Not quite a noob, Not quite a Pro, Not quite old man, Not quite boy racer......

Nice job Andrew!

It was a harescramble. Unfortunately most the Enduros in D17 are further South. I'm basically in Wisconsin, so driving 6+ hours for a race is rough. My buddy I race with likes to do harescrambles, so it works out well going to those. I am having fun (more so when I do better), so it's all good.

http://www.foxvalleyoffroad.com/hsresults/012/9-16/AAOVERALL (EXTENDED).TXT

12th\48 Overall. I'm definitely happy about that result. Now to maintain this level and build upon it. Go figure...the racing season is almost over.

Andrew

Looking at those results you even beat an A guy. Your average speed looks good too if those courses are anything like what we have down here. I figure at 19mph average your holding second through every turn. Thats where I wanted to be at the end of this year (it isn't happening).

I'm training for the next enduro on the 14th of october. If you end up going we should meet up. I'm hoping having someone around that actually knows what they're doing will help me from having such a flop like last time

My faster laps I was keeping the bike in 3rd gear through the turns. RPM's dropped a bit, but I ended up holding far better corner speed & required less effort on my part to keep up the pace. Why I don't do this 100% of the time...well I just don't know.

Decided yesterday that I'll be racing an Enduro this Sunday. 2 - 33 mile loops. Should be pretty good.

Sold the WR last night. :huh

Began pulling apart the XR to install the new clutch. Things weren't done as efficiently in the 80's, that's for sure. Just glad I have a clutch hub holding tool.

Andrew

Had I of not crashed so much Sunday, I probably woulda ended up in a top 3 position. Unfortunately I snagged 4th, missing 3rd by 1 point\minute. The Mighty XR held its own......though I'm feeling the need for an upgrade.

I'll report in later. There were a lot of people snapping pics, hopefully some show up.

Andrew

Congrats on a good finish. If my BMW GSA sells you will be seeing me at alot more of the races.

Just read the results from the enduro. I think they messed up the numbering, or didn't put someone on the list? Looks like I shoulda gotten 3rd

http://www.midwestenduros.com/RaceResults/2012 Results/Geneseo_Results_2012.pdf

Open B 2 Shaffer Finney 12 51 x x
Open B 3 Paul Fabrizius 12 54 x
Open B 4 Andrew Gore 12 55 x x
Open B 5 Craig Capps 12 71 x

Also looks as though I got 10th\30 overall B & somewhere mid pack overall A\B

Not too bad, especially if I would have kept it on 2 wheels more than I did.


I spent some time at a local MX Track (Byron, IL) on Saturday. My neighbor who has been riding\racing MX forever twisted my arm to get out there and ride. He rides a YZ450F, so I figured it'd be a good opportunity to try out his bike and see if I'd like to switch to one for next years racing. I was a bit apprehensive, as the Mighty XR is no MX machine, but figured what the heck, worst case, I crash it, pick it up and keep riding. I immediately had fun on the thing out on the track, but obviously found it lacking in some areas (brakes, suspension). I was a bit leary of hitting some of the doubles on it, so initially just rolled some of them. I then took my neighbors bike out for a few laps, and felt comfortable gapping all the jumps right off the bat. It had all the power needed to just rip the throttle and clear whatever I needed to. This led to me hopping back on the XR and proceeding to suck it up and gap some of the bigger jumps I was scared to do on it earlier. The bike took the jumps in stride. Unfortunately after a few more laps, I pinch flatted the front tire on the face of a roller. I spent the rest of the afternoon riding on the YZ450F. Once I really began to trust it on turns, I was able to really do some solid riding on it. Though it's still got me scratching my head as to what bike to race for next year.

Andrew

EDIT - After riding close to 2 motos worth on Saturday, my body is 100% destroyed. I've got sore muscles that I never knew existed. I see why my neighbor told me to use MX as cross-training for woods racing.

It's been a few weeks since my last update. Haven't had any races lately, but plenty has transpired since then. I let go of the Mighty XR (just last night), and have also picked up a replacement race bike. I scored a 2005 YZ250F for a heck of a cheap price. I went back to the UP with a buddy of mine last weekend, and did some testing on it. I'll have some of the singletrack video up later. Here is a quick section of 2-track.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UQwnev-Wpvk?list=UU-pMy6dYl6efwZnqTSyWsOg&amp;hl=en_US" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

It looks slow, and kinda is. The 250F in 5th gear just isn't fast enough for the 2-track. The KLX450R (first bike I go past) is much better up there for 2-track. 5th gear on that is more like cruising at 65-70ish, and much more comfortable at those speeds there. Not that anyone in that video is going over the speed limit

The bike also needs some valving work done. I'll toy with that this winter. Should be racing a Harescramble this Sunday on it.

Andrew

Harescramble at a (somewhat) local MX track yesterday. The YZ250F did pretty well for me. I was 4th out of the gate, pulled up to 2nd in the first lap, and then took 1st somewhere on the 2nd lap. Things were going well for the first hour until I stalled my engine around an hour in. Couldn't get the thing started, and lost almost 2 full minutes. Finally got back up and going after dropping back to 5th place. Pushed as hard as I could until the end, and managed to pull back into 3rd place.

