The Trailrider

THE TRAILRIDER

BOB HICKS

This is the second part of a series of columns by Bob Hicks dealing with the philosophy of trail riding. Hicks, publisher of Trail Rider and Cycle Sport magazines, is part and parcel of the enduro and racing scene in New England.— Ed.

STEVE O’CONNELL is a Cadillac dealer I happen to know, because he serves on a trails advisory committee in Massachusetts which I also serve on. Steve is a horseman. We get along OK, mostly because we’ve learned to talk to each other. Last spring Steve told some people in the Massachusetts Horsemen’s Council about me, for it seems they needed help.

Grace Fitzpatrick was in charge of planning the annual cross state trail ride for this group. She had offered criticism of the 1970 ride, which she had entered as a participant, and as a result had been asked to help do the 1971 planning and organizing. Steve told her I knew a lot of trails in the Berkshire Hills in the western part of the state, the planned location for this event.

The horsemen around here indulge in trail riding, it seems. They take 25-mile recreational group rides, and they also compete in enduros. In these latter events, the competitor has to have his horse inspected by a vet at the start to assure the animal’s condition. Then the riders leave at 1-min. intervals over a marked 40-mile route. Checkpoints have to be reached on schedule, and points are lost for early or late arrivals, and for signs of a horse being driven too hard. Sound familiar?

The annual cross state trail ride isn’t competitive, though. It’s a week-long group trail ride which crosses the state from border to border. In 1970 it took two weeks, going 200 miles from the New York state line to the Atlantic coast near Plymouth. For 1971 it was planned to wander 120 miles, covering the 60-mile north to south width from Connecticut to Vermont.

Grace didn’t know much about the Berkshire trails. Steve knew some, because he lives in Pittsfield. Grace called me because I knew hundreds of miles of the trails. Funny thing about the trail biker—he covers a lot of ground, and learns a lot about where there’s good riding.

So I attended a couple of meetings of the trail ride committee, and the initial uneasiness at having this MOTORCYCLIST in their midst was dispelled when remarkably enough they found I was not only literate and civilized, but had grown up on a farm and knew a bit about livestock. And, of course, I had my Berkshire map. We spread this 8 x 10-ft. composite of some two dozen topo maps on the floor. On it was a red line I had traced from Connecticut to Vermont, using what I thought would be good trails for their ride.

I had marked overnight stopping points at places I knew they’d be welcome, because our bike enduros had been there already. I gave them names of certain landowners they would have to see, for we had already come to know these people in planning the Berkshire Trial. I also noted locations of water for the horses, for we had crossed those streams on our rides. Here it was on paper, their whole trail ride, in one easy meeting.

It was so easy for them to get to this stage that I became suddenly very important to them. Grace was a really nice woman anyway, with no hangups about bikes, her kid brother had a minibike. And the strangeness at our first meeting quickly dissolved between the rest of the committee and me, as they realized we were all trying to do a good job. I learned quite a lot about horseback riding as a sport, and did not press upon them my interest in bikes.

Subsequently, of Course, some changes had to be made in my preliminary route. I had figured on 30 miles a day for them, but they decided that was too much day after day, so some shortening of the route was planned, to result in days covering from 15 to 30 miles. One or two nice trails I included were not used when some horsemen checked them out and considered them a bit too rough for horses. It all fell into place as the August week drew near.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts cooperates with this annual affair, providing overnight accommodation where convenient in state parks, and all the necessary orange route arrows. The Department of Natural Resources also assigns a truck to follow the ride and rescue any dropouts. But, it was up to the horsemen to post the markers.

The nature of horses dictates about two hours maintenance for every hour of riding, and thus the marking would take over a week. No one person had the time, so it was split up. Several volunteers went forth to post markers. Those along roads and dirt roads were posted from pickup trucks, and the trail sections were posted from horseback. Janet Harrington, a girl from Connecticut who does a lot of trail marking for her riding club, did some of the marking. She told me at one meeting that she was thinking of buying a small trail bike to use in marking, because she was wearing her horse out trail marking and couldn’t enter the rides themselves as a result. But for this one she still used her horse.

However, as deadline drew near, one longish stretch remained unmarked, so Claude Hill called on a young man he knew in his town who had a trail bike. Sure, the rider would bang up the 30 miles or so of markers; and the job was done in one afternoon. All was ready, but I had not had a chance to see the work out on the trails I had plotted. Bike activities occupied me, as usual.

A Triumph In Personal Diplomacy

Fifty horsemen spent a long, sunny August week riding the trail, and the Saturday windup found all but one or two still on hand. They all started at a private field near Connecticut. They spent overnights at Beartown and October Mountain State Forests, where we had held hare and hound races. They stopped at Middlefield Fairgrounds, headquarters for the Berkshire Trial. They spent a layover day at Cummingfield Resort, where many Berkshire riders stay in May. They rode the Henhawk Trail, a Berkshire cross-country test. They spent another night at Dick Nelson’s farm, a horseman who years ago invited A1 Eames and I in for coffee on a rainy day of Berkshire trail marking. They rode along the powerline through the Babitski farm, where Mr. Babitski always turns the cows out of the pasture to let the motorcycles through in Berkshire time. They climbed old Burnt Hill Road to Heath, where long desolate powerlines annually see the motorcycles struggle through.

Grace invited me to the windup Saturday, but I couldn’t go—we were running an enduro school. Grace invited me to the trail ride banquet in October, but I was at the ISDT in England. So Grace came to our house one day and presented me with a special trophy, one that had been carried to several locations for presentation, only to find me absent.

On the trophy are two figures, a motorcycle and a horse. It reads, “To Bob Hicks in Appreciation from the Massachusetts Trail Riders.” This trophy has special significance to me. It represents a triumph in personal diplomacy. Horsemen and trail biker had come together in a common effort at promoting the sport of trail riding. Personal diplomacy is something anyone who rides a trail bike should practice. You can make some interesting new friends for yourself and for our sport. [Ö]