Farmer Jed on His 88 Acre Spread

After a long day of milking the hay and cutting the cows, farmer Jed likes to head on out to the pasture and pretend he's riding at the front of the pack.

Look at that right wrist action - stretching the cable.

Jed's not messing around on his XT-500.

He lays 'er over in the berm, and feels the trials tire squirm.

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I might be getting old because I actually forgot to post an entry yesterday morning before heading off to jerk.

Hmm.

Happens to the best, I suppose.

Sounds good, so I'll go with that theory.
But, even worse than that, when I sat down last night at 10:00pm to write this, I lost my Internet connection for some flippin' reason.

So, here it is, a day late.

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You know what's really funny (or annoying, depending on what word you choose to use)?

When some meathead on a motorcycle message board writes in, asking the other members to stop what they're doing and pool all of their resources to help solve the dinwitt's dilemma that he's writing in about.

Here's an example that will illustrate the typical pinhead's mega-emergency question, complete with sucky spelling, non-existent punctuation, and shitty grammar:

PLEASE HELP!!!

Guys I have a problem with my 1998 kx125 I'm going on a ride this week end an I need to find out whats up with my bike. The oil drain plug sum how fell out when i was comin back from my friends house and now i cant shift through any of the geers what should I bee looking for the kickstart moves down do i think the top end is ok for now my friend said it could be the shift forks where are they at Please help!!! i need this bike fixed like now!

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Even more insulting than having to read through this mess, the retard will go back and forth with a couple helpful members who will actually give the sap some helpful advice, and then, POOF!, we'll never hear from him again.

And, we'll never know how his heart-stopping problem turned out.

That's just plain wrong.

My guess as to what happened?

The fool couldn't figure out how to even get the engine taken apart, sold the remains of his once-proud KX to a fellow retard for peanuts, and took up another hobby that's more to his liking and I.Q.

Something like shooting heroin.

Yeah.

That's where it's at.

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Off to jerk,

-John

Wow! I got an 87 on My IQ Test!

Here's a pic of Mr. Serious Geek relaxing at home, pretending he's on the starship Enterprise, traveling throughout the galaxy with Spock and Captain Kirk by his side.
Could you imagine going over his house for a visit?
I'd rather not.
My brain could not stand anything as traumatic as the thought of that much geekiness oozing out of the walls.


Yes, folk, geeks are everywhere.
To me, there is more to the collection of geeks in the world than the stereotypical one pictured above.
Everyone can conjure-up an image of some Star Trek fanatic with the taped-together eyeglasses and the WD-40 pocket protector full of pens.
Probably the second most popular classification of geek that I'm familiar with is the motorcycle geek.
Yes, people, there are lots and lots of those around, and since I work at a motorcycle dealership, I see and hear a lot of them.

What is a motorcycle geek?
It's basically the kind of retard that will mess his shit right up royally, yet have no clue as to how it got so royally messed-up.
On top of that, he'll explain his royally messed-up shit to somebody at the motorcycle shop, looking for advice on how to get his pile working correctly, again.
When he's given some very sturdy advice on what to do, he'll discard it, thinking that it's just waaaaaaaaaay too much like work, or too expensive-sounding, or both.

Because, you see, this is the kind of flaming retard that is, basically, better off far away from this activity to start with, since these idiots are the type who will set out to ruin the sport of motorcycling for those with a real brain in their heads.
How can I say such a thing?
Well, have you ever held a conversation with the moron doing donuts on the school front lawn?
Or riding his motocross bike up and down his street, racing traffic?
Yeah, that's right.
These guys are all severe retards.
These are the guys that could never be troubled in a million years with even wanting to learn how to maintain the bike and learn how to ride one well and enjoy doing it with like-minded riders.
Frig, no.
They prance around with the bent handlebars, the loose, floppy, and jangly clutch levers, dry and creaky control cables, squeaky suspension pivots, bald-o tires, pointy-toothed sprockets with matching drive chains, and cracked engine crankcases.
The really disgusting part is that, in their squishy matter between their ears, they think that there's nothing wrong or uncommon about all of this.
This is how it should be, and it's simply what's going to happen over time.

Correction, you idiot.
This is what happens with YOU in charge of things.