Overall I'm quite pleased with my results. The engine stall took almost 2 minutes out of me. I also had a nice crash on the 2nd to last lap, but that took almost no time out (despite the wonky post crash bars ).

Right now its looking like I'll have plenty of time before the next race. In the meantime, I'll surely be aiming to revalve my suspension, as after 2 hours of racing, it was beating the snot out of me.

Results:
http://www.moto-tally.com/D16/HS/Results.aspx?EY=2012&EID=10&SC=C3&SV=LT

Andrew

PS - I'll see how long the GoPro captured footage from the race.

How do you like the yz250f compared to your other bikes?

I am really liking it right now. It's night & day better than my Husqvarna ever was. It's modern suspension and has more giddyup than my XR did. I'll do a quick break-down on it:

Chassis: I feel right at home on this bike. It's very natural feeling, and nothing feels weird\out of place when I'm riding the bike. Standing up, I am able to move the bike around and really just move the bike around how I want to. Sitting down, I feel I can lean the bike in on turns and not feel like the bike is going to do anything funny on me.

Suspension: The bike, as I got it, had its forks redone by Pro-Action suspension. Unfortunately it was done for MX. Not the end of the world, and I have to say that Pro-Action valving feels very nice on bigger hits, and quite compliant in the MX sections I've ridden. It deflects a bit on slower\rougher terrain, but extremely stable when WFO in 5th gear. No complaints there. After about 60-75 minutes of Harescramble riding, the forks became more and more harsh. I know this was partially personal fatigue, but my friend noted that from watching the bike was looking more and more unsettled as my race went on. Bottom line, it's not Woods valving, and will never ride like such until I revalve.

Engine: It's like riding a 125, with more torque. Simplest way of putting it. The engine really likes to be wound out. I currently have a Revloc Dyna-Ring in mine that my friend lent me to test out. It could partially be that, but also the engine, but it has very little bottom end power. This is not to say that it won't tractor through some stuff, but the reality is that it just doesn't have the grunt of the bigger bore machines. It's not the end of the world, and in all honesty, the power it does have is very usable and very manageable. I may look at doing a 290 big bore on it, to get a little extra grunt out of it. When you ride the bike how it was meant to (rev'd out), it just shines. The bike constantly hooks up and the power isn't "rip your arms out of their sockets" power. Very manageable.

Transmission: The stock YZ trans is so\so for woods racing (non-MX). I raced with 13/49 gearing on it. I found that I was still dropping into 1st gear in some spots just so I could get the RPM\Torque out of the engine to shoot out of the tighter stuff a bit quicker. The transmission shifts incredibly well, and on the start straight section at the last race, I kept the bike WFO and was able to seamlessly shift through the gears. For "dual-sport" type riding, I had 14/49. The gearing was usable, but the cruising speed at 44.6mph (GPS) was annoying, as the engine still felt it was revving quite high, and when blasting down 2-track in 5th, it still wasn't fast enough (though neither was the 450 I was riding at the time either, so that's all relative).

Reliability: According to some, racing a 4-stroke bike is akin to burning $50 bills. On one hand, I'd be inclined to agree. Redoing a head is like $400+, a top end is around $150, and yadda yadda yadda. Some folks even will say that they are ticking time bombs. I feel most of that stems from a couple things. Bike neglect & riding on the rev limiter (MX). I feel you can ride this bike extremely hard and not be worried of it spontaneously exploding. Keep up with air filter, oil filter, valve checks, etc and I think it'll run for quite some time. From what I've read, Yamaha appears to have the most reliable package, but if you're buying used, that can be thrown out the window if you've no idea as to how the prior owners treated the machine. Unless something goes weird in the next few races, I don't see why I won't get all of next years racing on how my bike currently sits. I tend to put 150+ hours of riding on my bikes (combined) in a season, so by the end of next season, I'll probably be due for some work, but that'd be the case on any machine.

Overall Package: I just really like the bike. It's light and nimble. I feel I can move the thing in the air like I used to do on my 125. I feel very confident in it, and feel I can trust the bike to do what I want, when I want, and how I want. The engine could use a little more low end power & the trans could be wider, but for under 600$, you could swap in WR gears & put a big bore on the thing and be ready to roll. For right now though, I'll be keeping it bone stock (maybe some fake lights for enduros?). I'm feeling it's a real keeper. I know I've said that about bikes in the past, but how I rode on the thing right off the bat makes me feel that this is where it's at. Good usable power for woods. I realized I don't need 450 power for the tighter racing that our area has. A smaller\lighter package, though not "2-stroke" light, it's still plenty light weight, especially when compared to the XR350R.

Long story short, I'm really happy with the bike. I'm excited to see how it rides with revalved suspension.

Additional thoughts - If I were to ride\race in slightly more open area\terrain, I'd be hard pressed to not be on a 450F. Maybe a Japanese 2-stroke could sway me, but I'm beginning to feel that 4-strokes are just more me. Maybe racing the Husky just really turned me off to them, I dunno.

Andrew

PS - I'll post some pics of the thing sooner or later. I woulda uploaded video this morning from the last race, but It was still rendering when I woke up.

