Future Runs    Charity Runs    Link Page    Previous Runs

Home Page

The week after the wedding I was back to Las Vegas. This time for the Barstow to Las Vegas off-road rally. I was supporting 2 Vesper scooters from our local Vesper shop (not the new Vesper Boutique). I hauled the 2 Vespas and their riders up from San Diego to the Barstow start point; midway between my home city of San Diego and Las  Vegas. The ride was to be on desert trails and the requirement was that the bikes be registered and street legal yet prepared for the desert going - spark arresters, etc.  The ride from Barstow to Las Vegas by highway is approximately 150 miles. The off-road route laid out was 260 miles!

We got into Barstow very late Friday night and found only one motel with rooms available at midnight. We were a little late to registration in the morning and thus were among the very last to leave. The Vespas got  more laughs than I really expected. One of the Vesper riders, Jeff, had a GPS unit with him and the trail route was down loaded to his GPS by the organizers. This was one really "organized" example I saw the rest of the event. I was given a hand drawn map of the route, not to scale but to fit the 8x11 paper, and the Vespas took off.

Off- loading experience of our team: I was a SCORE (Baja 1,000 and 4 other off-road races every year) check point official for 17 years, quitting about 3 years ago when I felt that at age 63 I could not longer protect myself in the dangerous Mexican race situations. I ride 3 wheel off-road bikes in the sand dunes, but do not race in the events, and have very little experience riding 2 wheelers in desert off-road conditions.

Alex, is the owner of Motor sport Scooters, the Piaggio authorized Vintage Vesper repair facility in San Diego. He was riding a 1980 P200 quickly put together for the event basically from parts around the shop. Alex had never ridden off-road on anything. Jeff, an computer programmer and graphic artist and part-time motor scooter mechanic for the shop. He had by far the only experience in off-road riding. He has ridden 3 wheelers and 2 wheel off-road motorcycles built for this kind of thing, maintains a desert camp site with caravan and about 4 bikes stored in the desert for winter riding (too damn hot in the summer). He was riding an older Vesper Sprint, formerly a Shinner parade patrol scooter with only modifications to meet spark arrester requirements  and a bracket to hold his GPS unit on the head set. Basically an ill-prepared crew; street tires only, etc.

Conditions: For 3 days before the weekend event, the weather had been very wet. Normally this does not mean mud, as the dry desert sand soaks up the water very quickly. But in 2 places on the route, deep (2-3 feet) ponds were created in usually dry river beds we found out later.  The temperature at starting time was about 8 degrees above freezing.

After my chargers took off, I headed slowly up the Interstate 15 freeway to the first highway crossing according to my support map. No need to hurry, I expected them to take 2 hours to get there; about 1/4 of the ride distance. As you would expect in the almost uninhabited desert expanse, cell phone signals were supported on the Interstate, but not far off the road. I was three hours before I heard a cryptic message that they were again? on the way. I stopped a few small groups of motorcycles to find out the scooters had been seen having problems with the water crossings we were not aware of at the start. Most high clearance off-road motorcycles were able to ford the crossings, a few stalled with water killing the spark. But the scooters had to be physically carried one at a time by the 2 riders above the wide and deep water crossings.

About 4 hours after I arrived at the crossing, the 2 scooters came along. Running fine but some mud on the floor boards and 2 very tired riders.  Alex, with no experience riding off-road was exhausted by the 2 long carries each done twice, and by the spills (3) in the sand that grabbed the front tires. He decided to quit now and load his scooter into my full size Ford cargo van - no mini-van this. He had a taste and would be better prepared next year. Jeff was tired, but happy with the scooter performance and wanted to ride on. 

The dirt trail on the other side of the Interstate bridge where I was waiting for them, was closed with contractor personnel turning the riders back. The word was that a "gas line" had fractured and they were digging it up to repair and they didn't want the off-road riders risking injury because of their undertaking. Jeff and the other riders rode the Interstate 22 miles to Baker, California, then rejoined the off-road route. Alex and I had lunch in Baker and drove up a paved access road to the dirt trail crossing shown on my support map. At the crossing, a Bureau of Land Management female ranger was watching the crossing to avoid car/bike entanglements. We were there waiting for Jeff about an hour and no other cars on the pavement, or bikes on the trail passed.  We assumed we missed him because of our long lunch stop, and took off for Las Vegas to wait for him there.

We were in Las Vegas in about 2 hours. We went to "ride control" and found Jeff was recorded finishing just before we got there. Not likely as he had much further to ride than we did, and at best, at about half our speed in the "Scooter Daddy" van. So, we went into the casino to wait for him some more. About an hour later (it was now getting dark)  I had a call from Jeff on his cell phone. He had a flat on the rear tire and could not find the repair kit Alex packed. They discussed it, but the kit was laying on a counter in the shop when we got home. He gave his precise GPS coordinates, and talked about seeing signs for Mesquite Valley? and Furnace Creek (in Death Valley miles north of Barston, not east) and estimated he was about 30 minutes from the route lunch spot. I knew where that was.

I went to ride control and asked about the sweep teams that patrol the course after the last rider gets on the course. I was told they had already gone home to bed. They had no way of determining if anybody was behind the sweepers. While I was there, another support team came up and asked about the sweepers and said their rider had a broken collar bone and had been transported to the ranger station 50 miles north of Baker and was waiting for help there. Same answer about the sweep team. I asked the ride control to show me where the GPS coordinates were on my map, but was told their computer could only give me the coordinates of a point you pick on the route, but could not tell you where the coordinates were that I had. And, besides, the computer was up in his hotel room and was not working very well. 

