432, and the Sky Wasn't Very Blue

The trusty WR-250FP after today's very good ride.
Those new M22/M23 tires are practically magic.


And that, folks, is just fine and dandy with me while I'm riding my dirt bike.  ;)

I just came back from yet another Sunday Pachaug endure loop ride on the ol' WR-250FP, and conditions were very, very good, indeed.
The sky was cloudy the whole time, which was 180 degrees away from the forecast I read this morning on weather.com that said sunny, sunny, sunny.
Well, that was funny, funny, funny because it was cloudy, cloudy, cloudy.
And I liked it, too.
On top of that, I had two brandy-new Bridgestone M22/M23 tires on the bike for this ride.
Yesindeedy.

Although there are leaves now covering some of the obstacles on the ground and making them harder to see and identify, the weather was very good and I woke up feeling fairly good, too, so I hoped for a good ride out there.
That's what I got as I had a good feeling with the bike and vision was about as good as it gets for me.
I included the southern-most part of the loop, again, something that is fast becoming the usual routine for me as of late, and total mileage on the day was 55.9 on the ol' odometer.

So, I had my cloudy sky, my stiffer fork springs holding my front fork up as I like it to be, good health, and good conditions all around.
The new tires could immediately be felt doing their thing, which is providing excellent traction.
Honestly, I don't know why guys go with soft-to-intermediate-terrain tires on their bike when riding the Pachaug loop, and I can only guess they're going by how big n' burly the tread pattern looks on those tires.
I'll take hard terrain tires, thanks, as these Bridgestones always feel very good.

About the only pesky thing on today's ride was meeting up with several people out taking a little stroll on the trails, and being a respectable type that I am, I slowed way down when I saw these pedestrians.
Too bad these meetings were on good parts of the trail where I wanted to keep my pace up.
I did see one guy who heard me coming down a fast hill while on my most favorite pine-needled-whoops-through-the-woods section, and I noticed him when I was just about past him because he got his butt off the trail when he heard a motor vehicle coming toward him.
Smart man, and this is exactly what I do on the rare occurrences I see dirt bike riders while I'm out taking a walk on those very trails.
See, you'd be surprised how many peeps will not get their butts off the trail in those situations.
Maybe they like getting run over by motor vehicles at speed, huh?
If I were these folks, I'd get a plated dirt bike and start going about it the right way instead of trying to get my rocks off by walking little Fluffy or Fido who needs to stop every 20 feet to piss or shit on a tree or sniff some other mutt's butt.

Gross, huh?
You bet it is - get yourselves a plated dirt bike, folks.

-John

431 More Drops of KYB 01 on the Floor

Yessirree, I did another Pachaug enduro loop ride on the ol' trusty WR-250FP this past Sunday.
Conditions were 50% to my liking:
The sky was cloudy (excellent), but the ground was wet all day (not excellent).
That means while my vision wasn't pestered by too bright light, I was cautious over much of the ride since the obstacles on the ground are more slippery when wet.

All in all, it was a decent ride, still, as I tried yet another change in the front fork setup.
Where on the ride the weekend before I tried the latest revalve change in effort to reduce high-speed fork movement spikes (harsh feeling from high-speed hits), this past weekend I added the next stiffer fork springs (stock spring = .44kg/mm, and new springs = .46 kg/mm).

Why would I want stiffer springs if I'm looking to alleviate high-speed spikes from all of those billions of rocks and roots on the ground?
Easy, Bucky.
With the reduced damping of the softer revlave a couple weeks ago, the front fork would settle a bit lower while just getting on the bike and riding, meaning the front of the bike wasn't being held up as high as it once was.
Apparently, the hydraulic damping of the fork has much to do with controlling the mass of the bike and is not simply all left up to the fork springs, and it seems very much that the springs and damping work together.
Amazing, eh?

So, with reduced compression damping in search of a more supple fork that will be more willing to move quickly over the sharp bumps, the front of the bike now rode lower, something that I don't favor as it effects the feeling of solid stability at speed, a feeling that the front of the bike was now a bit too low and reduced my confidence in opening the throttle and going fast.
I like the feeling of stability, and a too-low front end reduces that feel.
Adding the stiffer springs instantly brought the front back up to where I like it, and the bike felt very good in all situations as far as chassis balance and front-to-rear ride height and feeling of stability went.
Very good, I say, as rolling off the throttle, braking, braking on downhills, or anything else I rode this past Sunday gave me a good feeling with the balance of the bike.
This characteristic make the decision to go with the stiffer springs a winner, and I see myself keeping them in the bike for as long as I run the current damping setup.

