Tag: race

GPX repair update 1

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[IMG]
Race ECU on the Left – OEM on the Right.

While swapping ECU’s I noticed a bit of an issue.[IMG]

Yup, it seems I managed to crack the right side subframe. No idea how. No idea when.
I suppose this winter I’ll strip it all down and see what I can do. A sharp eye may also note that I no longer have the original self tapping screw holding the CDI down. Why might you ask? Well upon replacing, the plastic completely stripped out where it threads in. Further inspection revealed that the CDI was threaded into 2 very thin areas. Odd, as literally a couple MM away, are 2 hefty self tapping screw holes with solid bosses beneath them. Why these were not used? I don’t know 100%, but it appears the CDI was relocated nearer the fuel tank in order to allow room for the starter solenoid. When I have more time, I’ll investigate further, but I needed to do something to at least hold the CDI in place for the upcoming dual sport.

So since my OEM rear fender broke (right side lower retaining screw, above the exhaust), I ordered a proper Acerbis one, and the difference is night and day. The plastic is more supple, I assume they use either a toughened PP or something added to it to allow a bit more flex\give than the one that came stock. In addition to that, a sharp eye will note that the Acerbis fender has 2 aluminum washer\spacers molded into the fender. The OEM TSE unit did not, and IMO is partly why the fender failed multiple times on me.[IMG]

You may also note that the screw on the top right is not 100% flush. As I was tightening this, the threaded insert in the subframe stripped out on me. I’ll have to work on extracting this later and fix this issue.

The following picture shows how I had to fix the stripped out threaded inserts in the sub-frame. I may look at replacing these with better threaded inserts (we use a LOT of them at our shop that are molded into many various products), but for now, the most straight forward option was the following:[IMG][IMG]

It’s ugly, a bit of a PITA to deal with, but it holds the fender on. So there’s that.

There were some positives, and I did not get any pictures of the engine reassembly. Hands were oily and I didn’t want to muck up my phone.

The new shifter went in smoothly, and once the side cover was on, the difference was immediately noticeable. I had 0 left to right play (grabbing shifter on left side of engine, and push\pull it in\out). It would not move. My old one would shift back and forth quite a bit. My guess is that the original moved too much, allowing the pawl the slip on the star, which then allowed the pawl spring retainer to collide with something and shear itself. It’s my opinion that nothing on the pawl side is what is the “full stop” for the shifter. That is 100% decided by the tangs on the left of the shifter by the main shifter return spring. I failed to get a measurement to compare with original, but a small visual check appeared to have a more narrow gap than my original unit. Whether this was wear, damage, or a dimensional issue from manufacturing, I do not know.

The next thing that popped up to me during reassembly was with regards to the oil pump. Since the lines were pulled, I wanted to get everything bleed correctly. I opened up the DT230 manual and began reviewing. Upon review, I noted the following:upload_2018-10-26_8-50-29.png

To note here, at 100% throttle, the notch (A) should align with the output (B). No matter how much I adjusted the cable, I could not achieve this setting. Has anyone else seen this? I assume since its got a heft amount of hours, it must not be super critical here, but I adjusted as much as I could to get as close to max as possible.

Well, that’s about it for now. GPX did ship a little extra for me, so that was nice. Thanks for the swag & pardon the sweatshirt.

[IMG]

And kudos for it not being a flatbill

Multiple reports update – June & July FVOR Race Results

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I’m just a wee bit behind on my updates here.  Real quick on the June race.  I’d like to not think about it too much, but if I don’t keep the past in my mind, I’ll likely repeat it.  I don’t want that.  Junes harescramble at FVOR went like this:

I got a poor start.  I was then stuck behind a good deal of slower riders in my class and got frustrated.  Not the end of the world, as I started passing people, but I unfortunately let a lot of their mistakes affect me.  I went to make a hasty pass on a rider on a downhill section.  I attempted to pass him on the outside, which was fine until he crossed over into me.  I slammed on the brakes hard, but still managed to clip his rear wheel with my front.  Front VS. Rear, Rear always wins.  I cartwheeled down the hill.  I picked up the bike, noted the bars were tweaked, as was the front fender.  Each bump I heard a loud grinding noise.  I was a bit mentally defeated at this point, and thought I was having little fun while trying to navigate some arrows & blown tape in the wooded areas.  I wasn’t having fun, end o story.  I called it quits early.  Packed up and went home.

