Purpose and Distraction

Distraction.  Our lives teem with it.  It oozes out of every crack and crevice, threatening to slip us up and devour our time.  Tweets, Facebook posts, Snapchats, Instagrams and a myriad of other disturbances I am too old, too uncool, too out of the loop to even be aware of at this point.  These trifles all have one thread in common, they are big on instant gratification, emotion, flash and noise, but very limited in meaning.  Just because things come at us quickly and in an apparent grand fashion, should not imply they are worth our time.

On the surface, a motorcycle can certainly appear to be one of these.  Shiny, loud, fast, appealing to the visceral.  Riding one also, a mere twist of the wrist supplies enough thrust to make your sphincter clench and stretch your arms, instant gratification indeed.

But it is the machine's deeper ability to help us find things we didn't even know where there, that separates it from the other time drains.  Some realize this through travelling on two wheels, seeing what they have not seen from the best view on the road, others through the trials of competition and yet others through wrenching, repairing and creating in the metal that is motorcycles.  And those in the know, know that it is not distraction.  It is not hobby.

It is purpose.

  

Them's the Brakes....

I came into the third round of the Virginia Championship Hare Scrambles Series more relaxed than the previous two rounds.  After being center-punched and taken out by competitors and losing finishing positions due to executive decisions I found myself in an all around frustrated state of mind.  A weekend of play riding and camping in Sandy Level, VA helped to turn that around.

May 7, we are back in Martinsville, VA for the Blue Ridge race, which I won last year.  The hilly, muddy terrain suits my riding style and confidence is high.

The ground trembles as the bikes thunder off the start.  I get off the line in a decent sixth spot.  I hang back, waiting for the body and bike to warm before putting my head down.  No mistakes today.

About ten minutes in, it's time to go.  Making it up to fourth, behind Pete Jenkins, who currently leads in points.  We swap positions a few times, finally I get ahead and pull a small lead.  It's going to be a good day.

Fate has other things in store.  Starting a long descent on a muddy, rocky hill, pushing down on the rear brake suddenly yields no results.  I try again, figuring there is mud on the rotor.  Nothing.  Two more minutes of this shit and it's getting worse.  Pete comes by, as well as another rider.  Coming to a creek crossing, I dismount to figure out what the hell is going on.  A quick look a the rear brake slave cylinder reveals the issue.  One of the two bolts holding it in place has snapped, allowing the slave to rotate whenever the lever is depressed, preventing any brake action at all.  My mind races to possible fixes.  There are limited tools in the my bag, a couple of zip ties, no bolts and nothing to extract the broken one.  By the time I am able to affect any sort of jerry-rig repair, the hope of a respectable finish will be gone.  It is either quit, or soldier on.  There is no quit for me.

If you've never ridden a dirt bike with no rear brake, let me assure you it is quite an eye opening experience.  While the front brake supplies most of the stopping power for a motorcycle, in the dirt a rear brake is crucial setting up for turns, balance, and keeping the rear wheel from attempting to pass the front on slippery downhills.  In short, it is quite a necessary item, and on the hills of Blue Ridge, even more so.

My pace slows considerably, but I'm still mowing down saplings, unable to get the bike under control on downhills, falling off two or three times.  Eventually I find a rhythm, turtle-like as it is.  It starts to be somewhat fun, trying to do this without a rear brake.  That is until the third and final lap, when the front brake, heated up and grabby from all the use, decides to bite a little harder than intended on a descent and promptly launches me over the handlebars.  The landing is on a pile of rocks, and despite body armor, still manage to get the wind knocked heavily out of me.  Laying there, looking up at the sky, gasping for breath as pain sets in, I decide I'm done.  I've had enough.  Want to have a good cry and then go home.

A cold voice inside my head says, 'Get up you pussy.  Finish the damn race.'  There seems to be no choice but to heed this seemingly otherworldly command.  I remount and say a little prayer to any deity in the vicinity that the Gas Gas starts.  It does, allowing me to continue gingerly, tentatively.  Adrenaline gone, I try not to focus on the pain, but rather on not falling down again.  I finish that last lap, and the race, in seventh place, only five minutes behind the winner.  Not bad for no rear brakes and some bruised ribs.

I'm glad I listened to that voice.

Watching as my championship aspirations tear down the trail ahead of me.....

These downhills sure don't look like much in the pictures, but what a bitch with no rear brake!

Tired on the last lap after going ass over tea kettle.  Just want to finish....

    

Loss

Today the motorcycling world mourns the loss of one the great ambassadors of motorcycle sport, The Kentucky Kid, Nicky Hayden.

His accomplishments and impact on racing are being talked about throughout the international motorcycle community, along with an outpouring of grief.  I have few words to add to what has already been said but want to leave you with this quote in regards to Nicky from "Knotcher" found on the WERA Motorcycle Roadracing Forum:

"I'd rather be half the man, than all the racer."

