I have been reading a lot of topics lately that relate to maintaining our beloved dirt bikes.  It’s been interesting to see the different maintenance schedules have been and how they differ from one person to the next — and they are very different.  Your manual will give you some good insights into how often and what lubricants you should be using, but I often find there is some wiggle room and some logical reasoning behind straying from the “recommended.”

I have also found that off-road dirt bikes, e.g., XR, CRF-X, WRF, etc, tend to have a more relaxed maintenance schedule (at least those maintaining them seem to think so) vs. the maintenance schedule done by most dedicated motocross (MX) dirt bikes — and even there, the schedule and lubricants used are typically quite different.  Schedules ranged from once or twice a season, to every other ride, to once every few hours.  Of course if you don’t ride much in a season, your once or twice a season could be the same as once every other ride, so take that into consideration.

Now what I have to say relates to my results as I’ve maintained my 4-stroke MX’er.  I do maintain 2, 2-stroke MX’ers as well, but that’s a topic for a different post.  Below are some suggestions for keeping track of time, so you’ll actually have a schedule.  No I am not a mechanic, and No I don’t know everything, I’m only telling you why I do what I do, and hopefully give you the desire to properly maintain your dirt bike on a schedule with some additional information so you can make a more informed decision, and hopefully have a longer lasting dirt bike.

Keeping track of time…
There are many ways to keep track of engine time.  It is my opinion that without some method of keeping track of time, your maintenance schedule turns into a guessing game — which is not how I want to take care of my dirt bike that I routinely let propel me off 50′ jumps.  There are several ways to do this, so pick one and stick with it.  These are listed in the order I recommend them.  The list is not conclusive by any means, so if you have a suggestion, leave a comment below.

1. Buy and install an hour meter. Hour meters are awesome.  They take all the guess work out of keeping track of time — this is how I do it and I HIGHLY recommend it, though I didn’t always do it this way.
2. Keep track of how much fuel you use. Before I knew about hour meters, I changed my oil after I’d burned through 5 gallons of fuel.  In my estimation, 1 gallon lasts for about 1 hour of ride time. This works well so long as you don’t share your fuel container with someone else.
3. Number of rides. This is my least favorite method, but it’s better than a guess.  The problem with this method is that not all riding terrain locations equate to a specific amount of motor run time.  For example, if I go to the track, I will typically put 1 hour on my motor.  If I go trail riding, I’ll more than likely put anywhere from 2-5 hours on the motor.  If I go to the sand dunes you’ll put even more — and sand dunes IMOP are hard hours.  So take that into consideration. So if you maintain your bike every 3 rides and you went to a track, trail, and then the sand dunes, the hours on the motor are vastly different than if you had gone to the track 3 times.  The track might only yield 3-4 hours of motor run time, where as 3 trips to the sand dunes could yield as high as 15-20 hours of hard motor time — if it were me, I’d be changing the oil after every sand dune trip.  So again, consider where you rode when it comes to using the “number of rides” method.

It’s pretty interesting to see how time spent riding with friends can yield vastly different hours on a motor.  Some guys just ride longer than others during the same amount of time spent at the track, trail or wherever.  I found a few years ago after getting my first hour meter that a day at the track only yielded 30-40 minutes for me, but would yield 1.5 hours for my brother.  That was an eye opener and was to me a solid reason to keep investing in hour meters.

So in short, what I would do is check your manual to see what sort of schedule they suggest, then tailor your time tracking method above to meet that recommended schedule.  You’ll sleep better knowing where your bikes maintenance stands.

Stay tuned for more maintenance tips over the coming weeks.

Now to the nitty gritty, Why do you ride MX tracks or actually I want to know more specifically what keeps you coming back to the track and what causes you to consider a day at the track a success?  I’ve narrowed it down to a few different reason’s that it might be, and more than likely it’s a combination of a few of these.  Here’s the list I compiled for the possible reason “you” might ride MX tracks, and keep coming back — this list is not a complete list as I’m sure there are other reasons, these are just the ones I thought of while typing this…

1) You’re competitive so you like all things racing — even when it’s just practice.  Riding and Racing with your buddies is what it’s all about.  You feel invigorated by racing everyone in front of you and feel great pride by taking home the proverbial “checkered flag.”  The day at the track is less than fulfilling if you didn’t get into some back and forth racing.  Otherwise, you would prefer to just stay home and run on the treadmill looking at the wall than spin mindless laps without someone to race.  Win at all costs.

2) You’re a socialite.  A day at the track is more about spending time with friends, bench racing, and just relaxing with people that share a common interest.  Track days are more about the time spent in the pits than actual riding or at least as important.

3) You enjoy the challenge, want to learn, and subscribe to the idea that you sometimes have to go slower to go faster.  In the end you believe proper technique is going to make you faster.  Every corner, rut, jump, or misc. obstacle is a chance to practice and get better.  You enjoy reading about or watching videos on riding technique, then spending a day at the track practicing/honing these techniques.  You get your butt kicked by a specific corner, maybe because the ruts are deep and long, so you cut the track to hit this obstacle over and over again so you can get better at it.  You go slower because you are paying more attention to your technique.  Getting around the track isn’t important, it’s how you get around the track. You make sure your elbows are up, weight the outside peg in corners, look ahead, grip the bike with your knees, try to never use your arms to hold yourself up, and try to maintain your center of gravity.  A good day at the track is seeing your attention to technique pay off by turning faster lap times and hitting maybe one corner like Ricky Carmichael, Kevin Windham, or Ryan Dungey would have.

