Crazy trail ride

[GH85Carrera]

I don't know where this is. It is not Florida for sure.

[herr_oberst]

Could be anywhere - my first thought was South America.

Understatement - not for novice riders.

[ODDJOB UNO]

ITALY of all places. excellent training for baja.

[Tom '74 911]

Gotta love the magic E-Button on the KTM!

[pete3799]

Definetly not a florida accent.
I wouldn't have ridden that trail 35 years ago let alone now.
I had to take a Dramamine just to watch it.

[gtc]

I've been on a few mountain bike trails like that. I would think a big, heavy dirtbike would be a little more scary when dealing with loose rocks and such.

[ODDJOB UNO]

Originally Posted by gtc

I've been on a few mountain bike trails like that. I would think a big, heavy dirtbike would be a little more scary when dealing with loose rocks and such.

by all means you should take up dirty biking AT NIGHT!


when dinos roamed we used(still) to get those crappy 6v batteries and a crappy headlamp and ducky tape them to our helmets. if ya had a light on the bike it helped immensely.

i quickly learned very early in my dirty bike career that getting stuck out in BFE at night w/out lights sucks giant donkey weenies. i also never did enjoy going roundy roundy in a bunch of ruts getting run over so i advanced from MX to dezert racing and enduros.


dezert racing i found was much safer. all we had to worry about was.............


1) breaking down

2) running out of gas

3) breaking down w/out a spare

4) loosing all our tools out of a crap tool bag

5) seizing the damn thang(its hot in the dez)

6) running out of water or god forbid BEER( and then cattle tanks became very tasty when its 115 degrees out-mmmmmm pond scum)

7) breaking a chain and yer case(since ya took the case guard off to save weight)

8) mineshafts(yes i almost bought the farm a coupla times)

9) oncoming traffic(almost became hood ornament a few times)

10) barbed wire(see above mine shafts and oncoming traffic)

11) tree branches(see above more than i can count)

12) crashing and getting hand caught in chain(not me but a friend lost 2 fingers)

13) crashing and putting hole in gas tank(twice)

14) getting bike off and on trailer(always the most dangerous aspect of dirty biking)

15) ENDOS always a TREAT for you and your bike

16) going riding with a SQUID who gets hurt

17) flat tires..............a mere flesh wound

18) cows horses burros are simple targets at 60+ mph


enduros were fairly simple:


1) be on time or early for checkpoint

2) waterproofing is always a good idea

3) spare plugs(see waterproofing)

4) plug wrench(correct size)

5) every spare known to man with you

6) tree branches

7) mud bogs that would swallow a semi

8) trees all kinds. ya gotta love them when ya hit them or have to lift bike over.

9) sawing yer handle bars down because of................TREES!

10) straight downhills(no cow path)

11) straight uphills(no big horn sheep trails)

12) barbed wire

13) cows horses burros sheep always simple targets at 60+MPH

14) blow down and fire areas always fun lifting bike over TREES

15) loosing all tools and spares out of crap tool bag

16) running out of gas

17) not being jetted correctly cuz ya got too drunk the night before.



yes its not just FUN.............................ITS A RELIGION OF MIND BODY SOUL AND PAIN!

[gtc]

I got stuck on a mtn bike trail after dark once without a light. Luckily it was a very smooth trail and I knew the corners fairly well. I was able to ride out by steering towards the dark area in my vision - I couldn't see the trail at all, but the bushes on either side of me were reflecting just the faintest amount of light.

[Z-man]

Reminds me of this video:

[onlycafe]

to qoute chris tucker from that jackie chan flick;

"oh hell no!"

[LakeCleElum]

Had a 62 year old "professional Baja racer" killed in my area on a trail like that last summer. His handlebar hit the wall, stuck his foot out on the other side and it was 800 ft down.....I used to ride the same trail; but won't do it after hearing that one...

