way.  We took off just stoked, a new lease on life sort of thing.

We had to ride down the highway for a bit, turned onto the trail, off a nice drop we have to come back up but nothing compared to Yesterday, then just kind of weaved through a creek bed for a few miles.  Nothing was too wild yet, but it started going down a few more drops that will take some effort to come back up. No big deal, but then we came to a junction and a sketchy bridge.

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Here is a picture of the sketchy bridge, you can see it originally was a wooden bridge that has fallen apart over the years so someone laid some long metal beams across and we’re good to go for another 80 years.

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I could start to see the uneasiness in Corporate’s thought process while his stiff suspension kept trying to pitch him the 35’ to the bottom of the canyon.  This is where I’m in the middle, yes it sketched me out, but like I said, I trust Scott, and as long as I keep sending it, I know he won’t steer me wrong…..you just can’t look down.  Slot canyons are a trip because they are deep, but not too deep, just enough to seriously hurt you, and getting out of one if you do survive the fall is going to be very difficult if not deadly, and you are riding along the thin edge over rocks with this massive exposure just to your left.

I just kept thinking about the promise I made to my mom, watching Corporate navigate this while not being able to touch the ground too well, I couldn’t keep pushing him.  This is when we crossed over the creek and came to a flat rock sender up to the ledge on the left side.  Scott had made it but Fisher looped out and Corporate immediately said “I give up, I throw in the towel, nope, I’m heading back, have fun guys”

Being at a distance Scott says “what?”

I walked down and was like dudddde I mean I would totally do this if it was just me and you, but my dad is not into it so I’m going to just go back with him.  It’s so weird because in all honesty I was sketched out and didn’t want to do it, and if it was just me and Scott I would have done it even under those circumstances, but you know, I had to help my dad get back up those rocks.

So we said see you later Dave have fun!  He says, “You know what, you might need some help getting up those rocks, let’s just split it 3/3 here and I’ll go back with you guys, no problem it’s all good.”  This was really a good thing because if we returned to Debbie, Dave’s wife, without Danger Dave with the story it was too sketchy for us we might have been murdered in the middle of the desert and buried where no one would ever find us.

Looking back now though, I know all three of us, like I was saying earlier, if given the chance to send it and you don’t YOLO, then you will be plagued with thoughts of failure until you go and do it, which is why we are going back next year, and will have to see this trail through if the Baggers haven’t closed it down by then.

Corporate Note: This Moab trip hanged my life. It made me realize I’m not going to live forever, and getting out and sending it is more important than working until I drop dead. As soon as we got back, I bought a Husky TE300 enduro bike with soft suspension and a grunty power band. I made it a goal to get to every OHV park in Oregon and begin dual sporting on a newly acquired KTM 500exc. We’ve been riding or Raging to Live nearly every weekend and a lot of weekdays. I can’t wait for another shot at Moab, which is now coming up in less than six months.

Second Shred and More I-70 Antics

We had originally planned on staying a bit longer but we were all super smoked and decided to start heading back.  Going to switch the muscle groups up a bit and do some more Tread and Shred and hit Powder Mountain outside SLC on the way home.

There are so many ski resorts around SLC, I really kind of just picked one that wasn’t $280 a day and had night operations as we would be getting there in the afternoon.  The road to Powder Mountain is one of the steepest grades in the United States, 16 percent to be exact, which is twice as steep as anything I have driven a vehicle other than motorcycles on, it was absolutely insane.  I am now fully convinced that the Utah DOT completely embraces the careless, soulless pin it and prey attitude that Utah drivers have.

It started raining when we got there, but we still decided to grab a $30 ticket and take some laps.  Then it started snowing and all I could think about was the roller coaster ride down the mountain, so we took off pretty early and got out of there.

Smelling the barn, we just started burning back to Oregon.  We got into Idaho and I realized these drivers are even crazier than the Utah drivers in marginal conditions.  Every mile we passed was another car on its lid, and at one point the truck next to us hit a slush puddle and veered off the road into a field. It was absolute carnage on both sides of the freeway in every direction, with tow trucks, police, fire trucks, everything out in full force as the sun went down and the snow came down harder.

We limped into a Best Western outside Boise where we lucked out with a 24 hour pool, hot tub and free continental breakfast.  The breakfast was anything but continental though, it was, in fact, the best food we had on the entire trip, free from a hotel vs paying $40 a plate in Moab at fancy restaurants.  It was truly remarkable and a good way to end such an epic adventure.

By the time we returned home we had already planned the trip there next year.  Six months after our trip 30% of the entire Moab trail system has been shut down by the Baggers paying off the BLM to make up some story about how it cost too much to leave them open.  So what I’m saying is if you have never been to Moab you might want to give it a shot sooner than later, as pretty soon there will be nothing left.  If you are going to go I would recommend the end of March/early April time as it is an off season and your best shot at avoiding mass crowds of Baggers and the filming of a live action South Park episode.  Also that is the time we should be there, and the more the merrier, we need more bags in the mix to offset the Baggers. We just want to ride!

Fear only leads to regret, and you only live once… Send it.