The second day after my crash at Endurofest 2021 I woke up in Beaver, Utah and my entire body felt like each bendy-joint had been shot through with formaldehyde. The two ibuprofen I had taken last night were joined by another two this morning. There’s safety in numbness, my brothers. Fawlty Towers had a nice little breakfast included with the room. I had a premade, Jimmy Dean sausage biscuit sandwich and a plastic-wrapped blueberry muffin. By the time I made it out to the bikes I was feeling fairly good but I vowed to take it easy and try to avoid crashing again.
Luckily our day’s route was an easy one. We rode 50 paved miles to an abandoned mining town named Frisco. Frisco is 20 miles south of Milford, Utah and was by all accounts a rough place to call home. The local graveyard told a sad story of infant death with the average age of the little ones only a few months. One of the oldest inhabitants died at 39. There’s not much water or shelter near Frisco but a large silver mining operation kept the townspeople busy for their short lives. Zinc, copper, lead and gold were also dug out of the rocky ground.
We poked around the ruins of the Frisco mine, there’s metal everywhere. It’s a great place to get a flat tire. Then we headed back north to Milford for some Chinese food. One of the DT250s started acting up on the return ride to Milford so we lost two DT250s as one healthy 250 followed the ailing 250 back to Beaver. They almost made it home before the sick 250 seized. I mean like a few blocks from home.
It was getting on in the afternoon so the rest of us decided to forgo Milford’s Chinese food and get a mystery burrito at the local stop-n-shop. The egg-roll sized burritos were in a glass warmer case and the tin foil wrapping covering each burrito was tagged with prices ranging from $1.99 to $2.79. There was no way to determine what you were getting until you unwrapped the thing and bit into it. I got a $1.99 and it turned out to be bean and cheese.
Leaving Milford we took the dirt road over Soldier Pass back to Beaver. It was a nice, 30-mile graded road with a few sandy spots. I welcomed the break and did not fall over the entire way. In the afternoon we took a graded dirt road high into the mountains east of Beaver. At 11,000 feet, Godzilla (my RT1B) was struggling along in first gear.
The third day of Endurofest I was feeling much better. Riding these old dirt bikes requires flexibility and the first two days I was tight, steering the bike instead of riding it. As I loosened up the bike could move around as needed and my control increased. The beating on my body lessened and I was rolling with the terrain. I started to feel it, you know? We did a loop into the western foothills along a fairly easy route with only a few rocky sections thrown in.
I left Beaver Sunday after the morning ride, leaving the remaining riders another afternoon of trail riding. The Flagstaff Endurofest was the last time I had ridden Godzilla and the rust was evident, hence my crash. It took a full three days before I felt confident on the bike. It looks like I’ll have to add a few days of dirt riding/de-rusting to my preparation list before next year’s Endurofest.
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