21J Doubles Up

It’s a twofer

In the past few months I bought not one but two bikes. A 2020 Yamaha YZ250F four stroke motocross bike and a 2018 Husqvarna FE250S, the Husky is a street legal dual sport bike.

None of this, of course is about need, there might be a little greed however. It’s all about pure and simple want. I guess I could say in order to give these purchases a little bit more creditability; here in good ole CA they have at this point in time done away with the Red Sticker program. The Red Sticker was just that a red sticker you put on your bike that allowed you to ride in State OHV parks and in the forests trail riding most of the year, there were exceptions of course.  Basically starting with 2022 models if they don’t meet current State emissions standards which virtually none do they are not allowed to be ridden anywhere except private riding areas like a motocross track. The State is basically cutting its nose off to spite its face, the Red and Green sticker programs have been from a revenue stream standpoint one of the best if not the best revenue generating programs ever. Over the years the State has borrowed somewhere in the area of two hundred million dollars from the program with no intention of repaying it. So I can’t believe they will just let a cash cow like this just dry up, but who says they’re smart. And the environmentalists have their hooks firmly planted in this State.

One of the results of the disappointing State’s decision was 2021 new models and used model sales have been through the roof. Typical deals on new bike sales were hard to come by and used bike prices dramatically increased all in anticipation of no red sticker program on 2022 models. 2021 models qualified and existing Red Sticker bikes are grandfathered in.

I decided I wanted to have a motocross bike again to practice and when you can’t ride on the trails because it’s too dusty, which it is right now. I decided I wanted a 250F motocross bike this time quite frankly I don’t need the power of a 350 or 450. I’ve come to terms with the fact I don’t want to even try jumping over anything anymore. If I can get up on top then jump off the end that’s good. Besides today’s 250’s have more than enough power for anything I might want to try. They feel lighter and don’t get away from you as easily, just more fun to ride. I kind of prefer going on the outside of corners so it’s perfect.

I did end up putting a Rekluse in it, but quite frankly I don’t think I really needed it. I put a new rear tire on, had Bucky at SBB revalve the suspension, I couldn’t believe how stiff the stock suspension was, it was un ride able for me it’s good now.

It had 21 hrs on it when I bought it may have 23 now. I didn’t even ride it on a track until a few weeks ago.

The Husky is an interesting story. For the past few years I’ve wanted to try another 250F four stroke trail bike. I had a 2015 Yamaha YZ250FX and liked it very much. Last year or maybe the year before now, 2020 was a blur to say the least. I bought a 2017.5 KTM 250SXF factory edition, it worked very well on the trails except for the air forks and I couldn’t make them feel right for me. So I sold it and bought the 2021 Husky TE300i. End of story until one night I’m on Craigslist and I see this Husky, I call made a trip to Santa Clara the next day and buy it. It had 2300 miles on it and the young man who rode it had put supermoto wheels on it and rode it around town. He did ride it on some trails, but I can tell you it had never seen mud. The dad was a former Pro road racer so they knew how to tune the little motor. They did some minor things with smog equipment etc tweaked the TPS and put on a JD tuner; it runs very, very well.

I installed a Rekluce some good tires and tubes stiffened the suspension and have thoroughly enjoyed riding it as a dual sport and trail bike. I’ve been really impressed at how much power it has especially the low end. It has a lot of weight to haul around when I’m on it. It’s geared 13/49 and low is to low but second through fifth are close and sixth is like an overdrive. At 55-60 it isn’t really buzzing the motor and there is hardly any vibration at that speed. It feels light and handles well; the motor is predictable and would be very hard to whiskey throttle.

2019 was the last year KTM and Husky brought the 250F street legal dual sports into the US, they just didn’t sell. Based on what I’ve experienced what a shame, I assume buyers wanted the 350 or 500 and passed on the 250’s. Of course it also depended on what and where you were going to ride, for what I’m using it for its perfect. Will it or can it replace my TE300i, no not really, but there are times when I get behind in my steering on the much more powerful 300 that’s a little harder to do on the 250.

I now have six bikes and can still only ride one at a time, but what’s that old saying about who has the most toys. Besides that I don’t drink, smoke and certainly don’t carouse around anymore so what the hell.

At this point I assume I will just split my time on all these bikes one at a time, ah it sucks to be me.

Doug 21J

2021 Sierra OT National MX

River Front MX in Marysville CA is the site of this years Sierra OT National motocross. riders will come from all over the western states to ride this iconic track. Here is one mans memory of River Front.

