The Weekly Dirt: December 7, 2011 – Dirt Rider Magazine

Welcome to the Weekly Dirt, the place to go to get your off-road fix. This week, it’s all about signing on the dotted line… plus, saving the trail!From our off-and-riding Editor at Large, this came through a dusty Internet connection:

Photo courtesy SiDi

Our friend Bill Berroth has been a busy guy. The main man at Motonation has a long list of riders whose feet and ankles he takes care of. Since we were bombarded with the press releases this week (which often have funny little bits included in them that make them 10% more interesting than a normal press release) we thought we’d share his list of riders. And if you look under the M section you see the soon-to-be announced motocross rider who will find out what all the top off-road guys have known for a long time.Abbott, Destry
Bach, Chris
Bobbitt, Russell
Bonds, Bobby
Bonner, Adam
Caselli, Kurt
Champion, Scott
Diaz, Homero
Fahringer, Nick
Forsberg, Maria
Hamilton, Brooks
Jarrett, Jimmy
Kamo, David
Korn, Jake
Millsaps, Davi
Pearson, David
Povolny, James
Redmond, Kyle
Roeseler, Larry
RPM Racing Team
Rookstol, Kevin
Russell, Kailub
Sani, Daniel
Sigity, Mike
Simineo, Ty & Aaron
Strang, Josh
TUF Honda
Watkins, Scott
Whibley, PaulOn the “keep your trails open” front we have this:
Don Amador is very passionate land use advocate who is fighting for your right to ride dirt bikes and is very proactive in doing this. He is attacking in a very positive way and making results with microscopic funding efforts compared to the anti-use, anti-access groups he is going up against in identifying pro-access candidates so you and I can have a voice in federal land use issues. Trust me, this has an impact, but nothing is free. Please choose to donate; even something small can help especially if a lot of us do it. I donated $20, so I challenge you to do what you can do!

Dear Trail Voter,
To mark our four-month anniversary, The Trail PAC is launching its first ever Moneybomb (Dec. 5 – Dec. 9). TPAC is counting on you to help make the “DON’T LOCK ME OUT” fundraiser a smashing success that will send a strong signal to closure advocates in Washington D.C that off-road and other outdoor voters are serious about protecting their access to public lands for responsible recreation.TPAC has already received endorsements from prominent pro-trail leaders such as Craig Manson – former Assistant Secretary for USFWS at the Department of Interior, Dennis Hollingsworth – former California State Senator and founder of the California Legislature Outdoor Sporting Caucus, Chris Carter – International Six Days Enduro Gold Medallist and off-road hero, Del Albright – a national off-road and 4WD spokesman, and John Stewart – Editor of 4x4Wire.TPAC is asking you to make a donation of any size $10, $25, $50, $100, $500 up to $5,000 to help us reach our $20,000 dollar goal this week and blow up our first Moneybomb. Also, we are making a special request that you to forward this on to your off-road and trail networks and ask them to join you in support of our efforts to put pro-access candidates into elected federal office.DONATE HERE
http://www.thetrailpac.com/donate.htmlUPDATES ON MONEYBOMB TICKER HERE
http://thetrailpac.blogspot.com/Thanks in advance for your generous support!Here is another bit of info from ARRA, which shows you how important federal programs are and how they can be lost through slick-lipped politicians without someone looking out for us. And you’d better follow the included link to stay involved.Recreational Trails Program (RTP) Remains in Jeopardy!
A few days ago, we sent you a special ARRA alert telling you that the Recreational Trails Program was in jeopardy. We urged you to immediately contact members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to express support for this very important federal program and thousands of you did! Thank you for being so responsive on such short notice.Things do change here in Washington and sometimes not for the better. In our November newsletter, I provided you with a report on the legislative status of RTP and indicated that Senator Barbara Boxer, Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), had stated publicly her support for the program and that the committee was going to keep the program intact. Literally within a day from the time we hit the send button to distribute the November newsletter, we learned that the committee leadership, Senator Boxer and Senator James Inhofe, the Ranking Minority Member, were planning to present newly drafted transportation reauthorization legislation to the entire EPW Committee. The new legislation did retain the Recreational Trails Program, but eliminated its dedicated source of funding. For some reason, Senator Boxer thinks we should be pleased with this result.We, along with a diverse group of other recreation groups, immediately launched a series of meetings on Capitol Hill with the offices of other members of the EPW Committee who shared our concern with the way the draft legislation treated RTP and some other transportation programs. Much to our disappointment, efforts to modify the “draft legislation” were largely rebuffed by the committee leadership prior to the committee mark-up session.In recent months, the issue of “transportation enhancements” has become a punching bag of sort since funds for highway construction/repairs are in short supply. RTP is not a transportation enhancement though such items as highway beautification and bicycle lanes are considered such enhancements. Some members have questioned spending money on these other projects when our highways and bridges are in need of repair. But as we keep reminding folks on Capitol Hill, RTP is not an enhancement – it is user paid, user benefit. Unfortunately for us, RTP has been swept up in the broader debate over transportation enhancements and that is why we are in the current legislative predicament.RTP currently receives almost $90 million in revenue generated by those of you who pay excise taxes on the fuel you use in your off-highway vehicles. While the policymakers still want you to pay those taxes, they just no longer want a portion of what you pay to go towards building and maintaining recreational trails.As things stand, there are many more chapters yet to be written in this legislative script. The play is far from over. The clock is ticking on the temporary authorization extension that ends in March of 2012, so this issue is not going to go away. If you, by chance, are one of the few who hasn’t already used the ARRA website to contact members of the Senate EPW Committee to express support for RTP, please take a minute and do so by going to this link:Urge Your Members to Support the RTP
https://secure3.convio.net/arra/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=322In the coming weeks, we will be expanding our legislative outreach to include the entire Senate and House of Representatives. Please be prepared to take action when you receive an ARRA alert encouraging you to do so.That’s all for this month’s newsletter. Many other things are happening here in Washington, but the RTP’s future is on such shaky ground we thought it merited our full attention. We hope that with all the many demands on your time during this busy holiday season, you will answer the call, once again, to defend RTP when you are asked to do so. Yes, it is in jeopardy but we aren’t finished fighting for its future.
Happy Holidays!
Sincerely,Larry E. Smith
Executive Director
Americans for Responsible Recreational Access

