2016-07-08

Life has many punishments and rewards, and so does the sport of OHV riding. I can’t wait for every rainstorm to deliver great (“hero”) dirt for an ATV, UTV or dirt bike ride, and the muscle soreness after each ride is both a punishment and a reward for having ridden hard. My riding buddies feel the same way, but they only ride for fun. I also ride to test vehicles and aftermarket products like tires, gear, helmets and even video cameras, so it’s also work. Don’t tell my boss, but riding for testing is so much fun that I’d do it even if I weren’t being paid. Ever since the first ride on the gas tank of my dad’s Honda Dream 305, I’ve lived to ride—and ridden to live.

While I don’t put as much physical effort into riding for work as I do riding for fun, it still has many rewards. Hero dirt makes conditions perfect for making it up hills that are normally unclimbable— or at least take several tries to climb successfully—and I’m usually pulling wheelies wherever possible. Making it up tough hills rewards me with a sense of accomplishment, but wheelying over the top adds frosting to the cake. Each stop on the ride is celebrated with high fives and fist pumps, so fellowship is another reward. After a big rain, the trails are usually rutted and the dirt is soft, so the more people on the ride, the better. After five or so guys ride a section of trail, it’s like riding a perfectly groomed MX track. Community improvement is another riding reward. By using the trail we make it better for the next ride, and looking forward to future rides rewards us with the joy of anticipation.

Racing has its own rewards, but pre-running a desert course with friends is more fun than the race itself. Finding alternate lines around possible bottlenecks and passing them on to teammates gives us the joy of helping others. Spotting for rock crawlers gives the same satisfaction, but King of the Hammers UTV competitors have their own navigators, spotters, winch men and tire changers in the form of co-pilots. Besides, as moto journalists, we have to be impartial and keep 50 feet away from the course.

I’m too old and broken to compete in the ultimate off-road race in the world, the Dakar Challenge. This two-week, 5700-plus-mile torture test is the first race of each year, and since it was moved to South America, Dakar has taken place in the hottest part of the year (remember, it’s in the southern hemisphere). Temperatures exceed 120 degrees, causing vapor lock. Those temperatures would certainly kill me.



Marcos Patronelli gave Yamaha its first win of 2016, and he became the first ATV rider in Dakar history to win three times (2010, 2013 and 2016). The Patronellis have won all but two Dakars, and they did it on a Yamaha Raptor 700R. His older brother, Alejandro Patronelli, has competed in four Dakars, and he has won twice (2011 and 2012) and finished second twice. Racing 13 stages over two weeks, with only one rest day and two two-day marathon stages (where assistance is prohibited and nights are spent in tents), is pure physical punishment for 5700-plus miles. All the punishment of training for the race and preparing mind and machine has paid off for these two Argentinians, and it was a pleasure to shake their hands and congratulate them before the punishment of the King of the Hammers UTV race.

I hope they had enough fun in their first UTV race in the USA to return and to take on the next Dakar in a UTV. Since they had Yamaha support on the quads, how cool would it be to do the 2017 Dakar in a Yamaha YXZ1000R? I’d like to see that!



Back to reality. I also get to travel a lot for the magazine, which has its own punishments and rewards. For the Teryx test in this issue, I traveled to West Virginia to ride the 2016s on the newest Hatfield-McCoy Trail System. The blizzard of January 25th had socked West Virginia with up to 41 inches of snow, so I couldn’t wait to lay tracks in it. But, the airlines were recovering from 1000s of canceled flights, and I barely made it to West Virginia in time to join the ride midstream. Long story short, it was 2.5 days of punishment for 2.5 hours of rewards, but the latter outweighed the former by far. I had sore arms and shoulders from wheeling West Virginia, but it was worth it.

By Tim “Lumpy” Tolleson

Show more