River Front Motorcycle Park

I don’t really know if River Front is in the town of Yuba City or Marysville. I know it’s under a bridge where the Yuba River flows by and the bridge separates Yuba City and Marysville. I also don’t know how long the track has been there. I do know that I’ve been riding there since the seventies. A friend of mine rode one of the first motocross races held there. They just staked it out and a lot of it was a foot high grass track. They’ve had mud drags, sand drags they had a straight rhythm qualifier event there. They’ve had Super Cross tracks as well. Over the years there have been many promoters who have run the facility. The current promoter is REP racing they also run the Hangtown National Track and another motocross track called Est. which is under another bridge that goes over the Yuba River into Marysville. Both of these tracks have been around since I’ve been riding and that’s a long, long time now.

One of the things that have always separated River Front from the other tracks is lights, they’ve had lights since I can remember and have motocross practices at night during the week in the summer, even night races during the week and the weekend.

My first race there was a mud fest motocross in the 70”s. The start faced east of where the track is today went up and down some banks and through the trees. You can still see some of the trees and banks to the east.  In those days most of the starts were rubber band starts, if you got to close to the rubber band you could get your man breasts whacked and it hurt, a lot. At some point I think in the eighties the current start straight and left turned were created and are basically the same today. In fact some parts of the track have been the same for maybe thirty years. Over the years the track has gone from unrideable for people like me to the very good combination it is today. There were a lot of kids who had their first race at River Front. A good friend of mine lined up in the 250 expert class with his son one night and went one two into the first corner together that’s good stuff.

In the seventies they used to put on what they call today a cross country race some still call them hare scrambles. (I don’t think they put on any in the eighties, if they did it was in the early eighties) The only one I ever remember riding there was an annual event called the “Thorn Tree” and the course went through some honest to god thorn trees. Most of the course went south under the bridge that is now all park.

I remember as if it were yesterday my last hare scrambles race there, I got a good start went into the first turn and slid out and for some reason my right little pinky finger was sticking out like I was drinking a cup of tea. I jammed into the ground, I finished the race went to the doctor the next day; x-rays showed I jammed the finger bone into the socket in my hand and broke it. It hurt like hell and I asked the doctor how long he thought it would continue to hurt, his answer, two years and unfortunately for me he was right.

In the fall of 2020 they held a cross country event there for the first time probably since I rode the last one there in the late seventies. The club would have normally put the event on at Prairie City but that’s a State Park and subject to all the COVID BS. So for us old guys it became a nostalgic race, come out and see some of your old riding buddies. The course was much shorter than the old days and stayed north of the bridge. They ran us on some of the river bank in deep sand and that put the hurt on a lot of us.

While wondering around this weekend over by the bathrooms behind the starting gate you will see the front end of an old Macio and a dedication plaque to a local hero from our area Danny “Magoo” Chandler some of you may be old enough to remember him. He dazzled all who saw him on the local tracks in this area. He was way ahead of his time in what he was capable of doing on a motorcycle. (I’ll include a couple of stories about him)

Anyway that’s some of my recollections of this place, please enjoy your weekend and stay safe.

Doug McCaleb

21J

Danny “Magoo” Chandler. The second time I saw Danny race was at a track in Dixon called Argyle Park. This was his first race on a big bike a CZ 250 Danny was too short to put his feet on the ground and clear the seat. His dad held the bike up from behind. He won that race and I don’t think I ever saw him lose a local race. He was famous for jumping over the local levies and popping tires and flatting rims even breaking a frame now and then. I watched him create his own lines, lines that nobody dreamed of taking. His dad would water down his backyard track and have Danny ride around and around in the mud. One year while riding for team USA in the motocross de nations he won every moto and that was against the best in the world. There was nobody like him. 

Doug's 2021 Husky TE300i Project Part 2.0

2021 Husky TE300i Part 2.0

I still haven’t put many hours on this bike. I did ride a local dist. 36 cross country event on it a few months ago now, the bike was great the rider wasn’t. I do have my excuses of course, but nobody wants to hear them, I don’t even want to hear them. But I do have a new product to report on.

I’ve been using Flex Bars for the past few years on most of my bikes, they work as advertized, which means great. But there’s always been for me at least that, BUT about them which is they are bulky and add weight right where you don’t want it at the handle bars. When I stand up I tend to be over the front end and I’ve knocked the wind out of myself because of the height of the bars that attach to each side of the bars on the top mounted stabilizer units.

This year I’ve been noticing some of the riders I regularly watch on You Tube have this rather different looking top clamp on their bikes. None of the riders talked about it I just noticed it when watching their videos. Turns out it’s a handle bar dampening system. It’s made by XC Gear out of Mississippi and it’s called a Mako 360 (xcgear.com) it totally isolates the handle bar from any metal to metal contact and allows the bar to absorb vibration and impacts 360 degrees. The Flex bar only moves up and down which certainly works but I thought 360 degrees could be better. Each rider has the ability to customize just how much flex they want, from us slow guys to the pros. If you run a top mount or bottom mount stabilizer you can buy the accessories necessary for that installation. I have the bottom mount Scott stabilizer and did have to add ¼” spacers to the handle bar mounts in order for it to fit.

