Day in the Mud

After a few days of rain, the weather was supposed to be warmish on Saturday, so we loaded up the rides and headed to the mud.

Though the Honda needs some tweaks, I decided to ride it as is for possibly a better assessment of what it might need.

Already I know it needs a fork rebuild and the rear tire won’t hold air, but those weren’t things that would prevent us from trying it. The muffler guard has a broken bolt, which allows it to annoyingly rattle against the muffler. Luckily I already found and procured an OEM replacement on ebay, since the bolt is broken in a way that would require extraction and tapping of threads.

I also ordered the throttle limiter screw which was missing. Turns out that was absolutely necessary.

After Abigail’s first run she came back all wide eyed saying it was just too fast. Pop in the screw, set it to a point that was more comfortable for her and they were good.

Otherwise the Honda was awesome. With the throttle screw in the right spot it has the perfect amount of power. Not too much, not too little. The Suzuki on the other hand is now severely under powered in comparison.

It has a restrictor plate (i.e. narrow holed washer) in the exhaust port where the gasses leave the cylinder and enter the exhaust system that restricts it’s flow and therefor slows down the power. I ordered a handful of these plates to incrementally drill out the restriction and gradually increase the power for them. I’ll get them all drilled out and we’ll see about trail side swaps to get it just right. Though I suppose that’s something we can do in the driveway as well.

That’s definitely a smile on her face. The Honda had enough power to get out into the bumps, which she liked. She liked it so much she even started working on standing up.

We also worked on turns. Both of them struggle with the right amount of speed for a turn, where to look and how to keep it on track. I kept running between the cones as each one came to turn to have them first look at me (the proper direction), then down to the next cone to keep them on track. It’s an uneasy feeling on a motorcycle to look so far away, but it’s absolutely necessary. Most of the time we want to look right in front of us to ensure we don’t hit anything, but on a motorcycle to ensure you don’t hit what you don’t want or go in the direction you want you have to look further out into the distance. Let the suspension do the work if there happens to be something in your way. There were a couple of times that both of them got it perfectly. Their turns were smooth and uncomplicated, but it’s obviously something we’ll have to continue working on. Hell. I have to continually work on it as I try to take turns faster and faster.

Another funny observation, like Abigail’s smiles, Lauren sings to herself as she’s riding. I guess it’s kind of like Craig laughing to himself. Not sure what she sings about yet, but most of her songs are happy songs anyway.

Another key to all this is PEZ. Somehow I started the habit of having PEZ when they go dirt biking. Whatever. I guess it works. Sort of.

Parting shot. It was going home when we decided we needed to find whip cream. Just thought it was kind of cool shot with the fog and muddy tires.

Hopefully it gets cold soon and winter actually hits, then I’ll drop the Honda off at the shop for the fork rebuild and we should be good to go for the spring.

– b