Along with the stiffer springs, I lowered the fork oil level to the minimum allowed in the WR-250FP Owner's Service Manual:
150mm.
I was using 145mm for the past year, and the original stock setting was 140mm.
The lower the oil level, the more air trapped inside the fork tubes, and with more air trapped in there, there is a noticeable reduction in what is called the "air spring".
When the fork is compressed, the trapped air acts like a spring, a spring that not only offers considerable resistance to being compressed, but is a progressive spring that goes up in effective spring rate the more it is compressed, unlike the steel coil fork springs that are linear in spring rate and keep the same spring rate all the time.
As when I lowered the oil level 5mm last year from 140mm to 145mm and felt the reduction of the air spring effect, something that improved the fork's ability to take square-edge hits out in the woods, lowering the oil level an additional 5mm down to 150mm seems to have been a good move as - and here's something that is quite something - even though I went to stiffer fork springs to hold the front of the softer-damped bike up to where I prefer it, the actual hydraulic damping and the fork's ability to take square-edge hits was not ruined.

Neat, huh?

So, the fork now has a firmer feel to it by being stiff enough to hold the front of the bike up high enough to give me the feeling of good stability and proper chassis attitude and balance (stiffer fork springs), but also having hydraulic damping and air spring soft enough to not make the square-edge hits worse.
It really was a good-feeling setup out on the Pachaug loop, and through the whole ride, I was enjoying the benefits of the higher-riding front end of the bike as this gave me a more confident feel.
Quite a bit more, actually, and is just the thing the doctor ordered in my book.

Now, the next thing to do on the next occasion I spend money on the fork is to try different base valve pistons with bigger oil flow ports in them as Tom from Nasin Machine recommends, AKA Race Tech Gold Valves.
If these Gold Valves are able to rid the fork of the high-speed spikes still present over the more severe high-speed hits, then I'll be Golden.
Hardy-harr-harr.  :)

Off to jerk,
-John

430 Drops of KYB 01 on the Floor

Yessirree, I'm experimenting with suspension settings on the ol' WR-250FP once again.
Although the setup I've been riding with for nearly a whole year worked pretty well and was a decent compromise between the firm feel I really like and plushness for sharp bump absorption, I felt compelled to mess with it, again, to see if it could be improved.

Tom from Nasin Machine was given the forks to try another modification to the valving, and this time I told him to go for mega-plushness without worrying too much about the results feeling too soft.
The results did, indeed, feel softer overall (along with the front of the bike riding a bit lower, as expected) and more plush over small to moderate bumps, but performance over sharp bumps seemed little changed, if at all.
Tom believes the base valve pistons are the limiting factor with them not flowing enough oil quickly enough when hitting a sharp bump and thinks new pistons that come with bigger holes in them would be the thing to try during the next revalve session.
That very well may be the case, although I'm going to try, before the next ride this coming weekend, installing the next stiffer fork springs to get the front of the bike back up where I like it along with dropping the oil level in the forks to the allowable minimum in order to reduce the natural air spring effect as the forks compress.
Hopefully, I'll get the chassis balance back that I like along with damping that will not feel any firmer than what I already have over the sharp bumps.
We shall see.

Otherwise, the bike is preforming well and holding-up just fine and dandy.

Yesterday's Sunday ride was just that:
A sun day with plenty of sunshine making me squint all over the place.
I rode my longer route which means I included what's known as the Southern Loop, and although I took much of it slow and easy due to vision, it felt pretty good, all-in-all.
Total mileage yesterday was 55 miles, so not too shabby.

Off to jerk,
-John

Gasoline for $4.29 a Gallon

I went for my latest Sunday Pachaug enduro loop ride today and it was done with the WR-250FP running the stock camshaft timing, the setup that gives more low-end torque at the expense of harder-hitting midrange and top-end power.
It was a good trade as far as I'm concerned because the terrain that makes up the Pachaug loop doesn't require (or allow, unless you are either very lucky or an expert rider with eyesight like a hawk) warp speed in most spots but does reward good low-end torque and tractability.
So, all is well again with the satisfaction regarding the engine's character.
At least this experiment showed me first hand how the bike runs in each specification.

Today's ride was decent, with partly cloudy skies and dry conditions, although there were the few minor water spots that seem to take forever to dry-up.
If I hadn't felt a bit down on mental energy, the ride could have been rated a solid "great", but since I seemed target fixate (stare at) on a few obstacles in the trail that weren't there the last ride instead of simply riding around them, I felt a bit clumsy a few times and had to come to a brief stop to regroup and then carry on.
Nothing bad happened, but it was a bit annoying at the same time.
At least I did have a good run through the pine-needled-whoops-through-the-woods section and at another shorter pine-needled section later in the ride - these did feel good and I rode well.

There was a pesky tree down across the trail mid-way through the first pine-needled section, right where you can jam across some whoops.
I was able to hop over it without taking a detour off the trail, but it is obvious that I have a tree-clearing project for this coming Saturday.  ;)

-John

428 Bullshit Stories

This past Labor Day weekend was a complete waste as far as riding my WR-250FP went, and it was a bummer because I could have salvaged a day of riding out of it, too.

