Caveat Emptor Fucked By A Spanish Whore

Found a 2011 Gas Gas EC 300 on Craigslist in NC.  Drove there, looked it over, seemed to run decent, needed a little TLC.  Settled on a price of $2,500.  What could go wrong, right?  Well, for your amusement, I've decided to describe the debacle in pictures and poetry: 

A bit rough, off the cuff, but surely built with the right stuff? Too much? Not enough?

Piston leaves me wishin' I'd have kept fishin'. Rebuild now is the only mission. On my head rain is pissin'.

The head is dead. I see red.  I need gold, but have only lead.

My bore is scored. Oh lord.  How will I afford?

Crankseal doth weep. That ain't cheap.  Bearings too, creak, creak.  Rod probably also weak.

Happy couple or cursed nuptials?  Short honeymoon, 'til the trouble.  Iberian dream now shattered bubble. 

Photo Coyote 2018

August 26, 2018 Rural Retreat, VA

VCHSS Round #10 The Coyote Run

3rd place 40+B

Although these pics make it look like a trail ride, this was one of the most challenging courses I've ridden all year.  Nasty rocky hillclimbs of death followed by treacherous cliff dangling off cambers filled with ruts and roots and a creek run called "The Hero Section".  3rd place.  I'll take it.

(photos courtesy of Mike Jackson)

Mud Puppies of Martinsville, 2nd Best In the Worst

August 12, 2018  Martinsville, VA 1:30 pm


Rain.  It's coming.  It's already started.  The race is about to.  Goggles and tear-offs ruined.  Brain shifts gears.  Prepare for the wet Hell.  Harder now, hurts my eyes.  I think the guy waved the green flag.  Fuck it, go, go.  Start this bitch and take your medicine boy, there's no turning back.

Some shitheel decides he wants to bang bars, bad idea, I'm in no mood for anybody's crap, lean a shoulder into him and he backs down.  The weather and the conditions are the enemy now.  As well as fatigue.  And myself.  It's like riding in peanut butter and chocolate pudding, with about as much traction.  Actual rivers are running down the hill climbs.  I've been here before, two years ago, same location, same conditions.  I know what to expect.  A part of me wants to cry.  This will not be fun.  This is not sanity.  This is destruction.  Physical, spiritual, mental and mechanical.  It gets so dark in the woods there is no light at the end of the tunnel, just more darkness and pain.  Many will quit, I wish I could.  Got to get through to the other side.  Don't fall, don't make mistakes.  Ha, that's a joke.  Hope fades, emotions roller-coaster like the hills of the Blue Ridge range we are racing in.

Nearly three hours later it ends, bike, body and brain nearly dead.  2nd place, best finish of the year, with nothing save a crappy coffee mug trophy to show for it.

But the memory remains...and the darkness.

(Photos courtesy of Mike Jackson, thank you!!!!)

King of the Road

"I'm a man of means by no means..." -Roger Miller


$10,000 for a dirt bike?  For what amounts to essentially a toy?  I struggled to swallow that one, as a friend told me the out of door price for his new KTM.  Don't get me wrong, I'm sure with all the whiz bang technology it's worth every penny, but I wondered how any human being, especially men of our rather ahem 'advanced' age could exploit and really take advantage of such technology.  Sure electric start is nice, endlessly adjustable suspension, butter smooth power everywhere in the rev range, lightweight, one finger brakes and on and on. 

I'd venture to say nearly any motorcycle built in the last 20 years is capable of far more than the average rider.  Yet we still want, no, demand, more.  And we pay for it.  Or should I say, we make payments on it...

At what point do we reach the level of absurdity?  Or hit the outer limits of diminishing returns?  When do we finally make the distinction between want and need? 

Who knows?

Break out the duckets, it's gonna cost you...

