[Bruce CurtisMember]

yeah I am going to clear my mind and give myself a mental recharge, I ride every weekend as a rule, every second is serious with either one of two groups of fanatics, then every other with my son and maybe another nothing too demanding mainly just so he’s getting seat time and relearns his rythym with clutch & gears, and I practice silly stuff like stoppies andd low spped handlebar dragging hillclimbs that sorta stuff, get a bit tired go over the the marquee and sit down for 20 and do it again.

so I’m going to stop dwelling on it, cause i know how to find my “zone” on a closed circuit track well enough and will start applying that to the trails as well. Rest relaxation, good diet and reasonable state of fitness help as well, and the main part is focus and concentration without thought.
On another related note one of the problems I have seen though is when 1 or 2/3 riders are “ON” the rest of the group get left behind badly, and those who are “ON” get lost in their own world and just go…..this is what else happens in both groups at times, nothing wrong with it, just the nature of the beast.

Mr Blue

[Bruce CurtisMember]

what you don’t like getting fully undressed at the pub???? why not

some people live for that experience.
actually mick i do know what you mean, mostly in the hotter months here I wear just my pressure suit no jersey or shirt and it is way cool, except maybe a little “oxford street” with the open weave mesh and all:blush: .

maybe Moto would like some?

B

[Bruce CurtisMember]

Mmm the best elbow guards IMO are the ones attached to decent body armour…sorry Mick but i’ve had experience with some standalone one riding up or down and exposing a naked elbow.

Although I wish some armour had more roost protection built in.

B

[Bruce CurtisMember]

we are funny critter us humans, we will do seemingly irrational things driven by subconcious issues.
I am going to go out this weekend and find the steepest realistic hillclimb and eat it up, and maybe even do some larger log hopping without an audience.
BTW troy lee pressure suits spine protector is absolutely he ducks gutz, I came down so damn hard across that log yet all I got was winded, no dislocated or broken ribs, no vertebrae out nothing in the back just a little soreness the next day, and having a look at that part of the suit it is very similar to the Dianese design.
also did the full 270 degreee rotation off my bars and the new barkbusters DIDN”T snap my wrists like i always thought they could.

I am seeing a way out of the performance fog here as well.

B

[Bruce CurtisMember]

yeah thinking about it I s’pose this is what is the main difference between us and champions, we get subconcious “nerves”, they control theirs. SirDAL I think a nail has been hit with your comparision to the “other” performance anxiety (& being men we shall never speak of such things again) cause it is like the more you think about it the bigger the accident. (btw your posts are constructive and informative, so no need to go dropping the count there)

I am going to just clear the mind and ride again.

As Mick just said we are after all not young men and the next youngest to I in this group is 14 yrs my junior so i should be chuffed just to be in the Brethrens’ company so to speak at my age

Mr Blue

BTW rode a killer beautifully prepared ’08 CRF450, almost made me want some extra valves in my bike, best damn thing I have ever slung a leg over, the chassis is so taut, motor crisp as, low weight and hooks up, steers, holds a line it’s got everything, straight away was fast on it. He in turn rode my YZ and thought the same apparently…except for the hooking up bit, smokers don’t hook up they hook out and let loose, so a motocrosser is a motocrosser, unfortunately most enduro bikes are too “porkine” and easy going & forgiving in nature.

[Bruce CurtisMember]

maybe he could recycle the wire and use it on his grips?

you blokes shoulda gone to the ward and painted a honda emblem on his forehead while he was out to it?

Mr Blue

[Bruce CurtisMember]

yeah TB good point always been highly competitive at this stuff, maybe don’t want to face the fact I’m not 34, but 43, and the lads i’ve been riding lately with are all experienced & talented boys in their 20s, and I’m just experienced.
I think you’re probably right there about overthinking it too Mick, just “blank” my mind and try to “enter the zone” which is opposite of what i used to do on the gate which was intnense focus know how you are going to deal with each situation have an attack plan in your head, maybe that’s not a good idea on singletrack in general.

Maybe now just clear all thought and let the body and learnt bike instinct do what they have been doing so well for so long.

Gunna try that this weekend

Mr Blue

[Bruce CurtisMember]

Fitted mine yesterday, piece of cake to fit, terrific finish and build quality, very aggressive toothing, better than my other aftermarket pegs I’ve had, similar to the lightweight BMX competition pedals on some topline junior bikes…and Ecks shoulda used a stubby standard sized flatblade screwdriver on the bottom side of frame mount to align and to lever against inside the pin hole, then again have chainged a few pegs in my day so we take these tricks for granted sometimes.

Use
in a quick 20 minute repeat loop of my yard, I am going to declare …..provisionally
excellent as being an old MXer I cover my brake with my toes anyway, as someone said though move brake lever down or lockups are inevitable, gearshifts with my (after sundays efforts) mangled lever where much better, no slide of toes, just twist sideways twist striaght click up and…within three gear changes I was sold.

