Kenny Carlile

As long as the weather holds and it doesn't turn into a mudfest, my intent is for Thursday night (4/16/09) to be my first motocross race (ever) at Portland International Raceway's Thursday Night Motocross. Since I don't have a dedicated MX bike (yet), I had to do some tweaking to turn my woods/desert bike into a more MX-appropriate machine.

To comply with racing rules, I needed to remove my kickstand and headlight. Removing my kickstand was easy enough, but I needed to replace the headlight with a number plate. I had purchased a Cycra Stadium front number plate a few months ago for just this reason. To get everything to fit right (I use "fit right" loosely, because it doesn't really fit the way I would like it to because of the crazy CRF250X triple clamps), I chose to remove the odometer, which has left me with an open connection at the right side of the front wheel hub. I could replace this with a different hub spacer, but since I'm not sure if I want to leave the odometer off, used a red (coincidentally, it just happened to be the one that I had that fit) wire nut which threaded right on to the hub connector for the odometer cable.

I also removed my handguards, but used the Fastway barends from the handguards to plug my open-ended grips. These are not ideal solutions, but they are temporary solutions for a multi-purpose bike for someone who is trying motocross for the first time. Here are the pictures of the conversion.

Stay tuned for race results!

A few months ago, I replaced my stock clutch perch with an ASV C5 lever/perch/hotstart assembly. I'm really happy with it, but at the time of installation, I was a little nervous. When I pulled the stock clutch perch, I realized that the new perch didn't have the same clutch switch for the starter that the stock one has.

The purpose of that switch is to ensure that you don't accidentally hit the starter button when you have the bike in gear but the clutch lever isn't pulled. That is, when the clutch is pulled, it activates a switch in the perch that completes the starter circuit so that the bike can start. (I would have never thought this was a good idea until the two times now that I've accidentally hit the starter button with my hip while loading my bike…which, thankfully, wasn't in gear.) It was essential to find a work around for this so that my bike would start with the new perch that lacked the clutch switch.

I did some research online and found people saying "just short circuit the switch/wires". I'm not much of an electrician, so that didn't mean a whole lot to me, so I had to do some guessing. I figured that if the switch allows the circuit to be completed, then just hardwiring the two leads together should fulfill that.

I removed the old clutch perch and disconnected the leads from the switch. Those leads come out of the same wire wrap that goes to the kill switch. I didn't want to undo that entire wire wrap back to the previous relay and short circuit it there because 1) that's a lot of extra work and 2) I like to easily be able to undo things that I'm uncertain of. I decided, at least for now, that I would just perform the short cicruit right on the bar near the kill switch.

This is where my memory gets a little fuzzy as to what I did and I don't want to undo my work to look at it. I either taped the two leads together with electrical tape so that they were touching or I used a short piece of wire to connect the two leads together. I'm pretty sure that I used the short wire method to ensure a good connection, but I can't remember exactly. I then tightly wrapped the short circuit with electrical tape as snug as I could back to the branch from the main wire wrap. I folded the new connection back along the back side of the handlebar (to protect it as much as possible) and zip-tied it to the bar.

That was back in October and it's still holding and working great. I could undo it and spend the time to fix all the wiring and remove it from the kill switch wiring, but this is working fine for now and it allows me to easily go back to my stock clutch perch if I need to for any reason. I've included as many pictures and diagrams as I can (without tearing my work back apart) for reference. If anyone comes a cross a quicker, easier, reversible, more elegant solution, I'd love to see it. Please comment below with any of your ideas.

Clutch Switch Short Circuit

Clutch Short Circuit Overlay

Clutch Perch Assembly

Electrical System Diagram

Starter System Diagram

Today, we headed out to Brown's Camp to try to get some Spring riding in. It had been pretty dry and relatively warm this last week and we were hoping that the weather would hold. Thankfully, it did and we were able to get a few hours of trail riding in.

On our way in, we pulled into Roger's Camp. I had never been there before, but I knew it was just off the highway on the way in to Brown's Camp. There were a ton of vehicles parked there, so we thought that the area would be really busy, but we later found out that Brown's Camp was relatively dead in comparison. We didn't even get out of the truck at Roger's Camp. I just wanted to see the spot and tag it with my GPS unit for later reference.

Brown's Camp (proper) is still closed to parking, so we had to park along the road by the nearby intersection like the last time, which worked out fine. We mostly rode the logging roads and a few small bits of real trails. We rode the logging roads up and around Military Trail and those to the North of Clyde's Trail, which we affectionately called "Fish Pond Road".