Well here is the full race video. If there's any adult language, I apologize.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FHLDJV48Ar4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Andrew

Interesting write up. I think my BMW is close to being sold which will free up money to get into a 250 woods bike. I am all over the place with my choices and this write up on the Yamaha helps a bit.
Brian

Spent this past Sunday at the local MX track. Had a great time & was really picking up my speed a bit more by the end of the day. I will definitely be riding more MX next year to keep my fitness up.

Few hot laps from middle of the day:
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3RXbduS0fOA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This is what happens when you give too much stick off the jumps
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fcqWq3JI-CQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This Sunday is a rider appreciation day where we have a few Harescramble races. Looking forward to testing this bike in the woods without an autoclutch.

Andrew

Any updates?

Sorry for the delay in updates. It's been a hectic past couple of weeks for me. This last weekend, I spent down in lovely Texas. We did some filming for my brothers company Kettle Cycles. They manufacture carbon fiber MTB Brake rotors. I've gotten to help their process a bit, and have been super stoked on their progress they have made on everything. Their hard work is showing, especially with a successful Kickstarter Campaign to help raise some funds.

Rotor Picture:


Check out some of the stuff we filmed. MTB Riding is awesome cross-training. It also helped mooching a friends bike which probably has wheels on it that cost more than my YZ250F :eek1
<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/54003048?badge=0" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/54003048">Kettle Cycles SiCCC Rotor - RPR</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/kettlecycles">Kettle Cycles</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

Quick pic my brother snapped of me on the pump track where we were riding:


On top of working on that, we also went to watch F1 at the Circuit of The Americas. Awesome. I'd seen MotoGP, but this is on a whole other level. The braking speed, the acceleration. Just impressive to see & experience.

Great pic my brother took from F1 as well:



But, getting back to my racing, racing is essentially done for the season. Now it's just a matter of riding throughout the winter & enjoying myself. I've decided to (unless weather is exceptionally great) take off the entire month of December. My body needs a break, as does the bike, which could handle some winter lovin'. The weekend of the 10th, I spent at the motocross track again. I focused on corner speed, pushing myself faster in some jumps, and began toying with scrubbing speed off of jumps. It's a big works in process for sure, but it'll come to me. I feel the weekend riding the MTB has helped me with understanding bike movement in the air. Kinda funny that I feel totally comfortable on a bicycle pushing the back end out perpendicular to the front wheel, but hop on a dirtbike and it's a whole other ball game. I'll toy with it more for sure. I'll upload some video from that day. I just haven't gotten there yet due to enjoying Texas & it's lovely BBQ .

After December, I intend on going to the (somewhat) local indoor MX track every other week to keep my riding up a bit. I'd ridden there before, but I want to use it as a riding improvement tool this year. Build up some stamina & do some longer riding stints there. On top of that, I plan to really build up my exercising. My brothers looking at picking up a rowing machine, so since he lives close I'll probably be over at his house more frequently .


Results wise from this past year, the showing is only so-so. I was only able to get in 3 enduros (1 of which was a DNF), 5 harescrambles (1 of which was different district), and apparently my riding in the UP doesn't count towards racing points. Overall, here is what the points are looking like:

AMA D17 HS - Open B: 22nd Overall. 4 races out of 18 (2 DNF's)
http://www.amadistrict17.com/points/hs/2012hs.htm

FVOR HS Series Open B: 5th\25 Overall - 4 Races out of 8 (2 DNF's)
http://www.foxvalleyoffroad.com/hsresults/012/2012fvorpoints.htm

AMA D17 Enduro - Open B: 18\20 Overall - 3 Races out of 10 (1 DNF)
http://midwestenduros.com/RacePoints/2012 Points/2012 D17 Enduro Points.htm


Overall I'm quite pleased with my results. I feel that had I stuck with 1 series & done all the events, I'd safely be in the top 3 overall. I gotta face reality now & know that making it to all these events that are 6+ hours away, just aren't as feasible. I'm very happy with my personal progress I've made this year as well too. I've gotten quite a bit faster, more consistent, and more comfortable in manipulating the bike. I'm looking forward to next years racing, and will see what I end up deciding to do about race series. I'd like to stick to 1 and go for an overall, but that's some serious dedication & I really like spending time in the UP with friends camping & riding, so I'll feel it out.

I'll leave you for now with 1 last video of me riding the upper track @ Byron. I wanted to get some filming of my buddy gapping one of the doubles there. That Honda CRF250X is a good bike.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6yvUN338tNw?list=UU-pMy6dYl6efwZnqTSyWsOg&amp;hl=en_US" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Andrew

Hey Gore,
Do you know if Byron has a kids motocross track? Looking for another track for my 7 year old to ride besides Rocky Glen.
Thanks,
Brian

Brian
The upper track is more or less their kids track. All visible from one point and no huge gaps to clear. Its far better than rocky glen and then very little worries of the goof riders rocky glen seems to attract.


Andrew Gore

Thanks Andrew. I need to get out to Byron. I haven't been there since my brother raced there and I was just a kid then.

fox valley has a kid's track