21J's New Project!

2016 Husky FC350 Part 1

I sold the 2016 Yamaha YX450FX I had. Yeah I know why would I do that? Sell a perfectly good bike that I had just gotten set up. Well I finally figured it out, it’s just who I am, this is my hobby my release if you will and yes it does cost some money to do this. I don’t know anybody that makes money on their hobby, if they do it’s a business.

So I’m on to the next thing, which happens to be a 2016 Husky FC350. So why this bike, well I wanted a light weight four stroke and nobody currently builds them any lighter than KTM/Husky. I also wanted to try a 350 again. I had a 2011 KTM 350SXF, the first year they built that model. I did lots to it and wrote many articles on it that appeared here in mx43.com. I rode the bike for three plus years and had virtually no trouble with it. The increase in low to mid torque, improved handling and light weight is what intrigued me about the new KTM’s.

So why not a 2017 instead of the 2016, first of all there’s a huge difference in the cost between a new/used 2016 and a brand new 2017. Thousands of dollars, in the case of the 350 I didn’t see a lot of differences in the two bikes other than the air forks. Three plus pounds lighter and something other than the 4CS forks is certainly worth considering but for the difference in cost I decided to take a chance on being able to make the 4CS forks work for me.

So why the Husky, well a friend of mine bought this one and has at times thought it was great and at other times didn’t.  It was always about the suspension. To a point he even thought there could be something wrong with it, like parts. I even rode it a couple of times and I couldn’t get along with it. So why buy it, well he sold it to me at a price I couldn’t pass up. And I’m just dumb enough to think I could figure out why it wasn’t working the way I thought it should and fix it.

The first thing I did was reset all the suspension components. I’ve been guilty of turning the clickers here and there and the next thing I know it’s not working right and end up resetting everything. The settings and sag were way off and the bike was not balanced between the front and rear suspension. The front suspension had a very expensive after market kit installed that basically turns the forks back into open cartridge units. I know some people who have had great success with this set up. After resetting everything I rode the bike at Mammoth Bar, which if you remember has a small MX track and a very gnarly up and down cross country trail section. The first thing I noticed was the bike was now rideable, it was better balanced and wanted to turn but the front forks were a bit harsh over the small to medium stuff for me. A familiar complaint with these forks, but it was rideable. Next I went up on the trails and the whole suspension beat the crap out of me. It was one and done, normally on my Yamaha YZ250/290FX I do two to three loops,each loop is about 10 miles.  On top of that the next few days I was really sore.

I decided to send the suspension to a company that has lots of experience working with KTM 4CS forks. While I’m waiting for the suspension I decided to take the bike apart, not the motor and clean and inspect everything. I talked the friend I bought the bike from into including the all titanium FMF exhaust system, about $800 worth. I’m going to take it off and put the stock system back on. With my old 2011 KTM 350SXF I had the opportunity to try a number of exhaust systems and I liked the stock one the best. After all it is made by Akrapovic. I’m going to put it on Craigslist at some point, but I’m talking with my friend,the guy I bought the Husky from who will probably buy a 2017 KTM 350 or Husky primarily because of the air forks. So I says to him, hey I’ll sell the FMF exhaust back to you and he says that’s a great idea, hang on to it for me. Hey, sometimes the gods just smile right down on you.

The other thing I did while waiting was change the bars and grips for ones I like.  The stock gearing is 14/50 and feels way too high in low gear for me. For a five speed it has lots of top end. I changed the gearing to a 14/52 we’ll see how that feels. I can see changing the seat cover at some point maybe sooner than later, the stock seat is very, very grippe and I’ve heard it will chap your ass.

Well it’s been a few weeks now and quite frankly I’ve been struggling with the suspension, a lot in fact. I’m spoiled, the suspension on my 2015 Yamaha YZ250FX is so good that it’s making the Husky look and feel really bad, no sense talking about it until I figure it out.

Well obviously the suspension I sent out did not work for me. The same problem I had before I sent it out was still there, namely the forks were too harsh in the beginning of the stroke and again the shock felt dead and the bike wasn’t balanced. I was very frustrated, the time lost sending them back and forth plus eating the freight so instead of sending them back knowing they would be willing to work with me, I decided to give the suspension to Bucky at SBB because he’s local and I knew he would work with me to get it right.

Which he did, first he revalved the forks and that greatly improved the front end but it still wasn’t right. Next he revalved the shock and that balanced everything out. I next went to the Hangtown track, the track was a super busy very technical track with much faster riders on it. I went out and rode the piece of shit rock strewn trails that make up a lot of Prairie City and the bike worked very well. If your bike works well in that stuff it will pretty much work anywhere. When I did get on the track it worked well. I did clank the forks a few times which had more to do with me landing wrong on the technical track than the forks. I’m going to ride it for awhile and continue to play with the set up.

