Good on those guys for putting the video together so quickly, not I want to see a full hour Good on you Breauxman as well, nicely done.
I'm not sure how they listed the DNFs, for sure not by distance they made it on course because RADEK made it at least past check 6 on Loop2 where we we stationed and I know plenty shown above him didn't make it that far. Radek was spent at that point (12 miles into loop 2) but laughing about how ridiculous the trails were. I was telling him he had only 6 miles loop then 14 to the Finish, that he was pretty much home free. Then a rider came into Check 8 (same spot, at a cross-roads) and this rider was exclaiming how bad the 6 miles were from ck6 to ck8 and Radek starts laughing and yelling at me "you're lying to me!". It was funny and he was laughing and shaking his head the entire time. Not sure what happened to him after that. But Radek was on (i believe) the largest displacement bike and the only rider sporting a licence plate ;-) Good fun.
Apparently, Radek punched a hole in his engine towards the end. huge bummer... He still said it was "rad!" Great job getting that far, Radek! Woo! I'm not surprised he was laughing at how tough it was...The guy lives for that kind of stuff. Osooooo!
Please don't tell me Radek tried it on his 990?? :huh Did he do it on a 530 or something? I did see one other, uh... larger, guy on a 525 in the footage. Kelly I got your PM and still hadn't heard what happened to Radek so popped into here to see, good to hear from you! J
i was working at check point #6 and #8 (PM race - loop 2). saw radek and he stopped to refuel the bike and for himself. radek checking in those guys in the hawaiian shirts pulled in seconds in front of radek; and they finished the race (?). radek could have done it too if he didn't have mechanical problem. jimmy lewis could only recruit midgets to volunteer.... it appears something wrong with his bike. we volunteers have instructions as far as how much help we can provide a rider. he had a rough morning. i saw radek @ 7 am and they were pouring hot coolant in his radiator. the night was below 30 and my bottled waters froze. saw him again in the morning race coming down from a steep hill and osooo was looking good. osoooooo style....hahaha osoooo pic before the final race and bike with license plate.....:eek1 it was tough, i talked to a couple of riders and they gave up after cp#6. radek continued on....of course after resting for 5 minutes or so... the 6 mile loop between cp#6 and cp#8 could be the hardest one. many riders took about 2 hours to reach cp#8. waited and hoping to see radek at #8 with camera ready. it was getting dark and have to go back to camp and report (of course with the permission of our crew chief). sorry if i left many guys out there, but there were still several volunteers who stayed behind. jimmy lewis did it again. it is one tough event, surely this is big for california and the west. we need a race like this to help our local riders for them to get better. i admire all the competitors who raced and completed a stage. to finish, one gets challenge by all riding conditions and they got to deal of them. lots of pics coming...tune in. thanks to all who posted vids and pics...awesome. i was stuck at certain locations and didn't really got to see a lot of them.
mark, i'm just glad to help jimmy and the sport. jimmy at the rider's meeting jarvis is really a friendly guy cody surveying the race course LOL finding a track after me, he is the next hardworking volunteer hammer town
here comes the man qualifying about to start i don't know many of these riders, but they too deserved their pictures taken cory graffunder taylor roberts i was surprised to see taylor lost his bike here i had the front row seat and at the same time could see the other side of the course vermon, aram, jim and others stopped to say hello how often do you see jarvis this close? female rider red head rider this rider is a kid... interesting fence of spectators riders getting scarce at the other course wish i could post more pics of the rest of the riders. don't want't to overload the adv server... more tomorrow.
