It’s No Triple Jump…
Enduro Sales Guide

CW’s guide to bringing new riders into the fold

By Charlie Williams

Trail Rider Magazine
In a attempt to squirt a little Fix-a-Flat in the enduro scene I submit the following ideas and thoughts. Number one. Invite and encourage new riders. This is easy, and the most fun. There is nothing more satisfying than the experience of helping a first time enduro rider (Editor’s note: I am prepared to dispute this claim with Mr. Williams, that there is nothing more satisfying, etc., on obvious (to me) grounds, however this is not the proper forum, and possibly we’ll get back into it another time). Now it would be cruel to take a true novice enduro riding. You should help the novice to the motocross track, and help him through that day. Show him how to sign up, pick a class. He needs help picking a parking spot. Advise him on the pecking order, where all the guys with big fancy trucks park neatly in a row, and the head bangers and piercers in the mini trucks have a section to themselves. Motorhomes, over there; hippies under the shade tree. After a day of your tutoring he could go back to the motocross track by himself.

Once the novice wins a trophy or two and starts becoming cocky with his success, suggest a hare scrambles. Explain they are just like a motocross except the course is longer. You still only ride 4 or 5 laps around the same course, and you wind up back at the truck at the end of every lap. Pretty simple; still you need to show him exactly which pile of rocks you’ll be racing on today, help him pick a class and sign up. Ask him where he wants to park. If he says under the shade tree with the hippies you have a good candidate for a royal enduro fan. Help him to the starting line and help him with a race strategy, maybe “start out slow and increase his speed as the race goes on.” Then every time you lap him stop and make sure he’s all right.

When the race is over and you are back at the truck throwing back some cool non-ales, it is very important to lead the conversation to where the novice is forced to say the words “Yea, that motocross stuff is for pussies.” See, once he says this he can’t back-slide and go back to racing moto. You now have a contender for next year’s C class hare scrambles champion. Advise him on how to select a series and help him plot his progress through the year and even go to the banquet with him, but be very careful, because he now has more confidence than ever and like us all, he wants to make his own decisions. You have to catch him before he is fixated on “winning.” That’s not what it’s all about. “Winning” fogs the higher vision and “losing” hazes the adventure. Help the novice seek the adventure, not get caught up in the racing.

Now that he has acquired basic trail skills it may be time to introduce him to the big track of enduro. Comfort him as much as possible to lessen his apprehensiveness. Assure him timekeeping is easy, and at first he can follow you. Help him through tech inspection, this can be a stumbling block for a first time entry. Help him mount his score card and fix his riding number, help him find the gas truck and make sure he has basic tools: a rope, enough clothes, a razor blade, a condom. Ride him up to the starting line and point out other riders around him he could cue off of. “Don’t pass him, and if this guy catches you go faster.” Show him the flip cards and briefly mention key time, but don’t go into depth because too much info just scares the first time rider.

This is all you can do. Hand lead him to the starting line, tell him when to go and hope for the best. He will determine his fate, that’s the beauty of enduro; so many decisions that show up directly on your score card. After the race, walk him up to the score board, help him find his class and his score card, teach him how to decipher his score card. Explain to him hot points and how he got them. Scrutinize all the other score cards of riders who beat him, show him how close he was in each section, maybe even find a mistake and move him up a position.

See how many hurdles a new rider would have to cross before actually riding any trail? This is part of the reason enduros are difficult to discover on your own. The novice was the ideal scenario. Most likely your new rider will be a trail rider or hare scrambler who never stumbled into an enduro parking lot. Now this rider will require a different plan of attack. Here is the Charlie Williams Team Mooch way of introducing a new intermediate rider to enduros. First, you can skip the moto scene and probably the hare scrambles too, but it will be harder to change his ways. See, he can win a trophy at hare scrambles, so why would he want to try something different, where he may fail? He’s already letting winning fog his vision. You can’t tell this guy anything, so don’t. Just load him in the truck and haul him away. Again, too much information is dangerous, so mum’s the word. “It’s a race and it starts early.”

That’s all you should tell him. See, there are too many excuses he could use: “No computer, small tank, no head light, tail light, spark arrestor, etc.”

The excuse you will not hear from his lips is: “I’m not sure I can ride 100 miles in a day.”

So just load up the truck, don’t give him a choice or a chance. In your gear bag hide an old Acerbis head light, an old fanny pack and a canteen for carrying gasoline. Drive to the race the night before so your friend can have plenty of time to get his bike looking legal–you know, rubber band the old head light on, zip-tie a 13 year-old license plate on, tie five knots in your old fanny pack belt so it fits, and inventory its contents: “I know what to do with a rope but what do I need to carry all these old spark plugs for? I’m taking them out, they will just slow me down.” Then make him ride your bike trough tech inspection, that’s how you get through tech. With an illegal bike, present one that is legal. The club usually puts a little sticker somewhere on the front of your bike, but since your truck leaks oil, the front of your bike is slippery and the sticker is easy to peel off and put on another bike, the illegal one. You don’t have to be as kind to this guy as the novice, he already knows everything so what could you tell him?

“Wear a sweater?”

Make him sleep on the ground next to you so he can feel the full effects of “enduro.” “What do you mean you didn’t bring a sleeping bag? You can borrow this shirt.”