But that ride proved to me the bike will work for me. So I went down to Roseville Yamaha and ordered, a Rekluse, Scots steering damper mounting kit and a set of FastWay foot pegs that I can mount in the back and down position. These are things I’ve gotten used to on all my other bikes, that make me feel comfortable.

I’m going to a family reunion so by the time I get back all my parts should be here. I’ll stick them on and ride and report back.

Doug 21J

Doug's Ongoing YZ 290FX Story

Yamaha 2015 YZ250FX Part 9

Thought I would bring you up to date on the 250/290.

 

At 81 hrs Thumper Racing installed the 290cc kit and since then I’ve put 24.5 hrs on the new kit without any problems. The only thing I’ve done is richened up the very top of the RPM range just a little. I talked to Thumper about when they thought I should check the top end, they advised “At whatever interval Yamaha recommends” At this juncture I’m going to tear it down when it reaches 50 hrs on the 290 kit.

So at 105.5 hrs I decided to have the suspension serviced and basically go through the whole bike. Did things like greasing the steering head bearings and the swing arm and suspension linkage to my surprise everything was in excellent condition and it didn’t really need it?

The Rekluse clutch has been in the bike from the very first and I hadn’t even checked it. I decided to tear it apart and check it out, the last time I rode it and for the first since I installed the Rekluse the end play gain was not in spec. 105.5 hours is a lot without checking it and 24.5 hrs of that was with the new 290 power.

I talked with Rekluse and they asked if I would send pictures of everything they were interested at looking at certain wear parts. They responded with the “clutch looked great” even the Teflon blocks. (See pictures) They recommended I put in three stiffer clutch springs, for greater clamping force (Because of the 290 kit) readjust the settings and reinstall the clutch. That says a lot for their product and my changing the oil and checking the end play gain all the time.  I ordered the parts and decided to replace all the friction plates, Yamaha OEM plates aren’t that expensive.

I had to replace a bearing in the Scotts steering Damper but other than that the bike was in amazing condition.

Eric #33 has a 2013 KTM 500EXC and has 560 hrs on it without touching the motor other than checking the valve clearances (three times) Now Eric does not rev the motor to the moon, he doesn’t need to with all that torque. My point is my bike has never seen the rev limiter and with the new low mid range never will. There’s no need. So I see no reason why the bottom end in my bike won’t last maybe not as long as Eric’s but a long, long time.

This bike is so much fun to ride, it was before but since the 290 kit was installed the fun factor has been raised a lot.

I’ve got all the parts now so it’s time to put it back together and go ride.

Doug 21J

40th Annual Sierra Old Timers International Moto Cross

This was the 40^th annual event and was held at the Prairie City OHV Park and the home of the Iconic Hangtown Moto Cross National track.

The weather couldn’t have been much better for us riders who live in California and Nevada. Some of the riders from up north thought it was a bit warm. The previous weekend was over a hundred so all in all the weather was just about perfect. The track couldn’t have been much better either. (The first race on Sunday was a little over watered and resulted in some riders not being able to make it up big Moe) The track was home to a Loretta Lynn qualifier the week before and they had worked lots of rice hulls and some sand into the track which kept moisture in the track and kept the usual deep ruts from forming in the corners. In fact, a lot of the corners never developed any real ruts at all.

As is becoming the norm the 50 novice and intermediate classes were the largest. Full gates for each class, if they continue to grow we might actually need to have two gates for each class. Growing classes in those age groups bodes well for the future of our sport.

We had enough ladies sign up to have their own gate drop. We as a club are going to encourage more women not only come to our race but join us at our ride days.

An interesting side note I know of three riders this year who lined up behind gate number two next to the dog house on the right hand side that got stuck behind the gate because it didn’t drop as fast as the others. That happened last year as well I know because I was one of them 

I don’t think the ambulance moved all weekend. I know there were a number of riders who went down and the EMT’s were on the track looking after them. But I think they all were able to walk or ride, some in the cart, off the track. I had one little tip over myself, some of you might remember Artie Johnson from Laugh-in when he would be on his little three wheel bicycle and just fall over? My little tip over reminded me of that, came into a corner the bike stalled my momentum stopped my feet were on the pegs and I just tipped over. I don’t remember if Artie was wearing his German helmet or not when he was on the bike, or if that was only when he was peeking out from the little palm bush.

