Doug's ISDE Adventure!

2019 ISDE Portimao, Portugal Part 1

I decided to make this story in two parts. The first will be sort of a nuts and bolts version for those who want a bottom line story the second will be more about the stories and the people. I was gone for 14 days in that time a lot can happen and did happen.

This was one of those life time experiences. I’ve wanted to go to an ISDE six days event for many, many years. So this year was the year, one of these years I will no longer able to go. This year’s event was in Portugal a country I’ve wanted to visit for some time.

This is one of those events that going to could easily become addictive in wanting to go every year. I’ve been able to experience other events like this and found them to be mesmerizing and addictive. I’ve been to the all three of the events that comprise the Baja series, even participated as a rider in the San Felipe 250 a number of years ago. There’s nothing quite like waiting for your rider in the pits in the middle of the night. Quarter mile long pits with bond fires and sporadic fireworks going off and having trophy trucks, bikes or quads flying through the pits. Or the same kind of story at the 24 hours of Glen Helen, no bond fires or fireworks but the sound of generators in the middle of the night humming providing lights in an eerily quiet scene interrupted only by a rider coming and leaving the pits. 

A lot time and money are needed to commit to participating in or just spectating year after year in one on these kinds of events.

I’ve been able to watch very good even great riders over the years doing their thing and the ISDE is full of very good even great riders. But for me in the end the shear enormity and complexity of the event to a degree over shadowed the riders themselves. It took me about three days into the event before I began to understand what was really going on around me. Most of us have watched highlights and have an idea how things work but when your are there things happen in a hurry and it’s difficult to keep track of what’s going on, or what needs to go on.

I helped man USA’s test seven three times during the week and that gets very, very chaotic. We (The volunteers) will when a USA rider comes into any test section test seven in my case we will meet them before they enter the test and if they want will hand us their fanny pack and or water packs so they won’t have them on when going through a test. At the end of the test and as they leave the test area someone will hand their stuff back to them. One of the volunteers will write down their test times and many times will show them the sheet so they can see their time as well as their teammate’s times. In the case of the Trophy riders they would often tell them what some of the top competitors did in that test. We would do this for all the USA Trophy riders and club team riders. The one thing all the riders had in common when they came into a test section was complete focus, when you looked into the opening in their helmets you could see they were locked in, in a zone barely noticing you or what’s around them, amazing. But most would take a moment to thank you, either on their way into or most times on their way out of a test as well, much appreciated by us volunteers.

The start of a test section is always on the right side and the finish on the left and they are virtually side by side. When a rider presents himself at the start they will move onto a steel grate, there is a 20 second clock that will start they can leave anytime during that 20 seconds and must leave before it hits zero. They will usually wait until the clock is almost zero; especially when it’s dusty, they want as much space as possible between themselves and the rider in front of them. If there is a line of riders that 20 second clock will start right away sometimes before a rider can get set in the gate by then maybe half the time will be gone, so they don’t always get a full 20 seconds and must leave before zero. The end of a test can be wild; riders trying to get every millisecond they can makes for some crazy finishes.

We’ve all heard about only riders can work on their bikes people can hand them tools etc. The exception to this is someone can take the gas cap off and put gas in the bike, the exception to that would be a Yamaha which has as part of the seat a cover that covers the fuel cap, the rider must take that off and put it back on. You aren’t supposed to even touch a rider when he’s on the bike because he’s now part of the bike and you can’t touch the bike, interesting. All though I saw people all week helping riders put their fanny and water packs back on at the end of special tests.

The paddock/pits were enormous with country after country represented from the big rigs like you’d see at national events here in this country down to individuals with the pop ups and working out of the back of a van or in some cases a car pulling a trailer. Within each country you could see many different bike manufactures represented. The vast majority were KTM and Husky’s. Gas Gas, Sherico, TM, Honda, Yamaha comprised most of the other manufactures. I made several trips up and down the pits it was an incredible sight to see. There were venders spread out amongst everyone as well. 

