Idaho Qualifier

To ride in the ISDE each rider must qualify through one of two qualifiers for a spot on the team.  The Idaho City Qualifier is always one of the best races of the year, held up in the high country above Boise it features some of the best single track trails in the country.  All of the G Brothers got together for the ride up to Idaho.  G-Man had ridden the qualifier in Ohio the week before and already was sure he would be headed for France.  G-Man was riding on row 14 and Brian and I were right behind him on row 15.  The race was a 115 mile loop with five special test sections one of which is the grass track.  Unfortunately there hasn't been rain in Idaho in the last month so it is looking like a hot and dusty weekend.  The morning of the race it clouded up a bit and there was about ten drops of rain but what it did do was cool off a little bit.  We both got our bikes fired up in the morning and started out on the trail and got to the first intersection and there was a blue arrow pointing to the left and a yellow one pointing right.  We both stopped because neither of us knew which one we should follow.  A few more people came up and no one knew which way to go either.  It took us a couple of minutes but finally figured out that we were following yellow arrows for day one.  The trails were fun right off the bat, the only bad thing was that the dust kept us from riding together.  We arrived at the first check where Joe Abrahms was helping us out by pitting for us.  All three of us felt good and our Maxxis/ KTM's were working perfectly.   We made it up to the high country and the trails were awesome.  Brian and I would catch up to G-Man on the minute in front of us and we would freight train with each of us staying right outside of the dust from the rider in front of us.  After the second check we had our first special test of the day.  We found out right away who starts in front of us would have a big impact on how we would do.  The dust was bad and it took a long time to find our way past a couple of people.  The day went well for all three of us with none of us falling in any tests or having any problems at all.  When the scores came out Brian was in fourth overall, I was in sixth, and G-Man was twelfth.  Brian won one test on the day and was up front in most of the tests.  In two tests both Brian I had problems getting around a couple of guys and in those two tests our times were slower than the rest of the tests. 

When we woke up for day 2 we were stoked to see that it had rained a little bit overnight.  It looked overcast in the mountains from town so we put on our enduro jackets and dual pane goggle lenses.  On day two we went straight out to the grass track.  It was still dusty at the grass track but it was much easier to ride on day two since that was the way it was laid out.  After we left the grass track we started up the mountain and instead of it raining we were into the snow.  The snow was better than rain because it knocked the dust down and we didn't get wet so we were actually warmer than if it was raining.  When the traction it good we pick up the trail pace quite a bit and get to ride right next to each other.  Day two turned out to be one of those rides that you dream of.  The traction was perfect and we were riding on some of the best trails ever with good friends, laughing and yelling at each other on the trail and basically just having a good time.  The special test were much better without dust and the three of us all felt that we were doing good.  After the second special test the three of us got together on a fire road and started dicing with each other.  The person that was in front would go to the outside in the corner and pitch it sideways and look back at the other two of us sliding right behind them.  We were having fun and riding like that with friends is really what riding motorcycles is all about.  The rest of the day went good and we saw some wildlife also.  We saw a elk along the side of one off camber trail and G-Man even saw a mountain lion.  At the end of the day we each did better with Brian finishing second for the day moving him up to second for the event.  He won another test and was near the top in the rest.  I finished in the top five in all tests ending up third on the day moving me into fifth overall for the weekend.  G-Man had his best test where he finished seventh and finished 11th overall in the event.  Destry Abbott was the overall winner for the weekend winning a majority of the special tests and having a perfect weekend.  The Pearsons finished third and fourth overall with Russ beating out Nick by just a few seconds.  Nick has been out for quite a few years with injury so it was good to see him come back and have a good ride. 

We would like to give a big thanks to Dave and Elaine Harris for putting us up for the weekend.  We would also like to thank Joe for pitting for us and Mikey from Topspeed Production for covering the event for us and getting some good pictures.  Thanks to the Boise Ridge Riders for once again putting on a great event.  If you have always wanted to travel to a race and have a good weekend of trail riding make the trip up to Idaho City for one of the bests rides anywhere.