Local riders descend on Rifle for a morning of motorbiking, mud and fun

On Saturday morning at 6 a.m., it appeared that the day could have gone
either way. Aspen way blanketed with six inches of snow, the sun hung
coyly behind gray clouds and the temperature was reminiscent of
February.
It was the kind or morning that revealed few options. There was no
skiing, no mountain biking and no hiking. Many locals had already made
an exodus to warmer climates.

But not all of them.

It was at this early hour that a group of friends from the Roaring Fork
Valley awoke, stumbled out of bed and decided that the day would not be
wasted, nor would it pass silently.

One of these friends, Seth Wagner, 29, remembers bundling up in his
snowboarding gear and fighting to load his motorbike in the back of his
truck through half a foot of snow.

“It was ridiculous,” he said. “I kept wondering what the hell I was doing putting a bike in my truck with this amount of snow.”

30 minutes later, Wagner met up in Basalt with two more friends — one
of whom included Jake Kinney, 18, of Carbondale — and they began the
pilgrimage down to Rifle for a morning of ass-kicking, mud-slinging
motorcycle riding that would not be regretted nor forgotten.

The ride west, however, was a quiet one. The riders starred vacantly
out the window, inspecting weather that was brooding and shifting —
heavy gusts of wind pounded the hills as patches of rain broke through
the distended clouds.

The roads were empty and the anticipation to hit the trails was high.
Yet the first view of Rifle was not a hopeful one — a thick, black
sheet of clouds socked in the land, eliciting a wordless tension that
perhaps the day would have been better spent in bed.

But as the riders reached an interminable stretch of BLM land just
beyond the town, something began to change. It started when a shaft of
light broke through the storm, revealing a breathless panorama of red
clay-colored mountains dusted with a thin layer of snow. The valley
began to open up into a Montana-splayed sky, stretching out for miles
and miles.

The light began to permeate into the truck of riders, lifting the
early-morning haze from their minds and injecting their bodies with a
high-throttled energy to maneuver powerful bikes over the land. The
music was turned up. The conversation swelled. They were getting
restive and ready to rip.

By 8:30 a.m., their truck was parked on a mesa that was surrounded by
hundreds of miles of open, empty land. From there, the scene
transformed into a quintessential Ford Truck commercial — heavy steel
machinery was loaded off the pickup, bags of gear were tossed outside,
gas levels were checked and helmets were fastened by big dudes.

Slowly, the early morning stillness was shattered by the distinct
sounds of oil, pistons and exhaust pipes, all shrieking and shrilling
together as the bikes were started. First it was one engine, then two
and then finally three, each with a slightly different cadence and
pitch. The riders were locked and loaded, but the ground and soil was
not exactly in prime condition.

“This is loose stuff,” Kinney yelled. “I’m not getting any grip.”

No, they are not.

A night of rain had taken its toll on the earth, leaving it a soggy,
slippery, saturated bar of mud that shoots off their tires, wedges in
their engines and makes every turn an uneasy nightmare.

The good news is that the sun is beginning to bake the land and, more
importantly, the riders are slowly getting used to the conditions.
Tensions morph to yelps of pleasure. It is going to be a dirty morning,
but that is half the fun.

Within minutes, it was clear that Kinney would be leading the pack,
which made sense. He is one of the best high school athletes in the
Roaring Fork Valley — a standout football player, an all-state caliber
baseball player and built like a limber bull.

His natural skills and athleticism translates into movements on the
motorbike that are deft, quick and graceful. He can launch himself off
jumps, climb the steepest hills and keep complete control in the most
technical of sections.

“I just love being out here,” said Kinney, who earlier this winter
headed south to Baja with his family for an epic five-day motorbike
ride through some of the most legendary terrain.  “I play a lot of
sports, but I can’t think of anything more fun than getting out here
with some friends.”

Following Kinney, the crew headed out into the land to find some
natural features to play around on. The first of which is a series of
jumps that the riders attacked quick and hard. One by one, they dropped
into a gully, squeezed the throttle and exploded into the air — one,
two, three they flew, each bringing their own style to the air.

“This is so fun that it feels like it should be illegal,” a rider
ecstatically belted out through a nimbus of shredded mud. 

Wagner then transitioned out of the jumps and began to climb an
exhausting hill that is slick and steep. He gathered his speed and then
pointed his front wheel right into the beast, climbing, charging and
trying to keep his pace up. At one point, it looked doubtful. But, sure
enough, he cleared the last lip, and found himself sitting atop a mesa.

The other riders liked the idea and followed suit. Minutes later, they
were all sitting with Wagner at the top, watching the clouds continue
to open up into a crystal-clear day. From below, laughs were heard, and
the first stories were already being exchanged.

The day, even with its grim beginnings, had become legendary. The
elements — mud, snow, rain — that at first seemed hurtful, actually
came together to challenge the riders and paint a humbling landscape.
There was no longer one hint of sleepiness in their eyes or any
remembrance of a late night. Instead, it is endorphins and adrenalin,
both kicking and screaming like their engines.

The day continued in this fashion, but always with a sense of
exploration for new patches of land to ride and new tricks to be tried.

Of course, there are times when not everything went to plan. For
example, at one point in the morning, Wagner tried to cruise through a
shallow creek, hit a rock, and was launched from his bike, landing
completely in the creek and getting soaked. Thankfully, he was okay and
shook it off with a laugh. And in his folly, another memory was made,
and was to be joked about for the rest of the day, and for many days to
come.

“That is what it is all about,” said Wagner. “It starts in the morning,
loading the bikes, getting the gear and sitting together in the truck.
It’s about doing this stuff together and with friends. Some days you
ride better than others. But that is not what it is about.”

No, it is not. And that became obvious when the riders returned to the
truck, stripped off their mud-caked gear, loaded their bikes and
finished the ritual — a ritual of machines, friends and the land that
all passed in one fast flash on the dirt roads of Rifle.