Journal · Bench Racing
The epic multi-generational BC dirt bike adventure of 2015
UPDATED February 4, 2017. I added a video from Mac's GoPro
Here is a story from the modern era of dirt-biking and family fun. In 2014 I took my daughter Rose to B.C. for a vacation- a respite from the horrible events that had consumed our family for longer than I care to think about. We had a great time and as good fortune would have it, it has become an annual event. This story recalls the events of the second annual trip to B.C. to ride dirt-bikes.
My 50th year on planet Earth was perhaps not the best ever. It was 2015 and it had the potential to be a good year, but there were a series of unfortunate events that put a damper on a time that was supposed to be all about renewal. The highly volatile family situation of 2014 simmered down shortly after returning from BC-1 bringing promise of great things to come. But misfortune rained down often for some reason and something needed to be done about it so BC-2 was put into the hopper.
The second annual dirt-bike adventure was shaping up to be even better than the first. My brother Bernie was going to join us as were Pat's two grown-up kids Michael and Mackenzie. Bernie drove out to BC with his wife Lynn and their dogs with his KTM 300XC in tow. Michael lives in Merritt with Pat. He saved his pennies and bought a brand new Yamaha YZF450. Mackenzie lives in Grand Prairie Alberta. He brought his girlfriend Arren, her quad (don't get me started on quads) and his 2012 YZF450.
Mac and Arren. They live in Grand Prairie so it is about one day drive for them. Mac has a YZF450 and Arren has a Quad- I am not sure how Mac came to terms with that... true love obviously.
Michael with his brand new YZF450. He moved to Merritt after Pat did and lost a lot of weight thanks in great part to a renewed passion for dirt-bikes. He rides better every time I see him and it is best that I don't try and keep-up.
Pat, Mac, Lynn in front of Pat's house shortly after Bernie and Lynn arrived to escape a small part of the harsh Pickle Lake winter.
Bernie and Murphey checking out Mac and Arren's gear shortly after arriving in Merritt. Bernie is no doubt excited to get out riding.
I was the first one of the group to arrive in Merritt. I arrived mid-week a couple days ahead of Mac and Arren. Pat and Michael both work at the sawmills so being mid-week, they were both working but Michael works shift-work so he had the excellent idea of taking me for my first ride the following morning.
This is how we roll in Merritt BC. Michael bought that truck for $800 and while the paint is a bit faded, it still works great. The bike is Pat's guest-bike a 2002 YZ-250.
To keep the day simple, Michael and I went riding pretty much from the back-yard. There is an area very close to the house. A big hill to climb and then a bunch of trails. At the foot of the hill is a little motocross track where we warmed up and then we set off in search of single-track. We had a great ride. The trails were a lot of fun and I got plenty of exercise and was able to sharpen my skills.
My tour-guide for the first ride day. It was just the two of us and we had a great ride. It was all I could do to keep up with him.
Later that day Mac and Arren arrived and the plan for the next day was to bring them to the same place the following morning. This was to be a much different ride though as Arren rides a quad and she is a little throttle-shy.
This is a great picture as it shows the hills we will be riding in. I also love how Mac has his truck packed complete with the Quetico North Outfitters aluminum food-pack. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree!
The way Michael and I went up the hill to get to the trails was not going to work for Arren as it is just too steep. So we went around the long way and followed some easier terrain. Arren rode like a champ. She was met with her share of challenges along the way and conquered them all. For the rest of us on dirt bikes, we had a lot of time on our hands as Arren's quad-pace was considerably off from our own. And seeing as how we had all this extra time on our hands we started zipping around looking for interesting things to goof around on. This is how we ended up with our first injured Mike.
On the easy way up the hill, we came upon some fun side-hills to climb. There were plenty of tracks to follow and it was not a real challenging place by any means, but shit happens and today it happened to Mike. While following one of the tracks up the hill, he bounced himself over a rock and was tossed unpredictably and he crashed on the side of the steep slope. We could all hear the bitching and moaning and after a few minutes, he made his way down the hill with his right shoulder dropped several inches low. Broken collar bone! We have all seen them and probably all had them.
This week is going to prove to be hard on Mikes.
Mike had to suck it up, accept his misfortune and ride back to the truck. I escorted him. Mac and Arren rode out together. While sitting in the emergency room, Mike was thinking positive and saying silly things like "maybe it's not broken". I reassured him that he was just being Pollyanna and he did indeed have broken bones- there is no use giving the kid false hope. Well, guess what? His positive attitude paid large dividends and the x-ray proved me wrong- something I had a hard time accepting.
Later that same day, Bernie and Lynn arrived and we had a great time catching up. We went to Cathy and Randy's house for dinner and social time. We also stayed there for the rest of the trip. The next day was to be our first big family ride and we were already down by one Mike as there was no way Michael could ride with his shoulder in traction.
