Tag: Enduro

Sweet Relief!

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What a relief.  Last Saturday I got to put in some time on the 450.  Such an incredible feeling to get back on the bike after several months off.  Amusingly enough, I had pre-ride jitters.  My brain had me thinking I wasn’t going to know what to do on the dang thing.  As to be expected though, my brain hadn’t forgotten how to operate the thing and I was able to pick up basically right where I left off.  Things felt extremely good on the 450.  The suspension work I had done over the winter seems to have really paid off.  Bumps and ruts that in the past had felt fine in the past, I hadn’t realize how harsh they had been.  The bike just seems to track better than before, with much more confidence.  In the past I had concerns with front tire placement, and felt I had to be extremely cautious in pushing the front.  That was not an issue whatsoever.  I placed the tire where I wanted it, and the bike followed, going exactly where I wanted to go.

Unfortunately my buddy Jamo hadn’t gotten his bike back together, but he was kind enough to do some mild filming of the ride.  Nothing major, but was good to see the bike & me back in action.  Looking forward to plenty more of this riding in the near future here.  Here’s the clip.  Enjoy!

Andrew Gore….MOTOSTAR!!! from Jameson Bradford on Vimeo.

-Andrew

Getting antsy is quite the understatement.

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Just last week I posted up how I was feeling better, getting exercise, eating better.  Go figure that a couple days after that, I get taken down and out for almost a week with a cold\sinus situation.  Blame the weather, blame whatever, I dunno.  It’s only added to my growing desire to get back out on my bike and ride.

Typically during the spring\summer\fall I’m logging several hours every weekend.  I haven’t really ridden a bike since late November.  I realize that I’m not the only one in this predicament, and really it’s not a predicament per se.  It’s just annoying.  We’ve had one of the mildest winters that I can personally remember, and I have yet to log a single minute on a bike.  The more I contemplate that, the increasingly stupid it seems to be.  In all this time, the least I coulda done was gone to some empty field somewhere and worked on some basic techniques.

Thankfully the natural outdoor lighting has been staying on just a little longer each day.  The weather is steadily improving (for now?), and my bike is ready for action.  I’m just absolutely ready to get out and back on a bike.  I’m going to be at the equivalent of a rusty box of nails when I get back on the bike.  My only hope is that I have happen what I have had in the past.  Extended period off the bike has helped focus myself and I somehow return almost better at riding than where I was before I took the time off.

-Andrew

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

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