My goal was to get back to a standard bar and configuration, lose the bulk and extra weight so that part was perfect.

For those who have never ridden with flex bars or anything else like it, you are not aware of any bar movement while riding, you will be aware of the results of riding with a dampening system, less fatigue in your hands and arms because the bumps are being dampened they take the big hits, you know you’ve hit something hard but it doesn’t transfer that big shock into your hands or shoulders. These help the riders who have hand or wrist issues, which means virtually all of us older riders.

When you look at the kit you can see why it might costs as much as it does. Mine didn’t come with install instructions but was easy to figure out how to install. You can see in the pictures how they install. The bar mounts can be installed facing back or forward; there are a lot of bolts to tighten. The shark fin as they call it is what keeps the handle bars from rotating and is also rubber mounted, no metal to metal contact. 

I finally had a chance to do some trail riding with the new set up and it work very well. I rode with a friend of mine who subscribes to the old adage one bike is a trail ride two bikes is a race. And on top of that he finally got his suspension sorted out and he was feeling very racy. After two plus hours of pushing it I was getting tired and started feeling the effects of it in my hands. So I don’t know if it was because I haven’t ridden in a while or if this set up actually doesn’t work as well in the long haul as the Flex bars. I rode another two plus hours four days later that’s a very tight and technical area, at the end of the ride my hands were starting to bother me again. I don’t ever remember the Flex bars doing that, so the jury is still out, I may keep trying them or change them out and see if my recollection of the Flex bars is correct.

I put the Flex bars back on and I’m waiting for the rain to stop so I can try them. I did get a ride in before the last big snow storm and no problems with my hands.

I sent an email to XC Gear and told them of my experience. As I’m scrolling down to find their contact info I see where you can download the installation info, when I read it and it says to torque down all the bolts to 12lbs I only torque down the bolts that hold the bar in place to 12lbs the rest I tightened very tight as you normally would. This could be part or all of the problems I’ve experienced. I’m waiting to hear back from XC Gear. Well I never heard back from XC Gear, not good on their part.

But I did put XC Gear mount back on and I realized the bars I used the first time were swept back more than I now use. I now use bars that are pretty flat and that could also be a reason the XC Gear mount was bothering me. I’ve ridden it once since putting the XC mount back on and with flatter bars. I do believe those changes helped, but still not sure yet. More rides are in order.

Drum roll please, I’ve now gone back and forth between the two systems a number of times now and have decided to continue using the XC Gear Mako 360 set up. There is a difference but I like the less weight cleaner look of the XC Gear set up.

Doug 21

2021 Husky part 2.5

I have enjoyed every hour on the TE300i. At this point I’m still glad I bought the 300; but not quite as enthusiastic about it being a 300. At times even with the power in the dumb down mode it can be a lot. And without the Rekluse I wouldn’t want to ride it, it would simply be too much for this old man. Because of the low end torque I can ride it in higher gears and not worry about it getting away from me as much. In hind sight unless I’m going to ride hard endure stuff, which I wouldn’t a 250 would have probably been better. Everyone thinks they need a 300 but I’m not sure about that.

I have for a long time used Fast Way down and back foot pegs it makes easier to stand and doesn’t bind my knees as much. I’ve always set my KTM bikes up with the bars set in the back hole facing forward. I wanted to be able to move more forward on the bike for those tight Chalk Bluff corners so I moved the handle bars as far forward as I could, (forward hole facing forward) first time I’ve ever done this and much to my surprise I felt extremely comfortable. Coupled with the down and back foot pegs It was easier to stand and stay standing, my body was more over the front end and the bike was easier to control. I’m a little over six feet (Or I used to be anyway) and most of my height is from the waist up. By moving the bars forward it has allowed me to have more room in the rider triangle, don’t know why I never tried this before, especially when I’m known as a tinker.

Doug 21J

Old Racers Race!

The 50 something annual Lilliputian Cross Country event.

The annual Dist 36 Lilliputian put on by the Dirt Diggers North MC Club which has been held at Prairie City OHV Park for at least 40 years changed venues this year due to COVID-19, the State park is still unable to hold spectator events. The race was moved to River Front Park under the bridge in Yuba City. River Front is a moto cross venue with multiple tracks which has been around for probably over 50 years.

