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A year ago they where supposed to race against the ICE bikes because they should be raced together. We now know that campaign was bullshit.
Freestyle, now there is a market worth chasing.
'Not there yet' means guys spent £12k(plus all the wheels and brakes and suspension) for something that they cant race, and they wont be able to sell on.
Still lots of insirance issues here in the UK as well.
Nice vids from AX UK round 1 from Tommy and Deano.
A word about the whole Arenacross World tour / Arenacross UK thing. Confusing. The British championship is the first 6 rounds and in this championship only the Brits are ranked. So Deano got 3rd behind Zaragoza and Soubeyras but he's 1st in this championship. Arenacross World tour are the 3 rounds open to international riders: round 1, round 6 in Manchester (that will be the final round for the British championship) and round 7 in Abu Dhabi.
French riders dominated AX UK for years but obviously it's important for the organizers to nurture and showcase local talent (great job with AX minis, superminis, future) so this way they're guaranteed a Brit champion while still opening some rounds to other riders. And racing abroad this year for the first time.
Put a horn on the bike to honk instead of yelling “get out of my way”.
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I have heard steer with the rear especially with RV. Does that mean he brake slides and stays over the front? Did MC or someone else do that?
I think it’s when a rider leverages there weight more towards the rear of the bike and uses the rear tire to pivot the bike under acceleration. They’ll usually ride wider lines and try to open up the track vs tight insides. In todays racing I think Anderson is a guy with a similar style, but it looks a little different because he’s taller.
I forced myself to watch 30 seconds of e bikes content on burkeens last video. It was borderline painful. Basically wheelies and bmx bike whips. It’s a hard watch. The 80s were more interesting
If Anderson is on the rear he works the bike more side to side as opposed to holding his balance and weight. If RC chopped the bike out to get the rear low for traction was he steering with the rear wheel? It looks like some amateurs try and stay back to hookup with the tire and stay on the shock. Keeping the front light stays out of trouble with a lot of obstacles or is it more in reference to swinging around turns? Stew kept his speed up somehow not even having to look ahead around the turns just point and flow with the line instead of trying to turn too much. On the other hand he could swing and cut low like what it looked like when Dungey hit him they say that people wonder. Stew turning was like watching a video game cruising around the track. Jett used to say his one weakness is flat turns so maybe he steers rear and pulls off the off balance stuff like Ando does to pitch the bike. JA says he didn’t slow but the rest of the players upped their game since 2022.
RC lowered the rear subframe, ran a low seat, and used higher footpegs, because he has very short legs, running normal travel forks with this setup choppered the bike out, he wasn't doing it for traction.
Is that legal? I don’t know how you can lower a subframe and still pass bike inspection. A lot of features need to stay similar to production to level the playing field. The only way I adjust my subframe is by crashing! As far as I know it is just bolted on with not much room to raise or lower to not risk the fender from accumulating too much dirt from the rear tire. I don’t know how you guys know all this. Am I talking to Chad or Goose?
Yes, it's legal under AMA rules to remove material from the subframe, it looks like HRC made a special subframe for RC with a chain roller...
No chain roller on stock subframe...
Erik Kehoe talks about some of the changes they made to RC's bike here...
The Kawi he rode looked even lower as if they had a smaller shock or spring with lower compression.
Production bikes are designed for an "average" rider's dimensions, it sucks if you have very short or very long legs!
I wonder what they do for AP or when Too Tall was racing. Gary Bailey was pretty tall too. Bikes tend to favor jockey type riders like Cairoli and Stew was probably the same height as Ricky?
Ricky has an average height torso, but short legs and arms, Cairoli and Stew may be short, but their torso's are also short.
Everybody is not the same...
There’s no magic rider formula like Michael Phelps for swimming? Some ex pros are probably on the 10,000 calorie diet too! They said how MC had really thick and strong thighs that must have helped him hang on. Jett is pretty proportional to balance well and to stay not moving around and his strong neck keeps his head still. Webb is on the short side that used to be harder in the whoops when they had 9+ but he can cut down turns easier. Chase just developed good strength all over to manhandle the 450. If you have shorter bones endomorph then sometimes it’s easier to gain muscle or at least it looks that way. Deegan is a little short and has good muscle tone. Prado is tall that he can do more with the 450 size. I don’t know how they figured out that Jett and Chase would fill into the bigger bikes with growing signing them early if that matters. Someone joked that Bloss looks like he is riding a supermini. They say Marchbanks is a little bit too big to get starts on the 250.
