China Hat ISDE: will The Ant beat the tow truck?

[E-Ticket]

Send Susan your best wishes -- she and I are entered in the China Hat ISDE this coming Sunday!

http://www.omra-online.org/2005/ChinaHat05.htm

She starts at 10:06 (they start three riders on each minute) and I go at 10:16.

We have to put our bikes in an Impound Area overnight and then push them to the Start Line the next morning in time for our "minutes." We then have 60 seconds to start them and go 60' or start losing points.

I was so glad last year to hear her 250X start :ride: up okay!! :)

If things go well for us - I'll never see her the whole race - because we have to stay on our minutes at the checkpoints. And then there are 2-3 Special Stages where you race against the clock. And having us start 10 minutes apart will reduce the chance of me crashing into her at the checkpoint. (and yes, that did happen our first year... :uh: )

Should be a blast! Race report to follow next week.

Cheers! E-Ticket (aka "the Tow Truck")

 

[E-Ticket]

Okay, here's the "Tow Truck's" (RandyB's)... Susan's to follow....

We drove over to Bend, OR on Saturday morning from Portland and got rained on all… the…. way. Started wondering about the Gore-Tex pants that I had left at home.

Hooked up w/ everyone in the afternoon. Poor Joe and Brad looked pretty whipped-n-cold from their ~ 150 Mile Dual-Sport “washing machine trial.” Really sorry I missed that one….NOT! (grin)

Got a chance to take Joe’s new 450X out and back on a short, whooped out trail. Was sufficiently impressed to realize that I was going to need a trail ride test, swapping back and forth from my KTM 450, before I make a decision on whether to stay Orange or go Red. Very impressed by it’s suspension.

Saturday morning started out w/ a light sprinkle here and there, a bit cold, but no major rain.

And it held…!!!! The skies stayed overcast throughout the day – but no real rain…. And NO DAMN DUST!!!

Conditions were just absolutely perfect for racing….we couldn’t have asked for better dirt…well, maybe less whoops.

They had to turn away entries on China Hat – but still had about 20-30 no-shows. Most likely due to the weather.
Still a huge number of bikes in impound.

How do you spell R-E-L-I-E-F…..??

I spell it walking into Impound at 10:06 to get my bike… and hearing Susan’s 250X start up and leave the line at 10:06 without any drama. Whew!!! :cool:

And I never saw her the rest of the day. The Ant is getting faster, eh!

On the Start Line next to Joe and Brad and watched 10:16 come up on the clock. Pull the choke out, twist the throttle twice, hit the Magic Button.

My KTM 450-EXC started on first “winga-winga-purrrrr…” Man, this is the easiest starting bike I have ever had. Rolled away easily and took off on the first leg.

Oh my goodness…what perfect trail conditions! There were hardly any hoops at all on the first section, the dirt was perfect, corners were banked, and life was good.
I think I had a silly grin stuck on my face the whole way.

Joe caught me about 2/3 into the section and I let him by…then Joe a couple of minutes later. Arrived into 1st check about 4 minutes early w/o spending too much energy.

There were only about 6-7 guys hanging around waiting for their check-in minute. Last year there must have been 20 or so. So it looks like the Lobos did a good job this year on timing the sections. Kudos!

For the life of me I can’t remember who started the 1st Special Test… but I think I was either passed by… or realized quite soon that Joe was “The Man” on our minute.
Not a problem – I used him as a magnet to help me keep my speed up. Despite my extra poundage and being totally out of shape – I was having a ball!

And I was hauling the mail quite well, thank you (relatively speaking and compared to last year). Passed two guys and started slowly reeling in Brad.

“Closer, braaapp… turn, turn….braaaaapp….closer!” And that’s when I sneaked a look at Brad’s position ….and ate the bump.

:bang:

I hit some mystery bump, did a pretty good Flying W up in the air, but still had a good grip on the handlebars.
I was pretty focused on nailing the landing because there was a sharp right coming up flanked by some good-sized trees.

While still in the air (did I mention that I had got big air and had some speed going? .....(grin)) I was really focusing on nailing the landing….

*That’s* when I spotted “The ROCK.” :ohmy:
Big ol’ nasty, tall, triangular-pointed sucker standing straight up in the trail. (Joe later confessed that he thinks he was the one that “put it there”…..I must remember to thank him some day.)

My front tire was going to be the first thing to smack it as I was coming down. So I made the decision to turn the handlebars and miss the rock and hopefully avoid getting thrown into the big trees.

Mission Accomplished! Yes, I missed the rock – but was rewarded with a huge wash-out and body slam. I mean, hard. Franged my right hip *real* good. "waahhh-h-h"

But other than smashed hand guard plastic – my bike was fine – never even quit running!

So I slowly picked myself up out of the trail and retrieved my bike from the bushes/rocks where it landed – and had just about got myself together when Brad came zipping by.

Waved him on and started after him. Ah-h-h, rather slowly for a bit till the cobwebs cleared and things started feeling better.

A bunch of turns later, started feeling better and picking up the pace again. Almost caught back up the Brad by the end of the Special Section but ran out of time.

Probably a good thing….I sure didn’t need a repeat of my earlier "lesson.”

More zipping around on the next section….I passed a couple… a bunch passed me. Man, it was way fun. The only thing that could have been better was not riding two-up. (yah-yah... I gotta lose some weight...)

2nd Special Test. Oh gawd, this one just went on for ever….! It was so long that you started thinking “…did I miss the timing/finish line? Am I just hauling a**/killing myself for nothing on a transit section?”

