Monthly Archives: June 2010

I went out on a limb yesterday and raced my RM-Z450 at a local District 16 hare scramble.  Hixton was the place.  Hixton is notorious for its clay soil, nasty ruts, and confusing trail network.

The risk was that I don’t have much time on the 450 so when it rained 6” in the days leading up to the event the chance of competing on a weighty, clay-laden bike in tight and twisty rutted trails was high.  Although I was happy with the suspension, the ergonomics, the bolt-on woods parts and all, the 450’s weight was what I feared would be the end of me.  The additional power of the 450 was in the back of my mind – and that it could wear me out if I got overly zealous – but I figured I could just turn the throttle less if I got too tired.  Heavy mud added to the weight of the bike was what worried me.

Reality set in on the lap I rode on my bicycle.  The forest floor was so soggy that I couldn’t ride my bike without sinking in and bogging down.  Portions of the motocross track were under water.  On the other hand, the sun was out and lots of open field and road sections were quickly drying out.

Pre race cleaness.

The AA row was a good one.  Ryan Moss and Brian Lenth came up from down south and three other riders from Illinois were there.  Speedy Pete and JD were there.  It was a quality field from where I was sitting.  My anxiety about getting a good start grew.  The 450 starts reliably in neutral but is hit and miss when in gear.  And it takes wallop to get the piston and valvetrain to do a lap before firing up.  Luckily it all worked out and I was 3^rd into the first turn.

I bumped my way into second before we entered the woods and realized I was talking to myself about how a stall or fall would be the end of all this work.  I have been focusing on making fewer small errors.  I recently read that Charlie Mullins has been doing the same thing inside his helmet and you can see his recent string of quality results because of the effort.  Stalling or dropping the 450 would cost me energy I did not want to spend.

A few turns into the woods the guy in front of me fell.  I scooted by and lead a train of riders that were all faster than me in the woods; I could hear them stacking up behind me.  Then I made a wrong turn and heard the riders behind me go the right way.  I cut through the woods to pick up the trail but had riders on my left and right all trying follow arrows that weren’t all that obvious.  We were mostly going the right direction but not really on the course.  I don’t know how many spots I lost because of my mistake.  Worse yet, and something that still confuses me, was that when I did get back on the established and obvious course, I was riding with A group riders.  I have no idea how that happened.

From there the race got spread out and we all found our own pace.  I was having a great time using the 450 power to get up and over stuff and I also enjoyed the heavier feel of the bike to plow through terrain.  The opening hour and half of the race was truly fun.  I kept trying to keep from making mistakes (but I did stall 3 times during the race) and I think that having that goal in mind helped me ride a steady race.

The timing equipment was not working so I didn’t know what place I was in.  I think we did 12 laps total.  I caught JD on about lap 9.  I rolled up on him so fast that I thought he was having a problem or that he might have been a lap down but later learned he was in a funk and had a slow lap.  I tailed him for a while until he fell and l got by then I messed up and he got by me again.  I was having a tough time riding close to JD because we ride so differently.  I was trying to ride smooth and carry speed and he is an on and off the gas guy.  I lost my rhythm by following him too closely and ultimately make a mistake that caused me to lose contact.

At about that same time I started to feel the effects of the heavy bike.  The mud had added several pounds by then.  I started to go into get-to-the-finish-alive mode and had at least one full lap of riding much slower than I had been racing.  By then the ruts were long and deep in several places.  The power of the 450 always got me through – something that I never could manage on the RM or RM-Z250 – so I’m super stoked with learning about that.  Momentum goes a long way with getting through ruts but having the power to give me an extra boost of speed was great.

I finished 3^rd behind Brian Lenth and JD.  That may or may not be the case since the timing wasn’t working and the results were in question for a while after the finish.  Others I spoke with after the race were as confused by the same opening lap chaos that I was but no one had answers for what happened.  No matter – it is what it is.

Big thanks to Matt Herrington for sacrificing his race day to help make the course a success.  Sorry we didn’t get to ride the course he laid out before the rains came.

The 450 isn’t a big bike in size or shape.  It has a lot of GO when you ask it to go.  That GO is manageable and I like it.  The weight is what I felt in the race yesterday and it’s what is making me so sore today.  I bet I could ride that thing a few days in a row and be fine with it.  As it is, I have just over 5 hours on it and 2 of those hours were racing.  I’ll get better on it.  Late in the race I projected having a difficult time getting the bike up on the stand and promised myself that if I could get it up there after the race, I would race it again someday.  I did get it up but it took everything I had left to do it.  Joe can attest to my empty state of mind and body while we packed up and drove home.  I was finished.

Post race mess. And I entirely fatigued.

I’m not abandoning the 250 and I may have to take both bikes with me when Joe and I go to races.  Then, no matter the weather or terrain, I’ll have the right tool for the task.  Stay tuned.

