Bikers find their thrills on muddy hill.
Who cares if your bike isn’t built for it? It’s fun!
SLINGER - They charged up the ski hill, two by two, making it to the top or sometimes flipping over backward on the way.
It was Saturday morning, raining, and scores of spectators clad in yellow and orange raincoats lined the motorcycle hill-climb course at Little Switzerland ski resort.
The climb was more like a mud fest. Some bikes spun out halfway up the slope, and a few crashed in a spectacular heap.
“It’s just a rush,” said Sam Fischer of Slinger, who rode a Harley-Davidson Sportster in the “Hooligan” class. “You go wide open to the top and hold on. Sometimes it’s just a matter of who can go the farthest without falling.”
Saturday’s hill climb was part of Harley-Davidson’s 115th-anniversary celebration, which wraps up Sunday with a Milwaukee parade and other events.
Many of the bikes, especially the smaller ones, weren’t Harleys. But they did well on the course chocked with obstacles to make it more challenging.
Fischer’s bike isn’t set up for hill climbs. But he says that’s part of the fun in a motorsports era when specialized machines costing tens of thousands of dollars rule conventional racetracks.
“Any Joe Schmo can get a bike like this, do very little to it and come out and race,” said Fischer said, who was in his second-ever hill climb.
Harleys have been rocketing up dirt hills practically since the company was founded in a shed in Milwaukee at the turn of the 20th century. The HarleyDavidson Museum, for instance, has movies of motorcycle hill climbs from 80 years ago.
“It’s one of the original motorcycle sports because it’s such an accessible thing to do,” said Harley spokesman Matt King.
All you need is a big hill, a motorcycle and a lack of worry about falling over, which usually is at slow speed when a bike loses forward momentum and starts slipping backward.
“It’s a great spectator sport. You’re just rooting for that guy to make it to the top,” King said.
The races are run in a variety of ways, such as two bikes side-by-side or individually against a time clock. Obstacles are added to the hills, such as berms that bikes must hop over on their way to the top.
There are highly specialized bikes built for hill climbing, including some that can reach speeds of 80 mph rocketing up certain slopes.
That wasn’t the case Saturday as speeds weren’t that fast.
Shaun Guardado of Long Beach, California, raced in the Hooligan class, with the same motorcycle he used Saturday in a race on Bradford Beach.
“You scooch your weight forward on the bike” and wrestle it to the top of the hill, Guardado said.
“As soon as you slow down and start slipping backwards, you’re in real trouble. You get that feeling in your stomach … and you’d better figure it out quick or you’re going to end up on your back,” he said.
Mark Atkins, aka “The Butcher,” was also in the Hooligan class.
He’s from southern California, has been riding motorcycles since he was a toddler and has made a movie about motorcycle hill climbing.
“It’s just fun on a Harley because the bike isn’t made to do that,” he said.
Bikers vied for about $8,000 in total prize money at Saturday’s event.
They probably aren’t going to get rich in this sport, but combined with sponsorships and other incentives, some people make a living at it.
Louie Lauters, who previously owned the West Bend Harley-Davidson dealership, has been competing in hillclimb races since the late 1980s.
Last winter, he participated in the first “X Games Aspen” snow hill climb in Colorado that attracted 2 million online viewers, some from as far away as India. He races in all kinds of bike events.. “I’ve made my living pretty much based around my passion for the sport,” he said.
Every hill climb is different. One of the more dangerous events has been the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado, where a handful of people have died in crashes.
“People get hurt in this sport, but not so much around here,” Lauters said.
Saturday, racers had to make it up one long, wet, slippery slope. Then they had to tackle a short, steep hill.
“There are guys who just kind of wing it, who hold open the throttle and go for broke. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t,” Lauters said.
“But when you get over a top for the first time, you feel like you just conquered the world.”