Susan Barr
Kern Valley Sun

Wendy Crockett, co-owner of The CycleSmith’s in Kernville, is not your average motorcycle rider. Not by a long shot.

The 32 year-old long-distance riding afficianado recently realized one of her dreams when she placed second in the Motorcycle Endurance Riding Association’s (MERA) first ever “10 n’ 10” event (10,000 miles in 10 days) held August 26-Sept.5. Crockett rode her 2005 Yamaha FJR 1300 more than 10,000 grueling miles in 10 days. But it was her innovative approach and willingness to take some pretty serious risks that set her apart from the other competitors.

(Use arrows above to view more photos)

The famed Iron Butt Rally, which Crockett participated in last year, has up until now, been the be-all and end-all of long distance U.S. motorcycle endurance rides. The only problem is that it runs ever other year. For hard-core riders like Crockett, having an alternative event to compete in on the Iron Butt’s off years, makes it easier to get their much needed endurance riding “fix.”

Though Crockett competed in six other shorter long-distance rides this year, she clarified, “This one is definitely in a whole different ball park.” According to the factory certified technician, “The major difference between the 11 day Iron Butt rally and the “10 n’ 10” is that when you show up at the starting line and each check point, you get handed a list of possible bonus locations. In this event, you get your bonus locations 30 days in advance. So you have a month to go and create different legs. I’d work everything out and think it was all great and then the next time I’d open up my computer I’d see something different and change everything completely around.”

Mike Loomer, Crockett’s husband, partner in business and greatest fan by far added, “Having the information so far in advance was great because Wendy actually got to live and breath this event for almost six whole weeks.” Loomer embraces his wife’s passion for endurance riding wholeheartedly and happily holds down the Kernville fort while she is away competing. In fact several years ago when the time came to find the perfect engagement present to cinch his marriage proposal, Loomer knew that no ordinary ring would cut it. But the surprise gift of her dream motorcycle cetainly did. The couple have been married for five years now.

According to Crockett there are distinct pluses and minuses in having information available for an event so far in advance. Ever modest Crockett stated, “In my case, I got very, very lucky. A lot of the other guys got unlucky. It was simply the luck of the draw. “ She continued, “There was one checkpoint on this event and out of it a lot of people decided to make a clockwise loop to the east coast.” Crockett added, “I made a counter-clockwise loop.” Because of that she clarified, “I was able to scoop right in front of Hurrricane Earl and was able to keep to my route as had I planned it.” The reason for taking the alternate course was simple; she was planning on a podium finish. This event did not have a trmendous number of timed bonues, but the really impressive ones necessitated Crockett taking the route she did. Only one other rider made a similar couter-clockwise journey, unfortunately he got caught up in the looming hurricane and was unable to make up his lost time.

According to Crockett another thing that made this event unique were the very different privacy regulations. “A lot of riders have Spot Tracker which allows others to keep track of us in almost real-time. But most other events keep this information private.” Crockett continued, “This event was a lot more open and it actually had single page that was made public. At any given time you could see exactly were every single rider was located. It was an amazing success. The public generally has the perception that these riders are like a mad cannonball run with cross country mayhem. They could actually see that all of the riders were stopping and sleeping for the night.” There were a 120,000 views on the tracking page during the event. Crockett had more than 6000 views on her own personal tracking page.

Over each successive day of the event, the public following grew and grew, demonstarating that although most people have no interest in actually participating in such an event themselves, they find living it vicariously through the riders was a riveting experience in itself.

Highlights of her 10 day, 10,245 mile challenging ride included; riding through microbursts in Arizona, travelling in front of a massive electrical storm enroute to Oklahoma, an early moring run up Pike’s Peake in Colorado, narrowly making it out to a checkpoint in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina while the quickly approaching hurricane had everyone else scrambling to evacuate, meeting up with her mother-in-law Lynn Loomer for a homemade “samwich” in South Dakota, and an extemely lengthy long-distance conversation with sister-in-law Myra Loomer in Scotland that kept her going through the wee hours of a cold, monotonous morning ride.

So what does the future hold for the Kern River Valley’s very own Iron Butt girl? Well Crockett recently learned that she has once again had her name drawn to participate in next year’s IBR event which has her already plotting and salivating. In the meantime, valley residents looking to have some great work done at her powersports specialty shop in Kernville, have the added bonus of hearing amazing stories of the open road thrown in for free. And unlike some of those all-too-common tall fishing tales you hear in these parts, Crockett’s stories are all true.