4) You love to tinker.  Messing with settings (suspension, jetting, tire selection, etc) on your dirt bike to make your ride easier is something you enjoy.  Others often ask you for advise on settings and you enjoy telling them what you think.  You study this stuff and like helping others with their dirt bikes.

So of that list which are you?

If you can think of one I didn’t mention, please post a reply and let me know what it is.  I know this list is not exhaustive by any means.

I’m not a #1.  I am however a combination of #’s 2, 3, & 4, with #3 being the dominant reason I keep going back.  I find that if I skip doing #’s 2 and 3, I have a harder time getting excited to go riding again the next time.  #2, makes my day at the track a lot longer, but also makes it a lot more enjoyable.  #3 is the real reason I like going.  I almost always have a technique goal.  I don’t always do it, but having a goal gives me a purpose, which in turn makes it easier to go riding.

Just something to think about while you are laying in bed…

Until next time…

First off I want to Congratulate Ryan Dungey (RD5) for his success in winning the Motocross Lites Championship (2009), winning the Supercross 450 Championship (2010), and kicking some butt so far in the Motocross 450 Championship hunt.  He’s my favorite current rider and seems to have what it takes to win it all.  Granted James Stewart (JS7) is off making reality shows, and can’t seem to be bothered with racing, but that’s his loss — though I hear rumors that he might be returning to racing in the next couple of rounds.  The only other person I believe would really make this years MX Championship hunt difficult would be Ryan Villopoto (RV2), but he’s out injured.  I actually believe that RD5 would give both of them a a run for their money, though it would be MUCH more difficult than it has been up to this point, despite his lackluster start to the season (Round 1).

I’ve rambled long enough, but please be patient while I try to get the new site sorted and try to hone my writing skills… I know I’m not that good, but I do want to be, so doesn’t that count for something?  Like in anything we do, practice, practice, practice, and more practice and eventually I’ll get there.

Until next time…

All in all we had a blast.

The favorite gun was the Walther P-22 which costs nearly nothing to shoot and is just plain fun.

Some of my favorites.

Troy

Brennan

Tyler

Trevan

Brennan Shot

As you can see we had a great time.  We also nearly froze to death, but it was worth it.

You can see all the photo’s in this direct link to the photogallery.

Gravel Pit Shooting – 11/21/2009 (49 Photos)

Thanks Tyler and Jason for a FANTASTIC Fall riding session.  I think we all agree a great time was certainly had. It was getting dark though, which made for some tough shots, but thanks to my prime 50 f/1.4 it worked out well. The depth of field on these is almost non-existent, but they turned out quite well despite all of that.

If you see any pictures you want, let me know which ones and I’ll send you the originals.

I normally post some of the photos in my blog post, but again, I’m feeling less lazy, but I’m not fully recovered yet.   That’s okay though because you can see all of them from the photo gallery.

Enjoy — Direct Link:

Jordan River OHV Park – 11/07/2009 (164 Photos)

Anyway, enough with my rambling. Check out this bike.

2010 Yamaha YZ450F – Home

2010 Yamaha YZ450F – Video

In the beginning, though I loved the Great Outdoors (GTO) DVD’s, they were too short.  You paid a lot of money for 30 or so minutes of cliff notes motocross.  In 2002 when I purchased my first DVD, I actually called No Fear and complained.  I think the DVD was around 38 minutes long and cost me $25 (if my memory isn’t completely failing me). Needless to say, I wasn’t very thrilled.  The DVD was still fantastic, but the cost to good ratio was pretty low — still good viewing, but spendy.

Fast forward to 2008 (2009 now) and after giving the 2008 video a watching, the first thing I noticed was how long it was.  Needless to say I was thrilled.  1 hour and 24 minutes of heaven.  The price is the same, but the viewing pleasure was 10 fold, as I couldn’t get hung up on the cost to length ratio as previous years had me doing.

One of the notable features of the film is the different angles and parts of the tracks that they are able to capture.  For the most part, I can recognize any of the current 12 National tracks, but a few of them I was unable to recognize due to the different sections the footage was from and the different way they made the film.  A lot of the footage was close-up, which was very cool.  So in short, the shooting and angles are fantastic.

Though the racing in the 2008 MX National season was pretty boring (perfect season for J. Stewart, and nearly perfect for R. Villopoto) the film was still really exciting.  The GTO film crew managed to turn a pretty boring season into a thriller.  For the first few rounds I was actually on the front of my seat excited to see who would win, even though I knew for the most part what was going to happen.

So my suggestion?  If you like Motocross, and I do, I recommend this DVD.  I would rate it a 9/10.  It would be higher if the racing was more exciting — but that’s not the films fault.

You can pick up the film from No-Fear –> The Great Outdoors: The Destroyers

This is a fantasticly entertaining video.  The driving is awesome, and the cat and mouse chase through the dirt is phonominal.  Though they could have shown more of  RC — but alas beggars can’t be choosers, and quite honestly I’ll take what I can get.

Enjoy the video.  I know I did — Oh and turn up your speakers because the audio is a little on the quiet side.

The video shows him doing some cool whips, but for the most part is an interview with updates about what his plans are.  Most notably:

• He will be competing in the X-Games
• He will race a few select Outdoor Nationals (though he didn’t say which)
• He will race the 2010 Supercross season.

Here’s the link to the video.

Kevin Windham Interview

Well, unknown to me up to this point, Alli Sports (Alliance of Action Sports) has been saving them for us all to view online.  Wooo Hooooo!!!

Due to the fact that the 2nd moto’s are being televised on Speed or NBC, they are only posting for our viewing pleasure moto 1, which is fine by me, and is certainly better then nothing at all.

So, Thank YOU Alli Sports and for those taking the time read my post — > Here’s the link:

2009 Motocross Race Archive