2 Geezers and 2 KTM’s

Old Lyle

Having just acquired an almost new 2017 KTM 450 SX I was anxious to get it broken in and set up for the 2018 Old Timer Motocross series. Since the tracks around here are few and far between I was forced to mount up some old tires and head out into the desert.

Since I was going desert trail riding I made a call to a buddy, Old Lyle, as he calls himself and asked him if he would like to meet up for a ride. Since Lyle had just acquired a new KTM 500 EXC he was more than happy to go out for a ride on his new bike.

Lyle has had his KTM for a little longer and is in the process of set up and fitting it to himself. Now what is really impressive is that Lyle is about to turn 78 yrs. young and just bought this new 2017 KTM, so obviously he has no intention of quitting riding anytime soon!  I want to be like Old Lyle when I grow up! I think Lyle has surpassed the Geezer classification and now falls into the Super Geezer Class!

We met up at Lyle’s local riding area and proceeded to bust out a two and one half hour ride. Deep sand, rocks, lots of whoops and some singletrack rounded out our ride very nicely. Lyle rolls right along at a good clip and if I don’t stay close enough to see his dust he is gone and I am left wondering where the heck he went.

Lyle seems to really be enjoying his new 500 EXC since it is lighter, faster and handles better than his 2002 525 KTM that he rode for 15 yrs. When he gets it suited to him and all the adjustments dialed in I may have a hard time keeping him in sight.

We finished our ride, loaded up, said our good byes and headed home. As I was driving I was wondering if Old Lyle was smiling as much as I was. Yeah, I am pretty sure he was. See ya next time Lyle, maybe I will bring a younger friend for you to beat up on instead of just me.

#33

‘I thought getting older would take a lot longer!’

#33 Talks EKS Goggles

EKS Goggles

I have been going through a few different brands of goggles the past couple of years. The reason is I have been trying to find one that worked as advertised and did not require I take out a second mortgage to buy a couple pair!

There are some very good goggles on the market and several of them work very well. But I have a very high standard. By that I mean they must provide a good field of view, rarely if ever fog, be comfortable enough to wear on all day rides, absorb sweat decently, fit correctly in the different brands of helmets I wear and of course look good while being decently priced! Tall order, eh?

I have settled in the last few months on the EKS (X-Brand) goggle as the one that scores very well in all of these categories. An added bonus is that the lenses are durable enough that I have been wiping the dust on long desert rides or races such as the Baja 500 with the side of my gloved finger and am able to clear my vision many times while not destroying the lens. It is amazing how much faster you can ride when you can see!

I have flogged a couple of pair to the point of failure only because I am wearing out the elastic strap.  Outstanding!!

So I guess I have settled on a goggle I really like and don’t have to mess with, put them on and ride without thinking about them.  I can’t ask for much more than that.

Unfortunately, it’s time to go clean a pair so I can go riding in the morning, see ya!

#33

‘pursue perfection, but accept excellence’

Fly's Gator High Mileage Pegs

I have now officially put a set of FLY Gator foot pegs through the wringer. These foot pegs have been slammed, drug, scraped, bashed and crashed through just about any kind of terrain you can imagine! I have destroyed shift levers and brake pedals but the pegs keep on keepin’ on!

They are now on a second bike and continue to perform just as they did on the first. Ball park estimate would be in the 14,000 mile range on the pegs. They have performed flawlessly and I am in utter disbelief at how good they look with all the bashing they have received. There is almost no wear and certainly no deformation of any kind even after repeatedly being introduced to Mr. Rock, and I don’t mean Dwayne Johnson / The Rock. I think these may be tougher than even him!

The platform is wide enough to distribute the impact loads over a larger area and the shape is awesome. The slight arched shape allows me to roll my foot forward and back without coming to just the edge of the peg.  It maintains a consistent grip on the boot as I move and never changes the way the pegs grip my boot.

They seem to have reduced boot sole wear with the load distribution being improved, which translates into less money spent on resoling my boots. I like that!

The KTM 500 xcw I am riding just rolled over 9k miles and the pegs may be looking at a third bike. Only time will tell. Oops, Sun is almost up, time to go ride.

#33

‘Yes I do have a retirement plan, I Plan to Ride’

Still Too Hot!

Still Too Hot!

We just left the scorching hot and earthquake infested area around Helena, Montana and headed for what we expected to be a much cooler climate around Orofino, Idaho. A funny thing happened on the way to Idaho, the damn heat was already there! Who woulda thunk!!!!

The incredibly gorgeous little town of Orofino, Idaho was in the middle of a heat wave with the temps reaching the 100* plus range. But since some of the trail riding around there is so good I figured I could wait it out for a few days. The days turned into a few weeks so I did the only thing I could do. Go Riding and shooting! In between, I helped string up a bit of barbed wire fence and cut up some wood with the now famous #33 Ton wood splitter!  If I had access to a wood splitter like that when I was young and never ran out of energy I believe whoever was naïve enough to let me use it would have gone broke supplying the gasoline. It is like having a CR 500 that has been over bored, ported, the head milled, a bigger carb and race gas! There is so much power I catch myself laughing as I open the throttle and hydraulics. Nothing can stop me, just like the old days! The limiting factor seemed to be when I ran out of DRY wood to split, it seems the correct way is to wait for the wood to dry out first and then split it. No wonder Paul Bunyan used an ax, if he had used one of these he would have run out of forests!

