Posted on 29 June, 2009 by daubert
Opportunities to go racing are less frequent this year compared to last year so every time I get on the bike it’s a big deal. This past weekend was especially exciting because it was the first time I’ve been able to race my 2009 RM-Z250.
Lakewood, WI in the Oconto forest was my destination. Joe wanted [...]
Filed under: Scott's blog | Tagged: D16, factory conneciton, Harescrambles, Mark Junge, moose, offroad, RM-Z250, RM250 Vesrah Suzuki, rmz250, suzuki, Vesrah, wisconsin cross country, WIXC | Leave a Comment »
Posted on 11 June, 2009 by daubert
With the 2-stroke motocross platform all but abandoned by the Japanese manufacturers the day was going to arrive for Joe and me to come to terms with the 4-stroke. Our 2009 RM-Z250 bikes arrived late last week.
I had been doing some research on how to minimize what Joe and I consider as the four main [...]
Filed under: Scott's blog | Tagged: arkansas, D16, Dyracuse, Enduro, factory conneciton, Harescrambles, Mark Junge, mountain bike, offroad, RM-Z250, RM250, RM250 Vesrah Suzuki, suzuki, Vesrah, WIXC, zipty | Leave a Comment »
Posted on 25 May, 2009 by daubert
I’m not able to do as many races this year as I would like to but the National Harescramble in Rhinelander, WI was one I earmarked as a must do. I’d done it in year’s past with mixed results but the course has always been challenging and Rick Anschutz always puts on good events. The [...]
Filed under: Scott's blog | Tagged: D16, Dyracuse, Enduro, factory conneciton, gncc, Harescrambles, Joe Vadeboncoeur, Mark Junge, moose, MXC, offroad, OMA series, RM250, suzuki, Vesrah, Vesrah Suzuki, wisconsin cross country, WIXC | Leave a Comment »
Posted on 11 May, 2009 by daubert
It had been a long time coming but it finally arrived: race day! It’s a little embarrassing to be so emotionally attached to my hobby but I’ll cope with the abuse I take from friends and my wife. I’m not alone, obviously, since there was 16 other AA riders on my starting line [...]
Filed under: Scott's blog | Tagged: arkansas, D16, district 16, Enduro, gncc, Harescrambles, offroad, RM250, suzuki, Vesrah, wisconsin cross country, WIXC, woods racing | Leave a Comment »
Posted on 4 May, 2009 by daubert
My bike is completely in pieces this week as I prepare for the opening round of the D16 season. I’m bolting on new top end, clutch and Cycra plastic as well as Pirelli tires, grips and miscellaneous bits that will make the bike feel like new. I’m super excited to see the local [...]
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Posted on 21 April, 2009 by daubert
I finally got the opportunity to put my RM144 project bike up against my RM250. I have a lap timer that I used during supermoto practice years ago that comes in handy when I’m evaluating parts or my own body’s performance.
Homann’s was dry enough to put in an hour and a half of comparison riding [...]
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Posted on 16 April, 2009 by daubert
Joe and I played hooky from work yesterday afternoon to ride at Dyracuse. Actually, I have to include Roger on that list,too. Roger suffered an ankle injury in a race years ago then suffered a debilitating shoulder injury that’s kept him off the bike for far too long. Having Rog along for the ride yesterday [...]
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Posted on 1 April, 2009 by vadeboncoeur
Mary Daubert has worked with us over the years, to have us ready for the season. She is magic and easy to work with.
She has a new website for her fitness training business.
check it out.
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Posted on 29 March, 2009 by daubert
AJ at Victory Circle is a magician. Check out the cool graphics he sent to Joe and me for our bikes this year.
Joe and I gave AJ some suggestions on what we were looking for but it was AJ that came up with the design and colors. It’s a little reto looking with the [...]
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Posted on 19 March, 2009 by daubert
Third week of March here in south-central Wisconsin and it’s finally getting to the point where I’m ready to try riding outdoors. Studding up and riding the local trails sounded like a good idea at one point but I never got my act in gear and gumption up to actually pull it off. At least [...]
