Posts
1693
Joined
10/7/2013
Location
Dirt, NM
US
Edited Date/Time
8/8/2020 2:40am
My childhood buddy and I were FaceTiming last night and spent a while talking about some funny moments we have had together riding and racing. We both had a long list of dumb things we had done over the years, and I thought it would be funny to share some of the lessons we’ve all learned the hard way, I am sure we could all relate to some.
One of my crowning moments came in 2003. I was 13 years old, and my father had passed away from cancer the year before. He had handled most of my bike maintenance over the years, so I had a very steep learning curve keeping my bike together.
I had gotten a new YZ125 about 6 months before, my first big bike, and I had ridden a ton of hours on it. I was racing that summer in the 125 Novice class at E-street MX, and was battling it out toward the back of the pack. About half way through the moto, my bike would not move forward anymore. It ran fine, shifted fine, clutch engaged etc. but it would not budge. I pushed the bike off the track in the deep sand, and couldn’t figure it out.
That was until my friends dad came up and pointed out my sprocket had 0 teeth left. I’m not talking about a couple missing teeth, this sprocket was smooth and round as it gets 😂 It was never on my radar to check a sprocket, never even crossed my mind they would wear out. That was an embarrassing moment and a big time learning experience, no doubt.
That poor bike experienced a lot of my trial and errors. Later that year, I took off my subframe/air boot for the first time to attempt to clean all the air filter oil from the air box. Of course I struggled to get the boot back on, didn’t get it sealed all the way and sucked in sand the first ride back. About 5 laps in that bike blew up in every direction.
I could write a book about all the dumb shit I did.
Share some of yours, I am sure we would all get a kick out of hearing some experiences.
One of my crowning moments came in 2003. I was 13 years old, and my father had passed away from cancer the year before. He had handled most of my bike maintenance over the years, so I had a very steep learning curve keeping my bike together.
I had gotten a new YZ125 about 6 months before, my first big bike, and I had ridden a ton of hours on it. I was racing that summer in the 125 Novice class at E-street MX, and was battling it out toward the back of the pack. About half way through the moto, my bike would not move forward anymore. It ran fine, shifted fine, clutch engaged etc. but it would not budge. I pushed the bike off the track in the deep sand, and couldn’t figure it out.
That was until my friends dad came up and pointed out my sprocket had 0 teeth left. I’m not talking about a couple missing teeth, this sprocket was smooth and round as it gets 😂 It was never on my radar to check a sprocket, never even crossed my mind they would wear out. That was an embarrassing moment and a big time learning experience, no doubt.
That poor bike experienced a lot of my trial and errors. Later that year, I took off my subframe/air boot for the first time to attempt to clean all the air filter oil from the air box. Of course I struggled to get the boot back on, didn’t get it sealed all the way and sucked in sand the first ride back. About 5 laps in that bike blew up in every direction.
I could write a book about all the dumb shit I did.
Share some of yours, I am sure we would all get a kick out of hearing some experiences.
I was always tall for my age so my dad growing up probably had me on bigger bikes quicker than most people my age. At age 14 in 05 my dad got me an 02 RM250. I loved it and was smart so I didn’t wreck my brains out or anything.
Anyway, that was the era where the scrub was not common. At all. Novice/intermediate guys like me had no clue really. But ... I’ve been watching James Stewart for 3 years now on TV. He just turns the wheel at the face of the jump. Can’t be that hard right? I was smart and tried it on a finish line table top instead of a double. I just went straight off the track. Probably landed about 10 feet to the right of where I took off from. Crashed but it was a mild one and the bike was fine. Felt like a huge idiot after. Never even tried scrubbing at all after that. I pretty much only trail ride now anyway and haven’t been on an actual track in a long time.
The second thing I did that was super dumb when I was probably 16 still on that same RM250 is when I got off the track I came over to the pickup truck. One of my dad’s friends was using our kick stand for his KX250. There was a little ditch I kinda had to gas it over to get into the grass where we were parked. Well since his bike was right where mine always was when I wasn’t riding, I was gonna have to come in a little slower than normal. I went too slow and got caught up in the ditch. I gassed it to get out of it and lost control slightly. It was enough of a little blip on the throttle that I hit my dad’s friend’s bike and knocked it down. I felt terrible and like a huge dumb ass. No major damage done though. My dad actually laughed about it to me after because he said his bike shouldn’t even have been there. He went to the track and didn’t even really ride. Only a couple minutes. Just sat by the truck and BSed in his gear.
So that’s my two stories as to when I felt like a massive dumb ass while riding.
