Got home safely from my first 24 hour endurance hare scramble in Western Washington/Oregon. This was the most demanding event/ride I have ever experienced on a motorcycle. Physically and mentally exhausting, it took a lot of will to throw a leg over the machine at 3:00am to got do some laps on a very demanding and rough course.
Mother nature was against us all the way: From almost flipping the travel trailer in a crosswind in the Southern Alberta Foothills (estimated wind 120 km/h gust putting 2 wheels 2-3' in the air
) to a constant pounding headwind across the Washington state highlands and Columbia River Gorge. Fortunately the wind dropped for the event. The pits were huge with about 100 teams fielding (1-6 riders). I would estimate about 400 riders total. Beside us was a team from the US Navy, I don't know if they were SEALS but they seemed tough lol. The course was 20 miles of silt & dirt mixed with various sized basaltic rocks. Speeds ranged from 1st gear technical rock fields to 100km/h high speed sweepers. In between were relentless sections of massive whoops. Just nuts.
Having never done this before we entered a team of 4 (3x KTM 300s and my Husky FE501) and when we arrived we were soon concerned as most teams were utilizing the full allowable limit of 6 riders. Fortunately we found a rhythm and settled into 2nd place early on. We were able to squeeze into first late afternoon of day 1 and held the lead through the long night (13 hours). The format of the system allows the teams behind to see how much they are trailing but the leaders don't know the time gap. We held the lead through the night and as it worked out 80% of my rides were in complete darkness. Around hour 22 we lost the lead but we were able to battle back and overtake the leaders. On the last lap they had a mechanical (broken/wheel/tire) and we rode to a first place in our class. Absolutely gruelling and too tired to care lol.
To top it off we drove through an early season snow storm in BC., a highway littered with ditched cars and jackknifed semis. Great fun!