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Posted on 4 March, 2009 by daubert
Just remembered I have a link to the photos that were taken of us during our time at Autobahn last October. Big thanks to Geoffry for the shots!
Mark is on the 57 bike, Tyler is on the 1 bike and I’m on the 49.
http://homepage.mac.com/gravityproductions/autobahn
Filed under: Scott's blog | Tagged: Autobahn, Mark Junge, RM250, Vesrah Suzuki | Leave a Comment »
Posted on 2 March, 2009 by daubert
Last ride for a while today so we made the best of it. We’re heading back north for a few more months of winter and don’t expect to be back on dry dirt for far too long. St Joe was a hoot and we’re both glad we drove all that way, despite the cold temps [...]
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Posted on 28 February, 2009 by daubert
Put in a good 4 hours of riding today. It was superb to be back
on the bike, dodging trees and navigating ruts. Smiles all the
way around.
And the 144 has some poop after all. The Fatty pipe made the
biggest improvement of the parts I had on hand to compare but the
flywheel helped a little as did [...]
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Posted on 27 February, 2009 by daubert
After some back and forth about how the weather might adversely affect our riding, we opted to drive 7 hours south anyhow. The forecast is for 32F and snow accumulations of up to an inch. That doesn’t sound like much, especially when you compare it to the ice and mud in central Wisconsin right now, [...]
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Posted on 27 February, 2009 by daubert
The weather is crap in St Louis but we’re headed that way anyhow. Joe and I can’t make a free weekend later on this spring to do it so we have to go now and deal with the cold temps and precip. As Tom K says, one man’s rainy day is another’s badly [...]
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Posted on 26 January, 2009 by daubert
Early last week I was invited to race with a team at the 12th annual 3 hour ice race on Fox Lake, about 1 hour north of here. I’ve ridden on the ice but never raced but I have raced Supermoto and I just spent a summer having to learn how to navigate high-speed corn [...]
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Posted on 20 January, 2009 by daubert
Vesrah Suzuki’s Mark Junge helped me dyno my RM144 project bike this afternoon. I’m trying to get more mid-range power out of an engine that’s designed to make power at high rpms. Why more mid-range? So it’s better in the woods. The challenge might be insurmountable but it’s been fun trying to change the way the engine [...]
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Posted on 27 December, 2008 by daubert
Joe and I made it to Waterman, IL yesterday. Waterman is about 2 hours south of Madison and about the only place within a reasonable drive that has winter riding. Its a converted warehouse that has poor lighting, ineffective ventilation and relatively high cost of entry. But when you haven’t ridden for months and you [...]
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Posted on 22 December, 2008 by daubert
Much to my delight and amazement, my Project 144 bike started on the 3rd kick. My amazement is born from the fact that the piston, cylinder, port work and my limited engine knowledge all came from their own origins yet the combination functions as if, magically, there were all mashed from the same piece of [...]
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Posted on 14 December, 2008 by daubert
I’m not sure I can pin down the day or event that coaxed me into thinking that a lighter bike with less power was the way to go but somehow that combination has stuck in my head. Months ago I started hunting for an RM125 to build into a tight woods weapon. It might not [...]
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Posted on 31 October, 2008 by daubert
Mark Junge at Vesrah Suzuki invited Joe and me to a day on the track at Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, IL. Unfortunately Joe is in Asia on business but I got to go.
Mark brought along a Supersport 600, a Superstock 1000 and an SV1000 as samples of his road racing world. He also rented a BMW135i [...]
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Posted on 31 October, 2008 by daubert
The guy driving this truck is an EMT. The front of his truck was covered with confederate stuff.
End of a long season today. Luckily we are only 5 hours from home. I’m pretty tired and ready for some down time, in the big picture of things. Didn’t realize that until half way through the [...]
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Posted on 31 October, 2008 by daubert
This stuff was difficult to walk in. Quads just pushed their front wheels along without them rotating.
At about 10pm last night while I was trying to ignore the loud campers to our west a shower blew through and totally saturated the parking lot. Just after that happened several redneck fired up their pickups and jeeps [...]