That’s the past and I aimed to do better come next race.  This Sundays race, I kept calm.  The little B & Big B classes grouped together for 1 line were too big, so they split us into separate lines at the start.  I liked this, as I had no one on the immediate sides of me.  I wear ear plugs when I race, so dead engine starts can prove to be tricky as I have a hard time hearing the motor start.  I kept calm, and pulled the holeshot.  I was holding a decent pace, but early on tucked the front in a slick turn.  I got back up as quick as possible and kept pushing.  I noted I was getting some arm pump pretty bad early on.  I don’t normally get arm pump, so I figured it was a combo of not riding off-road enough & possibly having tossed a different set of bars on the bike (and pushing to keep up my early race pace).  I calmed myself down and dealt with it.

On the second lap I tried getting a sip of water from my camelbak.  Nothing.  I thought Ice had clogged the hose, so I kept going.  Next lap as I noted I slipped into 3rd place, I again tried getting some water from my camelbak.  Nothing.  At some point I decided when I had a decent gap from whoever might be near me, I would have to stop.  I knew while I was plenty hydrated, I’d have a hard time making 105 minutes without water.  The dust in some open sections had been coating my mouth & it was needless to say, not pleasant.

My gap (perceived or whatever) opened up enough where I felt comfortable stopping to fix the camelbak.  Bladder out, and saw the quick release hose had released itself.  A quick click back in and I was back going.  Around 30 seconds loss I’d say.  The rush of cool water was an instant boost and I felt a resurgence of energy.  Unfortunately a group of guys had passed me (4 or 5).  They were in different classes, but it meant I’d have to deal with passing them again.  Not a big deal, but each person you gotta deal with passing is precious time lost.  I managed to pass them within the lap, so that was good for me mentally.

As the race progressed I could feel I was making some costly mistakes.  I let a few riders mess me up on some hill climbs.  Both times I had selected alternate lines, only to mess up and lose my momentum.  Not the end of the world, but HUGE energy sucks.  I felt the end was nearing, and saw there were approximately 20 minutes left on the clock.  At this point I had been lapped by the AA guys.  I knew my lap times were over the 10 minute mark, so tried to push that next lap to try and maybe find the 2nd place guy.  No such luck.

Last lap, my body was feeling it.  My tweaked ankle (from a skateboard incident) was really bothering me, and I felt the blisters on my left thumb really cropping up.  On the first real downhill, I managed to tuck the front (and subsequently destroy my left footpeg).  I hadn’t noticed the footpeg, so I just tried trucking on best I could.  I pushed when I could, I kept calm and knew no one was too close behind, and felt OK with the (unofficial) 3rd. Official 2nd Place

I saw the checkers and relaxed as I crossed the finish line logs.  I was definitely sore & out of breath.  The early half of the race without being able to quench the dryness in my mouth hampered things a bit.  I can really tell I haven’t been riding off-road enough.  The past several years I’d been spending almost every weekend riding dirt.  Lately it seems I’ve only been riding at the races.  This does not help me keep my speed up.  I’m going to have to figure out how I’m going to work around that.  Having my messed up ankle (rolled it while skateboarding) didn’t help either, though this should be 100% by the next race.

So there we have it.  I’ve got an unofficial 3rd place.  Overall I’m happy with my performance given the circumstances.  I’d really like to be winning every race, but well I’m trying to be as realistic about my situation as possible.  I’m looking forward to the next one.

-Andrew

Update: Official result = 2nd in Open B.  28th Overall.

 

ps – I’ll post pics as soon as I can find any online.

Another race down in the books. Handlebars bent?

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didn’t get to race the 250F this past weekend, so I was back on the 450F. Bit of a tradeoff here. 450F had fresher tires, which was better for the slick conditions. Downside is that the 450F is a heck of a lot heavier than the 250F. I was unable to test the 250F prior to Sunday, so I opted for the 450F. Was logical. As far as the race goes though……

I had a crap start. I’m pretty sure I was last or 2nd to last off the line. Only perk there was that I was able to snake around the bottleneck in the first turn. I was pushing best I could, though could not get in a good groove. I just wasn’t flowing well. I passed a good number of people in the following laps, but at about 30 minutes in I lost my rear and had a heck of a spill. Almost called it quits at that point, especially after I saw all the guys I had passed……now passing by me. I figured that would be weak and motored on, until I had to stop and take a leak. I rode a bit better after that, but again it sapped some time. I shoulda went for a 5th time just before the start, but what yah gonna do.

