CLARKIE'S ENDURO
What the riders saw in Assonet, MA on May 27th was that the 2018 Clarkie’s enduro was a classic, challenging NETRA enduro with a great mix of trail. What they didn’t see was all of the extra politicking that trailboss Raffi Peterson did behind the scenes in the days, weeks, and months leading up to the event. Raffi is at the forefront of the fight to keep public lands open to offroad riders in Massachusetts and gives hours upon hours of his time to meeting with legislators and bureaucrats. Thanks, Raffi!
Raffi’s efforts were evident right from the start. Last year, when we checked in at tech, EPOs were present and asking for our papers in a way that felt like the old Hogan’s Heroes TV show for those of us old enough to remember that gem. But this year, the EPOs were not at sign up and were only seen being helpful with road crossings out on the course.
The course itself was classic “coastal cobble” as it’s called with really nice flow. The first section was one of the most fun of the day. Great New England single-track with great rhythm-riding flow to the corners that just begged for you to hit the apex of every corner and whack the throttle as soon as you dared and to wait as late as possible to get on the binders. I gave a loud “Wahoooo! That was fun!” to the workers at the check-out. Super fun. At the reset after the first check I popped out onto the road and found Cole Beach there snapping pics of us.
A few miles of tar transfer took us to the second section of the day – another five miler like the first section. This section wrapped around the back of the Clarkie’s farm and brought us back in the back side of the grass track that was used on Saturday for the Pee Wee and vintage events. I was hoping that the grass track would be part of our section, but it wasn’t and we got a chance to gas up for the second half of the day.
After gas, an eight-mile section of the Freetown-type trail that we all know awaited us. Getting up on the pegs as much as possible and letting your suspension do the work while carrying decent speed was the rule of the day. In this section, Jim Senecal caught up to me right before a long bridge over a marsh. I let him by and followed him onto the bridge. As he exited the bridge – on the gas, of course – his bike swapped so hard that I was able to read the “1e” on his side number plate from my position directly
By Tony Gasper