HacksawPete

I'm sure somebody could Shred the single tracks with a 650 but I'll stick to my 300. I'll be out there about 11:30 for an hour or so to test some test some jetting changes. Orange 300 and blue 150.

Anyone want to go ride McCain midweek? Do single track stuff for an hour or two?

BBTR is having a breakfast meeting this Saturday and they normally do a ride afterwards. I came up early to get out of the heat. Really nice up here now ... the car was showing 79 when I parked. If anyone is up here and wants to ride Friday let me know. Otherwise, I'll head out to Big Pine flats campground and to some short rides around there. Here's my latest race video from late May. This video has really entertaining audio at about 8:30 from the text on the splash screen. Also, I tryed to use my phone as the antagonist of the ride. Hopefully it's not too corny.

I'm switch over to a 2011 KTM 300 XC from my 2017 KTM 500 EXC-F, in an effort to be faster in the last two Hare and Hound races this year. If I can ride just a bit faster, I could win the series (novice over 50). I'm taking the level 3 class at Motoventures on july 20. If anybody wants to join that would be fun.

The 300 vs 500 is interesting. First off, I regularly do balance training exercises, and I'm way better on the 300. Next I can keep my intended track more often. I hope this translates into making it up the bigger hills. Also, I really like the rekluse on the 500, but I don't think I need one on the 300. I'm actually having fun with the clutch. For high end power and overall reliability, the 500 is the winner for me. I used to ride a Bultaco Persang so I'm having fun playing with a two stroke again.

The Motoventures class was interesting, and probably did me some good. We did drills on maximum controlled braking, brake slides, power slides, some wheelie work and some jumping. There was only two other guys in the class and they were not at my level so he had us doing some different things. It would be way better to go with a group where everyone was at about the same riding ability. Gary LePlante was the instructor and I think he did a pretty good job of describing how and why I needed to do a few things differently. One of my main issues is not having my weight far enough forward in turns. I've been told that before but Gary watched my work and commented right then allowing me to get things in better form. Now I need to practice these things so they go from the cognitive stage towards the automatic stage. So today I was out at Corral Canyon doing some practice and some testing on my new (2011) ride. I normally don't like to ride alone, but I figured it would be ok if I kept it to low risk stuff and really worked on the things I learned at motoventures. I was having a good time and, I think, seeing more controlled turning. None of this would be worth mentioning except for this one blind turn where I came pretty close to a truck. I had the camera going so I thought I share it. Ok, I was going a little too fast but I was really on the inside of the turn. The truck driver reacted quickly which helped. I got the back brake locked up which also helped. Anyway, I hear lots of head on collisions there so I try and go midweek to miss the crowd. Here's my near miss.

Did you guys ride? It was my first ride on the 2 stroke. I can ride my line better with it but 70 miles with stiff suspension was a lot. Went over Devels hole and Redonda ridge the easy way. Best part might have been cooling off in Deep creek.

Looks like I'm headed to silverwood and a ride to arrowhead. I'll ride corral next weekend

I'd like to ride Sunday at Corral. The campground just below four corners is better for me. I'll be running my plated but not really legal 2 stroke. 9am works.

Devon, Kenny and I gave the hard loop a pretty good try. I took a quick look at the video I recorded and I did get some usable clips. Hopefully I'll have a video out in a few weeks. This year I did much better than last year but still did not finish. I got to mile 160 out of 210 and was too fatigued and or dehydrated to ride safely anymore. Some machine damage and sore quads are a nice paring to my bruised ego. Maybe next year? We had a slight delay with a flat ... check the picture out. Only a moose would have kept you rolling with that stuck in your tire. Also, check the gps data... we had a pretty good moving average (18.6 showing). The trip up Redonda ridge is what killed my ride. Way too much energy and time to get up that hill. I have video of Kenny and Devon going up one of the hardest sections. 175 riders started the hard loop and 29 finished. This is seriously a hard ride. At the end we had 50 more miles to go, including 38 special, and 2.5 hours remaining. It was a good effort. I really want to thank Devon and Kenny for riding with me.

I'm using a Garmin virb ultra. It collects a lot of data and offers lots of options for display. I had to jump off the gopro wagon but I know they have a competing product.

Is anyone interested in riding sections of the Big Bear hard loop in the next two weeks? I'm thinking about trying it again this year and need to do some rides up there. 38 special anyone?

It was really fun riding with Kenny and Brian. Here's a clip of White Mountain. This hill was about 80 miles into our ride.

Anybody up for riding 90 miles of last year's hard loop this weekend? The route I have planned includes Redonda ridge, Devils hole and White mountain. There will be some tough sections on this ride. This would be a training ride for the 2018 Big Bear Dual sport, an AMA sanctioned event. I can probably program your Garmin GPS so you can practice using it. The planned ride would stage at Fawnskin. Maybe meet for breakfast at the North Shore cafe at 8:30? The ride is 90 miles and there would be gas at about 50 miles at Arrowhead. I could go either Saturday or Sunday. If you are interested in going, you can text me or respond here. 619.977.9865 Thanks, Pete

I have the core 3.0 and it works perfectly. No creeping and it engages smoothly just above idle. I'm running it on my 500 exc-f and just followed the instructions. No idea why the 300 xc might be different.