*That’s* how long it felt. (grin) Still feeling good, flying along a real good clip, having a great ol’ time…shoot I was even attacking the whoops! Well, some of them… when they were spaced real nice….

Got into this big open valley area and the sand got a lot deeper and sandier. No problem, just flying along having a ball, and mentally preparing my victory speech.

Yup, you guessed it. Lost the front end on a treacherous, deep-sand corner. Crash-aroo again! DANG-IT!!!
Was no biggie – but it sure does impeded your forward progress a bit. (grin)

Got going again, had a serious talk w/ the Commander about maintaining focus, and things seemed better after that.

And the section kept going … and going ….and going. About the time I really started feeling tired about doing whoops over and over I started seeing bikes parked here and there w/ guys sitting on them draped over the handlebars and contemplating life. Me thinks the perfect conditions encourage many to haul a** and they drained their tanks too early.

Even saw the beautiful yeller-blue Husaberg/Husky parked by the side of the trail. I wondered what had happened to the rider – because he had been hauling the mail early on.
That’s when I spotted him walking along side the trail carrying his chain. Ow….major bummer.

More whoops, nastier whoops, and then a cool fast section or two….woo-hoo!
Saw 60mph on one of the straight sections! :aj:
(Max Speed recorded on ODO.) I can only imagine what the Pros were doing…. Auggh.

And…. More whoops. Starting to catch more riders poking along and all too eager to let you pass. Finally, the dang section was over! Still was major fun.

Hit the pits at about 42.x miles and felt real good about not getting caught by Dave-n-Scott. Hey, I don’t care if they did start six minutes after me – they still didn’t catch my sorry butt…!

Came up to the finish line at the proscribed 5mph ….and just missed my check-in time by a minute due to the confusion at the finish line….argghhh!
(too many riders and not enough finish line people at that moment.) Still felt really happy about hauling butt this year despite my two crashes.

Rolled over to the car…and slowly peeled myself off my bike. Was pretty drained and hip was hurting pretty bad.

And there pops up Susan….looking fresh as a daisy and saying, “that was fun…let’s go do the second loop…!”

Good thing I was too tired to swing at her. :)

All in all, a really good course this year and phenomenal dirt and weather conditions on race day.

My goal for next year: Start on Dave and Scott’s minute and try to keep up. And hopefully stay ahead of Susan!

Cheers! - RandyB

 

[srellis]

Way to go both of you! I have been too busy to do more than lurk around here lately. Finally getting brave enough to start doing some real jumps.... :ohmy: and I can usually finish a whole race without having the little pip squeaks on their 80's lap me. It does take a lot more out of me now that I have to ride 5 laps instead of 4! :rotfl:
Sounds like the Ant is getting the hang of her 250X as well!
Congrats.... :cool:
SusanE

 

[KiwiBird]

Great read Randy - sounds like fun other than the soil sampling!

 

[E-Ticket]

Susan is *really* liking her 250X. The only problem she had was tipping over once when she stopped to let some advanced rider by. Other than that -- no crashes at all!

Where as..... I.... on the other hand .... exceeded my design parameters more than once. :)

Yah, we really had a good time -- I expect Susan to chime in with her version shortly!

Cheers, all! - RandyB

 

[The Ant]

I DID have a blast, and only tipped over when letting some riders by and stuck my foot in some loose pumice, didn't actually crash even once - a FIRST!!! Weather turned out to be perfect, in spite of all the rain the day before, kept the dust down which was nice.

After lining up at the start, and all the "will it start after sitting out in the cold wet night" anxiety - and it roared to life right off the bat, well, the rest was just gravy.

Made my minute at checkpoints one and two, but might have goofed up when I crossed the line, since I wasn't paying that much attention to maybe being "early" - it's never been a problem in the past! Started getting tired in the third section, and slowed enough that Randy almost caught me, but he didn't - a 2:05pm finish time would have been a perfect score, and I came in at 2:15, so very very happy with that.

Will be interesting when they get the final scores figured out, calculating in the times on the two "special tests" where they time you for certain sections, think I did good on the first one but the second was a bit slower. Much of it was big wallowy deep pumice sand, curvy banked turns that wanted to bury my front wheel, lots of deep whoops. Think I need a class on just whoops, they kicked my butt - endless wah uh wah uh wah uh....

Certainly improved from last year in any case! Is one of the things I really like about this sport - concrete non-subjective demos of how much you've improved over the years, pretty fun. My bike computer had me at 19mph average speed and max speed of 39 - would have sworn I hit 60, but guess not! Sure felt like it. But was happy with my average, since there was a lot of slow tight stuff, must have maintained the higher speeds to make up for that.

And I just love my bike now, is still heavy to pick up, but the solution there is to not fall over so often :-). Had it out on the new Indoor Track near here a couple weeks ago, was able to jump singles but chickened out on any doubles - even tho I was going just as far on the tabletop and know in my brain I could've cleared the smaller ones, ack, I couldn't get there from here....

-SusanP.
CRF250x

 

[srellis]

able to jump singles but chickened out on any doubles - even tho I was going just as far on the tabletop and know in my brain I could've cleared the smaller ones, ack, I couldn't get there from here....

-SusanP.
CRF250x

My brain is wired the same... I can do the 35 ft tabletop but I cringe at the thought of the 30 ft double. Have managed to get the 25ft double down but it's that fear of pain thing that just won't let me do any bigger doubles!!!!
(Or the ones that shoot you really high...)
SusanE