2006 AMA/NATC National Observed Trials Competition, Tishomingo Oklahoma

This story took place on 2006-05-08.

I went to the American Motorcyclist Association and North American Trials Council (AMA/NATC) 2006 National Observed Trials Competition in Tishomingo Oklahoma (2006-05-08).  Here is a little background about where I was “coming from” at the time.  I had just left Wal-Mart ISD, and accepted a position at ECU.  My arthritis was getting pretty bad, and ECU looked like a better place to be, because folks in higher ed. get more vacation days than folks at Wal-Mart, and I needed those vacation days to use as sick days for my osteoarthritis.  I was single, dealing with chronic pain, and living in a new place.   Basically each day was work, go home, try to sleep, work, go home, try to sleep: needless to say, motorcycle riding was my therapy.  Motorcycle riding clears your mind, because you experience the world more fully, and you need to concentrate.  It is a wonderful form of meditation.

So, I am thinking, “what will my next great motorcycle trip be?”, and I am already too exhausted to go far, so I pick up the good-old AMA Motorcyclist magazine, and look for local motorcycle races to go see.  The idea being that I would ride my motorcycle to a motorcycle event.  What did I see in the magazine?  I saw that there would be an observed trials competition in Tishomingo, Oklahoma the very next weekend.  I bought a folding stool, from Wal-Mart, to strap to my bike, I printed out the directions from Mapquest, and I waited for the weekend.

I woke up early-in-the-AM, strapped the folding stool, and a small cooler with beverages to my motorcycle, and took off.  I went out on 377 via the Richardson Loop that circles Ada.  There was no traffic, so I took the onramp as fast as I could, I got the bike leaned way over and enjoyed moving through the air.  I met some other motorcyclists on the way, but quickly passed them, and moved on.  There is some beautiful scenery on 377: farms, old buildings, these cylindrical columns of rock that the local farmers create for who-knows-what-reason, trees, creeks, wildlife, long straights (boring), and sharp curves (interesting), and slow trips through tiny downtowns.

I passed the turn-off for the Tishomingo Golf Course, and realized that I missed my turn.  I made a U-turn, and headed North.  I turned at the prescribed time, and headed down a dirt road.  I crossed over a beautiful rock creek (was this “the” Rock Creek?) and ended up at… a trailer home?  That can’t be right.  I doubled back to 377, turned around, read my directions again and headed right back to… the trailer home.  Urgh.  OK, here’s what I am going to do: use the left-hand algorithm to follow every possible road connected to my turn-off until I find the event (see the “Wall Follower” section here, and yes, computer programmers do think like this when lost).  I can hear two-stroke engines.  I must be close.  Ride, turn, ride, turn, ride, turn, dead end, no trespassing, ride, turn, ride, turn, ride, turn, another dead end, no trespassing: I eventually came to the conclusion that, in the oh-so-cliched, words of Mainers, “You can’t get they-uh from he-uh.”  OK, Mapquest was wrong.  There is a freakin’ trailer home in the middle of the road, and it’s been there for years, and there are people living in it, and that’s just the way it is.  These people must have won their war against eminent domain through attrition, just like Arthur Dent, but not like Edward Pilgrim.  What to do, what to do?

On a hunch I headed South on 377, stopped to get gas, headed East on 22, and eventually saw signs leading to the event.  I also saw many motorcycles on 22, implying that, no, I am not the only person that thinks riding a motorcycle to a motorcycle event is the thing to do.

I turned onto Rock Creek Road and passed some camp sites.  I think that they were the type that you buy (Condo camping?).  I headed down the winding gravel road as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast at all.  I was passed by some 4x4s that were going much faster than was safe.  Yes, I get it that you guys can do that legally, and that you can’t be hurt in your vehicles, but you could easily kill me, and that would put a damper on my day, at least until I didn’t exist anymore.  Riding, clay-dust, riding, clay-dust, riding, rocks, clay-dust, gravel, more clay: I then approached some folks that were there to collect fees, and to tell us where to park.  I was directed to extra-special motorcycle parking, which means that those 4×4 folks will have a long walk that I won’t have.  I am told that, no, I am not too late for the event.  I park among the motorcycles, and I lock my helmet and jacket to the bike.

