Roll out with the Elkford ATV Club on Sunday, April 17, 2011, when the organization holds a rally near Johnson Lake, not far from Skookumchuk.
The event is only in its second year, but word of mouth has already doubled the expected number of riders from last year.
A rec site at the lake will serve as a base of operations while the race is in progress; start time is between 10 and 11 a.m. Entrants pay a $10 participation fee: half goes to the club and the other half goes to the winner.
Slow but steady
Gord Vogell, an organizer of the event, stressed that the ride is not meant to be a traditional race in which people speed to cross the finish line first, second or third. The winner isn’t necessarily the first person to finish—there are a number of objectives a rider must complete along the way.
“The idea is—it’s not speed—you look for anomalies and things that are a little bit different and mark them down,” said Vogell. “When they get to the end, the person with all the right answers gets 50 per cent of the take.”
For example, at one checkpoint, a rider might have to dismount from the machine and walk 50 yards away to identify some kind of object under a tree.
The 2010 ride took place out at Norbury Lake and Picture Valley Road near Fort Steele; this year, the area around Johnson Lake was chosen for a change in scenery. In total, the ride is expected to cover 40 to 50 kilometres over Crown land.
Vogell has been riding ATVs since 2003, upgrading to four wheels from the two he used to ride when he went out on his mountain bike.
“My knees got so bad that I just couldn’t do it anymore, so my options were: do I sit at home or do I go out (on an ATV)?” said Vogell. “So that was a great option; I’ve seen more country on my quad than I ever did on my mountain bike.”
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