Then

Grew up on the Western Slope of Colorado where they have ridden a lot of trails in Colorado, Utah on a Honda Elsinore and Suzuki RM back in the seventies. When we both thought having seven inches of fork travel and four inches of dual shock travel on the rear was the bomb. Yes, a couple old guys who were lucky enough to ride trails within the BLM and Forest Service of that era. 

Both graduated from a local high school in Mesa County, Colorado in the eighties and then left to serve their country and then returned home to the west to raise their families.  With one of them being experienced in law enforcement and aviation and the other being a master mechanic and business owner.

They have a lot of backcountry experience over time from being active outdoorsman.

We have ridden a lot of the desert, plateaus and mountains of this area back when the Western Slope had a very small population. When the only people you saw in the backcountry were cowhands, sheepers, loggers, hunters, trappers, anglers or energy workers. Before technology existed for cell phones, satellite phones or personal locator beacons. When we broke down in the backcountry on our dirt bikes or in our pickups we hiked out, it was a different time then. 

Now some of the places where we rode our dirt bikes, horses and drove our pickups have fancy trail names when they had none or we just knew them as an unmarked road or a place. Back before there was mountain biking, wilderness study areas, national conservation areas, wilderness areas and the surge of recreational users and the development of ATVs, UTVs, and E-Bikes in those areas. This rally raid event is for the riders who will enjoy the rugged backcountry the way we enjoyed it and to see the small parts of it that are still left to enjoy on federal lands by motorcycle and state at the end of the rally for those that finish it, “That was unbelievable!”