Team midwestmotocross.com decided to ride the 2004 installment of the H&G Riders' Summer Bummer event (they also put on a spring enduro called the Spring Fling) on Aug. 15. We've done motocrosses and harescrambles, but not an enduro and we picked a good one to start.

Most impressive, though, is Mini Dad (non-)columnist Mike Keefe decided to make this 80-mile event his first venture back into organized motorcycle competition. Mike was laid up with cancer since fall of 2003 and just finished four agonizing rounds of chemo in March of this year. Either Keefe is one resilient bastard or this leukemia/chemo thing isn't really as bad as they say it is because he did damn well in the race considering. For the sake of political correctness, we'll officially go with the former and just say that Keefe isn't smart enough to know how to ease back into an active lifestyle after eight months of respiratory, cardiovascular, reproductive, digestive and nervous system on-again, off-again functionality.

We started on minutes 52 and 53, near the back of the pack. This means we were to leave at 52 and 53 minutes after 10 a.m. We left closer to 11 a.m., but it was good enough for us. Our rough goal was to ride out the course. No one in our group of five riders had any intention of attempting time keeping or doing anything other than just following the arrows.

Here's a general and abbreviated description of the course. The first nine miles looped quite tightly through the nudist colony. It came back through the pits twice, with about four to five miles in each section. Then, the course left the nudist colony's property and headed out for the first road section. Then, it was back into the woods and around corn and soybean fields. The woods here were more open but got progressively more sandy, and there were some pretty nasty logs to keep things interesting. Then there was another road section, then more woods, a bit tighter this time, then a few miles of these ridiculous sand whoops, some field sections, then the gas stop. The gas stop was, based on a moderately ignorant understanding of the route sheet, around mile 50 or so. (This is 50 miles as the trail lays, not on the route sheet, which had all the resets included.)

From there, it was a long woods section that alternated between open and flowing and tight and nasty, a road section, another woods section, about two miles of hard, uneven whoops around several corn fields and then another road section. This last road section brought you back to the pits where alert riders (or those who made it to the riders' meeting or knew how to read a route chart) went back into the woods and complete the first nine mile nudist colony loop a second time before the final check.

The survival plan, at least the plan of four of us, was to do the first half loop through the nudist colony, meet at the trucks, do the second half loop through the colony, meet at the trucks again and top off our gas tanks, then head out into the wild Indiana countryside for the big loop and maybe, maybe not, hook back up at the gas stop out in the woods.

Your humble correspondent (YHC) was on the same minute as Keefe and riding buddy Brent Pierce. Husband and wife team Bob and Anne Brooks were on minute 53. Pierce went first. YHC intended to wait on our resident cancer survivor, but decided it would be more fun to blast (relative term) after Pierce. Pierce made things easy for us initially by stalling once or twice, letting us stay close, and washing out once, letting us ride by. At an off-angled log and a rather sneaky twist of the trail, YHC waited for Pierce, waved him on (not that Pierce was going to wait anyhow) then watched three guys crash on the off-angled log while waiting for Keefe.

This was pretty tight stuff, and Keefe was in pace mode. After a few miles, he must have gotten tired of looking at YHC's ass or the embarrassment of having someone wait on him every 100 yards, and told us to go on ahead, which we did.

After a stupid crash in one of the few high speed sections in this area when YHC flipped over the bars and busted the bladder in his Camelbak, we waited for Keefe and cleared our head, but then soldiered on when he didn't show. YHC hooked back up with Pierce after the first half loop, topped off the gas tank for the hell of it, loaded our Camelbak, sans bladder, with bottled water and waited for Keefe.

And waited, and waited.

Pierce was getting antsy and we insisted he ride on after Bob and Anne caught up to us at the trucks. Bob's really quick, but on this ride he was thoughtfully keeping an eye on Anne, who's no slouch herself. Hell, she did pass Mike, but under ominous circumstances.

"When we rode by him he was hunched over alongside the trail," Bob said. "I motioned for him to follow us, but he just waved us on."

After that report, YHC was sure Mike was half dead from dehydration, lost or being stewed by the locals. So, we waited a bit more. Mike never showed.

Riding backward on the trail to look for Mike obviously was not an option, and neither was riding the course again from the beginning. Waiting was getting annoying for everyone, so Pierce, Bob and Anne went on while YHC waited where the trail intersected in the pits. After several more minutes, Mike still didn't show himself, YHC decided there was nothing that could be done to save a dead man and figured Mike's wife could wait a few more hours to hear about his demise, so we got back to riding.

We caught up to Bob and Anne before too long (Pierce shot off for the next check as soon as they got back into the woods) and followed them through the rest of the nudist colony section and back to the trucks to wait for Mike some more. Him being dead and all, he never showed up, so we headed out onto the first road section and then through 10 or more miles of trails. After we came back out into a bean field, YHC went ahead at a more comfortable pace, hit another long road section and more bean fields and trails.

