Some of the best inspiration comes from being surrounded by the senses, smells and sights that take you back to a place of remembrance. For me that’s my husband’s motorcycle garage, which is where I found myself over the weekend when I was trying to think of what to talk about in this week’s column. Currently, he’s taking an old Honda CB450 and converting it into a desert sled. I have to be honest here, I really had no idea what a desert sled really was when he started this build. When I started researching it I was even more embarrassed that I don’t know as much as I should have, especially since I grew up on dirt bikes, and the two are so closely related. I’m blaming it on the fact that the closest desert I lived next to was two thousand miles away.
Maybe you already know the ins and outs of desert sleds, and if that’s the case then you can stop reading now and go pick up a copy of A.J. Jacobs’ “The-Know-It-All” book and read that instead. However, if you don’t know or have a burning desire to know more, I welcome you to continue. Let’s get the basics out of the way now … What the hell is a Desert Sled?
“Technically,” desert sleds are any heavyweight motorcycle that’s 500 cc’s or more, then they’re modified for desert riding with a skid plate, huge gas tank, along with assorted tools and spare parts tucked into every nook and cranny on the bike. And let’s not forget the ever so necessary tow rope wrapped around the top triple clamp or handlebars.
Sleds were a breed all their own, since at the time nothing looked like a desert sled or rode like one. Reflecting the personality of the rider, often times the bikes were loaded up with any number of good luck charms and things of superstition. Since riding in the desert was never an easy task it was believed that these things helped ward off any of the rim destroying rocks, mine shaft holes or carburetors full of sand that would ultimately end a ride prematurely.
The first desert sleds were built from street bikes of the late ‘40s, stripped of unnecessary parts and fitted with mostly just trials tires and skid plates. These machines were not so much about going fast through the desert as they were more concerned with finishing the ride without any breakdowns or crashes. Indians and Harleys made up these first desert sleds, with a few English bikes sprinkled through, since they were the next big wave in the “lightweight” movement.
The second-generation desert sled was the 650cc twin cylinder British bike, once again stripped of its street bike essentials and modified for off-road riding and racing. Sled riders modified all the bugs out of these machines, and the British sled became a reliable tool for high-speed desert work.
The British “double-knocker” ruled the desert from the mid-fifties to the early seventies. These sleds were modified down to the last nut and bolt, with lightweight frames, modern suspension, and equipment that wasn’t available back in the heyday of the big twin. This was the innocent period of open pipes and no green sticker or BLM to worry about. When you leaned your 650 up against a tree and drained the oil into the desert sand – don’t get me wrong, I’m all about saving Mother Nature but I would give anything to ride like this just once.
The third generation (and my favourite generation) of desert sleds was the open class two-stroke. Beginning in the early seventies, and still alive today, the big two-stroke shared none of the fragile nature of the Brit bikes, and soon eclipsed them in handling and reliability. 400 Husqvarnas, 360 Pursangs and 360 Yamahas soon out-numbered the four-stroke crowd, and the golden era of dirt bikes was on. Everyone seemed to have a dirt bike or knew someone with a dirt bike. This was the heyday of the desert race scene in the Southwest, and legendary races like Corriganville/Hopetown, Barstow to Vegas, The Moose Run, Elsinore GP, and others captured the very essence of what racing in the sand was all about. The desert sled had evolved into a lightweight machine with Curnutt rear shocks, a Vesco tank, and six ply knobby tires on alloy rims. Speeds increased, with bikes reaching eighty to ninety miles an hour in some of the faster sections of these races.
The fourth and latest generation of the desert sled is once again, a four-stroke. You read me right, a four-stroke. We went from four to two only to be replaced by a four-stroke again except this time the bikes are modernized with water-cooling, 12 inches of suspension travel and reliability that the old Triumphs and Beezers could only dream about. These new sleds are winning everything from Baja to Tecate. The only downfall is that they are complicated, high-strung machines that get about 30 hours out of a motor before it has to be totally rebuilt by a factory trained tech, and well… unless you’re a factory rider or heir to a large family inheritance then that makes it nearly impossible to go ride for a living much less than just for fun. Add that and the population increase with towns popping up where tracks used to be, ever challenging EPA laws, noise ordinances and desert sleds are becoming a thing of the past. Could be a sad ending to this desert lifestyle that spanned sixty years and helped pave the way to a sport we all love, Motocross? In my opinion, the knowledge it takes to race in the desert could make for a better motocross rider.
So whether you started out riding in the dirt, ending up on it or just follow the sport, you have to respect all slices of this moto pie because they’re related in more ways than two wheels. Throwing your leg over a motorcycle may seem easy to some, but it takes a special person to put that much trust in themselves and into their machines. To take nothing and turn it into something, ultimately inspiring others to follow. To race against all elements, to know defeat and to get up and do it all over again because you know that the sweet is never as sweet without the sour. Because at the end of the day it’s not about what class you’re in or what genre of racing you do, it’s about the wind on your face and the sun on your back, and that can happen any time you decide to ride.