I tried to call Jeff back, but could not reach him. I found out later that his cell phone battery had died and he had no spare with him, or power port on the scooter to recharge. At this point I had only "30 minutes from the lunch point", and the GPS coordinates to go on. I did bring my own GPS unit, but did not have a map of the area downloaded. ( wasn't told about the need to bring your own GPS cable for down loads until after they registered for the ride). 

Alex and I headed out to get Jeff after dark. It took us over an hour to get to the freeway turnoff shown on my support map to go onto the route from the Las Vegas site and head for the lunch point. With wind and some hard rain, it was another hour from the turnoff. At the Lunch spot we were about right on the north coordinate, but way east. We headed west along the route thinking he would be about 15 miles away.  Not hardly. We were still a long way east when we got beyond the 30 minute estimate and back to the paved road where we met the female ranger. We were still way east of the target.

So back south to the Interstate, and back to Baker, which was pretty close on the west coordinate. Then north just over 50 miles (looked like 10 miles shown elsewhere on my support map - "not to scale"). We were up into some foot hills and going off my map when the north reading was about right and there was a paved road leading to 2 towns 4 and 6 miles away. We were to far west at this point, and the road was headed east. Right after the second town the road turned into a gravel road and a street sign said "Furnace Creek Road". Jeff didn't say he saw street signs, just signs, and he didn't say FC Road. But good, we were on target. Very close to both coordinates I passed a narrow dirt road with a sign that said Mesquite Valley Road. I didn't remember it from my discussion with Jeff 4 hours before, but told Alex to remember it and noted my odometer. 1.1 miles later we were right on West, but about 100 yards south. Back to MV Road and just over a mile further, there was his scooter laying on its side in the road. As we approached an arm stuck up and waved. Jeff had curled up behind the floorboard and leg shield to block the wind and was still with the scooter. Four hours from the time he called me and he was upset with me the next day. But, he didn't say they were names on street signs, and his phone was dead before I could get clarification when I had more information.

We all enjoyed the effort, and plan to try again same time next year.  But, with a little more preparation. Modified knobby tires for dirt is one thing. Another would be transport handles on the scoots to make it easier to lift them over obstacles. Another would be extra cell phone batteries, and my full laptop computer with all roads in the USA and my GPS unit attached. And cameras; we had none and the only photos were taken by a professional photographer waiting at the water crossing to get photos of all riders coming through. $20 at the ride control after the race, before we found Jeff.

And the "gas line" fracture? Turns out it was the pipe line for gasoline pumped from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Since it was broken between Barstow and Baker, there was no gasoline flowing to Baker or Las Vegas gas stations. Before we headed back to Baker from Vegas, Alex and I found one station, after stopping at 3 others, with a little regular gas and filled the van gas tank.. Normally it can make it from Vegas to San Diego (335 miles) on one tank, but not with all the running around we would have to do to find Jeff. Filled up again in Barstow after we found him and loaded up his dust covered Vesper Sprint.

Regards

Waid "Scooter Daddy" Parker

22nd October 2004

Just got back from Las Vegas. Went there Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week for some final arrangements for a British friend in Coventry area who is getting married in LV next month. Says it will cost him much less than getting married in England, and Elvis will do it here. 6 1/2 hour trip and with a storm in progress I had such a tail wind heading northeast from my home in San Diego (far southwest corner of US) that my 12 year old Cadillac Seville got 28.3 miles per US gallon at $2.5 per gallon of premium fuel vs $6 per in England. The old Cadi still looks nice and style of model current 2 years ago hadn't changed much - my dad bought it when my mother died and he found $10,000 in her checking account 8 years ago - he died and I got it 3 years ago - he was saving it for long trips just before he went into a rest home.

3 weeks ago my daughter Jennifer went to the "Endless Summer" rally in Santa Barbara, CA 200 miles from home. She rode her first year TV175 Ser3 alone from San Diego to Santa Monica (just west of LA on the beach) and met up with others at a Vesper boutique there and rode on with them.

That's a pretty good rally, the organizer at the Santa Barbara Vesper boutique pays for a shuttle bus that looks like an old trolley to make trips from his place to 4 pubs from about 8pm to midnight with a keg of beer for free beers in the back of the bus. I'll see if she wrote up the rally for the San Francisco scooter magazine "Scoot! Quarterly" and get a copy for your web site if she did. I didn't go on that rally - don't remember why right now.

Just had my 66th birthday 2 days ago and have another scooter up and running, but not yet current registration. It is a 25 year old Vesper P200E (1981 was our last legal Vesper 200 2 stroke because of emissions laws) with Malossi kit, ported cases, reed valve, 30 mm Delorto, light flywheel and SIP pipe. Buying a new seat and want to paint some new side panels (nothing fancy as this is pretty much a rat bike), may go to the new clear turn indicators, and new style headlight. Also considering front disc brake as it will go real well, should make it stop better than stock. I have an even faster cut down P200E with no legshield, hot engine, and P125 final drive. It will seize cruising at 65mph but gets there awfully fast. Built by a friend of mine, 8 years a space shuttle engineer, for challenging Ninja bikes in the hills south of San Francisco that include the famous San Andreas earthquake fault.

Regards

Waid "Scooter Daddy" Parker