His Brake Pedal bolt came out while on trail. He actually broke his tool pack off his waist getting passed up Clawhammer, left it, then a few miles later lost the pedal. Went all the way back to the pack to try and get a spare bolt but didn't have anything. Called it a day. Glad you think of me as a hard working Volunteer Joel
So here is my race report... I had the bike ready to go the night before and left it outside beside Kurt's trailer and I headed to sleep into town in a hotel. ( i didn't have a camper, and I don't really fit in my truck very well laying down ) Next morning showed up early and started getting things ready for the pits, food, water, etc. Started my bike up and it was a little hesitant. It is usually colder at night so I didn't think of it much that the lithium battery had trouble turning it over and it required a few kicks. Bike started and was warming up as I was about to get dressed. A minute later I noticed coolant pouring from the bike.... oh oh Andrew, Kurt and I looked things over and noticed that the coolant hoses and the rad were frozen! Holly crap. Ironically a few days earlier I had replaced my antifreeze that I run up in canada with some more performant coolant in anticipation for hot running. Looking into the radiator through cap hole... Pulled a hose off an looked inside...frozen We sprang to action, and Kurt boiled some water in his camper so we could melt the ice. Andrew pouring boiled water into rad and across hoses. A few minutes later the hoses felt soft again and decided to start the bike up. I was hoping that the coolant leaking was just through some hose that was restricted due to ice. Unfortunately the leak was now out of the weep hole on the water pump. SHIT! It probably was 7:45 and the race started at 8. Is my race over before it even started? I popped the water pump cover and discovered that the pin holding the impeller in place had snapped and damaged the impeller a bit. The bits from the pin had then destroyed the seal. I guess when the water around the impeller froze and the cam shaft started to spin, it ripped apart the pin. Broken pin and impeller damage. Pulled out the seal carrier and looked at the seal. It's screwed! I brought my parts bin with me from Canada and I looked through it and found that I just happened to have 2 new seals for the water pump! Holly crap, could we fix this? We banged out the old seals with a screw driver, then carefully with some washers and visegrips we pressed in the seals into the carrier. We found a cotter pin that was about the same diameter as the impeller retaining pin and cut it to correct length with some pliers. Assembled it together, purred some water into the rad and fired the bike up. No leaks. Holly shit. By this time Kurt had walked back from the start and said everyone was already gone. I knew if I missed my start time that I would have to start last so perhaps they would still let me start really far last. I threw on my riding gear, went to fill up my camelback but the frigin water bottles that I had in the back of the truck were froze solid! Am I in canada or california? I grabbed the remainder of my gear and ripped to the start, still not knowing if I could race. I pulled up to the start and a bunch of the crew were confused looking at me... Dave came up and asked what happened. "Had to replace the water pump just now", "You ready to race?" he asked, "Yes", "GO!!!!" I rode away straight up and down the first hill and looked at my never used Voyager gps. Where the hell is the track? I had the track loaded with both morning and afternoon tracks and there was an intersection with 4 directions. Lucky the interface on the TrailTech voyager is really intuitive and I turned off the afternoon track and proceeded the right way. I didn't really know how far behind everyone I was but I was hoping I would still have enough time to finish the first loop. Half way up Resolution I was relieved when I saw bikes and carnage clogging things up. I picked my way through the bikes, and helped push a few guys up. Hit the fast section and started to feel really good passing lots of riders. Stopped to talk to a guy stopped on the flats who had a seized engine. That sucks. I hope the pump fix on my bike would hold. The rest of the loop went fast. I pulled in at i think around 10:30 so I had plenty of time to do any fixes before the noon second loop. I think i came in at position 47 out of 80 some that started so I was stoked. I looked the bike over and it was perfect....coolant was at right level, oil at right level, nothing to do at all. The afternoon surprise of a mass start up chocolate thunder was cool. Standing at the fence with all the bikes lined up I had a grin from ear to ear. Chopper over head, 1000s of people cheering on the slopes. This was going to be epic. I was not in a position to get off the start fast, as I had 2 guys beside me that would have to hit a line before I could. The 2 guys beside me took off an both crashed on top of each other clogging the line. I got a few seconds to watch and laugh as everyone took off. It was nuts, and I remember saying to myself "This is fucking awesome!" I finally dropped in and started to move up. I picked my way through, and was hung up a bit by others stuck in lines. The right line where most people make a left pivot turn was clogged so I popped up straight up one of the other lines and was stoked when i made it no problem, passing a bunch of people in the process. I made my way up further and then had a silly crash/fall over. A little more and I was out of the carnage and up some steep single track. I had a bit of trouble getting up that but finally managed to get out and through into open terrain. The rest was a bit of a blur. It was like running away from a lion, just trying to move forward and survive. I did well on the rocky/bouldery