Just beyond the motorcycle parking is what looks like a race track.  I don’t get it.  This racetrack-thing isn’t observed trials.  There are some kids riding trials bikes around the track, and interestingly enough the podium is on the track, and has ramps, so that it is an actual jump.  There is a guy sitting on the edge of the podium.   ”Um, there are some bikes coming through here.”  “That’s OK, this is a safe place to sit.”  “…OK.”

I take my folding seat, and head over to some tables to get food, and a t-shirt.  I buy a cheesburger.  I ask the cheeseburger guy where I should go.  He tells me where the first stage is.  It’s behind the owner’s garage.  The Rock Creek Riding Area is on some family’s personal property, so there’s a house, and a garage there.  I have a good idea of where I am in relation to the previously discussed trailer home, and it’s just beyond the Rock Creek Riding Area.  If the road had actually been built where the trailer home was, then I would have been able to follow it to this very spot.  I see some folks at the home sitting on ATVs.  It must be weird to have hundreds of strangers descend on your property, even if this is your family business.

The rules-for-spectators talk about staying on the walking trail at all times, the only problem is that there is no walking trail, there is a sign for the beginning of a trail, but the trail itself ends tens-of-feet later.  I see someone crossing the course, and she looks like she knows what she is doing, so I ask, “Where am I allowed to walk?”  She tells me how to cross the course so that I don’t disturb the riders.  I cross over the course, and walk over to her, and her family.  She explains the rules of observed trials to me.  She tells me that the best strategy is to find an interesting section and just sit there.  She tells me how stake out a spot for taking good pictures.  None of the riders have reached our location yet.  She shows me how to read a stage, so that I will know where the different classes of riders will have to go.  There are these little signs with arrows on them for each class of rider.  The riders must ride between the arrows.  Each stage has every class go through it, but the beginners may get to go around some of the more difficult obstacles that the pros will have to go over.  The really interesting thing about this sport is that the spectators and the amateur riders get to mingle with the pros during the event (including national champion Geoff Aaron).

I decided to check out the vendor booths, and then I walked over to another section of the course to see if there was riding going on there.  I walked down a two-track road.  A tractor pulling a flat-bed wagon was going up-and-down the road.  Folks were sitting on lawn chairs on the back of the wagon.

At the end of the road was a really cool section.  I sat on the ground for a long time waiting for the riders to get there, and I thought about how this must be like hunting: sitting there in the heat, and the clay-dirt, waiting for something to come along.

The pro riders needed to jump from rock-to-rock in this section.  On one side of the rocks was a sharp drop, on the other side were the spectators.  In other words the rocks are on the edge of a small cliff, and, better yet, there is a large-ish gap between  two of them.  Geoff Aaron and Keith Wineland spent a lot of time looking at the rocks from different angles.  They just stood there and stared at them.  I think that they were practicing the run in-their-heads!  This sport looks a lot like chess at moments like these.  This is something that you don’t get to see when you are watching trials riding videos.  The videos are edited so that it all looks so spontaneous.  It is not.

A young child decides to sit on one of the rocks so that he will have a better view than I.  I say, “The motorcycles have to go where you are sitting.”  He moves.

I took these pictures, and shot this video in the section discussed above.  The video’s angle doesn’t do justice to how far the riders had to jump:

Remember the spot that I mentioned earlier, where that woman told me how to be a proper spectator?  I head back over there, and spend more time waiting in the heat, and the clay-dust, thinking about how this was what I imagined hunting to be like.  (Oklahomans called their clay-dust “red dirt“.)

The expert riders had to go up one face of the rock, come back down, and then setup for the second part.  In the second part the riders had to go all the way up another face of the rock.  They could not touch the ground at any point in the section (both parts).

There was no break between the two halves.  He went up-the-rock on one side, and then went back down.  He then turned the motorcycle around, stopped, and then went completely over the rock on another side.  He never touched the ground at any point, and he went through the section faster than most of the other riders.

This is a video of Geoff Aaron riding the second part of the section.  I would have been able to show you the entire section if my camera hadn’t run out of memory!  D’oh!

I stopped at one of the vendors to pickup Balancing Act 4, after the riders all cleared the section.

This older man was parking his new Gold Wing, as I was leaving.  I explained to him that most of the riding was over (it was almost dusk by then).  He seemed dissapointed.  He told me how hard it was to ride his Gold Wing down the dirt road, and then he told me that he was one of the founding members of the Texhoma Trials Club.  OK: if an old school trials rider thinks that the dirt road is difficult, then maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself about my riding it slow.

I headed home, and had a great sleep.