[ODDJOB UNO]

ask me about the javelina(java-leaners) attacking me and my XR- HO-NAD. an entire flock/covey/pod/gaggle/school attacked us at dark while riding. entire side/underneath skid plate including my boots covered in hair and blood. thought i was going down fer sure!


or ripping down a sand wash and running over RATTLESNAKES! too many times to count...............................



or FINDING THE ONLY DAMN ROCK ATTACHED TO THE MANTLE/CORE OF THE CENTER OF THE EARTH in a sand wash(sycamore creek) 500yds wide at 95 MPH WFO! man that one hurt!


or ripping across the DIABLO DRY LAKE BED in messiko and running into the FISH NETS!


or ripping across the DIABLO DRY LAKE BED and narrowly averting and i mean about 6" narrowly averting my death in a 15ft deep X 20ft hole dug in the middle of freeking BFE at mega warp ATK WOODS BUILT 605 ROTAX WFO SPEED!


yeah some day im gonna write a book.

[herr_oberst]

Hey, Oddjob, what's really funny about your stories - when I was a kid back in the seventies, my buddies and I had dirt bikes; they were all talented and brave, but no matter how much I rode, and for how many years, I never got past squid status, and it's because I could always imagine terrible things like you lived through. (Okay, we didn't have javelinos), point is, every fire road, sand wash, baby-head field, my buddies were gassing it while I was stabbing feet, because I could imagine danger at every turn, they just had fun.

My sense of self preservation was highly developed at an early age, unlike yours.

But thanks for the memories. I still had a lot of fun riding. I just wasn't as fast.

(but i had a crap tool bag that ***** tools at inopportune times!)

[ODDJOB UNO]

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

Hey, Oddjob, what's really funny about your stories - when I was a kid back in the seventies, my buddies and I had dirt bikes; they were all talented and brave, but no matter how much I rode, and for how many years, I never got past squid status, and it's because I could always imagine terrible things like you lived through. (Okay, we didn't have javelinos), point is, every fire road, sand wash, baby-head field, my buddies were gassing it while I was stabbing feet, because I could imagine danger at every turn, they just had fun.

My sense of self preservation was highly developed at an early age, unlike yours.

But thanks for the memories. I still had a lot of fun riding. I just wasn't as fast.

(but i had a crap tool bag that ***** tools at inopportune times!)

see we had the mistaken ass-umption we were SUPERMEN!

when all of us wised(?) up and got sick and fed up with doing top end rebuilds by candlelite or a 60w motorhome bulb, while of course drinking excessive amounts of anything and other assorted chicanary, we graduated to 4-strokes!


and we all thought we had died and gone to heaven. no more seizing and no more $120 husqvarna ash trays(pistons) laying around.


until of course we tried to ride 4-strokes like a 2 strokes and the all encompassing mass of more metal and lack of throttle response proved we were not SUPERMEN by crushing us into lil itty bitty mere mortal men.


now ya know why i stay away from big bore 2 strokes or 4 strokes. i still have my ATK605 and my 500 husky. but now a daze...............lil putt put 175's and 250's and my 1985 XR 350 do just fine getting the ol adrenalin pumping waxing it across the dezert or down a fire road!


just ordered my UBER OBNOXIOUS SPENDY OHLIN "CLASSIC" shocks for my uber concours 1972 penton 175 jackpiner(more kush fer da tush). cant wait to mount those puppies!

[911boost]

I've done some pretty steep side hilling on my CR250R, but yeah, there were a couple of sections in that video of them riding that just didn't look enjoyable.

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by ODDJOB UNO

just ordered my UBER OBNOXIOUS SPENDY OHLIN "CLASSIC" shocks for my uber concours 1972 penton 175 jackpiner(more kush fer da tush). cant wait to mount those puppies!

When restoring a 175 Jackpiner you just ask yourself "what would Dick Burleson, or Malcolm Smith or Billy Uhl use for shocks?"