Some of you still might remember the Fish award an idea that came from the fertile mind of Eric McKenna (#33). This is one those Billy Bob Bass things that hangs on a wall and wiggles when turned on. Eric thought it would be good to have an award that would be given to the rider who pulled off the dumbest of the dumb shit moves of the weekend. It travels around with the recipient from one race to another until it is deemed by an impromptu committee meeting during the weekend that someone has proven themselves worthy of the award. A couple of years ago Mark Kestner who was at the time the proud keeper of the fish brought it to our race at Prairie City hoping someone would take it off his hands. And the gods smiled down on Mark that weekend a rider named Mike Harper a very fast 50 Master who was the second gate drop behind the 40 Expert/Masters, Mike got so excited he left with the first group thus earning him the award.

Well Mike came out on Saturday to race with us at this year’s event and brought the Billy Bob with him telling me we needed to give it to someone else this weekend. Well we did and guess who that was? Mike of course. When all the transponders were turned back in he was one of two who forgot. So I called him Sunday and he’s on his boat on Lake Folsom and when I tell him what he did, he says I guess I get to keep the Billy Bob huh.  

We used transponders this year after we had some scoring issues last year and we didn’t want a repeat. There was some grumbling at first, but when the riders found the results were posted minutes after their race and they could also see their lap times I think that grumbling turned into a lot of oh yea’s.

My perspective of this year’s race is a little different than last year. Last year I just helped where ever I could with setup and tear down. This year I’m the treasurer of the club and was very involved in it. There are four new officers in the club this year and we all wanted to put on the very best event we could.

We couldn’t have had the event we had without the Armstrong’s (REP Racing, they operate Riverfront, Est. and Prairie City moto cross facilities) and they really do know what they are doing. And the Armstrong’s were very complementary of us racers and spectators. We were very observant of the yellow flags for downed riders and were the cleanest neatest group they had ever had at any of their events period. Which proves my point that we older seasoned citizens know how to conduct ourselves. I believe we treated everyone fairly. We certainly tried and when you do that people respond in kind. 

One of the things we wanted to do this year was to bring back some of the comradery we all feel when we can sit down in one area after a day of competition and break bread with each other. We did that and had our raffle at the same time. I think I can say that it turned out great. I’m sure most of you have done white elephant gifts where you draw numbers and the higher your number you get the better your chances of getting something actually worth keeping. I know the rules of the game vary but swapping or stealing gifts is part it. We didn’t have any stealing going on but we did have some raffle prize swapping, it was a lot of fun.

We were all very tired and sore after the event had ended and everything was torn down and put away. We were sitting in the office waiting to put the final touches on the financial end with the Armstrong’s and looked at each other and said this wasn’t so bad was it, especially with all the help we had and at that moment we basically committed to do it again next year.

We’ve already started a list of things we might want to change, add or subtract to improve next year’s event.

To all our sponsors and to all of those who came out, thank you very much.

Doug 21J

A Youngsters View of Aging

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind it doesn't matter.

Mark Twain

A look in the 2015 rear view mirror

As 2015 sputtered to its inevitable end I started looking in the rear view mirror on what had happened during the year.

And the reason I started this was I began noticing invitations from distributors and manufactures in the motorcycle industry for 2016 rider resumes. Now I know they are primarily looking for the up and coming rider, but I thought wouldn’t it be fun to send a few of them a resume from an old guy rider.

I’m always looking for the humor in things and actually spend a lot of time cracking myself up. I did write a resume and just sent one out but haven’t heard back yet; part of a rider resume is what your accomplishments for the year were. When I started adding up all the races I participated in this year and all the places I went to it honestly blew me away. I had thirty two race starts, in five different states, competing in Motocross, Cross Country and Enduro. That’s countless hours of driving, bike prep and riding. And the money it took to do this, no wonder I’m broke at the end of each month. I compiled eighteen first place finishes, nine seconds, four thirds and one fifth place finish.

Sure I wasn’t competing against twenty something’s if I had to do that I would have given up racing a long time ago. I get to race with and against my peers and that’s what makes this so special, the camaraderie is priceless. I’ve also found for the most part those of us who choose this sport are like minded in many aspects of our lives. As we age they just keep coming up with new classes for us. At one of the International Old Timers races this year there were five eighty year old plus riders all lined up behind a starting gate, that’s pretty cool stuff.

I know I have those who admire me for what I’m able to do, but also have hero’s young and old alike. In today’s society our concerns for people’s health is at an all time high, especially as the majority of our population grows older. Well in us you’ll find a group of people who in many cases deify what is termed as normal behavior and activity. Most would agree motocross for instance is considered an extreme sport, in terms of the risk, the fitness required to do it at even a basic level, the reflexes required, the mental capacity needed, keep us fitter and healthier longer than most of our peers, especially us older riders.

We don’t consider ourselves tough but we are. Injuries are part of it, we all fall off sometimes and it can hurt, sometimes a lot. We all know that but it doesn’t stop us and none of us think it won’t happen, we know better. But it’s just what we do, nobody takes it for granted and all of us are very thankful we can still do it.

