Santa Has 139 Little Elves

It's about 40 degrees outside this morning, and it won't be too much longer before I start seeing frost on the ground in the morning.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrr.
That's a chilling thought, ain't it?
At least we've got some nice daytime weather coming up for the next couple of months.
Then, the ground will start to freeze, you'll be seeing your breath regularly, and that stuff called snow will make an appearance.
Blaaaaah.

But, it's supposed to be 80 degrees for a few days, so, the heck with that shit. :)

I don't think I mentioned that I bought a set of front forks for my firebreather WR-250FY off a guy on a message board.
He owns the same model bike, and had his forks modified for better performance, and this modification is typically called a "revalve".

If it weren't for the oil inside the forks (and shocks) on motorcycles, all you would have is a spring boinging all over the place.
The wheel would take a hit from a bump, and nothing would prevent it from rebounding in the opposite direction with the same amount of energy stored in the spring from hitting that bump.
So, oil is made to go through little passageways in a finely-controlled manner so you aren't simply riding with an out-of-control spring sproinging back and forth, making a mess of things.

These forks I'm getting have been revalved by a suspension shop called Smart Performance, and they have inside of them what they call their Phase 4 treatment.
This means, as is usually the claimed goal when a suspension shop revalves your fork or shock, that the fork is supposed to be better at moving over small, sharp bumps, while at the same time being more resistant to being squashed over the really big bumps.
The best of both worlds, in other words, where you want a soft and supple fork response for the small bumps that can wreck traction if your fork works poorly over them, and yet having the fork firm enough when a big bump is hit, avoiding the fork from being "bottomed-out" with a harsh clank.

This is all in an effort to achieve more traction where your tires meet the ground, not to mention less fatigue for the rider.
The forks I bought are currently en route to me via UPS Ground, and are scheduled to be delivered to my doorstep tomorrow.
So, when I get home from jerk tomorrow, I expect to see a big box waiting for me, where I can then get all forked-up. :)

I'm looking forward to trying these forks out on the Pachaug rock pile, a place that has beaucoup supply of small, sharp bumps that my front fork has to deal with.
I think my WR-250FY fork works in an OK manner (a whole lot better than the WR-250R did, for comparison), but I've read lots of complimentary comments on message boards about the WR-250F and WR-450F riders liking the Smart Performance revalve.
When I saw them for sale, fully assembled, I figured it was my golden opportunity to try it for myself.
The guy selling them gave me the option of getting them with either softer-than-stock fork springs (that he was using), or the original WR-250FY-spec. fork springs (like I use), and I chose the original springs, rated at .44kg./mm.
That means the spring requires 440 milligrams of weight to compress it 1 millimeter.
Go look it up, Bucky.

Off to jerk,
-John