Green With Envy

It's a funny thing when passion trumps logic.  Those rare moments that silence the naysayers and odds-makers, when a thing happens not because it is likely, but due to the sheer force of will and tenacity of the parties involved.

One of those moments happened this past weekend at Round #3 of the Virginia Championship Hare Scrambles Series in Martinsville, VA, when Will Nauta, of Gretna, VA won his first 30+ C class race.

Why is that rare you ask?  People win races all the time, no big deal.  Well it is kind of a big deal, because Will, only in his second season of hare scrambles racing, was riding a Kawasaki KDX200, a design so long in the tooth that even the manufacturer dropped it from their lineup over a decade ago.  A design with engine technology that was cutting edge way back in the early 1980s and suspension tech from even earlier.  A design that many racers look upon as quaint and outdated, a playbike, the kind of thing that could never win races in this modern day and age.

Only on Sunday, May 7, 2017, Will and his well fettled, self-tuned, but stone axe tech machine were a force to be reckoned with, taking the win after a last lap pass on the leader and winning the race with 20 seconds in hand, a small speck of well seasoned Green in a sea of Austrian Orange.

Congratulations to Will on his gritty win in the muds of Blue Ridge and for showing us all you don't need a $10k dirt-bike and a $50K toy-hauler to kick a little ass and have an obscene amount of fun....

Respect.

Post-race, splattered with mud.  Note the conventional forks with dangerously low underhang. 

On top of the box! 

The spoils of war, Blue Ridge beer stein trophy.  Maybe the KTM number plate helped?

VCHSS Round 2 "April Fool's" Random Pictures

Pictures from the VCHSS April Fools round, where I ended up the fool by being docked two positions in a bad call by the flagman.

Worst Foot Forward

What, you say?  Two races into the season and no long winded multi-post race reports?  Whatever is the problem?

Suffice it to say things have gotten off to a somewhat ignominious beginning for my 2017 VCHSS season.

I was taken out twice on the first lap of the first race by two different riders, the second mishap led to some trail-side fisticuffs (a moment I not proud of).  Battled my way back from last place to 2nd, 56 seconds behind the eventual winner Pete Jenkins.

The second race I had a stupid first lap crash moments into the woods that left me unable to re-start the bike for over a minute.  Once again dead last out of 22 riders.  Worked my way to 7th, then to 5th for the second lap.  Having caught up with 3rd and 4th place on the last lap I waited for someone to make a mistake, which the 4th place rider did, and I passed.  Pete Jenkins is in third, now directly in front of me.  I am running out of time to get by, so I knew I would have to force the issue in the woods.  We come to sort of a straightaway, with about 16 inches on Pete's right side to make a pass, I went for it, and made it stick.  Putting my head down for the next three miles to make sure he couldn't re-pass led to a mistake that would later cost me.  As I came out of the woods I was momentarily blinded by the sun and came into timing and scoring a little hot.  In order to avoid taking out the rider in front who had slowed dramatically, I ran a wheel up on his inside and hard on the brakes.  The flagman accused me of making a pass in a "no passing" zone, which is a little bit ridiculous considering I never got by the rider (who I knew was in a different class), and promptly disqualified me.  The flagman would hear none of my explanation and I was soon surrounded by other spectators shaking their heads at me.  I was told to take it up with the referee, which I did.

When the referee arrived I shook his hand, told him my name and class and what had transpired, all in a very calm tone of voice.  I learned a long time ago yelling at officials is never the way to go.  He promised to look into it.  An hour later the decision was reached, since I had not actually passed anyone they would not DQ me, but they still felt it was necessary to dock me two finishing positions, which brought me from 2rd to 4th.  I was then given the choice to take the 4th or the DQ.  I took the 4th place, knowing those points might came in handy later in the season.

There it is, in a nutshell, my season so far.  Not exactly the way I hoped, but that's the way with racing.....

The only picture from the last two races, you can barely see me behind #31

  

Ummm.......Yeah.....

I spend a lot of time alone.  Ride, wrench, live.  This generally means that when I do something stupid or embarrassing, there is no one there to see it.  I like it that way, I get to have a laugh at my own expense without worrying if anyone else noticed.  And when the joke is over, it's over, there is no grinning chucklehead constantly reminding me of that thing I did that one time....

On rare occasions though, I do something so monumentally (*warning, non PC descriptive term to follow, consider yourself warned) retarded that to not share it, at least in some uncharted, rarely visited internet backwater blog such as this, would certainly be a crime.

So for the intrepid wanderers and other happenstance visitors who might stumble upon these ramblings, I present, for your amazement and amusement, photographic proof of my latest bumble and bungle.  I will provide you with three pieces of information regarding said photograph:

1. It was late, I was very tired, and pissed because I had already pinched one brand new tube. 

2. The tire iron is coming out, not going in.

3. I ran a two hour race and three 1.5 hour practices before the iron in question began to make its egress (from what was essentially a brand new tire).

Well Mom, if you ever needed any further explanation as to why I am not a doctor, here you go.