Haven’t ridden in a couple of weeks, but have been working out, concentrating on cardio and upper body strength and endurance. These are areas where races are won and lost, and i’m gonna need every advantage I can get.
Didn’t do anything to the bike between last time and this time, because I wanted to be sure the suspension problems were real rather than just the result of a tired rider having trouble controlling the bike.
The plan today (again) was to go three loops flat-out.
Boy was it muddy today. It had raind a lot between last time and today and the woods can take forever to dry out when the weather cools off like this.
Did a quick lap around the flat track just to warm up…halfway down the first straight, front wheel comes up …. in third gear. This bike is crazy powerful, still getting used to it. Throttle control…throttle control….throttle control………
Anyway, had a decent first lap. Had to stop once to back off the fork rebound adjustment a little. With the extra weight of the mud building up on the bike, the forks were packing a little and causing some problems through the choppy stuff. After that, not too bad, though the deflection problem was still there. Looped it and landed on my ass courtesy of a bit too much throttle while wheeling over a mud puddle at one point, but other than that, a decent lap.
Completed the first loop and headed back to the pits to work on the suspension a bit. Spotted a friend of mine and asked him to help me set the rear sag (ride height), a two-man job. The sag turned out to be off by a rather significant amount. Got it sorted out and then headed back out.
Noticed a pretty big improvement right off the bat. The bike was tracking a little better but the turning was definitely sharper, which would hopefully help the bikes tendency to wash out (push) in the mud.
Ran two loops – approximately 15 miles – non-stop, flat-out. Felt good. Getting some speed back, should at the very least not embarrass myself too badly at first race in two weeks.
-Bob