This was the first time that all three of us had gone trail riding together. Paxton had mostly ridden in fields and other open play areas, so this was a new experience. In addition to the trail aspect, this is the first time that he's really had to deal with uphills and downhills. He was very nervous with the downhills at first, but we took our time, did some practicing, and once he got the hang of it, he did great, even bombing a few (small) hills that I thought he would have been too nervous to try on his first day of riding hills.

Pax even tackled his first real (non-logging road) trail at the Kids Loop behind Brown's Camp. It was by far the most technical riding he did all day and he executed it great without incident! He really liked it too. I'm so proud!

We also found a little play area called something like "Sand Pile Play Area" not too far from Brown's Camp. While we were loading up the gear and bikes, Paxton practiced some MX-style laps. This would be a fun area for kids to play around in when it's not 1) filled with mud and HUGE puddles and 2) not filled with yayhoos of the quad and bike variety (mostly quads).

It was an easy day of riding for me, but it was a blast. I love getting out to ride with Dena and Pax. Seeing them have fun and learn is at least as much fun for me as a long day pounding trails or track…probably more fun.

This was the first chance I've had to ride my bike since adding my DRD Quiet Core muffler insert and my Fastway F-5 footpegs. The Quiet Core wasn't noticeable in terms of performance loss, but it also didn't seem significantly quieter. But as for the footpegs: AWESOME! I love them. I suspected that I would and I've liked them when I've tried them on other bikes, but I'm extremely happy that I finally spent the money and got them.

Brown's Camp 4/11/09

Rustler Updates

After looking around at RC shops, I finally gave in and ordered the RPM bumper mount (Part # 80905) and motor protector (Part # 80915) that I was wanting for my Rustler.

Image from http://www.rpmrcproducts.com/

I bought a rear Slash bumper (Part # 5836) to mount on the RPM bumper mount, but it didn't come with the screws necessary to mount it and it can't mount with the RPM bumper mount, so for now it's just sitting in my toolbox as a spare.

I also picked up some extra body washers (Part # 1815), as I envision these getting lost and I was already picking some up for Mickey.

While we were picking up some parts for the Slash (see below), one of my dogs decided to chew up my antenna tube, cap, and wire. I ran back into the shop and picked up a new JR Parts receiver antenna (72/75MHz) (Part # JRPA170) and a new antenna tube and cap (I didn't get the details on this, but I'm assuming it's Part # ASC6338). I haven't installed it yet because it's working just fine. I'll wait until it gets a little more mangled (or eaten) before I replace it.

Slash Updates

On the Slash, I recently added the thickest and second thickets suspension shims to try to help with bottoming on landings. The extra weight on the Slash definitely impacts landings with the stock suspension settings.

Paxton bought some decals (Part # 9950) to decorate his Slash, although we haven't added them yet.

While we were in Idaho, we had an accidental collision between the two trucks, which resulted in a broken right rear bearing carrier on the Slash. I was surprised at this because the impact was relatively light. I suppose the bearing carrier could have already been damaged, but it seemed to be handling fine prior to this. Anyway, we picked up some replacement RPM rear bearing carriers (Part # 80382) and, while I was there, I also go the replacement RPM front bearing carriers (Part # 80372), because that will probably be the next piece to break, just like on the Rustler.

And thus concludes my OCD-driven RC parts update. Yes, I know no one reads this or cares. Yes, it's for my OCD-driven need to document every modification I make to these trucks.

While we were in Idaho Falls (and Chubbuck and Pocatello) recently, we met with my girlfriend's brother, Mickey, who has an RC rock crawler. I didn't know that he had one until we got there, but we brought the Rustler along with us, just for fun. On Saturday, March 21st, we met him in Chubbuck at Dapco Hobbies for an RC rock crawling exhibition.

Mickey has an Axial AX10 Scorpion (kit) that he had built around Christmastime, but hadn't yet tried in a real rock crawling situation. I have to admit that I didn't have much interest in RC rock crawling, but I thought it might be fun to check it out anyway. After watching some people take their turn at the course and watching Mickey's truck tackle the course, it seemed like it would be a lot more fun than I originally thought.

It was really interesting to see the sections that the taller trucks did well on versus the sections that the lower trucks did well on. The course was pretty difficult and it seemed that the bigger the tires, the better the truck handled.

I think Santa might need to bring us a rock crawler this year.

The rock crawling course is unsecured in the parking lot at Dapco Hobbies and can be found via the address on their site (linked above), or via these GPS coordinates: N42 54.970 W112 27.899.