I Just Caught 391 Germs

It's Sunday evening, and I'm relaxing while eating supper after today's Pachaug ride.
How was it?
Read on.

All-in-all, it was only a fair ride today, and that all started when I woke up feeling less than refreshed since I got about 6 instead of my preferred 8 hours of sleep.
I went to bed plenty early (by 9:00pm), but woke up in the middle of the night for some reason and wasted at least two hours trying to fall back to sleep.
I didn't feel like a total loss while on the bike today, but not 100%, either.
More like 70%.
So, that basically set the tone for the day.

How did the revalved fork perform?
In all honesty, there's no real improvement when the whole ride of 57 miles is mulled over.
Actually, I have to say the stock setup was better overall.
The work Tom did does make for a fork that feels differently, no doubt, but while the absorption of the sharp and pesky bumps (the bigger ones) seems to have improved a bit, the feel of the fork in most other situations is that of now having a firm overall feel where it did not before, similar to how the CRF-450X9 was.
So, while the bigger sharp bumps improved slightly, the smaller sharp bumps are now a problem to deal with - and there are a whole lot of those bumps out on the Pachaug rock n' roll pile.
And, as was with the CRF-450X9 after the revalve done on that bike, the fork seems to work best on my favorite section of pine-needled whoops through the woods (near a pond called Hodge Pond, so I read).
If the whole Pachaug loop were like that, I'd be all set right now.
Well, it aint, so...

What this means is that another valving adjustment is more than likely in store, something that is actually pretty common when trying to dial-in your suspension in this manner.
At least Tom will now have one session in the books and have some results to go on while performing session #2.
What I may try before tomorrow's Labor Day ride is to remove the fork from the bike and lower the oil level 5 or 10mm.
We will see.

I do wonder whether I should simply tell Tom to valve the forks to work on rocks and roots and not to worry about it feeling soft through the Hodge Pond whoops, which has been what I've stressed to him up to this point.
Next time I talk with him, I'll bring this up and ask what he thinks about that idea.
Since 90% of the loop IS full of pesky rocks and roots, maybe that would make sense and I should quit messing around with trying to achieve some kind of (unrealistic?) compromise that works well everywhere..
Yes?
No?
We shall see.

Other than the fork performance, the ride was a decent one.
I did the usual route, and by now that means including the southern part AND the Baby Head Hill trail, although I did take the bypass trail that runs alongside the Boulder Head Hill section.
This second pass through this trail was actually a fair bit easier than the first time last weekend, and that's mainly because I was much more familiar with the lay of the land and was able to know fairly well in advance what was coming up.
I liked it, and I should add it to my normal route.

The bike performed well, as usual, and I now think I'm definitely done with carb fiddling for the time being - no complaints with how the bike ran and responded.
Once again, I was impressed with the low-end torque and light feel of the bike while negotiating the numerous rocky uphills on the southern section.
Good stuff.

I talked to a pair of KTM 2-stroke riders out there today, and we had a decent 15 minute rap session about riding the Pachaug loop and our bikes.
They seemed fairly gung-ho with KTM motorcycles, and that is just fine with me.
Me?
I like blue dirt bikes.  ;)

I'll post tomorrow.

-John