The facility decided that for the afternoon race (A\B classes) that they’d add some extra excitement into the mix. We tend to get a longer course, and they tend to add in their creek section and a bit more of their MX track and things like that. I found out on the first lap that they also had just made a small endurocross section. The mini endurocross section was definitely not something I was expecting. With the trials background, I’ve got no real issue with going over just about any obstacle. The issue is that committing to go over the obstacles at “race pace” is easier said than done lap after lap. I know that I can just “jump” the sized logs they had, but committing to that is difficult. Great risk\reward type thing. I tended to opt for just double blipping over the stuff. It worked well, but it saps energy, but tended to be pretty safe for getting over everything.

As the race went on, I found I did better and better through the creek section. I found I could easily pass people there as I’d pick a point to go to and gas it, pick a point, gas it until the end. Amusingly enough, the faster I went through this section, the less effort it took. I knew though that if I went down, I’d for sure be paying for it.

I was pretty fatigued by the end of the race. My lower back wasn’t tightening up, but the crash early on really put a damper on my performance. I was extremely hesitant with any slick stuff. The bike really felt like it weighed a metric ton. It’s initial weight sure didn’t help, but then add on 15-20# of tacky mud and it was just annoying. I saw the sign at timing and scoring that said end time was 2:26, and saw that it was 2:16. I was more than happy to have a 10 minute lap, as I really didn’t feel like pushing for another 2 laps; 1 last one would be more than enough.

I honestly don’t know where I finished in the race. The facility has been struggling with their timing\scoring system. It hasn’t really worked for the past several years I’ve been racing there. I got back to the truck and packed up and we peaced out. I’m mildly curious to see how I fared, but am not exactly optimistic about my result.

So tonight, I’m going to test the 250F. This should be interesting, as my left leg doesn’t really move properly, and my right shoulder is on the fritz. Crashing apparently hurts. I’m getting old . I need to test the bike though. Stadium MX this Friday. We’ll see how I do in a sprint vs an endurance event. 

Andrew

33 miles, 18mph, 10 blisters, 1 bruised body, and my first Harescramble Win.

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1st race of the season down, and I can’t complain one bit. I managed to pull a handy 1st in my class (Open B). Looking at the numbers, I Overalled in the B class (little\big\30+), so I’m happy about that. My finish woulda put me in about 6th place in the A Class, and well….let’s not even go into where I’d be in the AA class.  On the upside, it puts me around 20th out of 72 for the afternoon race. Not too bad considering the 10 deep AA class.

I rode pretty well, and managed a decent start. Into the 2nd turn, I was in 3rd place. I slipped into 4th in the middle of the first lap, and then took advantage of the MX portion of the course, and kept the 450 pinned as best I could. After that section, I pulled back into 3rd, and shortly after the 1st & 2nd place guys made some poor line choices over a log (much faster going around it ), and I managed to squeak up to 1st. I held 1st through the rest of the race, and did my best to try to not let anyone pass me (AA guys lapped me )

The course was overall pretty easy. There was nothing super technical, as they had a good bit of rain, and races really suck when there are traffic jams on slick hills and such. This helped a bit, as I was racing my WR450F, as my 250F was still on the fritz. On the 2nd lap, I managed to dump the bike in the creek section. I wouldn’t have minded, but my gloves were then soaked, and my left grip was spinning like mad. Not fun when I still had 10 laps to go.

About an hour in (and coincidentally when my GoPro stopped recording) I caught a tree with my handguard on the left side. This bucked me pretty good (I’m blaming my handguards as they were some homebrew ones I made out of plastic), and I managed to huck-a-buck myself into the dirt pretty good. This took the wind out of me a bit, but I kept on trucking.