As you may have gathered by now, something bad is going to happen to another Mike in the group. That other Mike just happens to be me- sad but true. I am sure we are not so different from other families when reuniting, but there were a lot of conversations happening- some loud, some not so much. On the loud side you have Pat's offspring and they have a lot to talk about. Much of what is being said is regarding the planned inaugural family dirt-bike outing. There are so many conversations that it is sometimes hard to choose which one to audit. Often I would just zone-out and lose myself in my own thoughts. One thing I did learn is that we would be riding an area called "The Bench" and it is in the town of Merritt right behind the now familiar hospital. I hear Pat and Mac talking about an XR but I am not following that conversation. I assume XR is in reference the old Motorcycle Randy would be riding. Now had I been paying attention, I would have realized that XR was something completely different. And had I been paying attention, I may never have sustained the injuries that I did.
Here we are getting ready to ride "The Bench". 41 is Mac's bike, the KTM is Bernie's 300XC, Pat has the YZ-250 and I am Riding injured Mike's brand new YZF-450.
I was really excited for this ride and I was a bit bummed that nephew Mike was already sidelined but it meant that I got to ride his 450. I am the kind of rider that can get along well with any bike I swing a leg over so I felt pretty comfortable riding the big beast. Along with Pat, Bernie, Mac and myself, we also had brother-in-law Randy driving an old XR-200. We got ourselves going and the plan was to ride and try to stick together for the most part which meant Randy may have to occasionally take some easier trails while we embark on more challenging ones.
Now there be hills in B.C. And right away we got to a big sandy hill. Randy had to take a second run to climb it. On his second try he climbed right up just like a billy goat. The rest of us had little problem. Now we were about 10-minutes into the ride and we came to another hill. I was riding near the back of the pack and Pat was at the front. He was at the foot of a big climb directing Randy to take a right-turn for the easier way and he is waving at me to go up the other way.
In retrospect, this is the very moment at which paying closer attention to the conversations of the previous day would have saved me a great deal of pain. You see, the XR Pat and Mac were talking about was not an old Honda at all, it was a gnarly hill that I had no business climbing that day. In B.C. If a hill is challenging enough, if it has brought enough pain and suffering to those brave enough to give it a go, then that hill is worthy of a monicker. This particular hill was not called "Intimidator", and it was not called "Widow-maker" or "Ball-buster", it was simply called "XR" and I was it's victim-du-jour.
So there I am riding the most powerful dirt-bike that money can buy. I have decades of riding experience and I even have some B.C. riding experience. I see Randy turn right and I see Pat telling me to climb the nastiest fucking hill I have yet to attempt. But I have faith in my brother. He would never steer me wrong, so I does-as-he-says and up I go thinking it must not be as bad as it looks. So much faith do I have in my brother that I don't even go hard on the throttle. I am going to rely on the massive amount of torque I have at my disposal and cruise right up. It didn't take me long to realize that I was not going to make this hill with the momentum I had and that this was all some kind of mistake or a sick practical joke.
The "XR" has a single track going up and it seems to get steeper as you climb. To the left of this single track is a wash where the rain water and melting snow flows and "washes" away the sand leaving just clean round rocks. To the right is bush and there is no way to just arc a turn and come back down. So I decide to grab a little something from my bag of tricks. I slide back on the seat and blip the throttle bringing the front wheel just off the ground and I drop the bike hard to the left. My goal was to pivot 180-degrees and go back down the way I came without dropping or stopping. It worked pretty well but I only managed about 120-degrees of rotation which put me right inside the wash. Now perhaps at this point, the best thing to do would be to drop the bike but I felt I could ride it out and come through unscathed. I was wrong. I have crashed many times in my life and there is always that moment where you know it's happening and you brace yourself for the inevitable. In this case however, there was no "moment". I just crashed. The wash I was riding in was like riding on marbles and the hill was steep. The brakes did nothing for me and then suddenly my head slammed into the side of the wash. From the bottom, my fellow riders watched in horror thinking I was a dead man.
Mac thinking he had is GoPro on, had it off so rather than catching the fateful event on video, he only managed to capture the aftermath.
I was not dead though, just hurt. Hurt bad. My left ankle was badly twisted and I had some mighty sore ribs. So sore was I that I couldn't possibly pick the bike up and cart it back down the hill. I limped down the hill and Pat climbed up to get the bike. This was 10-minutes into our ride and we had to make a choice on what to do next. I decided that perhaps I could "ride it off". "Ride it off" refers to a dirt biker's deep desire keep going theorizing that adrenalin will assist in relieving the pain. It could also be called "denial".
I got back on the bike and was able to start it... so far so good. My ankle was so sore that I couldn't even shift without huge pain. I was very nervous about bumping my foot on something so I was letting the bike ride me instead of me riding the bike. Once under way, we were riding side slope and before we even went 100 metres, I drove off the single-track and set the bike down on the mountain side- immobilized again. Pat and Mac come to rescue me and they had to decide whether to muscle the bike back up onto the trail or ride it down the bank, through the bush and back up on the trail where I was waiting, wounded and wincing. They decided on the latter. Pat picked up the brand-new 450 and pointed it down the mountain-side. He applied the brakes but the slope was too slippery and he drove the bike into a fallen dead tree where it became impossibly entangled with the dense, dead beetle-kill branches. "We need a chainsaw!" Pat shouts. Mac slid himself down the hill to help and together they managed to break a few branches and drag the bike under the tree and out the other side. It was a good thing Michael was not there to see what was becoming of his new bike.