Having gained experience once again in the art of splitting wood, I figured maybe I could cut some wood while out on a trail ride. Trail clearing is always needed if we want to maintain the trail system. So I purchased a small STIHL chainsaw that I could fit into a large backpack. So my buddy Jess (aka hose-b, because he calls me Jose’) and I spent a few days doing rides with my new little Stihl and his very aggressive Stihl hand saw. So we loaded our equipment, saw, pre mixed gas, bar oil, water, food and a few tools and went out riding just looking for a tree obstructing a trail. I carried my equipment on my KTM 500 xcw and Hose-b carried his on his………………wife’s bike. Luckily, Becky has a dirt bike and is such a nice girl that she will loan it to Jess whenever he has friends come over to ride. LOL!

We ride and cut as we go.  Jess is showing me things to pay attention to as I learn to cut with the chainsaw. I have used them before but nowhere near the experience Jess has with saws. I learn very quickly to take nothing for granted and don’t go faster than my limited ability. Pretty much like riding a motorcycle! On one day of cutting we do our best to keep track of how many trees/cuts we make. I am astonished when Hose-b tells me we cut out 42 trees or limb blockages. Not bad for two guys in a single day of volunteer work. I can’t wait to come back and ride those trails.

In the next few days we do a little rifle sighting, shotgun shooting and mouse trapping. It seems the hot weather must have stirred up the mouse population cause I have seen a couple in and around the mobile ghetto (our Raptor 5^th wheel). So now it’s on! I set up a couple of mouse traps and prepare to annihilate the little vermin. On my first attempt I get the Freakin Houdini of the mice. He steals my bait and doesn’t trip the trap!  Oh No you didn’t!  We will just see about that. So I reset the next night and make sure I wedge the bait so it has to be yanked on to get it. Also I back it up with a sticky trap in the same area.  Also I plan to wait up watching TV until the little sucker comes back and I hear the SNAP of the trap. Then it happens……. Cheryl is shaking me awake telling me I have something in my trap.  I check and sure enough there is ol’ Houdini. Gotchya! Now maybe I can relax.

The next morning, I check the sticky trap and have his back up man caught too!  Good now it should be all clear. Then I find the bag of chips the little suckers had found and chewed a hole in and were making regular grocery runs at night.  So I set up using the chips and caught the rest of the gang! Took a few days but I think the word went out around the “hood” that the dude in the mobile ghetto was on the war path. They moved on. Victory!

So just about the time I thin the mouse herd I am thinking it is time to move on to our next destination until Hose-b informs me he has a trip planned for us to a place called Buffalo Hump. He has gone camping there and really seems to enjoy it, they shuttle their four wheelers there, unload and ride in to an area known as Buffalo Hump and spend the night. I think, ok, I will ride my KTM and go along since I have never been a four-wheel kind of guy. Oh No, not a chance Hose-b and his buddy Phil have borrowed me a four wheeled Suzuki 750 so I can have the whole experience. So we load up and head out with each of us on our own four wheeler. The area called Buffalo Hump we ride up into is a very scenic area with National forest, private property and ends up running into a Wilderness that eventually impedes any further progress unless you are equipped to continue on foot.

The ride is fun, the views are incredible and the weather is just about perfect. We spend the day exploring our way to the camp site Hose-b and Phil select and see several very expensive high end houses perched on sections of private property. Amazing they could get all that building material up the only access road available considering it took us a half day on 4-wheel drive machines. One house is perched on a peak made up of mostly rock and so high that the only thing equal in elevation to it is a Fire Lookout several hills away. I notice that the house has several very heavily grounded lightning rods placed on it. Hmmmmm, I would have to be very selective when visiting there.

We make camp, set up tents and have a bite to eat at a ridge overlooking a small lake probably a thousand feet below us. The view is amazing and we can see forever in almost any direction. We notice a column of smoke several ridges away and my estimation is that it is about 15 to 20 miles from us. As dusk approaches I can see the flames from the fire and it is still about 20 miles away. I am thinking flames that high at that distance gotta be a couple of hundred feet high! WOW, I have never witnessed anything like that before. But it is getting late so I finally climb into the tent to sleep. When I wake about 4am I try to be quiet and climb out of the tent with my water bottle and pop tarts to watch the sunrise. I eat, drink and watch the sun come up. There is a HUGE cliff drop off less than 100yds away. Wouldn’t it be fun to roll boulders down the cliff face!  I could see and hear them as they gained speed toward the lake if they took just the right bounce. Boy, I had a BIG TIME rolling rocks for at least a half hour. They would bounce, bash and crash their way toward the lake if I got lucky and got just the right bounce. It was like being a little kid again.