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Posted on 27 October, 2008 by daubert
You know you’re a redneck when you blow up your air mattress by holding it up to the exhaust pipe of your quad and revving the engine. Make that an innovative redneck.
It’s now 9:30pm here and we’ve shut ourselves inside for the night. The rest of the parking lots is abuzz with hooting, hollering, beer [...]
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Posted on 27 October, 2008 by daubert
My wife (and coach) says my van is a money pit and not worth having. This was spurred on after a pulley wheel on the serpentine belt tensioner crapped out and cost me several evenings and $90 to repair. The pulley had been making noise for months but I never considered it to be on [...]
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Posted on 12 October, 2008 by daubert
I’m worked over. We’re in the van driving west on I-70 and will be for the next several hours as we make our way home. We’ll stop at a cheapie hotel somewhere later tonight for a shower, Internet interaction and some Zs. Can’t happen soon enough.
Cross another off the list. The Powerline Park GNCC is [...]
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Posted on 12 October, 2008 by daubert
As we expected we spent the entire day doing bikes. Joe worked on his clutch and I dinked with tires, brakes, front suspension and new graphics. We’re pretty close to the course and the dust was bad while the quads raced. I was wiping dust off the bike and tools most of the day.
It’s warm [...]
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Posted on 12 October, 2008 by daubert
Last fly-to race this weekend. No more $20 carwash Monday mornings, no more biscuit and gravy Denny’s breakfasts. We’ve only go the Ironman GNCC in Indiana after this weekend. IN is only 5 hours from Madison.
I’m writing this post from the passenger seat of the van while Joe drives. We’re somewhere in Maryland making our [...]
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Posted on 28 September, 2008 by daubert
I finished second in the Vet A! Super happy with that because the Unadilla course grew to be a piece of work with the rain we endured the entire race. More on that in a bit.
We woke to perfect conditions to be up and about but there was enough humidity in the air to fog [...]
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Posted on 28 September, 2008 by daubert
It drizzled for most of the night but the air temp was warm. I got up to pee a few times and walked between all the popup campers, pick ups and motorbikes in near complete silence. No one had generators running because it was so warm. It’s a little eerie passing between all the metal [...]
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Posted on 28 September, 2008 by daubert
We made it again. We flew from Madison this morning through Detroit and into Harrisburg, PA. Harrisburg is where Three Mile Island is, by the way. We grabbed the van, stuff a box of goods we shipped down here from the great folks a Fitness and Gear Bike Shop, fired up the (now) trusty van [...]
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Posted on 18 September, 2008 by daubert
Race day. Great weather and from what we had seen of the course it looked like a good one. Joe and I felt that what we’d seen and heard was that the loop wasn’t going to be as formidable as last year’s humdinger. We heard of a huge mud hole some where on theloop but [...]
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Posted on 18 September, 2008 by daubert
We made it. The van is running great (since I replaced the gas tank that stranded Joe down south in June). The weather is super and the GNCC circus is just like I remember it from earlier this year. I’m super excited to be here.
To continue with the tradition of getting the van stuck in [...]
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Posted on 18 September, 2008 by daubert
Back on the road! Hard to describe the feeling but it’s wonderful. I left the family at home and that feels awkward but I really enjoy traveling to these GNCC races.
Joe and I set sail late this morning with the plan of getting to somewhere in OH before stopping for the night. Joe’s GPS thing [...]
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Posted on 6 September, 2008 by daubert
It’s been far too long since our last GNCC event. With my wrist injury and family commitments it was impossible to make the races before the summer break. But now I’m healed up and family life has stabilized so Joe and I are back on track and plan to finish up the season strong!
My last post was [...]
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Posted on 16 July, 2008 by daubert
Back to what Dirt Bike editor Ron Lawson told me earlier this year – local races are the most fun.
And Hixton, WI is one of my favorite places to race. The undulating terrain, clay and sand mix, dense woods and short drive distance all add up. I’ve had good results there, too.
This year had races [...]