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The old track south of Henderson had a jetting area that was basically two 180-degree turns connected by whooped out straights. You could get your bike on the pipe and see what it was doing. The whole thing was surrounded by a chain-link fence to keep it separated from the rest of the pits.
On one of my jetting runs, I left the gas on a little too long, swapped a few times while trying to brake for the turn, decided I couldn't make the turn and went over the berm into the soft, loose dirt on the other side. I wasn't very experienced in this scenario yet, so I left the brakes on... HARD. Well, you can guess what happened when I came down in soft dirt, front wheel first, with the brakes on. I endoed pretty good and almost cut my head off on the chain link fence!
My buddy was cracking up, but we both started panicking when I realized that my clutch lever was broken and I only had a few minutes until my race. Luckily, the Suzuki truck was there and they hooked me up.
Some epic stories here!!
Squid central with a little "gonna die now" thrown in.
show off fails are always the best!
nothing funny from mx but first shifter kart race I entered I was in the lead the whole race and came in a lap early.
The other day, I was servicing the air chamber from a AER fork.
I forgot to let the air out, so when I open the cartridge, the air rod fired out with such force it would have killed me if I had my head above.
We were racing a track that we had never been to before. Both got terrible starts and were coming through the pack. He was just in front of me. We were coming into a left hand turn. He goes outside so I go inside thinking this is my chance to pass him. Well at the exit of the turn both lines come together. I T-Boned him at wide open throttle and took us both down. I hit him so hard it actually bent his front brake rotor locking up the front wheel.
We still laugh about it all the time.
Glory days.
Other moments:
- Put Armor All on the seat to make it look purdy, then realized not a great idea once in motion.
- Had a good moto going on my '87 CR250 and about half-way through the moto, the seat came off. Finished the moto, but I was pissed at my mechanic (me) when I got back to the truck.
- Took my Dad's KX400 on a camping trip in the Summer...air temps in the 90's. Found a long uphill fire road and gave that KX "the beans" for a solid 20 minutes to the top. Turned the gas off and took a break for a few minutes. Fired it back up and headed down. In a few minutes, that thing seized big time! Forgot to turn the gas on.
Pit Row
First practice my group gets called and I start walking my bike towards the gate and the guy running the dog house just starts laughing. He comes over and informs me that the knee guards I'm wearing go underneath the pants and not over. Damn. Also asks me where my goggles are and I realize I forgot my goggles at the truck. DAMN ! I sprint back to the truck, get the goggles, run back and hop on my bike just in time to make it out for a couple laps. The track was super fresh since it was first practice in the morning but that didn't stop me from whiskey throttling into a nice loop out off a smallish table top right onto my ass. Yeah I was definitely king squid the first few times I went to the track. Brandon who? Never heard of her
Friday night Ascot and it's practice. I pull on to the track for my two or three laps around the track that they called practice. For some reason when l pull onto track l'm on the oval riding next to the crashwall when for no reason that l can remember l want to look behind me or check my exhaust, WTF, so like an idiot l cross over with my left hand to the throttle and turn to look back.
Of course this causes me to whiskey throttle while cross handed and looking back. The bike hits the powerband and the bike just rockets out from underneath me and sends me ass over tea kettle RIGHT in front of my riding/racing buddy and all out Ascot friends. Damn KX went a twenty yards before it laid down. Raced that night with a fucked up subframe and bent bars but it was the ego that was the most damaged.
I laid there in shock, not even crying. I wasn’t worried about the pain I was in right then, I was worried about the pain my pops would put me in when we just drove 8 hours to ride a 30 minute race and I dnf 8 minutes in.
So a sweep rider comes and gets me up, tells me I have to ride home because we can’t go backwards. It was a 3 mile ride out to a road on deep sand and more tight trees with a pretty bad broken wrist.
That was on a Saturday. Drove home through the night, pops didn’t believe I broke the wrist so we waited till Monday to see a doctor. What do you know! Broken and in a cast for the entire summer!! Jesus that thing stank..
First... racing 60's at New Castle, PA, I was winning the first moto and on the last lap, I was "showboating" over a few jumps before the finish. I say that with quotes because all I could really do was turn my front wheel. Anyways, in the final corner I crashed. There were only 3 or 4 60's in the race and it was so quiet, you could hear everyone laughing at me. Still won but felt like a moron.
Second one was at Loretta Lynn's on 80's. Was running somewhere around 15th when my bike locked up. Kick starter wouldn't budge. Stupid me decided to take the radiator cap off. You know what happened next... huge billowing steam and a burnt hand. Learned my lesson that day.
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