Your friend will learn to hate you, but that is the risk you have to take.

“What do you mean you didn’t bring any little white donuts?”

“Well, we never took little white donuts motocrossing…”

See how much more complex it is already? And all we’ve done is drive to the start. Prime him with confidence booster and sleeping agent–beer. Watch and enjoy as he admires his green bike with a white headlight, his enduro bike. The more he drinks the more secure he feels with his new found enduro family.

“Yeah, dried up old man, I got 3rd Jr. C class at the Sleepy Hollow Wednesday Night Hare Scrambles series, all with a broken pinky toe!”

“Arrr child, I lost me three fingers and me eye lying out the course.” Then the grizzled vet pegs off in the distance.

“Whoaa, was that guy for real? And what happened to his feet?”

“Oh yea, Peggy. He’s for real. Trail boss for 33 years, rides the super duper senior class. He’s a buddy of Hertfelder, that’s who told me about his feet. It’s like they were racing Greeves or something when they jumped up out of this drainage ditch onto the concrete slab of a bridge, old boy got his toes pointed down too much and the edge of the concrete sheared off all ten toes and his boots. Didn’t even stop. Hertfelder picked them up and stuck them down his coat. When they got back to headquarters Hertfelder raced up to him and handed him his toes still stuck in his boot tips. Peggy dumped his toes out on Bevo’s barbecue grill and stuck the boot toes in his pocket. After he got his trophy he grabbed the blackened toes off the grill and caught a ride to the hospital, snacking on his own toes, spitting out dirty nails and bones sucked clean of his own marrow! Guess he got a staph infection after riding the section through the sewage bog and they had to keep cutting on him until all the bad tissue was removed. That’s why you carry a razor blade in your fanny pack; if you get any infected dead flesh out on the trail you can remove it before the red streaks reach all the way to your heart. Well I’m going to turn in, see ya in the morning.” See why I like enduros so much? Now I can curl up on that knot on the ground, rest my head on a tree root and sleep peacefully. I knew what to expect. I tucked my pants legs in my boots to keep snakes from crawling up my legs, and button the top button on my shirt for the same reason.

Now, the new guy, on the other hand, had been worried about a computer, but that’s all changed. Now he’s worried about a snake trying to crawl up his pants. I don’t tell him that the old boy is just a crazy old club member who lost his feet to alcoholism and he’s not even a pirate or a trail boss, he’ just real sloppy with a hatchet and shot himself in the eye with a staple gun. An enduro isn’t so much of a race as it is a celebration of the great outdoors, man against the elements with the help–or burden–of a motorcycle. In no other sport is it so readily accepted to carry a rope and a rubber. That’s enough reason for me. “I got me a big ole hank of rope, and a handful of rubbers! I’m ready for anything old mother nature can throw at me. I’m even ready for unnatural acts of nature.” The actual action may not be as intense to watch as motocross, but it’s the little things that make enduro a good spectator sport, even if all you do is watch other spectators. The new guy will eventually insist on bringing his girlfriend. She hated moto cross, what do you think she will say about enduro?

“Ughhh. Sigh. Ughh.”

“Gee honey, maybe if you got out of the back of the truck for a little while, maybe made some friends, how bout those girls over there?”

“Ughhh, those girls are scuzzy, none of them have expensive cars or have ever seen Les Miserables. I’m just going to sit here in my designer jogging suit and make your life a living hell!” Her legs are crossed at the knees and her foot bouncing to the beat of the William Tell overture, playing in her peroxide-poisoned chakra, third eye, aura dealie. The version from Clockwork Orange, no doubt. The Enduroan is driven by internal vibes like that of free form, plucky Spanish acoustic guitar music at a nice 2 /4 beat, the rhythm section keeps them rolling along like a cool daddy-o in a Deltones surf tune.

“Gee, Peaches, it is what you make of it. You can sit there all high and mighty, but it may be five hours before we get back.”

“Where are you going? Isn’t the track right over there?” Pointing with her diamond-aggregated finger.

“No Rosebud, it’s an enduro, it’ll go all over the place. Right, Charlie?”

“Hey don’t try to get me involved, I told you not to bring her. You got your rope and your condom?”

“Condom! What do you plan on doing with a condom?”

“I’m not sure, but Charlie said I would know just when to use it.”

“Well Charlie Williams, you’re a heathen and I hate you!”

“I don’t care, the feeling’s mutual. Oh by the way, Barbie, your hair is messed up in the back.” She jumps out the side door of the van, deadly press-on nails flailing, trying to lacerate any of my exposed skin. As quick as a rodeo star I have her down with both feet and one hand tied behind her back, and a apple stuck in her mouth. Two guys walk by and I hear one mutter to the other:

“She’s either got big red pretty lips or an apple stuck in her mouth.”

They think nothing of the fact she is tied up. Gentlemen enduro connoisseurs. Can you begin to see my attraction to enduro? No it’s not a triple jump, but few things in life can continue to give you a giant orgasmic charge. You must learn to appreciate the subtle things, seek out the obscure or you will run out of events that interest you at all; and a life with no interest leads to the path of you lying on the ground hog tied, with an apple heel kicked in your chops. Enduro is better.