Letters

LETTERS

LAND CLOSURE PROBLEMS?

Have officials in your area been under pressure to close National Forest and other public lands to motorcycles? Probably. And a few motorcyclists probably tried to talk them out of it—but the time for talking is past. Do something!

Most Forest Service personnel really want to maintain multiple use management policies, but they are under continuous bombardment and pressure by environmentalist groups such as the Sierra Club, local horse clubs and hikers to close trails to motor vehicles. I won’t go into the whys or wherefores of this problem, but I will give you one idea that will help.

Consider this thought—what can Chief Ranger Jones say when 75 out of 100 letters he receives are from environmentalist pressure groups trying to rid themselves of motorcycles? Sooner or

later pressure prevails—majority rules (at least they sound like a majority to Ranger Jones). We have to give him something concrete to stand on—something more tangible than simply wanting to serve all recreation groups. Give him some black-and-white evidence that motorcyclists are not the land rapists they are painted to be.

The Pacific Northwest Trials Association, Inc., an association of observed trials riders dedicated to the betterment of motorcycling in general and trials in particular, recently took a positive step forward. In cooperation with the Forest Service, a group of PNTA members and other interested motorcycle riding volunteers cleaned up 20 miles of backwoods trails, trails the Forest Service simply couldn’t keep free of litter, due to lack of time and funds to do the job.

Leon Wilbanks, regional president of PNTA (and organizer of the Bad Rock Two-Days Trial), made the offer to clean up the Walla Walla River Trail to U.S. Forest Service Forester Bob Stevens two years ago. Bob immediately liked the idea and arranged to have Forest Service burlap garbage bags available and a truck to haul the trash away. Last year’s effort brought out 31 bags of garbage on a rainy day. It could just as easily been left to slowly decay, but it wasn’t!

This year Forester Stevens appeared with more burlap bags than before, pack boards for the volunteers that might need to borrow one, and a Foi^t Service-owned motorcycle. Three ^P1 4-man crews were assigned sections of trail and work started. Four prearranged pick-up points were designated, two for helicopter pickup and one at each end of the trail for truck collection.

Approximately 55 bags of trash were collected (that figures out to nearly a ton). The Forest Service is happy—it can zoom in, load up and zoom out; the motorcyclists have done something to be proud of; and Chief Ranger Jones has something that might set the local antibikers to thinking a bit.

This is just one idea. But there are others. Perhaps in your area a once good trail has decayed by virtue of lack of funds. Talk to your local Forest Service officials or National Forest Supervisororganize a volunteer crew with proper official supervision. If your efforts op a trail, just watch someone try to clcSi it to you—but you’ve got more than your foot in the door. It’s one fight you’ll win.

OK, you’ve started and finished a project with the Forest Service—don’t stop now! See to it that local newspapers are aware of what’s going on before, during and after. Provide them with pictures and information. Often they’ll take care of developing blackand-white film for next day coverage, if you arrange it beforehand. Be sure to send photos and copies of published articles to officials concerned with management of the public lands you worked on.

(Continued on page 14)

Continued from page 10

Here are three points to remember: 1) Picking up trash is no fun, so don’t forget to end your project with something your group can enjoy so they’ll come back next year. (PTNA provided a couple of cases of refreshment—no, dummy, not 7-Up—and soon the breeze was being batted around pretty well. Nothin’ like the bogwheelers equivalent to bench racing to end a day!) 2) If nobody hears of the project your group undertook, when it’s done, you might just as well have skipped the whole thing in terms of helping the sport. And 3) Mick Oliver (one of the trialers sent to the Spanish round of the European Championship) had this to say after picking up garbage for a day. “No one group is totally innocent or guilty of littering on this stretch of trail. Hikers, horsemen, 4-wheelers and motorcyclists—it doesn’t matter, there are good and bad eggs among all of them. What I can’t understand is, why do they flip trash into the bushes? After all, a beer or çop container is easier to carry out than it is to pack in—it’s empty on the way out.” ’Nuff said.

Ed Chesnut

(Continued on page 16)

Continued from page 14

EGG ON HER FACE

A week after I wrote a letter to the Los Angeles Police Department telling them how I viewed their methods in motorcycle theft cases, Sergeant Decker of the LAPD came personally to my house to answer my questions.

I learned a few things. For instance, in the West Valley Division there is an officer whose entire time is devoted to G.T.A. (Grand Theft Auto), a large part of which is two-wheeled vehicles. In the State of California there are four men, two of whom are always in the Los Angeles area, constantly working on this problem. One of Captain Key’s (West Valley Division) innovations is a Crime Suppression Unit aimed at locating potential crime situations.

While I was writing my letter A Captain Key telling him that my conv^ sation with Sergeant Decker had enlightened me quite a bit and I was feeling considerably more empathy for law enforcement agencies, my son called to tell me that Captain Key’s men had broken up a ring of motorcycle thieves and had recovered several bikes. One of them was his. I finished my letter with egg on my face, but grateful for the opportunity to have learned much.

Barbara J. Hartt Canoga Park, Calif.

ABC VS. POWERPLUS

With reference to Ian Harris’ letter in your Sept. ’73 issue applauding the A.B.C. in comparison to the Powerplus, he’s misleading you an awful lot.

G. Bradshaw, the designer of tl^ A.B.C., was certainly blessed with a ^ of foresight. The A.B.C. employed trailing arm rear suspension, sprung by quarter elliptics with a girder front end sprung in the same way. It had a duplex full cradle frame. In 1914 in 500cc form, it went over 80 mph with an engine developed from a successful aero engine. For production, a 500cc model was planned that was supposed to have even more power, put to the back wheel via BMW-type transmission, but surprisingly chain-drive. It had a four-speed gate change gearbox and was in every way very advanced.

However, technical expertise costs a lot of money. Orders poured in at the original price, but inflation more than tripled it and very few were sold. So perhaps the A.B.C. was a better machine than the Powerplus, but then again there are people who argue that a 75Û Kawasaki is better than a MV August"

RI Graham Lunn

™ Leeds, England