Once we got going again, I decided I could not avoid the pain. I had to grin-and-bear it and ride that bike or it would be the death of me. A good half-hour had now passed and we had finally caught up to Randy. We rode to the top of the hill and had a rest on an open field.
So this was a resting spot and that is me and while I look healthy and happy, I am in a great deal of pain and discomfort. I cannot walk at all and my entire rib cage is traumatized... Let's Ride!
this is how Randy rolls. He has a lot of fun doing things his own way.
Bernie smiling for a photo. This is at our first rest after all the shit I put everyone through. The show must go on brothers!
Right after these pictures were taken, we got into the single-track riding. The trails were nice and offered a lot of challenge. We separated from Randy again and I was able to keep up. I even had a modicum of vigour. But as we rode on, I became more preoccupied with the pain and as we hit some obstacles all I could do was think with dread of having to hit them again on the way out. We rode for quite a while and stopped for a rest where we had a fantastic view. Randy eventually found us and we spent some quality time eating wild-game sausage from Randy's pack and hydrating.
The rest-stop did me no favours. I found no relief from the pain I was in and it was clear that there was no way to "ride it off". After a short deliberation it was decided Randy would escort me home using the dirt-roads instead of the single-track so it should be easier on my battered carcass. Pat gave some instructions on how to get out and we set off while Pat, Bernie and Mac rode on without us completing a very enjoyable outing.
Randy led us out to the dirt roads and we rode around at the top of that mountain for what seemed like an eternity. We even found some snow. When I realized I had seen the same giant fallen tree for the third time I knew we were no closer to getting out than when we separated from the others. Randy and I talked about it for a couple minutes and decided we would just go back down the single-track- the same way we came originally. It was a brutal punishment to say the least. There was one point where I had gotten stuck on a moss covered granite up-hill with a fallen tree. Under normal circumstances, this would have been a fun challenge but being injured, I stalled the bike. I had to start it and then get off and then push to the top using my leg that would not take weight. I could smell antifreeze as the big 450 threatened to overheat but I made it up. After that moment of hell, there was nothing that was going to stop me again and I made it through. We rode a sketchy switchback dirt road that took us to where the truck was. I thought Randy was going to fall to his death on that old Honda so I went off ahead and left him with whatever happy thoughts I could muster.
I made it to the truck a few minutes ahead of Randy and he had to help me get my boots off and my riding gear. I was absolutely spent and the pain was throughout. We got back to the house and Randy gave me a Percocet and large glass of whiskey. I plunked my aching body into a big soft reclining chair and proceeded to numb myself for the rest of my time in B.C.
I had hope that I would recover quickly enough to redeem my wounded pride and get out for another ride, but that didn't happen. I had to wait an entire year for redemption which will be my next story.
So what actually went wrong?
Was this the result of a sick brotherly joke or something else entirely?
Pat and Mackenzie talked about the gnarly terrain at "The Bench". They talked of the "XR". Mackenzie is my nephew, we share much of the same genetic makeup and when dressed in full riding regalia it can be hard to tell us apart. Especially when we are both riding 450 Yamahas. You would think the big black "41" on the yellow front numberplate would have been enough to tell us apart, but Pat is in his forgetful-fifties and he suffered from momentary brain-fade. Thinking he was sending his son to his doom, he waved me on instead... What a guy.
Pat and his son Mac- who he tried to kill. Apparently my doppelgänger.
That is only part of the story. Pat felt terrible about making that mistake but it twas I that twisted the throttle. I had only myself to blame. Any idiot could see that the "XR" was something that required more than 10-minutes riding practice since the previous year. I approached that hill with too much hubris I suppose. That big 450 gave me confidence. Had I rode the old YZ-250 like I did the previous two days, I would have followed Randy to the right no matter what hand-signal Pat offered.
I did have some fun on the sidelines. I truly enjoy being with my siblings and their offspring. They were sympathetic and genuinely bummed to see me wounded and sidelined. My rib-cage and my back were very tender and it was very painful to cough, sneeze or laugh. Sitting on the deck at Cathy's place sipping whiskey in the warm April weather, Bernie and Michael got to telling stories. Bernie told the story of him and Jim getting into a street fight in Dryden in their younger days. I laughed so hard I cried... actually I laughed so hard that I buckled over in pain.
It took months to heal from that stupid little move. I did get x-rays and there were no broken bones but even if there were, the healing process would have been the same. 2015 was wrought with misfortune that included kidney stones, a UTI, a car accident, broken Jettas, dying relatives, a dirt-bike incident and more. But as they say... Chin-up.
