The brown santa

yup, the brown santa (UPS) came by with the rest of the good stuff!  Set the timing, dealt with the ORDEAL of setting the valves up with the proper shims, started to torque the top of the cam girdle on and SNAP!  Yup snapped a cam girdle bolt.  At that point I just had to step back and drop everything for the night otherwise parts would have been flying out the garage door.  Did I mention I'm not the biggest fan of 4 stroke yet?  A 2 dollar bolt brought me to a stand still.  But other than that everything is perfect with the rebuild.  Should be breaking it in, in a day or 2.  I also got a day off from work this sunday, so I am praying nothing else goes wrong til than and I can take it out and see what its got.

Adapt and overcome!

With the KX gone, I still have my wee 2001 YZ250F.  Its been a great bike for the past few years and has yet to let me down.  With the few bucks I have left over from KX I am going to breath new life into the trusty old bike.  While not a desert legend like the KX, the YZ still has a place out there.  I mean come on, guys are racing these races on 125s!  So I won't be the fastest, or the coolest, but I am just out to finish.  I got to adapt to what life throws at me and overcome the obstacles, cause it's not going to be any easier 400 miles in the desert with a flat tire!
So here is the break down of the bike.
2001 YZ250F
- Vortex dual CDI
- DRD full exhaust
- 3 and a halfish gallon desert tank
- YZ426F front springs/ YZ450F titanium rear spring (just happen to be perfect match for my weight on this bike)
- Factory R&D accelerator pump
- BBR Billet kick lever
- Pro Taper bars, Higher bend than stock
- Works connection skid plate, frame guards, and caliper guards
- 13/48 gearing
and probably a few other little things I am missing.


And over the past week and next week the bike will get
- Brand new OEM piston kit (who knows the last time this bike got a piston)
- 14 tooth front sprocket
- new cam chain
- Hot Cams stage 2 intake and exhaust cams (will be great to get rid of the compression release lever!)
- and a deep clean and inspection

should be a hopped up desert machine when it all comes together.  With the Vortex CDI, changed gearing, and the stage 2 hot cams setup for mid to top end power, the ol YZ should scream threw the desert!

Here are some pics of the bike, one setup for the track and one for the desert.

And here is where it stands in the garage tonight.  New piston in, one of the cams waiting to go in, and starting to nit pick threw all the little things.

And everything about the KX500 I loved is haunting me in this one.  yup it's a 4 stroke, and way more parts in the motor, a lot more maintenance, and VALVES!  I can take a 2 stroke apart and swap top ends in just an hour or 2.  This one has taken me half the day!  Oh well, its what I've got so I'm going to run with it.

bumps in the road

Well everyone, and by everyone I mean the 3 people who will read this, I have some sad news.  I had to sell the KX500 :(  It was a sad day.  I had some issues with the house that turned into a HUGE issue, and good ol Murphy showed up.  So now what am I going to do you ask????  Well I still got a YZ!

King of the Desert

Since we are going to be doing this race on a motorcycle, the last thing I want to worry about is if the bike is going to be up to the challenge.  We will be running a 2003 Kawasaki KX500, 2 stroke beast, AKA the King of the desert.  The bike has a reputation for winning these long races and has a proven race history.  So I believe it was a good choice, and I also found it for real cheap and in amazing shape.  We didn't want a bike that we would have to strip down and spend a fortune to make reliable or have a bike that could only make it on a million dollar race budget either.  Knowing that other teams are still racing these bikes in nearly stock form and being competitive with it is good news to me.  All in all this is a budget friendly bike to start with, parts are cheap, and can easily be worked on by ourselves.  No computers, fuel injection, valves, chains, fancy stuff that requires a degree in computer programming and rocket science to tear into and fix.  So here is the pic of the bike a few days after I got it, just need a few safety things, and some armor i.e. skid plate handguards type of stuff and its ready to race.  I plan on taking it out to the desert to run it around in the next few weeks, and shoot for a District 37 or 38 race in October for the first practice race.  So I will keep everyone posted.

Best in the Desert, Vegas to Reno, 1 year out

So now that im out of the military, going to school, and working, I can actually make plans that extend past next week.  Anyways, if you know me I am always coming up with some crazy ideas and plans, I have a long history of taking the road less traveled and more difficult.  Whether is tearing up and old bronco and slapping a bunch of hardcore stuff on it to make a rockcrawler from scratch, long crazy backpacking trips into the Utah desert and mountains, joining the Navy and fighting my way into the Marine infantry community as a Corpsman and learning everything I could, trying the Navy EOD pipeline, pushing myself to the limits in Crossfit, and going back to school at 28.  I am always looking for the next big challenge in life, usually a long, challenging, miserable road, but in the end VERY rewarding to me and something I can be proud of.  I think the next plan fits into that category and is going to be very fun.
Best in the Desert, Vegas to Reno off road race should fit the bill.  This is the longest point to point off road race in the United States, and is something not everyone wants to do, or has the oppritunity to do.  I am not going out to win overall or destroy the competition, I just want to complete it and have a good time in the process.  Its hard to come across people just as crazy to join you and help out.  So the ride team has been formed, consisting of myself and a friend Tim Layton, currently an active duty Navy Corpsman.  The point of this Blog is to show progress, show the adventure and insanity we will be going threw this year just to get to the race, and hopefully next August show the race and how it went.  So over the next year I hope to do as many practice races I can, prep on the bike, and equipment.  As with many Vets who recently got out, my first order of business was to grow my hair out, not shave, and stop running everywhere every day.  Along with bike prep I will have to prep myself mentally and physically to be where I need to be just to survive the race.
Again this is for friends a family who care to keep up and watch an idea turn into reality.  Also for anyone who is interested in knowing what it takes to do something like this.  Not too many people attempt this type of endeavor, so the people to ask about this are hard to find and ask questions about previous experiences.  I hope to share that knowledge with everyone.