What is now and coming:
Interesting comment at 6 minutes, they are using a different battery cell manufacturer for the enduro version.
Pit Row
Not racing but a tiny motocross initiation track opening in a shopping mall is the kind of stuff enabled by electrics. More opportunities to discover the sport and give it a try.
I was wondering when they would start coming out with some custom graphics, any companies like DeCal works on board yet? Glow in the dark decals would be cool. I haven’t seen many sponsor logos on the bikes yet either.
If inside a mall that means all the people who are in bad weather could set up tracks of either dirt or other obstacles in barns or whatever space they have indoors under cover from the elements and have more options to ride under controlled temperature and surface conditions that don’t require as much maintenance to deal with watering or worrying about the sun or light changing things.
Lots of facilities with extra room could set up a tight track like this. The idea of a traveling mall exhibition recruits more riders and probably decent pay with easy exposure for curious people. Redefines window shopping and blue light specials.
How about a track in a store around the aisles like a scavenger hunt they do with shopping cart timed competitions? Street tires means any flooring as a new super moto. Stairs, elevators, escalators, airport automatic walkways, or like what Hill did with the skate park, even around your house and under the Christmas tree. The new menace 2 society if you don’t want to boringly walk.
”Where no man has gone before on a bike”
Bad race for Eddie in FIM Superenduro, 7th overall in Romania. Still looks ok without a clutch though.
Arenacross UK was a "Brit-only" round, no Vargs on the podium (Wilson, Mewse, Searle, Brunell 9th, Wade 12th), meanwhile Zaragoza used his free time to win a SX race in Argentina.
Bogle won X class in front of Hicks and Humphrey (Main 1 and Main 2: Bogle, Hicks, Humphrey).
AX class overall Friese won (Main 1: Hicks, Breece, Friese, Main 2: Friese, Breece, Politelli).
Friese also got the money from Clash for cash.
Hicks fastest laps
Yamaha: quali 44.041, main 1 44.184, main 2 45.022
Stark: quali 46.662, main 1 45.551, main 2 44.942
I thought they have 2 levers for brakes. Nothing on the chief’s left side for a lever.
Two strokes in general are more suited to’steering with the rear’ because there is less weight bias on the front. The front tire is still doing work. It’s not as if it’s not tracking the ground at all but throttle is used to control the arc of the turn to a degree.
When do you think the new battery from the ex will make its way to the mx version?
I have made glow in the dark, Reflective, and a bunch of other different finishes. For any bike. The thing is that for local racers, they never ride at night and the reflective or glowing option adds to the cost , but is hard to show off. I made some reflective stuff for some racers to run during a local Fair SX. And I got some cool photos from it. But very little people wanted to pay the extra cost at the time.
Its been more popular for Snowmobiles. Those get ridden in the dark, and graphics can last many many years on them so the cost is less of a downside.
He said they are using different(company) battery cells on enduro model. So MX modell will have different cells coming for sure in future. They could be even using never cells on models they are building now but will take them to full use when "new" version coming out.
Pros can choose to run the left hand front brake or the right foot rear brake. That's something you can choose when you buy a Varg.
Most pros choose the foot brake, out of habit mostly. For instance Irsuti, who was racing SX tour, said that he had so much to learn, to adapt his riding to the bike, that he chose to keep the foot brake but he might try the hand brake next year.
OTOH their fastest rider, Zaragoza, is using the hand brake or possibly a hand and foot rear brake combo (which is a quite common modification for amateur riders as well).
Their Enduro riders all use the hand brake, it's a no brainer.
@Pirate: there's currently no timeline for that, it would make sense for logistics, they just confirmed it will come at some point... They may be waiting to include this into some kind of update package for a Varg MX 2.0? Just speculating here.
Engine commentators often talk about the limitation of having a right pedal rear brake with right hand starts and I figured people are already used to having 2 levers but I can see how a brake pedal would be a habit plus trying to adjust to no clutch and throttle power.
The lights they now use to show the leader tucked inside the front are kind of like ground effects that some cars put on. They have a new enduro Stark that could come with a headlight or blinkers to be Street legal as a dual sport?
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