Tag: BMW

Preparations for the upcoming season.

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In my past couple weeks here I have really begun preparing myself for the upcoming District17 Enduro Season.  I’ve realized that with the wonky winter the Midwest has had, that my options for proper on-bike practice are quite minimal.  I can only expect to get real seat time every so often.  It’s unfortunate, but it is what it is, and I’ve come to accept it.

Normally this time of year, I’d find myself wrapped up in a pile of resource wasting projects that have deterred me from my goals.  Thankfully this winter I’ve really been able to buckle down with things and keep focused on my ultimate goal for this year.  Since riding can’t happen every day like I’d like, I’ve substituted with a few key things:

Exercise – Something I honestly didn’t do much if at all in the past and in the later portions of my races, I felt it.  My lack of body preparation in the past has really killed my overall results in races.  I can attempt to push it on machine, or setup, or whatever.  Fact of the matter is, I wasn’t at physically fit as I’ve needed to be and now that has begun to change.  My initial steps into exercising have been small, but progressive.  I haven’t begun dabbling yet in any sort of weights, or things like that, but begun getting my cardio in shape and getting some of the past excess, gone.

Nutrition – Since getting married, my nutrition habits had slowly progressed to the side of “healthier”.  My eating had slowly changed from random with occasional missed meals to something just shy of regular.  I had also cut out a large portion of eating out (or I should say fast food).  Despite the progression towards better, I had found that it just wasn’t enough.  Paired with a desire to feel better, and a strong desire to do better in my races, all piled with a healthy dose of reality from various reads online, I decided to jump into a paleo\primal food style.  I hesitate to say that I am 100% in the paleo\primal camp, as I’m sure I’ve violated plenty of their rules, but I can say that cutting out grains, sugars, processed things, etc, that I have felt worlds better.  Physically, and mentally.

Machine – I put a good amount of time into my bike this past winter to prepare it for the upcoming season.  Not much else needs to be said here, other than it’s ready to rock n roll.

I’m excited.  I feel as the upcoming race dates rapidly approach, that despite my lack of winter seat-time, I’ll be able to put in some solid performances right off the bat.  Really looking forward to what this season brings.

–

Andrew

AMA D17 Enduro Season 4 Months Away

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     Just over 4 months away, the AMA District 17 Enduro Season will be underway. Last season I had the initial goal of competing in the complete D17 HareScramble series, though after the initial excitement, it seemed an unattainable goal due to the sheer number of events throughout the year. Along the way, I managed to sidetrack myself with a brief (yet exciting) stint in the world of supermoto. I continued on with a couple more HareScrambles with mediocre success (bike changes, failures, etc) , before finally giving in and going out to try racing in an Enduro. I quickly realized what I should have been doing all along.

So here we are, January of 2012 with just a few short months to be completely prepped for the upcoming season. I’ve decided to set some short(er) term goals in concrete here. Without a clear goal in mind, I’ll never formulate a clear plan of attack. I’ll never win anything, without a plan. So here is my simple 2012 goal:

Top 5 Overall B D17 Enduro

 

That’s it.  I KNOW I have what it takes to get myself there.  I’ll have to push myself & machine for sure, but I am confident in what I can do.  It’s time for me to attack.  I’m taking the year off from swapping bikes.  I’ll campaign the BMW G450X for 2012.  That is final.  I’m excited.  You should be too.

 

We’ll see you on the trails.

Andrew –

Leaf River Enduro……….

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The morning started with me causing issues on my bike.  I had forgotten that when the bike was last in at the dealer, they neglected to torque the shift lever to an appropriate spec, leaving it a bit jiggly.  No problem I figured and busted out the tools to get it locked in properly.  Bike leaned over, skid plate off, wrenches out.  Spin Spin Spin SNAP!  There went the shifter bolt.  Go figure, it snapped in a spot where it was still holding the shifter onto the shift shaft.  A little bit of pit area wrenching, and the old & mildly stripped shifter were removed; replaced with a modified YZ250 shifter.  Problem solved.

I’ve never done an Enduro, and spent the prior week stressing over having to keep time, navigate myself, and do all those things that make riding even more confusing & difficult.  Much to my surprise, I found that this enduro was run in the national\restart format.  Simpley put, it’s a couple mini harescrambles (test sections), grouped together by un-timed connector routes.  You are required to start each test section at a specific time.  If you’re really fast, you can arrive at the end of these sections ahead of schedule, and get docked points.  Or you can arrive late, and get docked points as well.  The connector routes are good for a couple things.  If you were late on your test section, you can make up time to get yourself back on time for the following test section, or it could be a great time to catch your breath and relax a bit, or use it as a time to have even more fun ripping around on your bike :-D.

