By Paul Clipper

“The very thought of running alongside a bike going up a hill
has lost its appeal. It’s mostly out of respect for my riding
companions. I know they’d be greatly inconvenienced by having
to deal with a riding partner having a stroke out on the trail.”

There’s nothing like climbing hills on a good dirt bike. Maybe I feel that way because I grew up on a flat landscape. Actually, when I was younger I don’t think I thought about it that much. Looking back, the only time I had real problems was when I was riding in the hills; in a Pennsylvania enduro, possibly. I remember one time for certain I threw it away coming down a hill at the Moonshine enduro, back when it was on the military base. I remember it quite well because the crash split the fiberglass gas tank on my Penton, and my day ended abruptly because of it.

But then I left this side of the country and went off to California, where the hills are much larger and the traction is virtually absent. I think that’s the one thing that disorients dirt bikers from this side of the country, when they go out west. Yes, the hills are much bigger—their hills are what we call mountains back here—but also since it’s so dry so much of the time, every trail you ride on out there is like marbles on concrete, with a little bit of talcum powder thrown in for good measure.

The first time I went trail riding in California my friends took me to a place that had real singletrack trail, knowing that’s what I like. However, the thing that made this trail into “singletrack” was the fact that it was hanging on the side of a cliff. A naked cliff, of course, no trees or even bushes in this particular place. You could look down to your left and see a little rocky river going by below, oh, not that far, maybe 75 or a hundred feet. Meanwhile, the bare rock trail was dusty and covered with loose marbles, and I was riding an unfamiliar bike and terrified. I learned since then that that type of trail is what’s known as a “goat trail,” named after the mounatin goats that like to scurry around on bald cliffs thereabouts.

It’s terrifying stuff to ride in, at least the first couple of times. If you’re a typical easterner, every time you yank on the throttle cable the bike will snap sideways. Every time you stab the brakes you’re sliding. Yeah, us easterners know about throttle control, but we know throttle control according to a different law of physics. Like, we know to back off when we see a big spider web of shiny roots coming up in the trail—slip over them dead throttle then get back on the gas. Certain types of moss-covered rocks, or some kinds of wet rocks, same thing—chop the throttle then roll back on when you’re cleared of it. It works like a charm, and we do it a hundred times a day without even thinking about it.

But what about if you’re somewhere riding where it is so slippery that you can’t get traction anywhere, unless you come across a patch of deep turf (rare) or a section of clean smooth rock?

It’s funny, because people around here think that mud is slippery. Actually, you can get some fantastic traction in mud. MOST mud is traction, as a matter of fact. Yeah, you slither around on the surface a little, but soft ground is a treat to bite your knobs into. Maybe it turns into a problem if the mud is clay and it packs up your tires completely, and if your tires are worn smooth it’s even worse. But I still say mud gives you more traction than California hard pack.

What the west coast does is teach you throttle control. If you start spinning wildly going up a quartermile long desert uphill, there isn’t much hope for you to get to the top. So you have to learn to back off a little, ease up on the throttle until things start biting a little better. Learn where you can gas it, and where you have to finesse the attack.

It helps even more if you learn all this on a 125 or a 200. When I was younger I was scared of big bikes, plain and simple. It sounds kind of silly, but look what we had for big bikes back then. We had uncontrollable two-stroke motocrossers like the TM400 Suzuki, we had light-switch powerband bikes like the Mint 400 Penton, and we had monster bikes like the 490 or 501 Maico, the CR500 Honda, well, you know, we had a lot of giant two-strokes. For a skinny guy from the east none of these bikes were hot choices for tractionless singletrack.

We also didn’t have any really ridable four-strokes back then. The term “four-stroke” invariably meant a foo-foo bike, some sort of street-trail near-road bike with steel shocks that would be suicidal on a rough trail. It wasn’t until late in the game that bikes with excellent potential, like the XR 250 and 400, and the first Husky four-strokes, came along to teach us that if you double your strokes you double your traction.

So I spent my time riding small two-strokes, and trying to get up hills in desert enduros. These events were always laid out by wily guys on big open-class bikes, and some of them would even tell you at the rider’s meeting that if you were on a small bore, well, good luck to you.

You couldn’t afford to spin out on an uphill if you were trying to stay on time on a KDX175. You had to attack at the bottom for all you were worth, then feather the throttle on the way up to keep the traction coming until the angle of the hill overcame whatever power was left. I always dreaded that point, and it came in just about every desert enduro I can remember. At that point, there was no other choice than to jump off the bike and continue in first gear, running alongside, trying to make the top at all cost. And if there was a diabolical little vertical lip at the top of the climb, there was no choice but to fling the bike with your last ounce of strength and hope to ghost it cleanly onto the flat at the top. No mean feat for a guy who, at the time, believed one of the most important things in his fanny pack was a pack of Marlboros.

I know I couldn’t do it now. I don’t carry cigarettes any more, but age has caught up, and the very thought of running alongside a bike going up a hill has lost its appeal. It’s mostly out of respect for my riding companions. I know they’d be greatly inconvenienced by having to deal with a riding partner having a stroke out on the trail.

But it did teach me how to get up a hill, or how to best take a shot at it. The wonderful thing is that suspension has improved by leaps and bounds since then, bikes have much more usable horsepower, and four-strokes have been refined into a really viable way to get around in the dirt.

I wax enthusiastic about all this because last weekend was the annual Quarry Run “dual sport” ride, which is without a doubt one of the most unapologetically hilly rides you can enter on this coast. It is bottleneck city, and even though trail boss Otto said that he laid out an “all downhill” run this year, he still managed to give us a few neat hillclimbs to sink our knobs into. He claimed it was all down because most of the uphills were half-ruined by the flood last year, and normal rains for the rest of the year have finished them off. Apparently some of the fine old two-track uphills are going to have to be bulldozed if we’re ever going to ride them again, which is a shame. But like I said, the run was far from flat and we had plenty of good opportunity to do a little social climbing.

The most fun there is is found when you attack a long hill climb from the back of your riding group, then work your way through all of them on the way up. All the guys I rode with were good riders, but you know how it is. You can’t be 100 percent awake on every hill, and the Hancock area is unforgiving when it comes to making mistakes while climbing. You have to be right up in the “attack” position, and ready for anything, or you’re going to wind up running out of pawer and spinning out on the greasy rocks.

I also had the chance to ride one of the new street legal KTM 450EXCs at the event, and I am just thrilled to be able to ride that aggressively on a bike with turn signals and a horn. Word has it that KTM has completely changed the EXCs for 2008; new engine parts, new frame again, new suspension, less weight, everything, but I’ll tell you there are few bikes that can find traction and climb like that 400-450 RFS engine. From my earliest experience with them, I would have never believed that a four-stroke could work that well in the dirt, but now I’m sold, no doubt.

It’s awfully late in the season, but maybe we’ll run something about the 450 EXC in an upcoming issue, hopefully along with a test of the new 2008 450. We’ll find out all about that this week, since the annual KTM dealer show is happening, well, tomorrow, and that’s where I’m headed right now.

But you know, I’d be just as happy—well, maybe happier—to be out on that bike shredding those Hancock uphills one more time. There’s no better fun on two wheels!