The USA pits were manned by volunteers mostly from Ohio where the AMA is located. One of the men who was considered a new guy was volunteering for his third ISDE along with his wife. A lot of these men and women have been doing this for years, Iike I said it becomes addictive. When a rider entered the paddock area at the end of the day they had 17 minutes to make their way to the pits in the USA’s case they had ride all the way to the end of the pits then back up to the USA pits. Basically the pits were one way. The Trophy team’s riders all had volunteer mechanics that helped guide them when they needed to change some parts like brakes and placed in front of them whatever they needed to help service the bike. They also assisted in handing the tire tools to the riders. Each rider normally changed a front and rear tire once a day and an air filter at least once a day, lubed the chain and if time they would clean the forks with a solvent and wipe them down or perform anything else they needed to do. There was always one person who told them how much time they had left before they needed to re impound their bike. The club riders either had their own mechanic who helped them or one of the pit crew would help. No one was left to fend for themselves. Anson Maloney a local rider and the current District 36 Cross Country champion whom I went to help support in any way I could, one day changed two tires, air filter, lubed the chain and replaced a set of rear brakes all in in ten minutes. No one was any faster than Anson in changing tires; it was a thing of beauty to watch.

There is an enormous amount of work that goes into organizing our effort and the shear logistics of this is daunting. There were enough spare parts to outfit dozens of bikes. To watch these people working when the riders came in was pure magic. It’s like total chaos but organized, it was like a chaotic dance. These people worked their ass off. I ended up with so much respect for what they did. That goes for all the other teams up and down the pits they all worked their assess off.

Most all of you have looked at video highlights of the event so no need to describe them other than to say a couple of the tests were really nasty, rocky, off camber ups and downs and were extremely dusty and you can’t really see that in the videos.

Speaking of dusty, the weather was very weird all week the only consistent thing was the wind, it blew all week. Sometimes it was a light wind sometimes a gusting wind. Sometimes it was misting then would sprinkle then rain then sun. It never really rained enough to keep the dust down not when 500 hundred riders pounded a test twice a day. The exception to that was the test in the mountains the only real grass track, it was a very technical and very fast test and wet even muddy.

The facility where we were, the Algarve Racing and Resort was huge. I stayed in the same hotel as the USA riders and the Swedes the Italians and Norway. We all ate in a big dining room together, buffet style and that gave me a chance to mingle and get acquainted with people. I was lucky enough to meet a lot of different people including some of the Trophy riders men and women and their significant others. I was standing with Taylor Robert’s wife when he bit it in one of the tests. All the people I met including the riders were great. And a big plus, all the food I ate in Portugal was great.

We didn’t know until Friday if they were going to have the final Saturday motocross event. Just before the event started the organizers lost the rights to use a GP class motocross track some forty miles from the main venue. With very short notice the organizers set up what was basically an old fashion flat track motocross track laid out on the infield of the cart track they built one table top that riders could easily over jump. Parts of the track had gravel and could inflect some serious damage if it hit a rider just right. Anson had a rock hit his boot and put a big hurt on his shin. The last part of the track was a slight right hand turn and a fairly long straight away all on pavement. It actually made for very entertaining racing. From my angle I could see a lot of riders drifting the rear tire on the pavement coming through the right hander before the straight away then watch them trying to slow down to make a right hand turn back on to the dirt. It was spectacular to see ISDE bikes after five days of pounding away on special test drifting through that turn with a little tire smoke coming off the rear wheel.

 There were a number of riders who impressed during the week but the three who stood out above the rest were Daniel Sanders, Australia, Joseph Garcia, Spain Dante Olivera, Hollister CA. Dante scrapped all week with Antoine Meo, France in the C2 class of Club riders. Dante is only 19 and a bright star. Antoine is a former Trophy rider for France he’s a five time world champion and I believe has won the ISDE as an individual rider. Meo beat Dante overall for the week by thirty seconds or so.  

Doug 21J