So there I was, lined up on row 15 with a group of Kawasaki riders (great guys btw!).  Mildly nervous, but ready for what the day would bring.  Get to the start point, 5 seconds…..Off we roll.  WFO down and across a corn field, finally dipping into some woods.  I do my best to stay on the gas as much as possible, stand, let the bike bounce and float beneath me.  I royally mess up just before a short & steep climb.  I try to start right at the bottom and get myself up the climb, only to not stand up in time and watch my bike launch away from me into the air.  It was quite impressive, just about as impressive that nothing really broke.  After a few wrong turns, and bobbles, I manage to get to the first check-out point, unfortunately 7 minutes late.  I made it though, and roosted my way on over to the next start point.

The day continued on in a similar fashion.  Come lunch time, I was ready to eat.  Luckily, with the time we made, I had about 30-35 minutes to wolf down my sandwich, fuel up the bike, and get myself refocused for the second loop.  Second loop was essentially a better version of the first go around.  The first and second test sections I was still doing pretty well (energy wise), but by the final section, I could feel myself getting tired.  Understandable, as the day totaled almost 4 hours of ride time.

Overall, I was stoked on how I rode.  I knew that I could have ridden better, and pushed harder in quite a few sections.  Hindsight is 20/20, and I feel I should be better next go-around.  I couldn’t have been happier with how the 450 powered through everything.  Sure I could have pushed for some more front grip, but that was my fault for not dropping tire pressure as I should have.  All that being said, I’ve heard (unofficial) that I pulled a 3rd place in the B group.  I definitely can’t complain with that!

Now I must prepare myself for Fox Valley Off-Road GP race this Sunday.

Andrew

Please give my sponsors a visit.  They make these events happen for me!

Club57MX GP Race…….Epic BUST

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John T & I arrived at Byron Motorsports Park promptly at 7:30am Sunday for registration.  Both of us quite excited despite the somewhat dreary skies.  As we pulled into the facilities, we were both a bit confused at the lack of gate attendant collecting gate fee, and the apparent lack of additional vehicles in the pits.  This was to be a race at a MotoCross facility, surely they would not cancel due to a few light showers in the AM.  We rolled on over towards the bathrooms and struck up conversation with another racer.  Oddly enough, our fears were confirmed.  the Club57MX GP Race had been canceled.

Weather forecast showed light rain until 830-9am.  Not bad, considering racing was to start at 9am (practice).  But alas, we were screwed.  We drove our hour and a half to be informed that MX has gone full NASCAR and was afraid of some rain.  So onto Plan B, or so we thought.  KI Tracks was just a few miles away and surely they would be open.  A handful of other riders discussed heading out there as well to get some riding in.  After doing some quick driving & quick Facebook investigation, we found that KI Tracks too was afraid of the rain and would not be open.

So what to do.  We all knew that Rocky Glen was just up the road, despite not really wanting to ride there.  It was the last and final option for us, so we figured what the heck.  They had just finished the week before, their “new” B Track.  It’s short, it was a bit sloppy, and had not been maintained one bit since the week before.  On the upside, Rocky Glen is open rain or shine and so off to riding there it was.

Like I said, Rocky Glen had done basically 0 maintenance on the track they had just finished creating.  The park manager (from all the times I’ve been there) doesn’t usually show up until sometime around noon, at which point, it’s unclear of what he is actually accomplishing.  The park seems to have a lack of ability in keeping riders informed.  It’s a heavy dose of “sign this, give us your money, peace out” sort of deal.  I’ve yet to hear any riders told that certain areas are one way, UTV’s are NOT supposed to be on the track (are they supposed to even be there in the first place?), Utility ATV’s are NOT meant for the main “MX” tracks.  Just a general lack of common sense things being relayed to the riders.

Yes, it’s easy for me as a paying customer to find things like that to complain about.  I’ve no idea what the operation actually runs like, I’ve no idea who actually owns the place, and how they feel things are operating there.  I do know though that as a rider on the tracks, it is annoying dealing with riders who apparently have no clue as to how anything works.  In the rare occasion  that someone is doing maintenance (I’m using this term loosely here) on a given track, people feel the need to continue riding while there is a big machine in the way.  Not only does this make things a royal PITA for the individual working on the track, but the safety issue is just huge.  On top of that, you have riders that feel the need to ride on\off the track at whatever area they see fit.  Now that is not really an issue, until you have riders that feel as though they can cut across a track at any point in time.  I can’t even count the number of times on my hands that I have had riders cut in front of me, or worse being going the opposite direction as I come around a turn, or landing from a jump.  Completely unacceptable actions that unfortunately can be tied to riders having NO clue about anything, and the staff not even remotely saying anything to them.

But hey, this wasn’t meant to be a rant on things I feel are wrong with Rocky Glen (though I feel they need some SERIOUS improvement).  The 5 of us got to put in a good amount of laps, and by noon, the track was getting plenty tacky and allowed for some good riding fun between Jam0 and I.  I got to roost Jameson plenty good, so that was a nice positive end to the day.  My bike felt great, and it has left me for wanting to push myself more and get even faster.  Can’t really complain about that.

-Andrew

ps – I failed at tossing the gopro on my helmet Sunday.  Jam0 has some pictures, so I’ll relay those when I can.