December 15, 2004

Riding at Prairie City on Saturday...

On Saturday I went to Prairie City SVRA in Sacramento while my mother and wife went out.

I brought my new bike with me to test it out. I had to steal the ASV shorty clutch lever off of my YZ250F since the one I ordered for the KTM just hasn't come in yet. I had a blast besides having my first jump crash of my life.


[Posted with ecto]

I started the day unloading my bike from the truck and hooking up the endurance computer. I started the bike and warmed it up. The 125 SX starts SOOO much easier then the 250F.

I started off in the staging area. I headed south east from staging area. The 125 was really different. All the power was at the top of the 9,000 RPM band unlike the 250F which pulls from the bottom and builds all the way to the 13,500 RPM redline. I started out flying along rocky and puddle laden trail. The bike was really light and felt almost like bicycle compared to the 250F. I flew through a couple of puddles at full speed making quite a mess. I was making random turns and not really following any specific trail just getting used to the bike. I was confronted with a puddle that occupied the whole path. I hit the puddle at about 30 Mph (I peaked down at the speedometer on the Endurance computer). A wall of water crested over the front fender and then over the handlebars, and finally over the top of my helmet. The water line was up to my knees. I managed to power through the puddle but I got soaked. My googles were soaked and I couldn't see.

After finishing with the puddle I continued flying along the path. I crested a rise at about 30 Mph and suddenly noticed the other side of the very short plateau was veritable cliff. I grabbed a handful of front brake and stopped the bike teetering on the edge. I pulled my one tear off and turned the bike around and headed back to the staging area. In the staging area, I wondered what the hell I was doing there. Then I pulled on a new jersey and my spare pair of gloves. I also bought some Pringles chips and Dr. Pepper and I relaxed.

Once relaxed I decided to try a different direction from the staging area. I headed east by north east. I passed the closed practice track and past the pro track (the one I raced in spring). The tracks were all closed due to mud. I found and area that was wet but not sopping.

There were some great hills some good turns and stuff. All said I managed to put a full hour of time in motion on the bike. Toward the end, I was riding in an area next to the practice motocross track that was setup as a simple track with two jumps and two turns. One was a flat wide turn the other was a highly banked tighter turn. After a few laps I managed to launch the bike into the air with me falling off the back of the bike. I was stunned and amazed as I have been jumping two wheeled and some four wheeled vehicles since I was about 5. I have always managed to land the bike or other vehicle. This time the 125 went straight up (I gave it some gas on the face of the jump and hit the power band raising the front end into the air). The bike want vertical and I fell off the back.

I landed on my feet slash left hip. I slid thought the dirt. The bike landed in front of me on the rear wheel just in front of me and fell to it's side. I was afraid I was going to catch up to it as we both slid though the dirt. When we stopped I jumped up ran to the bike and got it upright. It started up right away, unlike the 250F (I would have had to kick it 8 or 10 times after a stall like that).I rode for another 10 minutes or so. Then I loaded up the truck and left as they were kicking people out. I made two mistakes while packing up. One almost cost my $100 sun glasses, the other cost me the $25 removable side stand for the 125.

I learned that 125 was fun but really high energy. The bike was only fun and ridable when the bike was revved up and on the pipe. It has almost no bottom end, which makes going slow not fun or easy. However, it will fly though up even and unhappy terrain like nobodies business. I also realized that just like skiing, on a dirt bike you tend to get tired and timid and make mistakes. I wouldn't have crashed on the jump if I had just charged it instead of rolling to the face and gassing it up the face. Like wise I came to down hill that I rolled instead of charging that earlier in the day I would have attacked but at the end of the day I rolled down.

Here are some satellite images of the Prairie City SVRA from terra server.

Posted by pqbon at December 15, 2004 12:01 AM | TrackBack