Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

.. M '" g; .... By ..od Breaker 1.) One very important item is the drive chain. If this goes, you are in trouble. This should be well lubed with a good quality chain lube, never use motor oil as it will fling right off in the first few miles of riding. If there is any possibility of riding in sand, you should use a type of chain lube that won't '" M MORE ON ENDURO PREPARATION As we continue on with 'enduroizing' a motorcycle, we have had a bit about the safety factors, now a few tips about preparing the bike for reliability. Of course the main secret of enduro riding is both reliability of the bike and the rider. If the machine doesn't finish, it can't win. It is extremely important that all the little things as well as the big things be taken care of before riding an enduro. Having a DNF behind your name in the results hurts just as much if it was caused by a contact screw coming adrift as it does from a blown engine. Here are a couple of tips that can prolong the life of a few of the components on the machine and maybe help you reach that finisher's check. ~ .., " ~ w Z w oJ u 4.1 Next coat the inside of the carb cover >itself with grease. As the turbulence of the air rushes through this area on its way to the cam, it bounces the dirt and debris around and when it hits any of the case that is coated with grease, it sticks. Each time you go on a run the old grease should be wiped off and then re-eoat with fresh grease. pick up the sand and turn into an abrasive to wear out your chain prematu~rely. "Dri-5lide" is very good for this, it goes on as a liquid, but it dries leaving a coating of Molybdenum Disulfide on the chain which has wonderful lubricating qualities but does not attract the dirt and grit. Dri-Slide is in great demand in Vietnam for lubricating weapons for this very reason. BONNEVILLE ENTRIES Mail entries for this year's Speed Week on the Flats near Bonneville, Utah, close July 15 reports Bruce Flanders, AMA referee. Post entries will be considerably higher than the mail entry so Flanders asks interested parties to contact him as soon as possible for more information. Write P.O. Box 2297-D, Pasadena, Calif., 91105 or phone Earl Flanders at 213/681-2581. ENDUIOS British queue-up for their tea in the afternoon. In the morning they ride their motorcycles about like they play soccer - and there's not much waiting around! If you bust the line you can expect to be called a lot of rude names and if you go around the bottleneck, at least some clubs will disqualify you. Since waiting means you surely will be out of the money, I do something. Busting the line is a last resort but if there's no other choice I do it and hope nobody busts me while I'm at it! The experts always offer one bit of advice: Get up on the pegs. It hardly seems to matter what situation is involvcd, the advice is thc same. It's good advice. The more you stand up, the faster you'll go and the less you'll fall. Some enduro bikes are constructed so that they're all but uncontrollable when the rider is plopped in the seat. This strikes me as a bit extreme and 1 for one don't care for that type of bike, but it's not a bad idea. Standing accomplishes three things. First, it lowers the center of gravity of the combination of you and the machine. As far as the machine is concerned, when you're standing all of your weight is concentrated at the footpegs. Quite a few riders have spent a great deal of money cutting their frames apart and welding inserts in the tubes to lower the engine, and thus the C. of G., an inch or so. I wonder how many of them realize that they can lower the center of gravity several inches just by standing on the pegs? If your physics is a bit weak and you don't understand what is meant by "center of gravity," consider an Egyptian pyramid and a telephone pole. A telephone pole is quite bigh and its weight is uniformly distributed. Its center of gravity will be right about the center of the pole. Making it stand up by itself would be quite a job. The pyramid, on the other hand, has most of its weight right near the bottom and it's almost impossible to tip it over. You want your bike to be like the pyramid, not the telephone pole. Weight concentrated low. The second advantage of riding on the pegs is that when the situation demands, you can fling your weight around quite a bit and influence the course of bike substantially. This wasn't the case a few years back. When the normal enduro machine was a 350 to 400 pound monster, flinging your weight around accomplished nothing except to make you tired. The bike went in the direction it was pointed, flattening everything in its path until it met the inevitable immovable object. Today the rider weighs almost as much as the bike so things happen when he shifts his weigh t. The third advantage of standing on the pegs is that your legs act as a secondary set of shock absorbers. This is really more important than it sounds when you consider that as soon as a ike~OibilitY"t~:shOG 2.) A good air cleaner is a must in any type of riding, even on the streets, but more so on the trails. The best I have found so far is the Filtron unit. This 'Green Cleaner' as it is called has fantastic abilities for keeping out the dust and letting in the air. I recently tried their special oil for their air cleaners and it does work quite a bit better than just using motor oil. The units are available for almost all makes and models. Keep in mind, if everything on the bike is perfect and you suck a bunch of dirt into the engine and blow it, you are-still listed in the DNF's. (Continued from page 22) having its shocks bottom out) the bike is virtually out of control If your legs act as shock absorbers for your body weight, the bike's shock absorbers have much less to do. If you hit a small ditch or an 8" diameter log while you're sitting in the seat like a lump, your body will take a terrific thump and the bike will have to absorb so much that the frame might break. 