Answer? The Über-expensive and unflinchingly Swedish Öhlins!! (Course, they could have as many free sets as they wanted . . .)

Yumpin' Yimminy!

(Back to the Thread)

[ODDJOB UNO]

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

When restoring a 175 Jackpiner you just ask yourself "what would Dick Burleson, or Malcolm Smith or Billy Uhl use for shocks?"

Answer? The Über-expensive and unflinchingly Swedish Öhlins!! (Course, they could have as many free sets as they wanted . . .)

Yumpin' Yimminy!

(Back to the Thread)

rear shocks-


cerianis=no mas

girlings=no mas

koni=no mas

bilsteins=no mas


progressive=NO WAY like putting lipstick on a pig.

works performance=sorry

race tech=quite possibly until i found they were EVEN more spendy then the ohlins.

check out race tech for old school fork rebuilds using the juan and only "EMULSIFIER" technology. could quite possibly send the 32mm ceriani jackpiner forks to them for new race tech springs and the "EMULSIFIER" treatment.


dick burlson/malcom smith were our ROLE MODELS and of course hannah decoster bad brad lackey chuck sun larry rossleer.


crap unless a 1983 HUSKY 175 WR or a 500WR falls into my lap in damn near mint condition.............this jackpiner will be the last concours frame up crank up restoration i do for myself.


20 year old restos not so bad. 30+year old restorations..............GRAB YER ASS AND HANG ON FOR THE RIDE FINDING NLA(no longer available) PARTS.

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by ODDJOB UNO

dick burlson/malcom smith were our ROLE MODELS and of course hannah decoster bad brad lackey chuck sun larry rossleer.

Hell, the guys I rode with every week made me feel like a boy amongst grown men - Burleson and Malcolm Smith were Greek Gods who could do no wrong.

Drove 2400 miles in a weekend to watch Bad Brad at the USGP in Carlsbad. Well Worth it. (Marty Moates won. One hit wonder.)

(Billy Uhl was the Penton dealer in Boise, Idaho, he had personally shaken Jack Pentons hand - plus he won a few Enduros in his day) Plus, he's a good guy who would talk to enthusiastic kids about bikes.

[ODDJOB UNO]

man chewing off a 150-250 miler in a weekend was a mere flesh wound to us in those days. we used to attend carlsbad GP and a host of pathfinder mc/viewfinder mc/sun mc off road GP's.

then i got into az desert racing assoc(adra) and we had the gila bend gp/snowflake/salome/prescott/cinders(flagstaff),vulture mine races. we did that craP FOR years! and kept going to all the grand prixs


it was like woodstock on dirty bikes. every single month. it was a movement. kind of like LEMMINGS! really really really REALLY STONED LEMMINGS!


i can remember getting paid on friday and by 6pm i had picked up my bike from sw husky, paid them 97% of my weekly check for repairs/tires/tubes/spares/oil/plugs etc., have enough money for gas/beer/and jack in the box and hop into truck for another installment of "HOW THE WORLD TURNS WITH A BRAND NEW REAR TIRE!" and all the goofiness of another road trip to hell and back and coming literally dragging our asses into work at 7am monday morning still pulling cholla thorns out of us, changing bloody bandages,noticable limps and other assorted ailments due to our fixation with being DIRTY BIKE GODS OF WAR!


and when we were not racing we were riding or reading the latest issue of dirt rider/dirt bike magazine and then hauling ass down to bike shop for the latest greatest baddest ass mega zoomy horsepower part that we new fer sure would gives us that winning EDGE! or fixing flats or building new top ends.


ask me about the sun gp at PIR here on my new 79 husky 250WR from hell with a brand new top end that i made 3 laps thru dirt and then on last part of pavement section in turn (2) i had it seize at over 85mph and down i went in a ball of sparks. somewhere there is a picture of that stunt. wasted bike, wasted me,wasted my new leathers/jersey etc. that was NOT a good day.