When i first started riding dirt bikes, I started reading Dirt Bike magazine.
There's a monthly column in there written by a guy called Mr. Know-It-All.
Mr. Know-It-All's column is a question-and-answer session, where people write-in, asking Mr. Know-It-All for advice on how to fix their shit that they have messed up.
Mr. Know-It-All basically treats them with a healthy dose of disgust for their actions, telling them that they deserve what they got, and it's now time to man-up, bite the bullet, and pay the piper for their serious geekiness with motorcycles.

A typical situation is a fool asking Mr. Know-It-All how on Earth can all of the bearing of his KX-250F rear suspension be worn out already?
It's only a 2008 model, for chrissake!
Of course, the Mr. KIA will give them an answer with the solution, but as the old saying goes, there's no free lunch, and these morons are served a heaping helping of here-you-go-you-dillweed pie.

Back then, it was a great column, and it was, along with my own real-life experiences that I was going through at the same time with guys I knew and rode with, what helped me realize how most riders got themselves into trouble with their shit.
It simply is a case of not wanting to know, expecting a free lunch, not lifting a finger, yet complaining when the inevitable happens.

Tough shit, chump.
You asked for it.

Off to jerk,
-John

86 Ways to Pick Your Nose

Catchy title, ain't it? :)

Just got back in from washing the WR-250FY after my usual Sunday loop through that wonderful smattering of public Connecticut land known affectionately by me as the Pachaug rock pile.
The trails are rocky, in case you don't understand.

It was another good one, and I rode the bike well, considering my advanced age.
Those Bridgestone M22/M23 tires are magic, once again, and the WR-250FY continues to delight me, once again.
I am so glad I bought it - it's a fantastic bike.

I saw three other riders out there, all on 2-stroke motocross bikes:
A 1983 Suzuki RM-125D (even though the guy riding it said it was a 1982. Well, not with the dark blue seat cover it had, buster).
A CR-125R, which looked to be around a 2ooo model.
And last, and certainly least because it was a Kawasaki, a KX-125, approximately a 2000 model, as well.

They were just three guys out enjoying riding dirt bikes on parts of the trails that I use, although being out there with non-registered bikes like they had is a no-no.
I didn't say anything about this to them, and I'm sure they're aware of the situation - they just want a place to ride, and I've been in those shoes many times.
The tree police, AKA DEP, probably wouldn't give a shit about that, though, and would be more than willing to issue a ticket to each of them for doing that.
Good luck, fellas.

Time to dig into the pizza that's baking in the oven.

-John

I Scored an 85 on my Blood Test

Hmmmmm.
I wonder how long she's been smoking.


I never got into doing burnouts or other silly shit with my bikes because I didn't have them handed to me free of charge as a plaything to get me out of my parents' hair.
*cue violin*
I had to get my first job at age 15, working for the Town of Sprague, clearing brush around the Baltic reservoir.
With this money, I bought my first bike - a $100 P.O.S.
It was a 1972 Yamaha AT-2, a dual-purpose bike that had seen one too many retards in charge of it's upkeep.
I had to learn from scratch how to ride it and maintain it.
I even had to learn how to install a new part called a contact breaker (AKA points) just to get it running.
My point is:
I wanted to ride a dirt bike really badly, and there was no way I even remotely wanted to do any silly, abusive shit to the bike.
It was my only one, and I'd worked to earn the money for it, and I wanted to keep riding it.
I had to make it last.
Even though I call it a P.O.S., that's only because it was what I today call a piece of shit - it wasn't in excellent mechanical condition like I eventually had the rest of my bikes that I bought after that first one.
I simply did not have the money or experience to make it much better than it was.

There were other kids I knew and rode with that had the opposite view.
I rode (just a couple of times, thank God) with a kid in town who had parents that had enough money to spoil the kid rotten.
We were riding behind this kid's house, and I was on my P.O.S. AT-2, while he was riding a one-year-old Yamaha YZ-80.
I thought that kid's YZ was fantastic with all it's newness glistening in the sun, and I wished that I was on a bike that was thoroughly modern like that one was.

