Just One of Those Nights!

Now I know you guys have all had more than one of those nights. You know when you go to bed but there is No Way you are going to sleep. Too many things on your mind, which tire am I going to run next, does my air filter need service since I rode last time, gotta get the bike out of the van so I can use it to haul body parts to the painter, will I have time to bust out a bicycle ride before I have to go out to dinner with friends and on and on. Well it is only 2 am so I guess I may as well change the oil in my primary ride. My 500 xcw.

I am so glad I am retired and don’t have to go to work tomorrow or I would be exhausted with no sleep and all these worries! So to help me relax and tire myself out I just went out to the garage to change the oil in my 500 xcw. Wow, that sucker has 24 hours on it since the last oil change, last week!  Showing 16,010 miles and 652 hrs.  Obviously I need a couple more bikes so I don’t put so much time on this one, lol.

Almost 3 am now so maybe a little tv will help put me to sleep………………..

#33

“How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young—or slender.  Just Ride!”

Stabilizer or just Good Suspension?

SBB Ride

I did a ride yesterday by myself so I had lots of time to explore and think along the way. That sometimes is dangerous in itself!  My thoughts turned to my suspension and how happy I was with it on my KTM 500 XCW. This is my second 500 and it has about 636 hrs. on it now.

I had someone ask me a while back why I don’t run a steering stabilizer. Since I ride this bike everywhere from tight singletrack in Idaho to fast open desert sections in Baja. I had to think for a minute and remembered I did have a stabilizer and took it off to fine tune my suspension when I started working with Buck at SBB.

I had ridden someone else’s bike a few years’ prior that had a stabilizer and a very impressive set of forks. Then I rode the same bike a few months later without the stabilizer and was less than impressed with the fork. I asked the owner what he had changed on his suspension and he said, “nothing”. Then he told me the only change was the removal of the stabilizer. Wow, what a band aid!

So now all my testing is done without a stabilizer, for better results. It just occurred to me that my forks were so good I never felt the need to put my stabilizer back on! I wonder where that thing is, somewhere in my garage I hope!  Oh well, who needs it. I got SBB forks!!!

#33

‘learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t make them all yourself’