Now the main reason i wanted some was to help get my weight forward of really steep climbs, stuff that is 65 degree incline+, I am going to try them on this on the coming weekend and will report back to all on my experiences.
also see as was pointed out to me (by ridefit and gymfit 20something yr olds too) on the weekend and after revisiting some docile thumpers (from ttr350s, Wr450s, drz, te450) that my YZ is a very brutal bike power delivery wise and for some people very hard to stay in control, these pegs will definitely help there as sometimes my old body does get a bit rag dolled on the bike as I fatigue and make mistakes.

will go for a decent ride this weekend and give opinion

Bluebloke…actually atm black & blue

[Bruce CurtisMember]

Go On Moto you know you want a sandwich with a bit of pork on the side at lunch……

(but am I joshing now?)

Mr Blue

[Bruce CurtisMember]

Moto wrote:

Quote:

DISLIKE – Having bad thoughts about the girl in my local sandwich shop, she seems pretty keen. I’ve never been much good at will power

and the problem here is?
are you Ghey Moto?, go on son step on over to our side where the water is warm and fine?

(just joshing ya)

[Bruce CurtisMember]

have mates who work at the ground level of NPWS, have trained upper echeleon managers from NPWS, they are so retentive a squirrel would lose his nuts to them, this is a toe in the water to see what publicity or outcry is heard, and they media-manage quite well too, most middle-managers are schooled in the arts of subterfuge in round-speak, if the outcry is minimal or resisitance is weak, suddenly it will be fate-acompli, and they will move on to those darstardly 4WDers. Notice how they let one group go and say no to another…divide and conquer my friends, divide & conquer.

Bluce

[Bruce CurtisMember]

the unassasiable empire that is the behemoth known as NATIONAL PARKS & WILDLIFE SERVICE is at it again, probably little to no consultation, this from an agency filled with petty beauracrats and affected card carrying extreme green party members (note I never stated environmentalists), this whole shenanigans can be traced back to the RACAC inquiries under BOB (slightly to the right of Adolph Hilter) CARR in the mid-late nineties, they screwed the domestic timber workers. Now the next group of defiant and desperate “yobbos” the trail bike riders are in their greedy little authoritarian piggy eyed sights.

Not a fan of NPWS or their so-called protective measures as a whole myself

Blue that’s mister to them

[Bruce CurtisMember]

Moto wrote:

Quote:

You did well for 18 months Bruce. Did I ever suggest you should try a KTM300? :laugh:

My broken thumb is testament to the fact I can’t ride a bike anyway so I don’t go fast enough to know the difference between PDS or a link type suspension.

actually Moto yes once or twice from memory although I still reckon the KTM300 engine is the single best alround powerplant for off-road motorcycles ever built, an everyman do anything deal lugs around all day but put it on the pipe and it scoots with the big boys easy, and lower running coasts as well. I will reconsider when they put it in a chassis that rear steers properly on loose stuff, doesn’t tuck under in the tight stuff and doesn’t fracture my bones when i am just cruising at 7/10ths and it kicks me over the bars.

On your front broken thumb means nothing about your ability just maybe a momentary concentration thing, i break stuff all the time, hips, ribs, wrists, fingers, feet, craniums that’s what bones are for to break and heal again,

[Bruce CurtisMember]

Moto wrote:

Quote:

Progressive damping system. KTM have them instead of the suspenion link

Sorry Moto i think you meant to say KTM has it instead of suspension that actually works for the average person out of the box or even sometimes after you spend $$$$ with one of the worlds best PDS men.

I watch video footage after footage and see the blokes i ride with getting kicked in the arse by something in the PDS that doesn’t gel at anyhting above 5/10ths and below 9/10ths speed, the biggest reason i left the orange camp was i rode a YZ250 through a set of whoops straight after my heavily modded 300 and was easily 50% quicker straight up.

PDS= Perfectly Dangerous Setup.

called me biased but I did try and live with it for 18 months.

[Bruce CurtisMember]

We had three KTM 50s the ’06 MA50 which we couldn’t kill with a stick, when he outrode the suspension on it in ’07 I bought him “cheetah” a full-house championship winning race pro-senior with after-market pipe big carb all the mods legal or not for Div II blah blah blah, anyway this little rocket ship needed 2 hours work for every hour ride-time, so I got to thinking. Now the senior-Adventure is fairly thin on the ground in these parts, so we swapped the good old MA50 for a ’05 stock pro-senior, to make it more friendly I put a small restrictor in the pipe to slow the hit, set the clutch up with MA-50 springs and geared it up a bit, ran 250 ml of DXIII and 2twocool in the box, and it ended up being quite a good little trail beastie. Unfortunately as we ride a fair bit of sand and he was getting bogged down too often with not clutching ability, so we sold it not long ago and bought a beaut little KX60, excellent for his trail riding and clutch and gears for the sand.

Now TB is right the KTM 50s dominate the market for a solid reason and unless you are (un)lucky enough to snafu one of the little huskies that is all there is as a step up from a peewee, which some kids can outride at 4/5, KTM has done their homework and catered to the market (where is he these days anyway Chris cater?) and it has paid off big time for them the huskies aren’t in the running and who can afford a cobra?
As an aside on little ones racing I have just taken the advice of a man who has few peers in rider developement in these necks and pulled my young fella from racing the auto-class (div II) this year so he can spend a year mucking around with no pressure just relearning to ride on a geared clutched bike as well as he was handling the autos.

and i personally dislike PDS, but this is well known & documented elsewhere.

Mr Blue

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