Testosterone and gray hair are not mutually exclusive. In fact, if you look at the riders at the 41st Motion Pro Nevada 200 Trailride, it seems that both peak around age 50. We were invited to take part in the event, which has become legendary in eastern Nevada off-road lore. This isn’t just any gathering of trail riders. It’s a rolling Hall of Fame. As organizer Scot Harden pointed out at the riders’ meeting, there’s no place in the world where so many motorcycle icons are gathered in one place. Caliente, Nevada, becomes an unparalleled hotspot every spring when it comes to attracting members of the AMA Hall of Fame, the Trailblazers, the Hot Shoe Hall of Fame and perhaps a half-dozen other entities that honor the legends of our sport. Scot himself is on all those lists after a lifetime of off-road racing all over the world. So are Rodney Smith and Jack Johnson, who help put on the event. This year we brought Gary Jones to take part for the first time, and he was treated like the royalty he is.
For us, it was also an opportunity to get some work done. Ron Lawson and Pete Murray used the ride as a laboratory for two of the tests in this issue. Here are some of the scenes and people they saw along the way.
Pete Murray was indoctrinated into the Nevada 200 staff to help keep the rank and file under control. At each stop he was enlisted to hold everyone in place, while Scot and Rodney rode up the trail to scout ahead and make sure all the markings were in place.The Dirt Bike staff was in full test mode at this year’s event. Ron rode the GasGas EC450 that appears in this issue.It’s Scot Harden’s world, but guys like Rodney Smith get to play in it. Rodney has been an essential part of the Nevada 200 program for years when it comes to course layout and leadership.Gary Jones rode a Honda CRF250RX and proved that you don’t need a lot of horsepower to ride Nevada desert. You don’t, at least, if you’re Gary Jones.Jonathan Ley had other Nevada 200 riders quietly placing bets on whether or not he would finish. He was attempting to ride a Stark Varg through 200 miles of deep sand, river beds and massive rocks. Electric motorcycles have many attributes, but range is not one of them. He succeeded, but Scot and the Nevada 200 staff did everything they could to accommodate him. They provided directions so that a support truck could meet him at every stop to give him a quick mid-ride charge. His support truck was, appropriately, a Ford Lightning electric truck. It had enough capacity to share.
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