sections passing people, but not so well on the steep uphills and loose beach sand terrain. There was the one switch back uphill out of some beach sand that I got to, looked up at and the first thing I said was, you have got to be shittin me! The second thing I said was, FU Jimmy Lewis! Something I would never attempt or think was possible if I was riding by myself, but I made it up and kept going. After the first few checkpoints I was riding by myself and so I had no idea of what position I was in. At checkpoint 6 I took a bit of a break and bullshitted with the crew. To my surprise they mentioned that only maybe 20 bikes have come through so far. That encouraged me so I fuelled up, packed up and headed on. The section that kicked my ass was this ridiculous down hill. I guess there was some easier side hill ridable line what most people took, but I had missed it and started to make my way straight down the waterfall. Basically it comprised of me lowering the front end down to the next ledge, bracing it, climbing down, and then pulling it down. Step after step. Half way down I came across a checkpoint 7 crew that was walking up. A minute later he yelled down... "Hey Exxon Valdez! What's happening" I thought he was just making some smart remark at me trying to carry a big ol' KTM RFS 540 with a desert tank, but what he showed me was that I was leaving a huge oil trail over the last little while. SHIT! I have punched a hole in the case. I was at a flat step with the bike running, and looked down an oil was pouring from under the skid plate like an open tap. FUCK! I looked it over and the trail I left and I thought a bit about my options. Looking at the leak extent and the trail I had left I surly would need oil even if I could jb weld a hole. ( I had a jb weld quickstick in case) I didn't see anything obvious as it must be something under the skid plate. I tipped the bike over to my side trying to see if there was any oil left, and even with the bike at 45 degrees, I could not see any oil appear in the sight class. I would not run the engine so it would be even more difficult to get down this stuff. It was highly unlikely that another rider had a bunch of oil that I could bum. I could try to patch this up and ride on with no oil, but then I might be stuck in even a worse situation. Then there was the temptation....if I called uncle...I would get help pushing my bike down to pit 7, where the crew guaranteed there were many cans of "refreshments" available. Hmmm. No other riders had come through the time I was there so far, so my chances of getting aid were unlikely. So I made the call and bowed out. We pushed the bike down to the pit where the promise was made good on many cans of "refreshment". A handful of riders came through after that, and they all found the left line. Even that line was no picnic. San Felipe Bob took a photo of me dragging the RFS down the waterfall... Had to wait with the crew till the checkpoint closed, at which point we pushed my bike down the wash and into their truck. We followed San Felipe Bob who was on a bike, showing us a "shortcut" to get back to hammer town. I joked that I quit the race, and they didn't have to take me back on the race course. We were basically bush whacking cross desert without a road in sight for an hour. The shortcut probably was an hour slower overall and we were probably now missing a bumper, but we made it back in around 7pm. I was one of the last riders to "check in". I think they were looking for one more guy on the radio as we rolled in. It was a fun drive back. DAY AFTER THE RACE ------------------------ Now this one is going to sting. The next morning I took off the skid plate on my bike to take a look at the hole in the case I had made. Nothing at first obvious. I cleaned things up and still no obvious hole. Hmm. I started to add oil and I only added a litre before the sight glass was full. ( means i still had oil in there) Started the bike, and looked for the leak. No leak. Warmed the bike up, rode it hard, still no leak. WTF! So what happened. Jimmy later educated me on the RFS and told me that if you have the RFS vertical down for too long, the oil in the sump migrates over to the crank case, then when you start it, the running pressure start pumping the oil out of the vent hole. I had my vent line routed to empty at the back of the skid plate. So what was happening was the oil was being ejected through the vent and onto my skid plate, and then leaking from the sides of the plate. I guess on every step that i shut the engine down and lowered the front end, then started it back up, I would eject the oil. I probably could have rode on after all. But that's all part of the race. If you get physically beat up, you make stupid mental choices. So the race didn't punch a hole in my case, but more likely punched a hole in my head and I didn't push hard enough to try to diagnose and fix a bike problem. My bad. I had the best time at this race. It was an awesome, fantastic and an amazing spectacle. I learned so much about what myself and my bike are capable of riding. I'm more energized now about riding a dirt bike than before, and the first thing I'm doing is getting a new lighter bike when I get home and start setting it up for the type of terrain and riding I experienced at KOM. Congrats to all the other KOM riders, and thanks to the guys I got to ride and hang out with. (Travis, Limey, Erin, Kurt, Mike, Andrew, and many others ) Big thanks to Jimmy Lewis and crew ( especially pit 7 ) for the amazing event. See you next year....not on a KTM 540. Radek
Nice photos, Joel!! Thanks for posting them! Thanks for the full report, Radek! I was wondering how the Canadian ended up with a frozen radiator... Sucks that you didn't have a hole in your engine after all... Don't worry, we'll all be rooting for you next time.