And on to a much lighter note, we got some info about the long lost editor of Trail Rider magazine. There are new books from Paul Clipper. Since his “retirement” Clipper has been churning out books for the new e-readers and apps offered by Amazon.com. If you don’t know who Clipper is and your dad rides, this is a perfect gift for him to go along with that digital reader. Come on, have it pre-loaded with something he’ll like. And if you do know who Clipper was, then have this timeless garble imbedded into a form that you can communicate with your kids through so they can better understand you. Two compilations of his monthly Last Over column are available, as well as The Art of Trailriding. Here’s a link to the page on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&search-alias=digital-text&field-author=Paul%20ClipperHere are the descriptions:
The Best of Last Over, Volume 2 and 3 are compilations of monthly Last Over columns from the years 1987 through 1989 in Volume 2, and 1990 through 1992 in Volume 3. There are 24 stories or so in each collection, some contemplative, some humorous, some informative and all of them entertaining. It takes a fair amount of work to dig all these old stories out, clean them up and format them for the Kindle platform, but it’s fun to go back and re-read the ravings of a much younger me. So at least I’m enjoying it, right? I have about 288 Last Over columns to weed through in this secondary publishing deal, so get comfortable with it. If you enjoy Last Over, I’ve got at least four more volumes coming! Each book features one color photo of a very young me.

The Art of Trailriding is all the monthly Trail Rider columns of the same name gathered together into an e-book. In The Art of Trailriding you will find 33 chapters of how-to-ride lessons, each focused on a specific problem or obstacle that may come up in a normal day’s trailride, and an explanation of how to attack that obstacle and just turn it onto another fun riding opportunity. This was our most popular column in Trail Rider, and having it all gathered together in one place is pretty neat. 35 photos, black and white on the Kindle, color on the iPads/iPhones/smartphones/computers.Every one of the books above are available now, and easily adaptable to your chosen type of electronic apparatus through Amazon’s e-reader apps. Yep, you can load them into your iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android device, laptop, desktop computer and who knows what else.Honestly, the iPad app is the best, since it renders the photos in color and the iPad is somewhat portable, and it’s a big screen. Any of the apps that work with a laptop or desktop computer, or a color-screened smartphone work well and make the pictures look pretty. But, the Kindle works great too, you just get a black and white photo with it–unless you have the new Kindle Fire.Are you a Senior Electrical Engineer (well rounded) have a degree, 3-5 years working experience and ride dirt bikes? I may know of a full-time job in the dirt bike business for the right guy. E-mail me [jimmy.lewis@sorc dot com] with a little info on your background and if you are a close match (read the above description) and I may put you in touch with a job listing. - Jimmy Lewis

Photo courtesy RPM Facebook Page

It was reported this week that 2010 GNCC champ Josh Strang has signed a deal to ride KTM’s for Mike Hulbert’s FMF/RPM/KTM Racing Team Maxxis for the 2012 season. The Australian off-road star, who won the GNCC title in 2010, found himself looking for a ride when Suzuki apparently pulled the plug on its off-road program. In 2012, Strang will ride the WORCS series EnduroCross, X Games and limited GNCC races. The west-coast-based FMF/RPM/KTM Racing Team Maxxis squad has also signed Kacy Martinez, Ivan Ramirez, Travis Coy and Bobby Prochnau.

Photo courtesy of KTM

In other KTM-related news, KTM Motorsports announced the signing of Maria Forsberg to its Factory FMF/KTM Racing Team for the 2012 season – the first time in KTM’s U.S. racing history that a female rider will race under the factory semi for the season. Forsberg just won the AMA Racing Female Athlete of the Year at the recent AMA Racing awards banquet in Las Vegas for her outstanding performances this year, which saw her win this year’s Women’t GNCC title and earn the X-Games Women’s EnduroCross Gold Medal.Over her nine-year professional career, Forsberg has claimed four WORCS Women’s Championships, two GNCC Titles, two AMA Racing Female Athlete of the Year awards and an X-Games Gold medal. She has raced her entire pro career as a member of the KTM support team RPM/KTM. In 2012, Forsberg will defend her title in the 2012 GNCC Series while also competing in select AMA EnduroCross competitions as well as the X-Games Women’s EnduroCross event. - Shan MooreOne last thing, here’s a schedule you might be interested in: