Clayton Lake Ride one month away!

Hope everyone is getting ready for our 5th annual Clayton Lake dual sport ride. I expect about 50 riders this year, up from one - me - in the first year. This is always the highlight of my riding year, something I plan well in advance and truly enjoy. It is some of the best riding in this part of the country, with a wide mix of terrain and an unbelievably huge riding area - 800,000 acres just in the Oklahoma part. That is larger than the state of Rhode Island. You can travel over 100 miles in a straight line, all off road.

We have all types of riders show up for this dual sport ride, from big BMW boxer twins to street bikes, the ubuquitious KLR's, lots of DRZ's and even quite a few full-on dirt bikes. Since our group has gotten so large we normally split into multiple rides to keep the dust down and allow like-minded riders the ability to go out together. We have some groups looking for knarly single track off road riding, while some are looking to cruise the easier logging roads and even some that want to mix in a fair amount of pavement in their day. You don't need a street legal dirt bike if you stick mostly to the off-road groups. You WILL need to cary plenty of gas - I recommend 100 miles worth. You also need the ability to change your own flat tire. I normally carry a tube and tire irons and a few tools for trailside repairs. Of course it goes without saying to carry water and maybe some snacks.

Some people are showing up on Thursday, while most arrive on Friday. If you come on Saturday you need to be there by 9:00 am to catch a group heading out. This year we will be having a local film crew capture some video so they can use it for a story about the fun things to do in eastern Oklahoma.

Here is a video from our ride last year ---> VIDEO <---

See you in Clayton!

Helmets are GOOD

Helmets are good for your noggin, I don't care how you slice it. I read a story in a local biker magazine last year about a guy and his wife on a Harley that crashed at 70 mph going down I-44 to Tulsa. He didn't have a helmet on but when he fell, he had the presence of mind to "wrap his hands around his head to form a protective shell". Now my elderly friend Fred Woodcock always said I had "shit for brains" but I kind of figure that a DOT approved helmet makes for a much better skid lid than wrapping my hands around my head! Besides, my hands are scarred up enough, I certainly don't need more scratches on them.

I don't come down one way or the other on the argument for helmet laws. I think people should be free to choose whether they wear a helmet or not, but sometimes people just don't understand the dangers of not wearing one. We need to educate new riders on the benefits of protective gear, but ultimately it is up to them to choose.

I always wear a helmet and protective gear. Why? Because I have this pea-sized brain that is directly connected to my right wrist. Now I know some people have way more brains than I have, but heck, that is all the more reason to protect that wonderful gray matter. Maybe I figure my brain is so small, I just cannot afford to lose any more than I did as a teenager, so I have to take precautions with what little "shit for brains" that I have remaining. Good thing I figured this out years ago our I would have been a distant memory in my beautiful wife's eyes. She would be decorating my grave with those fake red roses. Not to mention I wouldn't be here to tell my son how fast I USED to be on a scooter.

After 27 years of riding, I have totally destroyed 5 helmets with my infamous crashes. Not to mention the whacks on my head from following Phil Templeton under low-hanging tree branches and warp speed, dodging rock chuncks the size of cow turds blasted out from behind Ty Wood on his BMW Baddass Adventure with a bazillion horsepower while rocketing up boulder-strewn hills at Clayton, and doing face-plants wheeling across water crossings that were, uhm, shall we say, way too deep and rocky to be wheeling across at 50 mph.

I thought you might enjoy pictures of my most recent crash a couple of years ago on my ZZR-1200. Note to self - Do NOT follow a KTM Supermotard into a corner at Hallett - they can brake WAY later than a 600lb fire breathing 1200cc sport touring rocketship.

As you can see, I whacked down pretty darn hard at 70+ mph, adding a new "scratched-to-hell" paint scheme to my then-new helmet. Hate to see what my face would look like without a helmet!

My shoulder took a pretty good beating, and that was WITH full racing leathers on. Asphalt has amazing abrasive qualities. When I see people riding with a T-shirt, shorts and flip thongs, I want to tie them behind my truck with a rope and pull them a ways down the asphalt, just so they have an idea of how much that stuff HURTS when sliding along bare skin.

Luckily I was wearing a hard armor back protector, or my kidney and spleen lacerations would have been worse. You can see where I circled the blood around my kidney - it ain't supposed to be like that! Doc said that even though I have two, I might want to be careful with them in case I need to donate one sometime in the future to one of my dual sport buddies. My spleen had blood around it, but I wasn't smart enough to pick that out and the doc didn't point it out to me.

Thanks to a good helmet, good leathers and a few dead presidents, I was back on the bike in a couple of weeks, none the worse for wear. Sold the ZZR and got a CBR, which handles MUCH better at Hallett, even though it can scare the be-jezus out of me!