ON THE COVER: Part rock climbing, part

gymnastics, all vertical-observed trials isn't like

any other type of motorcycle competition. And

when the best riders on Earth come to America

for a round of the world championship, the

results are pretty amazing. Take a look, starting

on page 26. Photo by Bill Wood.

Features

21 Moto-X Files

The 1997 AMA Amateur

Motocross Championships

26 Zero Gravity

Observed trials: odd name,

stunning spectacle

34 How the West Won

Seeing the elephant along

the Oregon Trail

Columns

7 Bill Wood

Crossing Kansas

o

8 Ed Youngblood

The rumble of Indians

Departments

4 Post Entry

Letters from our readers

10 Yuletide Ride Guide

A holiday gift list for the

motorcyclist in your life

18 Government Update

Bad boys?

40 AMA News

Forget the snow—

on with the show

45 Road Report

Canadas far east

54 Racing Lines

Low-key hotshot

71 Classics

1981 Honda CBX

verything about it is

unusual, beginning with

the name.

Observed trials? Oh

yeah, that’s what we all did

with O.J. Simpson last year, right?

No, its a motorcycle sport—devel-

oped, like warm beer and Lucas

electrics, by the British.

Don’t think of road racing or

motocross, though. There are no packs

of riders charging into the first turn.

No handlebar-to-handlebar duels for

position. Not even a checkered Hag.

Think of golf with an attitude—and

a two-stroke engine. You ride sections

that are marked off on die terrain, like

fairways on a golf course, only skinny

and treacherous. Riding through tliose

sections constitutes die trial.

Every time you have to put your foot

down, it counts as one point, or dab.

Dabs accumulate like strokes on a golf

hole, and an official is there to watch

you all along die way, keeping track of

your dabs. That’s the observed part.

Ride a whole lot of sections, and at

the end of the day, the rider with the

lowest score wins.

It all sounds so easy. Until you see it.

Every couple of years, the U.S. hosts

a round of the World Observed Trials

Championship. And American fans

discover all over again that the law of

gravity doesn’t apply to trials riders.

Put a boulder in their way and they

go over it. Put a sheer rock wall in

their path and they climb it. Put a

boulder in front of a wall and they hop

from one to the other like mountain

goats.

This years World Round was based

at the Donner Ski Ranch, at the top of

Donner Pass in the mountains of

northern California. It was there that

in 1846, a group of pioneers got

snowed in, ran out of food and, to put

it politely, came up with a few new

recipes using whatever was at hand—

or foot.

The Donner Party could have used

these guys. They eat rocks for lunch...