Posts
5715
Joined
1/9/2016
Location
Yellow Pine, ID
US
Edited Date/Time
8/13/2021 5:11am
Looks like the Lawyers musta won out on this one. I didn't really follow this much personally. Didn't Destry Abbott race it a couple times on a KX500 back in the day?
https://www.cyclenews.com/2021/08/article/motorcycles-officially-exclud…
https://www.cyclenews.com/2021/08/article/motorcycles-officially-exclud…
News flash: MOTORSPORTS ARE DANGEROUS…
I have only been to that once. Arlo Englund won on a yz465. It was awesome. Shit. Gotta be 40 years ago.
The Shop
The 2020 race was canceled after the four time champions crash. Looks like an era is over.
In comparison with nearly any other motorcycle racing event, Pike's Peak and Isle of Mann stand alone in the risk department. Isle of Mann seems to be intrinsically tied to the economy there, so no way it gets cancelled (yet), but to make them relatively (in comparison to other racing events) safe would be completely antithetical to the races in the first place. Of course motorsports are inherently dangerous, but Pike's Peak (and Isle of Mann) are on a completely different level.
Dude can ride!
My safety related comments were directed as the BS efforts across motorsports disciplines to make racing “safe”…not Pikes specifically. I am fully aware of the elevated risk factor of Pikes and the Isle of Mann…and so are the entrants.
Note: I'm all for motorcycles running up Pike's Peak. However I also understand how the world works and I'm not going to cry because people have decided to quit picking bodies up off the mountain.
He knew what kind of risk he took when competing at Pikes Peak and thrived on the adrenaline rush. I truly believe that he would be crushed to know that they decided to stop the bikes from competing, following his deadly crash. There are many racers who love it as much as he did.
But I can also understand why they did cancel it, it’s a tough situation
Pit Row
I was lucky to get to know him. I took him on a great day of single track after some snow, up to the Piutes with a few buddies and he loved it. We had a solid group of older dudes, including Tom Webb, but we were nowhere his level of talent. He had a gift on that bike and you could see how much he loved riding.
We stopped on the way home to grab a bite to eat and it wasn’t until we were shooting the shit about the riding we had just done, when he revealed that it was his birthday. He had changed his birthday plans to come ride with us…. That was pretty damn cool and I was glad when he said it was one of the best days he’d had in quite awhile. Stoked I was able to ride behind him for some of the ride, he had a unique line choice in some of the stuff we rode.
So when the bill for our dinner came, I was quick to pick it up and wish him a happy birthday. He was pretty excited to ride the new pikes peak bike, I followed his progress every day, I just knew he was going to break the record, I just had that gut feeling…, Which he was so close to accomplishing. He showed us his custom made A-Stars suit that he’d just gotten for Pikes Peak and said how well they fit, as long as you don’t eat Mexican food every night and wash it down with a few beers. Lol
Ironically, I knew Kurt Caselli as well. Those two guys were much the same, in the way they treated other people, regardless of who they were. Along with them both having incredible talents on 2-wheels. They will always be legends to me !
Couple pics I took of his last off-road ride and A few of the ones he’d taken and air dropped to me- (that was the first time I’d even heard “air drop” and had no idea how to do it. Lol
I met Carlin in 2000 or so, through a mutual friend when we were seniors in high school..heard through other people about his road racing success as a kid since he would never tell you.
I went to college and had gotten into downhill mountain biking and when I was back for a summer in maybe 03 our mutual friend had wanted to get into it also. He bought himself a decent full suspension bike and wanted me to take him..well Carlin wanted to go also on his mid level giant hard tail with rim brakes and basically street tires.
The trails in Santa Barbara are super gnarly rocks and we went to ride one of the rockiest ones..I lead the way Keep in mind I’m riding an 8” travel bike with disk brakes And he’s on a 500$ hard tail..I get through the rockiest section and stop and look back up the trail that’s a series of switchbacks...Carlin’s absolutely destroying the rock sections, manualing, bunnyhopping, pumping over rocks and slashing the corners. I couldn’t believe it..turns out he used to be really good on a bmx bike too..he just never mentioned it..
At the time freeride mtb was getting huge and there were a few big videos out. I told him that I think if he could get a real bike he could make some $ at it..he didn’t have much else going on at the time so he said “sure, why not”
The local giant rep had heard about his skills and hooked him up with a real downhill bike. At the time there was a video contest where the winner was voted on at pinkbike.com and you got a pro contract and a bunch of prizes and cash..for his video submission he decided that we were going to travel to all the biggest jumps from the big videos that had came out and he was going to send them..so we basically drove from Moreno Valley where we randomly found the jump that was on the cover of the biggest video to Kelowna BC and made him an insane video where he went bigger than the top guys in the world at the time. Keep in mind he’d been riding mtb for like a month at the time..
Long story short he got second in the video contest to a mtb street rider (people hated on him cause he wasn’t Canadian) which turned out to be a blessing because he got a better contract and was in the biggest videos of the next few years..
The last couple years I had kids and stopped riding but he would always call me randomly to check in and tell me about the latest badass thing he had done. Just an all around awesome guy..super humble when he had every reason not to be. When I heard he went down I had no doubt he would be fine. Dude was like a super hero..and as talented as he was I think it was his mental toughness that got him all his success in different things. He would literally will himself a good result. He just wouldn’t take doing bad as an option.
Video
So many of the same qualities of Kurt, so much respect for them both !
Hate to see the motos gone from Pikes Peak.
I've ridden up and down Pike's a few times (once I got stopped at the brake check point and screamed at by the ranger on duty for going too quickly and passing people) I wasn't pushing the bike (BMW RT1200) very hard, going slower than I would in the twisties in flatter areas and it was still a bit unnerving. The guys RACING up are truly wild.
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