Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

.; Gary Bailey's IIGI :; How to win ~MOTOCROSS* - Part nine: Riding technique, cont'd. o ... II.) ..0 E e II.) o I Lightening the rear end Here's another trick from trials riding that you will find useful at any speed. Imagine you are out fun-riding so mewhere an d you are in a gully with steep sides. Yo u decide to climb up one of the sides . It has a square comer o n to p. You get up th ere and get the front wheel ove r the edge of the ban k. Yo u are no w goi ng pretty slowly an d traction is poor th ere o n the bank where the rear wh eel is try ing to cla w its way up and over the edge. What can you do to . help the rear wheel get over the edge? Get your weigh t off it so it only has to lift itself and the back part of the motorcycle. It may have traction enough to do that but if you force it to lift your weight in ad dition it may just slip and slide and stall. The rear wheel is coming np over the edge of the bank. Yo u are standing on the pegs and you want to lighten the load the rear wheel is lifting. J ust bend your knees as the bike comes up under you. The ba ck part of the bike is gaining al titude but because you are bending your knees, your body is not gaining altitude. Therefore the rear wheel is not lifting your weigh r. After the wheel gets up on top of the bank, then you can straighten your legs and assume your normal position in respect to the motorcycle. Lightening both ends You know how to ligh ten th e front of the bike - get your weigh t back. You know how to ligh ten the rear end for a short time while the tire is climbing up - bend y o ur knees as it co mes up un der you, so you are sort of floati ng in the air above the motor cy cle fo r a brief mo me nt. Su ppose you want to unload both ends of th e motorcycle at the same time. You can do it briefly although the method is difficu lt to put in words. It's mainly a feeling you have, as if you are just floati ng in the air for a moment above the motorcycle. You are not pushing down on the handlebars and you are not pushing down on the foot pegs, although both your hands and your feet remain in contact with the bike. Just before you get to a place where you want both ends o f the bike to be ligh t, push up with your legs as though you were abou t to jump off the mo torcycle . Just enough to get ' yo ur weight floating in the air for a second or two. Here are a couple of examples of why you would do that. Hole in the track _ 42 . So metimes there will be a deep hole in th e path directl y in fron t of yo u and on the line you intend to ride. Yo u will lose too mu ch tim e if you try to steer aro und the hole so you decide to rid e over it . You know you don 't wan t the fro nt tire to drop down into that hole, so you get yo ur weigh t back to lighten the fro nt en d. You also don't want the back tire to d ro p do wn into that h ole. [f it does, the lip on the far side will flip the back of the mo to rcycle up in the air and you will be bouncing around on the track instead of laying power down and racing. As you approach the hole, get back and lift the front wheel over it. Then whe n the rear tire gets to the edge of the hole, yo u have to get your weight off it so you d on ' t fo rce it down into the hole. Just at that instan t , bounce up off the foot pegs as though you were going to jump over the hole yourself. The rear wheel will be unloaded briefly, whil e yo u are floa ting up the re, and that will allow it to float over the ho le wit hou t dr opp ing in . . A lot of riders made. the mistake of doing a wheelie in a situation like that. They p ull the front , end up and simultaneously drive the rear tire right do wn into the hole. Yo u don't want to do that. J ust lighten up both ends of the motorcycle and float over the hole. Crossing over ruts Last week it rai ned and water collected in a hollow. The mud got about a foot deep there and riders had a lot of fun playing in it . They left a bu nch of deep ruts which traveled in straigh t lines through the mud hole because nobody could tum in the stuff. Where the ruts emerged from the swamp was not on any good line into the next tum. But last week, who cared? Everybody was just delighted to get out of the bog one more time. This week we all Care about where th ose d eep ru ts go . They are dry now an d th e sides are fir m . And they go in th e wrong direction. It's a prett y ti gh t tum no rmally, but - if yo u make it tight to day th e ruts will surprise you. Just as yo u get arou nd the co mer, th ere th ey are. Read y to trap your front wheel an d then lead you off in th e wro ng direction . You can 't go inside of the ruts because th er e are so me small trees there. You have to ride o utside of the ruts or get down in th em . Ou tsid e is better. So you try that. There you are making a fast, wide t um which brings you around on the outside of the ruts. But the good ridi ng line for the next turn is now over on the other side of the deep ruts. Those ruts sort of angle across the line you need to follow. You have to get across them and ride on the other side. Yo u are going nearly parallel to them and you need to cross over them . Can you just imagine what's gonna happen if you let your fron t tire drop down into one of those slots in the dirt? [ see you can - you are trembling and shaking. How about if you manage to loft your front wheel and get it across the first rut b ut then your rear tire dr op s d o wn in? Let's see ... front tire in o ne rut, re ar tire in another ru t . . . now ['m t rembling and shaking too. You know wha t to do . Do your little springboard deed on the motorcycle iust as y o u start across th e ruts. Both wheels will flo at across and everybody