Overall, the course wasn't difficult at all, but it was getting sandier now, and there were a few elevation changes and even a creek crossing. After a few more miles, we got our biggest surprise of the ride. Mike's 1988 KX250 was leaning up against a tree just off to the side of the trail on a sandy hill.

"Some bastard stole Mike's bike!" YHC thought.

After considering Mike having made it that far was slightly more logical than a thief actually riding the stolen bike along the enduro course, YHC stopped and yelled for Mike a few times. After no answer and checking Mike's gas tank to see it was empty, YHC headed on down the trail.

After a little over two miles, we caught up to Mike.

"What waiting? I didn't think you guys would wait for me, so I just kept riding. I was feeling good. I was hauling ass," Mike said.

If YHC wasn't satisfied with Mike's suffering to this point, something would have been done to even the score. But, the case being what it was, he was instead sent on his way with two bottles of pre-mix and assurances that the gas stop was only a couple miles up the trail. It was really more like 14, but we didn't know that at the time. Honest.

After those 14 more miles, a few of which were over those nasty sand whoops, YHC reached the gas stop and had his fill of fuel and the water so generously left by the course workers.

YHC then hooked up with a seasoned enduro rider (20 years experience, he said) back into the trail and did our best to keep up. We did OK except for when it got tight. YHC still hasn't quite figured out the tight stuff.

After at least a dozen miles and a couple wrong turns we made it to one check, found out we hadn't quite houred out yet (amazing with all our waiting for Mike) and kept following the trail while our experienced guide decided to take the roads back to the pits. (He ran out of gas before the gas stop and therefore houred out himself and wanted to get back to his sons, who he figured were finished with the race by then.)

Other than some deep and uneven whoops through hard dirt between a creek and a corn field, the rest of the trails were easy enough. YHC caught up to a rider on a YZ on the last road section and followed him into the last check. We soon found out that was a mistake, because the trail actually looped back through the first section a second time. By the time some old guy back near our pit explained this too us, we had already turned in our score card and had the bike loaded -- not that we necessarily had the physical gas to go back and do the last nine miles. We'll come back and get them next year.

Bob and Anne were back by the trucks when YHC was getting back into some shorts and a T-shirt. Neither Mike nor Pierce were anywhere to be found. That would change soon enough, though.

In a few minutes, an old pick-up pulled up with Mike in the front seat and his KX in the back.

Apparently, Mike's adventure didn't end when he gassed up with what YHC gave him out in the woods.

"That got me a few more miles," he said. "Ran out right in the middle of these sand whoops. I didn't think it was possible, but I'm pretty sure I invented a new list of swear words out there. Anne, I'm really glad you didn't have to hear that."

Mike. Always the gentleman.

"After pealing the bark off a few trees with my profanity-laden rant, I hiked the rest of the way to the gas stop, carried some fuel back to the bike and filled up. I then said, 'to hell with this,' and rode around until I came to the next dirt road. I didn't know where I was going, but I just rode around on that until this guy found me and hauled my sorry ass back here," Mike reported.

"Oh yeah. I guess I owe you a gas tank," he told YHC. "After I carried it back to my bike, I tried riding with it for a little bit but decided that was too much of a hassle and pitched it."

YHC's name was written all over that thing. Mike said he would still sleep easy when some farmer's land was declared a Super Fund site and sued YHC over the dumped fuel.

Pierce showed up about half an hour later. He, for one, had a clear head on his shoulders and didn't miss the signs to go through the last nine miles again.

After getting our free food, courtesy of the Hill & Gully folks -- OK, maybe we'll let the lying pictures of the hot naked chick slip this time -- listening to Mike hassle Pierce for "letting me pass you through that creek crossing" (Mike didn't, but this was before we told Pierce about Mike's real tactics for getting that far ahead of us in the woods) and promising to hit the event again next year, we rolled out of Roselawn.

"So, why the hell were you puking your guts out when Bob and Anne passed you?" YHC asked Mike. "You know, that's why we waited for your ass so long. We were pretty darn sure you were dead or at least down and out in the woods."

Mike said he wasn't sick at all, just hunched over nursing a riding injury.

"I racked my nuts when I came down on a log," he said.

Mike, in his utter disregard for sportsmanship, fair play and even the petro-chemical needs of his own machine, still managed to beat one man in the 29 rider "C" class. YHC somehow scored 14th with his waiting and other faux pas. Brent did well, and Bob and Anne did as expected -- they had a good ride on what they were treating as a trail ride in the first place.

What did we learn for next year? We won't wait for Mike. A gas stop after the first nine miles is probably not necessary but still a good idea. We won't wait for Mike. Write a pseudonym on the gas tank to foil the likely apprehension efforts of one angry farmer. We won't wait for Mike. And always buy the T-shirt because if you want to take a long look at the picture of the young lady in her birthday suit, you ain't seein' it in those woods.