Two new topics today – the van got a facelift and I’ve been putting time on a 2009 RM-Z450.

The van was a perk that AJ at Victory Circle Graphix helped us out with.  Joe and I have often talked about how to grow our presence at races and on the .www and this was one of the ways we discussed.  We might have pushed to do it for our 2008 GNCC series adventure had we thought the bikes would remain in the van.  Ultimately we feared the advertising would draw the wrong kind of people and we’d wake up at some far away hotel with sprung doors and no bikes, or worse yet, no van and no bikes.

My wife thinks I’ve totally lost it.  Now I’m advertising that I spend tons of time and money on the events that suggest I’m wallowing in my adolescence.  But I’m super stoked with it.  Thanks, AJ!

Some of my favorite things.

And the 450.  It’s entirely possible that I’m aimlessly wandering through this whole motorcycle race experience searching for something that’s not there – the perfect set up.  I’ve been on six different machines in six years.  Two of these machines, this 450 included, are bikes that I probably already had dismissed as too fringe for me to ride competitively in a regional off-road series.  Remember my RM144 project bike?  That was the one that had a modified cylinder, pipe, flywheel, and suspension in an effort to give me the lightest woods weapon possible.  Ended up that I can’t ride an engine that small.  I’m too heavy and I never learned to ride a bike in the upper revs the way that bike had to be ridden.  While it was fun to ride, it was not fast for me.

The 450 is on the opposing end of the chart.  It’s big, heavy and powerful.  I definitely had no place for a bike like this in my off-road racing stable just a few months ago.  The RM-Z250 did it all for me – turned like a champ, has decent power, and is reasonably light and flickable.  But at these few opening rounds of the District 16 Hare Scramble series I’ve found myself wanting a little more poop.  I’ve needed more speed on the straights and needed more thrust to get me up the hills.  That translates into me thinking I need more power.

When I dissect what it takes to go fast in the woods it boils down to just a few things: the ability to process everything that’s coming at you very quickly and some combination of physiological abilities.  The quick processing thing comes naturally for the fastest riders.  It’s instinct; they don’t spend anytime or energy processing stuff like balance, throttle control, where to look on the trail.  To be on the higher level physiologically you’d have a bigger and more refined capacity than the rest of us.  You can do more work, more efficiently.  Put fast processing speed and a gifted body together and you get Josh Strang.

I don’t have the natural instincts that the faster, more precise riders do.  Most of what I do on the trail happens like this: I’m in 3rd gear weaving thru the woods, there is dirt under me and trees around me. Hey look, a big log.  Hmmm. Should I go around or over?  Darn – too late, guess I’m going over.  Hope this thing starts when I remount.

Okay, that leads me to why I like the 450, and in case you were wondering, I REALLY like the 450.  While it is heavier than all of the bikes I have ridden previously, it has super friendly power (in my opinion – Joe might disagree with me here because he felt it was ferocious).  If you want it to creep along, it will.  If you want leap up and over a puddle, rock, log or mound, it will.

This is my first experience with a computer-controlled fuel system.  I suspect I’ve joined the masses that are all saying, “how did we get along without it!?”  It really is magical in terms of immediate throttle response, linear power delivery and, clean, clean jetting.  Thanks to Shane Nalley at FMF Suzuki for the CPU mapping!

I less than three hours of ride time on the 450 but here’s what I think.  The weight it is carrying over the 250 is noticeable at all speeds but in different ways.  At low speed – one foot off the peg, body off the center of the bike, reefing on the bars to place the bike somewhere – the 450 is top heavy.  I find that I need to be more careful about where my weight is on the bike at slow speeds because it takes on a mind of its own that is hard to coax back into shape if I get out of sorts.  At higher speeds the weight becomes your friend by creating stability. The bike plows thru trail trash and small whoops rather than being bounced or deflected (Some of this could be a fresh tune on a killer Factory Connection set up.  Thanks FC!).  The 450 feels more settled at speed than the 250 does.

And the POWER.  I might be faster on the 450 just because I love feeling all that acceleration.  Every time I can see daylight I grab a handful and ride along in bliss.

But there are bigger caveats I need to acknowledge.  No matter the machine, I still make mistakes that cost me time.  Stalling. Not getting by lappers fast enough. Trying too hard.  I have to eliminate or at least significantly reduce the number of errors I make in order to capitalize on the benefits I see in the 450.  That all starts now.

The time I have on the 450 is all at Dyracuse.  I’m so familiar with the terrain there that its not that great for bringing demons to the surface. I need to spend some time at Homann’s riding in super tight woods to get a better understanding of low speed 450 challenges.  With luck that will happen this next week and with more luck I’ll be racing the 450 at Hixton next weekend.  Woohoo!