I frequently thank the big spirit in the sky for allowing me to do this and when I’m finally done I’ll have no regrets but stories and memories to last until my time here is up.

Doug 21J

PS Before I read this to my wife I had told her I felt like a little something was missing. After I read it she says why don’t say something about just what it does take to continue doing it. I said you mean things like riding all the time and when you do fall off the first you do is move all your parts to make sure nothing is broken and unlike when you were younger you just lay there for a little while. And then you get back up and ride some more. Or how much you look forward to the next bike you get, or just how much you enjoy being with your riding buddies telling stories.

The special feelings you have on one of those almost perfect days, whether it is on an MX track, trail riding or riding dual sport bike. Or how much I enjoy tinkering and cleaning my bike she said yes, so I said I think I will.

Rear view mirror part 2

Even after I finished “Looking in the 2015 rear view mirror” I thought there was still more to be said. So I sat down again and started putting down more thoughts.

As I’ve gotten older my perspectives have changed a lot (a natural occurrence I would say).  My folks whom I was lucky enough to have in my life until they were both over ninety, who didn’t have to suffer some long drawn out ordeal. They both spent less than 24hrs in the hospital at the end. My mom had dementia, the worst cruelest kind in which she would have moments of clarity than sink back into the fog. My dad was very sharp right up to the end and was looking forward to living to hundred. He was a big man even at the end he was still over two hundred twenty pounds and not fat. Not many live to be ninety-one and are that big. Long life seems to favor the smaller versions of us.

My wife and I had taken a Hospice course in an effort to better understand how to deal with my mother’s dementia. Little did I know at the time how taking that course would eventually change my life.

I had known for some time my father was afraid of dying, because I was also afraid of dying. I doubt I’m alone in this. Seems kind of strange for someone who races motorcycles to be afraid of dying. There are a lot of people who say anyone who races motorcycles must have a death wish. It took me many years to figure out that racing bikes has nothing to do with having a death wish. You can be scared to death of dying but still race bikes and I think one difference is when racing you feel as though you have some sort of control over it, an illusion to be sure. But when it comes to actually dying I felt I had no control over that, which I don’t really. 

I was alone in the hospital room when my dad pasted away. I didn’t know what to say or do as the process unfolded in front of me, I just sat there. I believe now he was showing me he was ok with it and it wasn’t anything to be afraid of. But that revelation took a few years to come into focus for me.

After my dad passed away I was haunted with the helpless feeling I had sitting in that room. I decided I wanted to know more about the death and dying process in the hopes of finding some peace around my ineptitude in that moment. I’m sure I’m not alone in experiencing that feeling. I became involved in Hospice as a patient volunteer. And of course heard the familiar “I don’t know how you can do that” and many other such sayings. For me it has been incredibly rewarding, I’ve certainly received more than I’ve given. I’ve been privileged to meet some incredible people at the end of their lives in the last ten years. Strong, brave, scared all at the same time kind of people. I’ve learned a lot and I’m certainly more comfortable in my own skin now.

I used to do most things like riding by myself, but somewhere in all this I’ve discovered it’s much more rewarding to do things with friends. I also discovered there are actually people who don’t mind being around me and vice versa. I have a whole lot of days piled up behind me and with a lot fewer days ahead of me, I only have room for my kind of people these days, the rest can go bother someone else.

 And my plan is to do it as actively as I can, as long as I can. No doubt you and I have been blessed to be able to do what we do. But we’ve taken advantage of our good fortune.  I doubt any of us older guys and ladies envisioned doing the things we are doing today. I should say something about diet and eating properly, so I just did. Actually some of us are more into what we eat than others, it’s sort of whatever works for you. We must be doing something right we’re still very active. I also imagine there are a lot more who discouraged us to do or keep doing what we do than those who encouraged us. It’s a good thing we’re stubborn, hard headed and not easily swayed.

I guess what I’m saying about us older folk is we’ve now lived a little, our view of life is not the same as it was back then. There really is something to be said about sixty is the new forty, I certainly feel this way, how about you.

 Doug 21J 

PS The main reason for adding on to the first article was to say more about what makes us older athletes different from the rest of the heard. But you know I don’t hang around many people my age, most of them aren’t doing anything. And those I do hang with are as good an athlete as I am or better. Do we sit around and talk about our aches and pains like other older folks do… yes we do. But a lot of those aches and pains are self-inflicted. You ever hang out and start comparing bumps, bruises, old scars, broken bones and hematomas the size of softballs? Old scars are of particular interest with trail riders or stories about how you almost died, that’s priceless stuff. One thing we all have in common is we are out doing something.

A lot of us older riders are hero’s to forty and fifty year olds, I’ve never been anyone’s hero, and it feels pretty darn good. Some day it will be their turn.  

Part 1 can be found in the Viewpoint section