Kenny Carlile

A friend of mine had invited us to come out to his private track for some riding a while back and we were unable to make it that day. Last Friday, I got my suspension back from Pro Motion Suspension in Vancouver, WA after having new Factory Connection springs installed and having the forks and shock rebuilt with new valving and new seals. This was also my first time wearing my Leatt Brace Moto GPX Club.

Pax had recently decided that he wanted to start riding again, but the track was a little too much for him yet, so he just putzed around on Giles' property. Dena tried out the track, but it was pretty slippery in places and it was not a terribly beginner-friendly track in places, especially while wet/muddy/icy. That said, it's a great track, especially for a private track in your front yard. I'd give my third kidney to have a track like that at my house!

Having home court advantage, Giles ripped up the track, including working on his nac nacs over the 90 foot stepup jump, the biggest of three stepups on the track. I had a great time, but struggled a bit. I just didn't feel confident between the slippery conditions and the more advanced doubles. Still, I had a great time riding the track and trying out my new suspension. It was definitely an improvement in handling to be able to ride the bike in the sweet spot of the springs.

Toward the end of the day, I decided to start going for the smallest of the stepups, which is still about 50 feet. Giles said something to the effect of, "You just have to come out of the corner and pin it in third and overjump it." After a couple less-than-ballzy attempts, I decided to go for it…and I overjumped it…and apparently my shock was a little stiff because I rebounded up into a ledge, hit a tree, flipped over the bars, feel off the 6-8 foot ledge, and landed flat on my back/neck/head. The bike fell down off the ledge and then flopped on to my leg, which didn't hurt, but did pin me to the ground as I was sucking wind trying to get my breath back. I got my bell rung pretty good too with an instant massive headache.

Eventually, got got up, restarted the bike and headed back to the truck. I was done for the day. I don't know that the Leatt Brace prevented me from breaking my neck. It's probably unlikely that I would have broken my neck based on how I landed. What I do know is that it's 5 days later now and my neck is still stiff and sore. I'm glad that I had my Leatt Brace on. I have no doubt that it lessened the injury I would have had. I'm very confident in this product and strongly recommend it to everyone. I know it's expensive, but your life and your neck are worth a lot more than a few hundred bucks.

Thanks again to Giles for having us out to our awesome track. Maybe next time I'll be able to take advantage of it more.

The day after Thanksgiving, I headed out to the Clark County Fairgrounds in Ridgefield, WA with Dave to check out the indoor arenacross track there. We met our friends Jeff and Eric out there and met some new friends as well. The track was quality, but the design was brutal. Giles had ridden the track the week before and he said it was much better, but this week, everyone agreed that it was very technical. Jeff said that he'd never used his clutch that much on a track and I certainly knew what he meant.

On the plus side, I had wanted to ride the track to get an idea of what it was like and to try riding indoors. Also, Giles had some really good tips on cornering that were hard to apply but did improve my riding a lot. Unfortunately, they had so many people riding and so many classes that they ended up shortening the practices to 10 minutes each, which was enough, but we were only able to ride three times in 5 hours!

With a better, more forgiving track design and at a less busy time, Clark County could be a lot of fun. I'll go back, but not right away.

Here's a video I took of Jeff and Eric goofing off. Jeff edited the footage and put it to music.

Dena and I headed out to Brown's Camp for a little late-season trail ride today. It was a pretty nice day, although it was a bit chilly in the shade. It hadn't rained in Beaverton, but it was really wet out there, so I think it rained last night in the forest. We actually had to park along the road to the North of Brown's Camp as the campsite itself was closed, although we spent most of the day riding around and to the South of there.

We started out the day riding some of the logging roads to get "warmed" up, although it was cool enough that neither of us ever got "warm". I hadn't explored much around there, so we were going a little blind. On the way back on our first ride, we decided try taking a shortcut on the lower Military (#43) trail. I had ridden it before, but it was a good challenge for Dena. She did great. We also hit part of Clyde's (#7), and another trail that I don't recall the name of (#44).

There was a surprising number of people out there for as cold, wet, and late in the season as it was, but I guess that's what you get on a decent day at Brown's Camp. There were also a lot more quads than I would have expected. Probably a good 50/50 split with bikes.

It was nice to get out and do some trail riding, despite the slippery trails and cool wetness in the air. This was also my first ride with my new HotCam, which definitely made a difference, although I kept it pretty tame as I was supposed to do a 3k RPM break-in easy ride.

