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