   

Holeshot

Sunday, June 24, 2018 Rural Retreat VA

To lead a race, if even for a short time, is an amazing thing.  And difficult.  Red-eyed hounds of hell nip at boot heels with only one intent: your failure.  The animosity behind is palpable, wheedling its way into the subconscious to whittle away at self-confidence.  Hanging it all out turns into merely hanging on.  Until...

Fast becomes past.  Passed.

But a brain remembers those moments besting all comers, and formulates a plan to take it the distance.   

This Is Spring Grove Part II

Charley is back there.  I can hear him.  His KTM is ready to pounce should I make the slightest bobble.  We reach the second grass track section, with built in wood pallet chicanes.  The Spanish and Austrian two-stroke 300s get to feed, I'm up into 5th gear.  Can't lose him.  Wide, sandy, sweeping left hander, he pulls up on the outside.  We are neck and neck.  It's dusty, can't see a damn thing, but my memory from last year tells me there is a sharp turn to the right coming up.  I back off slightly, Charley goes by, off track and right into some hay bales, but doesn't crash.  I make the turn, barely.  Relax and breathe for a few seconds.  He'll be coming again.  It doesn't take long.  He gets by and I try to give chase, but soon he is gone.  I'm not up to speed yet, fighting my own battles with the bike and the track, let him go.  My day will come. 

I float around in 9th place for the first three laps, waiting for my second wind.  Can you really call it a second wind if you never got your first?  Now all my training begins to pay off.  The riders in front of me start getting tired, they slow down.  I'm on the move.  Eighth place.  Next lap sixth.  I see fifth place in front and follow.  He's faster in some sections, but I am faster in others.  He can't pull away, but for every little mistake he makes, I make one trying to capitalize.  For over 30 agonizing minutes we play cat and mouse.  Getting tired.  Finally he slows.  Make the pass.  Fifth place.  I'd be over the damn moon if I wasn't worried about him putting up a fight.  He doesn't.  Thanking my lucky stars and finishing the race in fifth, my best of the season.

I'm gaining.  Finally.

Just after the start.

2nd place!  It wouldn't last long...

     

Fuck the Bohemians, This Is Spring Grove!

Sunday, June 10, 2018 5:00 AM  Spring Grove, VA

I wake up with a sore throat and know that I'm getting sick.  Now is not the time.  Just over eight hours until the race.  My teeth feel fuzzy, fell asleep before I brushed, whoops.  It is cool, if a bit humid.  Temperatures must have dropped considerably last night.  Lie awake and think, unable to go back to sleep.  Scenarios play in the mind, how things need to be done, how to handle them when it inevitably goes wrong.

The sun finally rises and so does the heat, hand in hand with lovely Southern humidity.  My Yankee blood may never fully acclimate to this. Hours pass, the morning race participants head out, then return as I continue with my pre-race rituals.  At what seems the last possible moment don the 25 pounds of gear and ride my aged 2005 Gas Gas EC300 to the the line.  There's hardly anyone there.  Dammit, early again.  Sit and bake in this goddamn oven.  Finally Dave Zimmer shows up with an umbrella and it doesn't matter that he is not a scantily clad 'brolly girl, so welcome is the temporary shade.  The bite valve for hydration in my helmet suddenly springs a leak and squirts sticky electrolyte solution over my goggles and tear-offs, ruining all visibility with five minutes to go.  Swearing, yank every tear-off and wipe the goggles down as best as can be done, with the bite valve jammed in my mouth sucking down precious fluid as quickly as it pisses out.  I am now suitably furious.

The flag waves and two dozen middle-aged adolescents charge with screaming engines towards the first turn.  Third to arrive, wondering where the hell everyone is.  Push as hard as I dare through the grass track, bike wallowing, feeling like the frame is broken in half, finally into the woods, down into second gear and up into second place.  It's not going to last long, there's fast company nipping at my exhaust pipe, revving motors, hooting and trying to push me into a mistake.  They get what they want when I clip a small tree which proves remarkably inflexible.  Five of them rush by and I watch my best start of the season evaporate.  Let the work begin...

Third (well, sort of) on the outside, soon to be second...