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Posted on 16 July, 2008 by daubert
As you may have read on Joe’s blog, there’s this thing in France called L’Etape du Tour or “a stage of the Tour de France”. Trek, the company Joe and I both work for, sponsors the Etape so we were on hand, in different capacities, and got to participate. Yes, this is a moto blog [...]
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Posted on 23 June, 2008 by daubert
Back on the bike this past weekend. It had been way too long since my last outing so it took me a while to feel good and not like I was riding over my head. About the time I started feeling better I noticed how many little mistakes I make. Had I been on the [...]
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Posted on 1 June, 2008 by daubert
Joe and I have driven past Crandon several times during our summers racing D16 hare scrambles but this past Saturday was the first time we have raced there. Crandon is known for its huge off-road truck and buggy race track – not for its MX or HS courses. There is a huge MX track in [...]
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Posted on 18 May, 2008 by daubert
Admittedly I spent way too much time in the van driving to and from the 2-hour D16 roundin Crystal Falls, MI this past weekend. It was more than 10 hours of windshield time there and back plus a chilly night of sleep between two RM250s, but damn, was it worth it.
Ron Lawson of Dirt Bike and [...]
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Posted on 11 May, 2008 by daubert
I sat out the GNCC round in Ohio today too. My wrist is probably good enough to ride on but I would have suffered in the mud. Actually, riding in the mud is not so bad for me but I the clean up is a drag.
It was hard not being at the race again. Feel like [...]
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Posted on 21 April, 2008 by daubert
I wish I had a photo of how swollen my wrist got after the Big Buck GNCC but I don’t. Should have thought of taking that photo when I had the chance.
At some point between when I whiskey throttled and when I tumbled down the trail I dinged my wrist on that opening lap in Union, [...]
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Posted on 13 April, 2008 by daubert
It was cold overnight. I went to pee at 4am and shivered myself back to sleep afterwards.
Race day today. We listened to the kid’s race on our battery powered radio while we ate breakfast then hurried over to see the sportsman classes battle for position after a typical GNCC serpentine, grassy field start.
The turns in [...]
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Posted on 13 April, 2008 by daubert
The good night sleep eventually came but it was delayed by a vicious thunder and lightning storm that ripped through from 11 to midnight. I love a good storm so other than being kept up late I enjoyed the bright flashes, startling claps and rolling rumbles.
It rained heavily in the early morning hours then continued [...]
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Posted on 13 April, 2008 by daubert
Joe and I flew from cold and blustery Milwaukee at noon today, stopped off in Cleveland then landed in a warm and humid Charlotte only an hour later than we were supposed to. The flight into Charlotte was pretty rough for me. I don’t fly all that well despite having flown all over the world [...]
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Posted on 30 March, 2008 by daubert
We again woke to rain on race day. After breakfast we made some last minute changes to the bikes in anticipation for a muddy race then headed over to the start of the morning race.
The course narrowed unexpectedly early in the lap following the traditional 3-4 grassy turns we’ve seen at every GNCC. The funneled [...]
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Posted on 29 March, 2008 by daubert
Steele Creek – our first fly-to race. We ditched the van at a Trek dealer three weeks ago and met up with it last night when we flew back to Charlotte. We felt a little bit like rock stars but not quite since we are paying for every bit of travel ourselves.
It was warm and [...]
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Posted on 28 March, 2008 by daubert
Back to racing. Joe and I put together our box of last minute stuff to drag back to Charlotte this morning. We fly from Milwaukee this afternoon. We probably won’t get to the race venue before nightfall so finding a course front piece of camping might be tough. Tomorrow is another day.
The van’s fuel starving [...]
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Posted on 21 March, 2008 by daubert
I’ve been out of if it for a spell. It took me a few days to get my feet back under me when Joe and I got home from the General. I was tired from that 10-day trip and I was way behind in work and family life. My body was a wreck too but [...]
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Posted on 9 March, 2008 by daubert
Race day. With the time change we were up before the sun and dealing with some pretty cold temps. The generator ran out of gas over night so the camper was chilly. I ran down to register and had to stand in line with a bunch of 12 year old grommets that had an 8am [...]
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