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Wait so are they saying star is running stock levers painted black with “ARC” on them?
I’m by far no professional, but for the life of me I cannot figure out why all racers don’t run folding levers or “bark-buster” type hand guards.
I run the bark-buster hand guards and still have the stock levers on my bike after 150+ hours on the bike. Maybe they don’t “look cool,” but I don’t get busted knuckles from roost and don’t have to worry about broken levers. It seems if I can figure out how to ride with them a professional level rider would not have a problem. Quite possibly could have cost the #38 $1,000,000.00.
I’ve seen plenty of foldable levers still snap and in the same place. ASV back in 2010 or 11 actually changed their warranty policy and stopped replacing bent levers because there were so many of them and only took them back if they were cracked or broken. There were still a lot going back even after that.
Not sure if it's an actual rule, but wraparound barkbuster style guards are generally frowned upon in MX due to the risk of trapping and breaking the rider's wrist/arm in a crash or hooking another motorcycle.
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I’m more curious as to when it broke. The collision or the light touch on the tough block?
So you have seen plenty of foldable break, how many have you seen not break compared to stock non foldable levers?.
Moneyless 13 year old me says that lever’s good to go!
Vital never disappoints but this one is definitely one of those extreme head scratchers. You'd think I've asked to cure cancer here based on all the replies, yet this is a very simple problem to fix. If one accepts failure here and can't easily figure out a solution to avoid this, then what does that say about those responding with the "can't avoid" it mentality?
It means they take no for an answer, they can't brainstorm or innovate, they can't think outside the box, and they can't problem-solve.
All of which by the way are directly related to success. FYI ladies - you can make a very good living coming up with solutions to problems, and this is problem is as about as simple as it gets. You might want to pull the thinking cap out of your storage unit.
Pretty sure it broke when it got slammed against the Kitchen sink.
I can tell you I’ve broken more after market levers than I have OEM levers. I also had to swap a friends ASV for one of my bent OEM’s I had laying around after a tip over broke his ASV. OEM at least Yamaha and Suzuki seem to be much softer and bend vs breaking in my experience.
I can agree that oem (all Japanese brands) are soft and often bend pretty long before they snap.
But having a pivot point that allows the lever to move multiple ways compared to stock is still preferable in the long run.
Sometimes you just have to choose the option that maybe will cause the least damage in the long run.
When i raced enduro for Honda my team manager would not let us run aluminum throttle tubes because if you crashed you could dent it and it would get stuck towards the handlebars. While a stock plastic would crack but still be able to move so you could continue the race.
I don’t care what team or brand it is, it’s still stupid to not use the safest option available when it comes to racing.
to cheap for a factory team.....they have to use own factory stuff 🙄
Would billet be stronger than cast?
Why couldn’t it be blamed on him ‘leaving the door open’?
These kids blow everything well out of proportion..
This thread doesn't take it far enough.. Goggle issues- we can put a man on the moon, but chase has goggle issues every weekend?? Broken shift levers, same thing..
Watch close, it's still there after the impact.
It breaks when it falls on the tuff block. Looked pretty clear to me.
I think a folding lever would have saved it in this scenario...?
Great point! I’ve actually never even considered that but can see that easily happening at their level of riding.
Pit Row
Deegan almost certainly runs a stock lever because he likes the feel of it (as in the shape). Riders are notoriously picky when it comes to the touch points on the bike (levers, grips, bars, foot pegs, seat, etc.). If you look at the photo, you'll se that they run a lever clamp with a plastic sleeve in it to help the lever rotate in a crash, so either that was overly tight or the impact was perpendicular to the rotation direction.
As other's have mentioned, anything can break in a crash. Regardless, there's absolutely a bigger risk of a stock lever breaking than a good aftermarket lever. The solution to this problem already exists, they just didn't use it. And it wouldn't take much to machine a custom ARC or ASV lever to be the same shape/feel as a stock lever yet still have all the pivoting that would have most likely saved it.
It must be extremely frustrating for ARC to sponsor the team, have the top guy not run it on the front brake, crash, break the stock lever, and then have to explain again and again it wasn't your product.
The American teams are just literally dumb/stubborn/big egos/dunning kruger
They can’t build a shock that doesn’t fade (Ktm)
Run stock levers when much better alternatives exist(star and others)
Lose positions due to stalls when rekluse exist (oh wah it doesn’t feel right off the shelf…spend the time and money to get it to where it feels right and you can never stall…) Ktm with Chase several stalls remember…and Kenny with hep several embarrassing stalls and having to kick and kick
Won’t set the bike up how Tomac wants it and lose his interest… multiple dnfs also while he was there (kawi)
Endless examples of these teams being less prepared than some of us operating out of a pickup truck. It’s insane.
They have those semis full of data and parts and tools and no clue what to do with any of it.
All dem teef and no toof brush - comes to mind.
I was never a pro, fastest I ever was is the slow guy in the vet A and intermediate class. That said I was really picky about my levers, Sunline forged usually bought under the Pro Circuit brand. It felt disorienting to use something different. Ridiculous, I know. I'm usually not that picky, but the levers mattered to me. My youngest son used ASV, which he broke several times but crashed more often too. Given the choice I would have picked forged Sunline over anything else despite it not being logical.
Maybe Deegan should run barkbusters.
Do stock levers still break like back In the day?
I remember breaking levers all the time when I rode.
My 12 year old is a top kid and runs stock levers, has wrecked a ton over the years, broke bars and a ton of other things, surprisingly never broke a lever on one of his bikes.
Whatever happened to machining a groove or drilling a hole towards the end of the lever so it breaks there, rather than at the pivot?
I think you're overlooking the biggest factor in this whole thing...sometimes shit happens. It's not always lazy engineers, or "all you have to do is"...sometimes parts just break. Even ones that are designed not to.
I love my momma very much, now you know that.
I am pretty sure it broke on contact with Levi’s Kitchen Sink.
Specifically when the bars and Hayden’s hand went behind Levi’s boot/leg and the lever was in front of it.
You can see the lever in front of the white of Levi’s boots in the slow mode replay that they played soon after it went down.
Its pretty hard to see the contact with the tough block doing the damage, although it might have finished the job.
Edit: photo added
Agreed sometimes parts break, but there's a way around that in this situation. I would like to see the "parts just break can't avoid it" mentality used in the VitalMX aviation club. All member planes would crash because "shit happens" right?
It's just a poor team decision to run weak parts for vital controls on the motorcycle. A poor decision that might end up costing them 500k and a Championship title. We'll see what happens this weekend.
If you crashed your plane and something broke because of the crash, you probably have bigger things to worry about than that broken part!
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