Approaching the 90 minute mark (105 minute race), and my body was really feeling things. The 450 power, the multiple crashes, the blisters growing ever larger on my hands….it was all adding up. The braking bumps in some of the turns were wreaking havoc on my lower back. You could just feel things being jarred. I was chuckling to myself thinking about how I used to blame my suspension for getting harsh late in a race. I laughed as I realized that I’m just not in 100% perfect shape. I continued on with this thought in my head.

As I rolled through Timing\Scoring just before my last lap, I realized I made the cutoff for the “extra lap” by just a couple of minutes. I really didn’t want to do this lap at all. I was concerned I’d drop the bike in the creek section again, so I really tip toed it through there (which ironically makes it more difficult). I more or less did my best to just enjoy the last lap. You could hear that there were less riders out there, so there was a sense of calm and I was able to collect my thoughts and push through the burning sensation in my hands.

I slightly fumbled my way over the 2 large Timing\Scoring “speed reducing” logs, and off the course. I putted my way back to the truck, and could feel my body was already wanting to lock up. I did my best to load up the truck, and off we went. Glad I wasn’t the one driving home. 

I learned a few things about my riding. I watched as the AA guys passed me. The speed that they carry, is just far better than me. I could see that they were experiencing less obstacles, due to the fact that they were essentially skipping over them. I’ve realized that I really need to smooth out my riding. This would probably get easier with doing a better job of looking ahead at the course, but as fatigue sets in, that grows increasingly difficult. I was on my 450, and I really wish that I had been on my 250F. Not so much the power situation, but the fact that its at least 30# lighter, and heck, I’ll admit it, the Rekluse wouldn’t have hurt me either. I’m perfectly OK not using an autoclutch, but there are times where I think it would help me with keeping a gear higher, and lugging the bike a bit more. Why I wasn’t doing that more on the 450, I’ve no idea. The thing can drop down to 0 RPM and still be running, and will pull it just fine. Keeping the bike in 3rd gear (instead of clicking between 2nd\3rd), I woulda been in much better shape.

Overall though, I had a blast, and am itching to get back riding (though the hands are still healing). I’m going to invest in some of those locking grips in the meantime, and some more proper\sturdy handguards.

Here’s some pics some folks took at the race. I’ll be uploading whatever video I have from the race when I get home this evening.

Heading into the creek section:

More Creek:

Bowl turn before a tabletop (that I always manage to over-jump):

This is a short climb, followed by a quick right hand uphill climb. My goodness that 450 excelled here. 2nd WFO and roost up the hill:

Start Finish speed logs. When just riding there, I normally jump these things. In the races, I find I do a trials style double tap. I figure that’s the safest way to go over, with least risk of messing up (note that these logs have no ramp on the opposite side in pic):

And the coolest one of the bunch, mid-creek section, full attack mode:

Andrew

Upcoming race prep!

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Things are looking up! It’s March. My GasGas is up, running and feels like a great machine. My YZ now has a WR transmission, 290 Big Bore, and may or may not have a Rekluse Z-Start Pro going into it. I hadn’t really planned on that, but I found an almost new one for the price of an EXP unit, and the DynaRing unit I have will NOT grab with the added power of the 290 kit. Kinda wild that a couple HP difference, and it just slips. Go figure.

On top of that, I’ve added a “toy” to my working out.

I love feeling really worked after a good row on this thing. It’s like doing pushups, crunches, and leg presses all in one. Come race time there’s a good chance I’ll be down around 170#. Not bad considering last year I was closer to 185-190. I feel good knowing that its the “excess” I’ve been whittling down. Rebuilding muscle at the same time is just a plus.

Only downside so far as of late, is that I have not gone to the indoor MX track as much as I had planned. Heck, I haven’t made it there since I last went. Basically life got in the way, and then I got antsy, and tossed the WR gears & big bore on the YZ, which took much longer than planned as I busted the cases while doing the swap.

Hopefully get there one more time this month. Supposed to go to a race middle\end of March, but based on how the weather has been, I forsee a total slop fest. Not exactly in the mood for that. Then it’s down to Trials Training Center first weekend of April with the GasGas to do some skills improvement work. Then end of April is a trip to the UP for some trail riding with friends.

The season hasn’t begun…..but already has. 

Time to go row & get some dinner with my wife.

Andrew