Then the little kid looked up the hill and saw the house with the lightning rods again. It looked like it was about maybe a mile and a half up hill, two at the most. I wondered how long it would take to walk there. About 15 minutes into the walk I came across and old seldom used 4 wheeler path, so I followed it and it led to the house on the hill. The house was all locked up and no one was there so I just admired the view, took some breathtaking photos and returned on the same path. I figured since it was a seldom used trail for a 4 wheeler it must be an alternate route for escape in case of fire or some other emergency. About half way back down I was on the SAME path and came across a pile of poop I did not recognize right on the trail I had just come up on. I have seen, coyote, deer, elk, bear and other kinds of poop and know what they look like. It was very fresh and looked a lot like a man did it! I glanced around nervously and then thought wait a minute there is no toilet paper and no people foot prints!  Being unsure and having left my 9mm in the tent I figured the best thing for me to do was to quicken my stride and be acutely aware of my surroundings.  Good thing it was downhill! As I made my way back to camp I was watching over my shoulder constantly. As soon as I got back I asked Jess and Phil what in the world could poop the size of a large man and in the same configuration, they both answered….....a Wolf.   Great, I am out as a rock rolling, sightseeing, novice camping, beginner woodsman and I am Wolf Bait on my first solo excursion.  Next time I will have my knife, my 9mm, and sling a shotgun.  That wasn’t no mouse!

We make our way back to civilization and I am ready to load up and get back to a motocross track where I usually just dislocate my shoulder or something! It’s safer.

#33

‘the best things in life aren’t things’

What's Your Brain Worth?

Helmets

How good is yours?

A long time ago I remember seeing a Bell helmet advertisement that said, “if you have a $10 head, wear a $10 helmet”, or something very similar.

That ad was run more years ago than I care to remember; But it stuck with me so obviously it was a well thought out ad. Boy have times changed, with helmets now ranging in price from a cheap $79 to approaching $750 for the latest and greatest in quality and technology that also doubles as a fashion statement as they have literally become works of art!

I see some absolutely beautiful helmets these days on the road, at the tracks and in the desert. But since I spend so much time on a bike, in so many different locations and types of riding I also see some very scary looking things on peoples’ heads. If I were independently wealthy I would carry around high quality helmets to trade people when I see them. Sometimes I cringe when I see such so called protective gear.

I have destroyed several helmets and suffered more concussions than I care to remember, uh, maybe I can’t remember! Lol.  So I am speaking from experience while I stand on my soapbox here and rant. What spurred me to write this tirade was a recent week long off road trip with a group of riders that ended on a sour note.

Our group had ridden several hundred miles over about 5 days and was on the last 40 or so miles before arriving at our motel for the night. We were all looking forward to a shower and a nice meal with the daily B.S. session where we all could tell how fast we went and how high we flew! Unfortunately, just before we reached the pavement to ride into our motel, one of our riders named Jeff crashed and took a serious blow to the head. He was knocked unconscious and would not regain consciousness until sometime the next day. It turned into quite the ordeal to stabilize, monitor, extract and transport him to medical facilities.

It has been almost 2 months now and Jeff is doing better at home but is not back to being himself yet. This is one of the most scary, long term serious head injuries I have seen.

It was purely coincidental that some of us on this trip had been discussing helmets, quality, cost, protection and age just the day before the incident. Someone had questioned why a helmet with all the certifications like SNELL and DOT stickers and only cost $99 was not as good as one that sells for $600 with exactly the same certifications.

While cost alone is NOT a rating for a good helmet, you generally get what you pay for in the helmet arena to a point. Now here I go on my soap box. I have worn decent helmets and VERY hi quality helmets in my 48 years of riding. I have also crashed on both types and whacked my noggin hard enough to destroy more than one helmet! Both the decent and the hi quality ones. So I am speaking from experience when I tell you I can tell the difference in energy transfer and dissipation when channeled through the hi quality helmet. It is noticeable and worth every penny when it finally happens and rest assured if you ride enough it will happen. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!

I recently put it to one of our doubting Thomas types that was concerned with over spending on a helmet this way. I buy a top of the line helmet for around $600. I can wear that helmet safely for 5 or so years if I take care of it and barring any big crashes. That breaks down to maybe $125 a year to give myself the best odds possible to keep participating in my favorite sport.  I wish my auto insurance was that cheap!

Just food for thought, how good was your helmet when you bought it, how has it been treated, how old is it and what is your head worth? We can fix bones, stitch gashes and even repair joints most of the time. But unfortunately no doctor has been able to fix a head/brain injury yet. A good helmet is our best line of defense for participating in the sport we have chosen because it is our passion.

I hope if you read this it made you think, I am really glad you can, probably because you have a good helmet!  Ride safe.

#33

‘Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first, and the lesson later’