Endurance Training

Part of any athlete's endurance training is staying out too late listening to loud music and drinking. JDF went to one of his favorite clubs in the springs on Saturday night for a little booze and music. Saw Chuck Ragan who is as loud and brash as ever, but the real performance of the evening was from Possessed by Paul James. This boy can play a banjo, a fiddle, a geetar, anything you throw at him. And he can play it with a passion and fury that lights the fire inside JDF. Those boys didn't finish their sets until they had nothing left in 'em, just like JDF likes it. Any show that ends before 1 AM isn't really entertainment, now is it? A couple hours of sleeping it off and JDF is back at the grind training for it. A few more of those and JDF is ready for any desert race that is thrown at him.

Training for Pine Ridge Enduro

Jfd is so bad ass that he only needs to train once every three weeks.
An epic training session was had saturday that included an 80 mile ride in rampart range. About ten of those mile were highly technical jeep trails rated "moderate" in the guide book. But when the trail is ridden at the speed jfd rides, they become extremely dangerous and inconvienient. The gps unit said the average speed was 12 mph, so it's obviously broken and needs to be fixed.

Conditioning for this enduro might be an issue. Jfd gets tired after
20 miles. And not technical miles. Making turns is also an
extremely slow process. But it was probably due to the slippery conditions.

JDF wasn't the only one that was tired. The helmet cam decided to give up after a bit and this was the best it could do.

Winter Training Camp

After playing a supporting role for the Stan’s No-tubes women elite team at the “24 Hours in the Old Pueblo,” del Fuego and his water carrier headed to the Hot well dunes for a bit of hot sandy motorbike action. The journey though Arizona was smooth, other than frequent stops by the police to check if the pit vehicle was carrying meth amphetamines, illegal aliens, and/or (my favorite) large sums of money. These concerns were alleviated by the water carrier trying to sell the cop some fine Swedish chewing tobacco.

At the dunes, JDF and the water carrier spent the first day getting used to the not-so-soft sand then opened it up, practiced going over the whoops with a way-too-soft rear shock. Lots of wrecks made them glad that they were on sand, and never going over 5 mph. The camp was guarded by a pit bull named Pork Chop, who has lethal licking capability, and that’s about it.

The water carrier was having endless problems with oil in the carb, probably due to over filling the bike with oil. A quick spray of carb cleaner in the air box fixed it right up. Then his battery died. JDF then started doing “sympathy kick-starts” to make him feel better.
Techniques they were practicing:

• leaning back in the sand
• getting started in the sand (still haven’t figured it out)
• resting (not a technique, but they were doing it a lot anyways)
• running into barbed wire fences
• running into yucca
• looking up, instead of at the front fender or sand ruts that the bike was heading for
• trying to make a sand flag look sexy (impossible. Don’t even try)

The area looked like it had a lot more riding outside of the dunes, but time didn’t allow for further exploration. Another trip to this area will happen in the future.