Motoed

We welcome riders to sign up at Moto Forza tomorrow between 8 and 10 AM. We will be serving dinner from 4:00 to 6:00pm at Pio Pico. We will keep dinner going until the sweep crew get a chance to eat. After dinner we will have the raffle and awards. Tent campers are welcome to set up and spend the night. Randy said he is staying and I will be staying in my van. (I have all the event stuff or I would be on my bike). Marty Tripes is in the hospital with heart trouble, so we found another caterer to bring the food. Expect some chicken and beef tacos with rice, beans, salsa and chips. We will also have drinks (non alcohol) water, Coke, Dr Peper, Sprite and maybe some tea. The campground store across the street may be selling other drinks. Ed

Cool, please give me a call, Ed 858 822 8274

We could use some help getting the route loaded into participants GPS's. If you help us, you get to ride the event for free. You would need to be at Moto Forza from before 8 to just after 10 am. We will give you an extension cord for your laptop and people will come to you to get the route loaded. If interested, contact Ed at 858 822 8274

I'm in

Perfect bike would be a KLR650, DR650 or XR650L, that said, big bikes will be fine. Smaller bikes that can run down the highway at 55 mph should be good. The dirt will not be that challenging, so pick your bike accordingly. It will be a long day, so it should be comfortable.

This is Ed. president of SDORC. I have been active with SDORC a long time and I have never wanted windmills at Lark Canyon. I fought it vigorously through comments and getting others to comment. Another off-road group backed having windmills in Lark. That was the group that makes up Ecologic, who works to help off-road problems. They made a deal that if they go for windmills, they get money for Lark Canyon. I don't remember how much, but its a lot relative to what the place needs. They were gonna put them in about 8 years ago. I went out there and met with the people from the project. They want to put 17 in Lark, 100 in all of McCain Valley. I really tried to keep them out of Lark. That project went away because the State figured how to reach the 20% renewable energy mandate without that project. Now the State needs 30%, in a few years 50%. So a different company wants to bring them to Lark now. The company 8 years ago was Eberdrola, a Spanish company. I commented that its not even an American company, all profits go to Spain. That's how we use American public land? I commented that windmills can cause fires and linked to a video of a windmill near Palm Springs on fire. This land (Lark) is managed by the El Centro BLM office. They have told me that windmills will not stop dirtbikes in the area. The windmill people actually told me we will get more trails. They are counting the wide smooth dirt road that goes between the windmills as trail. I personally hate the whole thing. I have ridden out there lots of time, even won the Advanced class in observed trials a few times there. Windmills, may not close the place, but it won't feel like it does now. I always feared some kid would park his bike and chuck rocks at the blades. So he breaks a blade, the windmill people will scream and yell. Those windmills cost like $5 million each. So what happens when there is a conflict? Who wins? Not us. Its possible everything will be fine. Only time will tell. If anyone has any more questions on this or other OHV land use stuff, email me at info@sdorc.org.

Hi, this is Ed Stovin, people needed at the meeting are leaders of off-road organizations, like jeep clubs, motorcycle clubs, political OHV types. I think it would be appreciated if regular OW riders skip this meeting. We will be discussing how we should deal with the issue and the place where the meeting is is only so big. "Fight for Ocotillo Wells" on Facebook and my site, www.saveocotillowells.com will have meeting info the next day. It is very early in this issue and will probably take a couple years to play out. Let's pray it doesn't turn into the cluster that has engulfed the dunes. There will be times when we will need everyone who cares to take action, but now is not the time. A couple people jumped the gun announcing this meeting, we are sorry about that. So hang on, check the web for info and we will do the best we can. Ed

I'm new to SDAR, but an old, experienced rider. If you don't mind a new guye, exactly where and when will you meet?