ShanBlog #1 Stardate April 6, 2010

Welcome to the first entry of my T&E News news blog... I want to start off by apologizing for taking so long to get it going. First of all I need to tell you a bit about myself. My wife, Cheryl, and I publish Trials & Enduro News from our home in Oklahoma, and we do it for fun - sort of a part-time job. To keep the wheels turning, I have worked full-time for Cycle News for the past five or six years, and this year I went to work for Racer Productions doing PR and mag stories for GNCC, so you are likely to see my name in a lot of places. Doesn't mean I'm good at what I do, just persistent.  Because of my background with CN, I have always been reluctant to do a blog because that kind of writing was what I would call off the cuff... something that I'm not good at. I was worried I was too "up-tight" to do a blog, and too worried about making mistakes or saying the wrong thing. Well, I've been reading a lot of blogs lately, and I've decided no one else worries about those things so why should I. Also, I have been so tied up with all the events I've been covering lately (I'm on the road every weekend covering something... as a freelancer, if you're not on the road covering something, then your not making money) that I have been hard pressed to find the time. However, I am starting to get a handle on the workload, in addition to getting the hang of putting together 40-something pages of T&E News, so I plan of giving you "off the cuff" updates from all the events I go from here on out.

Last weekend I was in Kalgary, Texas for the fourth round of the Rekluse/AMA National Enduro Series, and I must say it was a pretty cool event. The wind on Saturday gusted to 50 mph, which was kind of scary at times, but things settled down on Sunday and the variety of terrain (desert, sand washes, deep berms, mud, ravines, rocks, some kind of skinny tree-thingys) made for a great change of pace from the usual eastern enduro. I asked a few of the pros what they thought about going out west for a few rounds and they all gave positive response... but you will have to read the next issue to learn who said what! Anyway, Charlie Mullins is really on the gas right now, which is kind of cool because he is pretty much riding for a paycheck right now. With the economy like it is, Hotrod is not getting a salary this year and he is living off of contingency money and purse money right now. So I think he is pretty hungry. But that's not taking away from all the other guys out there who are also getting less than what they were getting last year. There are a lot of super-talented riders on the National Enduro circuit and they are all just as professional as any of the guys I regularly see when I cover the Supercross series.

I am excited that the AMA National Trials series is getting ready to kick off on May 1-2 in my home state of Oklahoma. Any of you enduro guys who have never seen a national trials event should try to get out to see one, especially a national. It's amazing what these guys can do on two wheels, and our european counterparts like Taddy Blazusiak and David Knight already know the value of cross-training on trials bikes. Okay, that's enough blather for now. Hope I didn't make too many mistakes or say too many dumb things (hope my kids aren't reading this). I will always try to find one single shot that I feel sums up an event and post it with my blogs (of course, I will also be posting more news, as well). And the one I have above of Glenn Kearney surveying a section of the Texas enduro loop as the sun rises on the west Texas landscape kind of did it for me this time.

I'll post again soon,

Shan Moore

About Shan

Owner and Editor of Trials and Enduro News MotoJournalist of the Year Honors from the AMA NATC Trials Hall of Fame inductee