I rolled the dice and kept to my usual routine of going on Sunday, but, that turned out to be a rainy day.
Monday, Labor Day, was then hoped for, but that, too, was wet.
If I'd paid more attention to the weather forecast (put more faith into the prediction, actually), I would have gone Saturday afternoon and enjoyed dry conditions.
I didn't, so no riding for me this past weekend.
The bike is still waiting to go out for it's first ride since putting the exhaust cam timing back to stock specification, and it will be interesting to feel the comparison to how it was the ride before.

From here on out, I'll hope to remember that Saturday afternoon riding is better than no riding at all on the weekend.

What do you think about all of the blabbing about the US wanting to war it up with Syria?
I know what I think:
It's another bullshit cover story meant for the profane, and the real story is that the initiates, the illumined ones, the ones with the only truly mature minds on Earth, such as the rich and powerful men of the United Nations, continuing with knocking the shit out of those nations in order to get them completely on board with their plans of destroying all of the old-fashioned religions and old-school morality, getting on with their plans of a one-world government, and demolishing a country's own monetary set-up and getting them dependent on a one-world financial system.
All controlled by them, of course, the tight-knit secret society of those who secretly believe in and live by the Luciferian philosophy, the one which teaches that man, through the gift of intellect and the use of this intellect, shall evolve to the point that he, himself, is god.

Gift?
From who?
Well, why is it called the Luciferian philosophy?

-John

Valve Cover Off 427 times

Well, I took the WR-250FP out this past Sunday on the ol' Pachaug enduro loop with the exhaust cam retarded to YZ specs.
How did it go?
Fast.

On the trails that allow you to get going with a decent amount of speed, the bike ran strong, with the newfound power making it easier to go fast on fast trails.
Once the revs get into the lower part of the midrange, the bike simply takes off like a shot compared to how the bike runs with the stock cam setup.
If you keep the throttle open, it pulls through the revs with authority it did not have previously, launching you out of corners and leaping over whoops like never before.
On my favorite pine-needled-whoops-through-the-woods section, it was my fastest run through the whoops to date, I do believe - the bike was really in it's element here.

The trade-off to get that power increase was that torque and pulling power way down low in the revs was lost in the process, and quite frankly, it was torque that was missed out on the trails.
This is because 90% of the mileage on the Pachaug loop is not fast like a motocross track through the woods (if only, huh?), but more like...woods.
And rocks.
And woods and rocks going up hill and down.
So, During the past couple of mornings before jerk, I actually set the exhaust cam back to the stock WR-250FP setup in order to restore the power characteristics to how they once were - lacking the harder-hitting snap and rev that was fun (in the few places it made sense), but returning the bottom end torque that is, really, needed out on those trails much of the time.
It only makes sense to me.

-John

I've Got a 426

Yamaha once made YZ and WR models designated 426 from 2000-2002.
That's a nice, well-rounded figure, eh?
It is catchy-sounding, and is probably why it was used.

It's Saturn's Day morning, and this past week each morning before jerk, I spent time checking the WR-250FP valve clearances (they were just fine and dandy and, in fact, I believe measured at the same specs. as they were when I first checked them a year ago) as well as retarded the exhaust cam one tooth, giving the bike what guys on the In-Toe-Net call "YZ timing".

This means the WR comes with the exhaust camshaft advanced a tooth compared to the cam timing of the 2002 YZ-250FP, the bike my 2002 WR-250FP is based on.
Why?
Opinions vary a bit, but I believe (and nobody from the Yamaha factory in Japan is sitting me down to explain the whys) it's to do with reducing exhaust emissions by advancing the WR exhaust cam a tooth in order to have the exhaust valves close sooner, reduce valve overlap (when both intake and exhaust valves are slightly open at the same time), and reduce those exhaust nasties that are killing all the birds I ride past, no matter how far away they are.

The reason the WR gets subjected to tougher EPA regulations is because the bike is sold with intent of being used on public lands open to legal off-road riding, where the YZ is sold in a closed-course-use-only state (like a local motocross track that's privately owned).
The side effect of this EPA tuning is less power.
Now, that's not anything new, is it?

So, tomorrow's Pachaug enduro loop ride will be the real acid test to see just how I like this new setup.

I took the bike for a 2-mile putt up the street before jerk yesterday morning just to ensure that all was well after putting the bike back together, and I immediately could tell the bike does indeed have more power, pulls stronger, and pulls through the revs with more force.
Easily noticeable, so there's no question the bike runs stronger like this.
The experiment is to see if low-end torque (especially way down just above idle) is effected and to see how I get along with it in the tricky, ugly, tight sections of the rocky Pachaug loop, of which there are more than a few along the way.

Stay tuned.

-John