Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Motorcyclists ride 1,000 miles across state in rain — for fun

Lia Martin Special to the News-Bulletin

Los Lunas Less than 24 hours after they started, 74 motorcyclists began coming back to Los Lunas Sunday morning after riding across New Mexico for 1,000 miles.

While they were out, they visited at least nine of 50 locations with five of those towns spelling YUCCA, to compete in a statewide contest called the "2008 Land of Enchantment 1000."

In some cases, it rained the whole darned time from 6:50 a.m. Saturday to the end of their journey on Sunday as they came back in — tired, relieved, pumped up with a million stories after the grueling endurance test they paid $95 to take.

This is the ninth year some have made this New Mexico journey.

For others, it was the first time.

The traditional motorcycle event that uses the Western Skies motel in Los Lunas as its operating base is only one of many endurance challenges nationally that draws an international motorcyclist enthusiast crowd, who thrive on tests of endurance. Motel owner and motorcyclist Clark Flynn has been supportive of the endurance rally for years.

If this is the first time you have heard of the LOE 1000, it's not surprising - these endurance riders are a low-profile bunch, who are not in this for the money or the fame. They are in it for the fun and the challenge.

Albuquerque resident and former Sandia Lab employee Jeff Foster and Santa Fe resident Ira Agins have been the rally masters of LOE 1000 for nine years in Los Lunas. Many of the riders who enter this event also take part in Ironbutt challenges. The philosophy of the group promotes and fosters safe riding, which means the appropriate gear is worn and motorcycles are kept in good repair. They follow the laws and rules of the road.

"Use your brain instead of your throttle," says Voni Glaves, who is one of the four scoring officials, encouraging the motto: "All the gear, all the time."

The other scorers, who volunteered for the event, were Paul Glaves, Tom Loftus and Ardys Kellerman. They are also riders, who have made a name for themselves in organizations like Ironbutt. For instance, Loftus has already ridden 1.1 million miles in his 37 years of motorcycling, with 70,000 miles on his odometer for this year, so far. Kellerman has ridden at least 90,000 miles since 1985 and bought her first motorcycle in 1969.

Foster is in charge of administrative functions, and Agin devises a new scavenger hunt every year. They start planning the next year's LOE 1000 as soon as the dust settles from the last one.

Foster and Agins say this year the theme of the motorcycle scavenger hunt is YUCCA, YUCCA, YUCCA. Five cities beginning with the letters, Y, U, C, C, and A are part of the required itinerary for this year's contest.

However, the bottom line is that these endurance motorcyclists enter to ride and for the fun of it all, according to Foster.

"It's relatively easy to finish," Agins says, "but tough to win."

The top winner, which this year is the lowest score, receives a glass embossed with No. 1. There are no money rewards for making this trip.

Agin says that the people riding in these endurance events are some of the "best people in the world," though he is at a loss to explain why.

Jake Nelson, a high school math teacher from Lewisville, Colo., might be an example of that kind of person. This was his first endurance event. He says that after riding a Harley Davidson for 17 years, he purchased a Honda Gold Wing. While visiting Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in 2003, a motorcyclist who had just finished an Ironbutt event pulled up beside him and told him all about the opportunities for endurance riders. He thought about it and decided to make this his first event.

He said it was a journey he would not have missed. What stood out in his mind was the wildlife he saw as he went down the road. Sunday, at about 2:30 a.m., as he was moving along, he said, that he saw five or six blacktail foxes, a snake and an owl, to name a few.

"My bike was so quiet," Nelson says, "I heard a bird fly by me, and I heard the wings in the air. I thought this is what it must feel like to fly."

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