My friend Jeff and I hit the Washougal motocross park last Sunday for the last practice session of the season. I'd never ridden Washougal before, although I've watched four AMA National motocross races there. What an amazing place! Being on that track was a childhood dream come true. It's such a surreal place for me having seen my childhood idols race there as a kid. Riding that track seemed so unimaginable and now I'm in a position where I can just pay $30 and ride it a few times a year.

My bike actually did better than I was afraid it would do. Don't get me wrong, the handling was pretty bad, but power-wise it did okay. That is, it worked. It didn't work well, but it worked. I was able to pull Horsepower Hill better than I expected and it worked decent in the ruts.

In practice round 1, I passed about four other riders before I tried to avoid a big jump, mistimed a smaller jump, jumped off the track, smashed through a hay bale, and landed facing into traffic on another part of the track. I technically "passed" about another dozen or so riders, but since I cut a huge section of the track out, I don't count those passes.

My second time out, I passed a couple riders before taking a nasty spill. I was coming out of the corner right before Horsepower Hill when I got cross-rutted, tried to power out of it, the bike started swapping, and then I high-sided. You can see this crash in the videos below, but unfortunately for me, the angle looks like I just tipped over for no reason. I can assure you, I was trying to save it before I crashed. After my little crash, I took the rest of that round easy.

My third round out, I didn't push myself very hard. I was getting tired and starting to feel what a pig my bike had become on the track. The more tired I got, the worse my trailbike worked as a motocross bike.

Despite my two gaffes, I had a great time. The motocross bug has really bitten me. It was something I always wanted to do as a kid and just never was able to do it for one reason or another.

Another very positive experience was meeting the people I rode with. Jeff is a great rider and a really nice guy. I also finally got to meet another friend from the forums, Eric, who is also a fantastic rider. My previous experiences with motocross riders, when I was growing up, were fairly negative. They were always very competitive and arrogant. However, this group of guys was compeltely different! They were all extremely supportive and encouraging. I know that I was relatively slow and awkward on the track, but they all told me how great I was doing, which was really nice to hear. I'm very happy to have met these guys.

My latest scheme–I mean, plan–is to train and save over the winter, buy a gently used CRF250R and do some racing next year. I don't care if I come in last place every time, I just want to ride and have fun. I never got to do it as a kid, so this is my chance to fulfill a childhood dream. Wish me luck!

When I recently slapped some new graphics on my CRF250X, I asked my friends for tips as I'd never applied fancy graphics before, just stickers. I had heard about using Windex before, but I didn't fully understand how it worked. My friends said to spray the plastic with Windex, then slap the sticker on, position it, and let the Windex dry and the sticker will set perfectly.

The first sticker I tried was the front fender sticker. I slathered the fender up with Windex before applying the sticker. I couldn't get it to stick at all! It was just sliding all over and it wouldn't even form to the fender's curve. I pulled it off and sopped up some of the Windex and tried it again. It still wouldn't stick; there was just too much Windex on the fender and sticker. I sopped up as much as I could, reapplied the sticker, and went to get a hair dryer to try to help the drying process. BAM! This did the trick. The heat from the hair dryer warmed the sticker up even more so that it was much more pliable. It also made the glue tackier and the Windex dried faster.

After experimenting on the front and rear fenders, I learned the real trick to using Windex to apply graphics.

1. Spray your hands with Windex and wipe down the plastic with your hands. The reason for doing this is that you get just the right amount on the fender. If you spray it directly on, you have to use too much to get good coverage.
2. Apply and position the sticker. Don't worry if it doesn't lay along all the curves and shapes of the plastic, just get it aligned correctly.
3. Use a hair dryer and start at one edge of the sticker, smoothing and shaping the sticker to the plastic with your hands as you go. The heat will let the graphics mold to the plastic. Alternately, you could probably start from the middle and work your way out. The important part is that you start in one place and work across so as to move air bubbles with your hands out to the edges.
4. Go back and reheat and work out any bubbles with the hair dryer and your hands. If you really can't get one out, you can use a needle or the edge of a razor blade (CAREFULLY!!!) to puncture the bubble and get the air out. Use LOTS of heat from the hair dryer if you are trying to work a bubble out.

Just know that your hands are going to hurt…a lot, especially if you are doing a full graphics kit, not just shrouds.

I was also advised to use clear nail polish along the edges of the graphics to keep them from peeling and keep dirt out from under the edges. I didn't do a particularly good job and I didn't find great nail polish, but this seems to be helping so far.

I also put on a new seat cover, but I'm not happy enough with how I did it to give any tips. It's a pain in the butt to get all the wrinkles out.

Good luck!