I went to Kalgary Texas to ride the round 3 Hare and Hound race. Don't think I need to go back to Texas anytime soon. Then I stopped by Moab on my way back. I was going to Northern NM anyway, so it really wasn't too far out of my way and I've always wanted to go. Absolutely need to go back to Moab. I just bought a flying camera in the hope that sometime in the future I can make a video that captures what I saw in Moab. Here's a Video of the trip. It's a little long at 11 minutes but I tried some new things that might be fun. The next two races are in Jericho UT. Comments on the vid are appreciated. Pete

We also rode up 38 Special ( 1N38 ) and that hill did not disappoint. Last year, it was at about mile 180 out of 210. (I only made it to mile 90). It's steep with rocks and no runup to the steep part. The common wisdom is to air down and they have a pump at the bottom so you can air back up for the remainder of the ride. I made it up with a Rekluse and a mousse. Kenny made it up with actual clutch talent. Brian didn't make it to the top but he didn't try to air down either. I will be using a tube for the ride in June. Have not looked at the video yet to see if I got anything worth editing. And ... see if the camera was on when Kenny was hoping it was not. I'm planning to go back up the hill on Thursday and stay for the Big Bear trail riders meeting on Saturday. I'm told they normally do a ride after their meeting and I want to go. Here's what I'm thinking to pique SDAR rider interest. Thursday afternoon: Go back to 38 special and see if I can ride it up clean. I may put some old cameras out on the trail to get some interesting shots and work the steep part a few times. This I can do without a safety rider because there is cell service and it's very close to highway 38. But it would be way better to have riders who like hill climbs. There is no point to starting the hard loop unless you can go up this hill. Friday: Do a bit of a longer loop going in at Fawnskin and ride Redonda Ridge, Devils hole and White mountain. Last year my cooling system blew up at the top of White mountain. These are not easy trails and I would not do them without at least one other rider, two would be better. I can send a detailed ride plan if that helps someone load up their truck. I'll have to call and make sure the roads and tracks are open. Pretty cool you can do that huh. Friday plan B. Go hang out at Redonda ridge and see if I can tag along with other riders. Saturday: Ride with BBTR if they go and head home after that. Here's some links to the route we did on Saturday sans 38 special. These links should work in Google earth or Chrome. Paste the link and select Satellite view. the inbound section https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HUbWH2NMAmSYsIDkesK_7EToBo3ueRVg and the outbound section https://drive.google.com/open?id=1azjjsiCxzTqUB_wluHpm-0GQY5wEVCSk

You do need a plated bike for most of the trails. Staging? Not sure yet. One good ride would be starting at Gold mtn and do a loop up John Bull, and return over Gold. I also really want to ride 38 Special but I would rather truck machines there to avoid the pavement wear. The other hill on my list is White mtn. I think I'll be heading up this weekend and be there off and on for the week.

The rocks do look a little scary, but the traction is awesome. I think anyone with good clutch and brake control could ride those rocks safely and have fun. I use a Sopro (Not GoPro) chin mount for the camera.

Rode Slickrock and Fins and things today as well as some just looking around. Got both east and west maps. Will try and look at the Shafer trail and Gemini bridges on my way out tomorrow. This place is huge.

Alyeska, what shorter routes were you going to do? I ended up going as it wasn't that far out of my route home.

Robert, I looked at your results and you kicked ass! Congrats on a good run. I got 4th out of 7 in the Super Seniors C class. And I'm happy with that. I got my video out but the first loop was mostly flat so not very interesting video. Pete For what it's worth ...

Two thumbs up for IMS customer support! I bought an IMS 3.2 gallon tank (because I was tired of running out of gas) and it didn't fit very well. I used it far longer than I should have and I probably shouldn't have used it at all after I noticed the tank was actually rubbing on the valve cover. Two pretty good things came from this problem. First, the tank is way tougher than I would have thought. I have at least 50 hours on this and the tank damage is minimal. Second, when I called IMS, they say they knew of the issue and had a design update. After emailing them my purchase receipt, they mailed me a new tank! For free! So I either paid way too much for the tank or IMS really wants to take care of their customers. Info in the photos below includes how to ID the old and new designs (new design has a "RV-2") and the clearance the new tanks has. Photos details New tires and tank - overview Contact on bike - valve cover is slightly worn Contact on tank - Tank has slightly more damage than the valve cover but not that much New Clearance - I put some puddy on the valve cover contact area and installed the tank to measure what the new clearance is. This is a cross section at the contact area. Old tank ID - the old tank is marked "KTM - 27" New tank ID - the new tank is marked "KTM - 27" With an additional ID line of "RV-2" Pete

I need to do some midweek riding and want go with other riders. My preference is to do the technical trails, single tracks and do balance training. I'm happy to ride slow and keep things safe. 10 or 10:30 at Corral or Lark canyon. Can't go on Valentine's day. Maybe Tuesday? There could be mud.

I ended up taking Dirt Dame's single track class. I had fun and definitely got the workout I was looking for. Also got to see lots of the area that I have not been to before. Thanks!