They used to have an annual Cross Country event there called the Thorn Tree named after the thorn trees that populated the area. I believe the last one held was in 1977 and I rode it. At that time they had access to a lot of land and the course was probably a good 8 miles or so long. Lots of changes since then and this weekend’s course was around 4 miles with a very, very deep sand section that ran along the bank of the Yuba river. A couple of days before the event that area was covered with brush and trees, they hacked a two bike wide trail through it, I don’t know how long the section was but it was brutal and all you could hope for was to survive it each lap. The course then opened up into a sort of grass track that was in reality a flat weed field that had about a hundred flat turns as it twisted and turned and eventually came back to one of three motocross tracks where you were on and off of until the check. For guys like me a lap was about thirteen minutes. It didn’t take long before the super fast riders in the front rows were starting to lap guys like me, that will make you know what pucker up. The track layout was good except the long brutal sand section that took its toll on many riders. I could never relax and settle in and find any kind of rhythm on the course so I struggled a lot. 

Because there hadn’t been a cross country race there in so many years coupled with the new venue it attracted a lot of us old timers to come out and ride it, remembering the old Thorn Tree. For those of us who hadn’t ridden a cross country event in years it was certainly more difficult than the regulars who follow the Dist 36 cross county events. It had been about 4 years for me and for one of my old friends Larry who showed up it had been about 15 years. 4 years VS 15 years I faired a little better than he did.

None of us old guys got hurt other than our pride a little and were able to tell stories before and after the race it doesn’t get any better than that.

As you can see by the pictures it was a clear sunny day albeit a cold windy day. It rained Friday night and a little early Sunday morning which helped keep the dust to a minimum, although by the time I left and the last race was in progress the dust was getting bad in some areas.

Doug 21J

21J Explores LHRB

The OX-Hydro LHRB Brake

As far as I know these particular left hand operated rear brake systems are currently only made for KTM and Husky bikes, someday no doubt for Gas Gas as well.

Why a handle bar mounted rear brake in the first place? I have several friends who have taken the use of it to another level by removing the rear brake pedal and using the handle bar mounted brakes only. The advantage especially in right hand corners is not having to put your foot on the brake. That’s brave, I’m old and don’t easily learn new tricks but I do use my LHRB. I primarily use it for down hills especially on long down hills if they are real steep and I want to keep my right foot on the pegs to dab if necessary or just in situations where it feels more comfortable to do so. Another reason is, I use Rekluse’s and I have been in situations going up steep single track hills and for one reason or another needed to stop or turn around and go back down. Usually in these situations is where I have to get off the bike on a very narrow trail and bull dog it around to go back down. Or to keep the bike from sliding backyards because the Rekluse will free wheel and all I have is the front brake and no way to lock up the rear wheel; I’ve had the bike slide backwards and eventually get on top of me and that can become a very difficult thing to get out from under.

Over the years I’ve used cobbled together LHRB systems using Rekluse and bicycle parts and a friend of mines ability to make hydraulic lines. They worked ok certainly better than nothing but always felt it left a little to be desired.

OX- Brake has made for sometime a cable operated LHRB I never tried one but understand they also worked ok but not the ultimate solution. I know Rekluse used to make a LHRB system I just checked their web site and didn’t see one offered, so I don’t know what happened.

The OX-Hydro Brake is a sealed self contained system that comes ready to install no bleeding necessary. I have two systems the first is a hydraulic Dot 4-5 the second one is a mineral oil system. I’m going to guess the mineral oil system will be the one used going forward I’m sure OX- Brake have their reasons for using mineral oil.

I’m very picky about how my rear brake is set up; first I tend to be a rear brake dragger when riding on trails and use it to steer the bike sometimes. I have the brake pedal set up below the level of the foot peg I have size 13 feet that sticks out making it hard to find the peddle sometimes. I also leave a certain amount of pedal play so that my foot can rest on the pedal and not be dragging the brake. I know I’m not the only one who does this.

Adjusting the peddle position and amount of free play in the peddle effects the amount of lever you have at the handle bar. The OX-Hydro Brake replaces the heim joint which connects the foot pedal and master cylinder the more free play and downward peddle adjustment the less lever pressure you’ll end up with. So it’s a fine line between having the peddle position and free play where you want it and having enough handle bar brake pressure to stop the rear wheel.

OX-Brake has developed a new proto type to eliminate this issue for us brake draggers and I’m going to get one to try. Chuck at OX-Brake explained to me why the current system is limited in the kind of brake settings I like and how the new one will eliminate this problem for riders like me, I’m not going to try and explain it mainly because I can’t remember exactly what Chuck said and it was over my head anyway. So I’ll stop for now and pick up after I installed the new proto type.

I have installed and ridden with the new Proto type and after some trail side adjustments I now have it the best it can be for my riding style, which is much better than the other two I have, which is not to say they don’t work properly, they do, the proto type provides more adjustment for guys like me. The Magura system is a one pull, no need to pump the lever it makes no difference the first time you apply the brake is the best it will be and it will always return to the same place.

I’ve been sold on the OX-Hydro LHRB since I got the first one but soon there will a more adjustable version for riders like me.

I think they are reasonably priced at about $300, especially when you consider you’re getting a completely sealed hydraulic system no fuss no muss.

Doug 21J