Well, the kid made some kind of mistake and either stalled the engine, or nearly crashed, or did something that made him upset with his YZ for a moment (can't remember exactly what).
So, the kid gets off the bike and basically pushes it over and lets it fall to the ground, saying something like, "This f-in' thing is a piece of shit...blah, blah, blah..."

Yeah, you can probably imagine my reaction.
I pretty much instantly lost my desire to ride with the kid, which pretty much went along with my feelings toward the kid to start with, anyway:
You're a spoiled brat loser retard, buddy, and I'm thoroughly disgusted by your actions.
I'm outta' here.

The point of that true story is the difference in our backgrounds and what we thought of our motorcycles.
I still feel very much the same way, today, too.
I'm all for riding the bike as well and as accurately and as fast as I can without crashing.
I'll still leave the temper tantrums to the retard neighbors and the smokey burnouts to the girls wearing the pink tops sticking their butts out. :)

Off to jerk for another freebee Saturday,
-John

A High of 84

Just sitting here brushing my teeth before jerk.
I mean work. :)

Days are noticeably shorter, now, which can be a bummer if you think about it.
Sun now sets about 8:05 pm versus about 8:25 pm at it's maximum a month ago.
From here, we lose about a minute a day until the shortest day of the year, December 21st, or there about.

My birthday is December 23, by the way, so be sure to get me something very nice. :)

I haven't been riding my WR-250R back and forth to work in the past few weeks, at first due to either rainy weather of simply feeling too tired to make it fun.
A mid-season riding slump can happen.
The past week, though, is due to me ordering a new fuel pump for the bike, which I believe will arrive today, and I'll be able to bring it home with me tomorrow.
Why a new fuel pump?
Seems that some WR-250R models will have the fuel pump quit working when the weather is at it's hottest and the bike's engine temperature is at it's hottest.
The bike will simply stop running when idling at a stop sign, and it will not start back up until the bike cools down for 45 minutes, where it will start and run as if nothing happened.
I've had this happen twice in 6,500 miles and 13 months of ownership, so I decided to just buy a new pump and have it over with.

I first heard about this situation on one of the message boards devoted to the WR-250R.
Even though that forum is made up of mostly newbies and geeks who wouldn't ride the bike without either heated grips or a big luggage rack installed, first (or both!), I was made aware of the situation.
In typical geek fashion, members there have supposedly narrowed this down to 2008 models built in January or February of 2008.
Mine is and was.

Yeah, luggage racks on a dual-purpose bike.
To lots of riders on these bikes, it's apparently a match made in heaven, like cookies and milk.
Last fall, before I had the fire breather WR-250FY to ride off-road, I was in the middle of the Pachaug trail loop when I came out of the woods onto a dirt road where I met a guy taking a break on his Kawasaki KLX-250S (the Kawasaki version of my WR-250R).
No lie - he looks at my bike and asks how I can ride it without a luggage rack mounted over the rear fender.
I believe my answer was along the lines of:
Why in the world would I need a luggage rack slapping me in the butt while moving around all over the bike riding these off-road trails?
Amazing, really, when you sometime talk to people doing the same activity as you are on similar equipment, yet you can approach it with different intentions and have different ideas on what you're after.
To me, mounting a stupid-looking rack that just gets in the way is like playing a game of darts with a paper bag over your face.
Hmmmm.
That might work if you're really ugly, though, and your friends would probably thank you. :)

On top of that, I got the strong impression the guy was a newbie/geek, himself, when he mistook my dual-purpose WR-250R for a motocross YZ-250F.
Motocross bikes don't come with headlights and turn signal lights, folks, for one thing...

Off to jerk,
-John

How Can I Make My Bike Faster for 83 Cents?

Hmmmm.
Looks like Captain Retard is on the case.


It is pretty comical how guys will go on a motorcycle forum and ask the age-old, time-honored question of:

I just got a [insert whatever model bike the guy just got].
How can I make it faster?
I do not have any money or knowledge of what I'm doing.
PLEASE HELP!!!

I added the third line for sake of humor, but basically, that's what is asked every day on one message board or another.
Just yesterday, a kid wrote in and stated that he lost his engine oil drain plug, and the engine seized.
He wrote asking for advice on what to do and what the damage could be.
You could tell from the way he wrote the question that he was clueless, and was basically hoping that somebody would answer with something like, "Just slap on a couple more stickers, and you'll be good to go!"

