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

We headed out to Diamond Mill today to try to cash in on a rare beautiful day in February. I'd never been to Diamond Mill, but I was quickly impressed. The trails, while sparsely sprinkled across the map, are pretty good. The day started out with a brief mechanical problem, but we resolved it and were under way. Pax and rode around the staging area while Dena watched him and the dogs since she didn't feel like riding today.

We hit snow a few times, but nothing major. The biggest obstacle was running into closed trails. There was a lot–scratch that, a TEXAS BUTT-TON–of downed timber from this winter's storms. We hit probably 5 dead-end trails because of down timber, which sucked because they looked like great trails. Still, we had a great day. Thanks to Paul for leading most of the day and navigating me around this new (to me) area.

This was also my first ride with the new DRD exhaust…and holy crap was it awesome. The bike finally has the power I wanted. It rides more like a 300 or 350, compared to the 250 that it used to be. Or rather, it probably just rides like a properly-breathing 250, more like the CRF250R version. I have no problem lifting the front wheel now and it has the grunt in corners and hills like I want. The DRD and the HotCam stage 1 are an awesome combination.

One thing that I need to remember is to take a photo of my GPS data at the end of the day. There's no way to save the real-time stats, like miles-per-hour, etc., and even though I turned off tracking, the real-time data kept going. Garmin, you should fix this in the next software release. Let us save snapshots of the real-time data, or at least freeze it. Still, I love this thing. I'm really enjoying learning how to use it and mapping my rides.

Hopefully later in the year there will be more open trails. I'm anxious to head back to Diamond Mill when the weather is warmer and I have a full day to explore.

Diamond Mill 2/21/09 Morning

Diamond Mill 2/21/09 Afternoon

To celebrate the anniversary of a friend of mine surviving and recovering from a paralyzing neurological disease, Dave took Brandon and me on his annual "sick day" ride. Dave picked Shotgun Creek in the Cascades, SE of Albany, which was a bit of a drive, but well worth it to ride some new trails that I'd never been on before. I was pretty tired and sore from my crash the previous day at Giles' track, but I couldn't pass up Dave's ride. It was 34 degrees when we got out of the truck and very humid from a lot of recent rain in the area. Still, we bundled up and headed off with Dave as our guide.

Dave rides a Husky TE450, which is technically a dual-sport, but you'd never know that from the way he rides it. Some of the trails were mildly tacky and other trails were downright brownies soaked in chocolate pudding. Hillclimbs were a challenge, but so were steep downhills. It's hard for me to give a good, honest read on the trails since they were so slippery and rutted. I think the place would be a blast in the summer and early fall when it's much drier. Still, it was a great day of riding. We saw some beautiful scenery, including an amazing view from a trail along a cliff. It really walked the line between "wow, this is beautiful" and "holy crap, this is scary".

Toward the end of the day, my bike died on a small hill. At first, I thought I just didn't get enough of a run at it and failed with the clutch, but then the rear end wouldn't roll at all. I dragged the bike the short distance back to the main road (the hill was right off the road) to try to figure out what was wrong with it. With the bike in neutral, I tried to spin the rear wheel, but the chain was locked hard. I could see that the chain was bulging away from it's normal position on the countershaft sprocket. Brandon came back to check on me shortly and he had some tools with him. He pulled my case saver, which gave the chain room to move and I spun the wheel dislodging the rock or stick that was under the chain. The chain had raised up enough that it bit into my case saver and just locked in place. Thanks to Brandon for having tools with him and helping me out!

Throughout the day, we staged some great photos. Dave is an amazing photographer and it was a blast to have him out there with us. (Dave Schelske Photography) You can see some of his photos below the slide show of my pics from the day. At one point, we staged a great photo, but I tipped over right after the awesome shot (see below) and Dave caught me rolling on the ground laughing. It looks like I'm in agony after hitting the tree, but I'm really just laughing at how silly it was to tip over after an awesome shot.

I wore my Leatt Brace all day and fell pretty comfortable with it. I had to adjust the back piece so that I could stand and look far enough up the trail, but that was pretty minor and I needed to do it anyway. I'm still really happy with my Leatt and I definitely feel safer. This was also my first time riding with my new Garmin 60CSX GPS unit and as soon as I figure out how to export the routes, I'll post our morning and afternoon rides here.

It was muddy, slippery, grueling, tiring, and we only went 29 miles in 6 hours…but it was a great day of riding. Thanks, Dave.

Shotgun Creek 2/8/09 Morning

Shotgun Creek 2/8/09 Afternoon