1£ you're on the pegs, you can lift the front wheel over and tbe rear rides over fairly easily because it doesn't have such an enormous amount of weight with which to contend. One skill that you should learn early in your enduro carecr is the ability to get the front wheel up at will. Take a picture of an expert rider and the odds' are his front wheel will be up in the air. That's how you get over obstacles fast and safely. Gene Cannady wheelies across whoop-de-doos, J.N. Roberts wheelies across creeks and ditches and Jeff Penton wneelies through mud sections. They're all doing the same thing: getting the front wheel up where it doesn't have to take a pounding and where it can't be defected. Doing wheelies is a skill you dcvelop like doing sommersaults or roller-skating backwards. Just practice and fall down a few times. If you ride all the enduros in the middle and southern California areas you can expect to ride sand, forest trail, mud, water, snow, and lots of rock. Naturally you'll be better at riding the terrain that abounds near your home, so that means if you want to be a good all around enduro rider you must seek out the kind of terrain that you're not good with and ride it until you are. Even in Southern California, you can find mud and water during the winter months and there is sand up north. Don't all faint now, but doing a bit of road riding now and again doesn't hurt anything either. If you ever get into an ISDT type event you may have to race your knobby-tired mudder on asphalt. If it's the first time you've ever been on pavement, you're in trouble. The most important bit of advice that 1 can offer a prospective enduro rider is, "Don't stop if you're behind." If you're behind, it's usually because the run is tough or you've had some kind of trouble. You're probably tired or hurt or both. You want to rest and any excuse will do. Dirty goggles, some alteration to your clothes, checking the schedule, some minor bike ailment, all these have tempted me on occasion and I'm sure you can think of others. Just wait till you get tired enough! If you want to be a winner don't stop. Keep going until you're ready to drop in your tracks and then see if you can't gain 6 feet by falling the righ t direction. I grant you it's no fun riding like that, but who ever said enduros were supposed to be fun? Winning is fun but the other part comes first. 3.) If your filter bolts directly onto your carb, you don't have to worry too much about dirt entering into the car anywhere else, but if you happen to have a rotary-valve machine, it will take a little extra protection. While the case area containing the carb is normally sealed rather wetl, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure (that is not an original quotation). Just in case some dirt or grit should find its way into the breathing chamber betWeen the carb and the air cleaner, there is one easy and economical way to trap it. Remove the earo cover as we have done..on this Kawasaki F-5 and apply a thin coat of grease to all of the inside surfaces with a small brush as shown. This will leave all the surfaces with the ability to collect any grit that may come in contact with them and thus keep them out of the carbo * 5.) The popularity of the "Cherry-on-ee" type of fork is evidenced by the factory adaption of this type fork on most machines today. It is true that these forks look "tough" and the little rubber wipers are a lot better looking than the old bellows-type rubber boots. there is some doubt as to which had the greater efficiency as far as keeping dirt and grit away from the fork seals. As the wiper rubber gets worn, it can let the fine grit down into the seal area that will cut away the lip of the seal a-nd soon you have leaking forks. A way to slow down this distruetion of seals if not stop it is to lift the wiper boot up and place a ring of thick felt beneath it and then re-install the wiper rubber. This felt ring will absorb any oil that may get by the seal and it will also collect any dirt and grit that gets by the wiper rubber. While this may seem like a small thing. it will prolong the life of the seals. Clark Marshall's N. PRODUCTIONS, INC. * Pr ••• nt. lstANNUAL HEIDELBERG INDOOR MOTORCYCLE CHAMPIONSHIP NATIONAL CHAMPIONSH IP RIDERS $3,000 purse A.M.A. sanctioned WED.NIGHT JULY 14 * SIEATTLE CENTIER COLISEUM * PRACTICE 6-7..... TIME TRIALI7 RACING 8:30 12,000 seats Prices: Res. $5 Gen. $3.75 Child. $2 cUP U

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