A guy wrote in asking if a muffler from one model bike would fit another.
I replied that it would not.
Then, the guy posted a link to a YouTube video of a retard with the same model bike who'd taken a muffler from that same other model bike and modified the muffler to fit.
Naturally, the muffler was obviously Jimmy-rigged on there with custom bends in the mid-pipe and a home-made mounting bracket, but that was good enough.
Seeing how the guy asking the question seemed to like the idea of doing this, I gave him a bit of encouragement by replying, "Go for it!"
Of course, I was being sarcastic because the results were sad.
But, some guys like that shit.

Naturally, he'll probably ignore the additional advice of buying a $179 fuel injection programmer to make the bike run better.
Why?
Because he's got the I-ain't-got-the-money-to-spend blinders on.
So, he'll mes with the bike doing low-cost or no-cost "modifications".
It goes without saying that any bent handlebars will be ignored and the dirty air filter will be neglected.
That stuff is just extra filler that ain't as important because he says so.

Off to jerk,
-John

Where Were You in '82?

The 1982 Yamaha IT-465J, an off-road dirt bike meant for riding trails, racing enduros, and just about any kind of dirt riding other than motocross, where the YZ-490J was meant to be ridden.
Or trials.
Who likes trials, anyway, other than snobs?
The IT-465J was based on the previous year's YZ-465H motocross bike, and was basically meant to be the off-road version of that YZ.

I once owned one of the bikes in the above pic.
I had a lot of fun riding it, too.
Back then, all of the serious dirt bikes were powered by 2-stroke engines, and all of the 4-stroke dirt bikes were regarded as overweight playbikes ridden by nerds who just wanted to goof-off for fun.
The 4-stroke engines were big, heavy, and, in the quest for long-term reliability in the hands of the typical dimwit who rode these things and (supposedly) took care of them, under-stressed in the amount of power they put out, had heavy flywheel mass, revved slowly and not too high, and, compared to a modern 4-stroke, held a lot of engine oil.
They might have seemed pretty trick back in the day (because we had nothing else to compare them to except older garbage scows from the 1970s), but today, they're lead sled dinosaurs that weighed a ton with squishy-soft suspension.

The manufacturers like Honda and Yamaha were, for decades, very conservative with their 4-stroke dirt bikes because they basically did not want to change what they were doing at that point.
The 4-strokes like the 1983 TT-600K and 1983 XR-500RD were for playing around, and the light-weight and powerful 2-stroke YZ-250K and CR-250RD from the same year were for serious usage.
It seemed like this was how it would be forever.
Why?
Because that was all we'd ever known.

In 1997, the Yamaha factory suddenly announced that it would run a works (meaning a special, one-off bike for a couple of selected paid riders) 4-stroke in AMA motocross and Supercross.
It was trick, light, and fast.
The very next year, the first modern 4-stroke motocross bike went on sale, the 1998 YZ-400FK.
This bike made the old 4-stroke dirt bikes of the past instantly obsolete for anything other than doing wheelies up and down the street in front of your house, and it was fast and light in weight.

They also came out with the then-modern day equivalent to the IT-456J - the WR-400FK, which was the off-road version.
Like the IT-465J being based on the motocross YZ-465H, the WR-400FK was based on the YZ-400FK.
It, too, was fast, trick, compact in engine design, and light in weight compared to the old bikes.
It was even lighter than the IT-456J in the above pic, and back then, that IT-456J was the best thing they had to offer for off-road use.

One-by-one, the 2-stroke dirt bikes stopped being produced, and now, there are just a few on sale for the 2010 model year.
My own motorcycles that I ride regularly are 4-strokes.
Trick, modern 4-strokes.

I think my point is that a lot of times, things you have access to won't be changed until those in the driver's seat decide it's time for a change.
Those trick YZ-400FKs and WR-400FKs probably could have been produced years earlier, but it wasn't until 1998 when we could buy one.
For years and years, it was believed that the 4-stroke motocross bike from Honda or Yamaha was a daydream.
They simply would not build one for you to buy.
Then, POOF!, there it is, all of a sudden.

Off to jerk,
-John