will wonder h o w th e heck you did tha t. Mud holes and wate r crossings Ther e 's so m ething tradit io nal abo ut a mud hole on a mo to cross track. In a lot of pl aces th ey happen because it rains o r a stream cross es the property or because some psy ch opathic non-racer turns a faucet on. [ don't mind a decent Iitt le mud hole that you ca n get ac ross in good shape if you go at it right and that's what I am going to talk abo ut here. Not the en dless dism al swa mp . [f the m ud h ole is only a bi ke len gth or tw o across y o u can pi ck up the fron t wheel an d ride through on yo ur rea r tire. , Afte r you see so mebo dy else d o it first. Yo u get strai ghtened o ut before you h it it and you go th r o ugh it on a straigh t line. The re ar ti res will squish the mud an d th ro w it to th e side so there will final ly be a fairly good groove unless so mebody is throwing in m ore mud. Ride in that groove and it won't be too bad. The slurp will gra b the sides of your rear tire and try to slow you do wn , so you will h ave to use more power to kee p the front wheel up than you are accustomed to. A water crossing can tum into a mud hole, but if the bo tt o m is sandy or rocky it will usually stay fair ly clear and solid on the bottom. When you are sure there aren't any hidden bo u lders or bottomless pits under the surface of the water, you can ride it the same way front wheel up. This will help keep water off your engine an d ignition so you are less likely to drown out. Somebody will, though. Jum ps Jumps are identified as horizontal, uphill and downhill. Horizontal m eans the track is at the same level before and af te r the j ump . These are usually man- made mounds of dirt on the track put t here by a b ulldozer. On a do wnhill jump, yo u land at a lower level and on an uph ill jump, it's th e reverse . The basic idea in eac h case is the same. You should ta ke off wi th ' th e fro nt wheel h igh , hold it th at way wh ile yo u are fly ing through th e air, an d land on the rear wheel first. Reduce throttl e while you are in the air and, just at the instant before you rear wheel to uch es • How to Wi n Moto cross, copyright 19 74 by Ga ry Ba iley . is being serialized in Cyc le News. Th e best-seller. now in its seco nd pr in t ing , is co nd e nsed for th is ser ializat ion . The co mp lete boo k is availabl e fo r $6 from Cycle News Producu . See ad in this issue . do wn get th e th rot tle wid e o pen . Put your weig h t forward to kee p the fro nt en d down and accelerate. When the rear tire to uc hes the gro und the front tire should be about 10 inches above the gro und. Whe n you lan d with power full on, the front end will gradually lower itself down to the surface and your overall landing wiII be smooth . [f you land without power on, the rear wheel wiII act like an anchor. The motorcycle will rotate forward very quickly and bring the front wheel down very hard onto the su rface. The landing will be rough, the rider wiII be pitched forward and the motorcycle may even bounce. Don 't do that. The success of the whole o peration depends mainly on how you take off an d doing it correctly is critical. If the jump is a mound of di rt o n th e track there will be a takeoff ra mp up to th e top of th e mound. [f yo u are going to do any slowing down, do it before you get to th e jump . In any event go up the ramp with po wer on. Let 's work on that point very ca refully because It IS extrem ely im portant. The way to get the fr o nt end up is to use power. For example to do a wheelie yo u use lots of po wer and th is rotates the bike around the rear axle, lifting up the front wheel. Now consider the reverse. If you have the fron t end up in the air and yo u shut off the power, it's just like putting on t he rear brake. The bike will again te nd to rotate around the rear axle and it wiII do it in the direction which brings the front end down. Suppo se you are coming over th e top of the ramp and your front wheel is already out in the air, but your rear tire is still on the ramp . If you shut off power right there, it will bring the front end down and you will dive off the jump nose down. Front-wheel landings are dangero us. You should keep power on until the rear wheel is in the air. This will launch you nose high, and help you get down that way. Repeat. Never red uce power u ntil t he rear wheel is in the air. Then close th e throttle about halfway, so the engine doesn't race w hile yo u are in th e air . And , of course; get it on again just be fore yo u touch down. There is another big no-n o. Do no t sit down at any time w hile making a jump. You should be o n the pe gs as you approach the jump, as you go th ro ugh th e air and as you la nd . Don't go for the alt itude record Here's another way tha t beginni ng racers get led astray by pictures in the magazines. One of the gla mour shots of motocross is a rider flying th rough the air all crossed up. Sometimes a photographer will ask me to make a very high jump so he can get a picture. I will usually do it because it's flattering to get your picture taken for a magazine. I'll get up there just as high as [ can, tum th e front wheel over against the stop and stick my butt way out over the side of the motorcycle. If I look below, [ see the photographer kneeling down or even lying on the ground so the picture makes me look like I am higher than the trees and maybe on a transcontinental flight with a scheduled landing at J FK airport. That isn't the way you really do it, friends. Whe n you jump, you don't wa nt to go as high as possible . You want to go as low as p ossibl e. T he hi gh er you go the lo nger it takes to get back down o n th e grou nd. Next ti me yo u are at a ra ce , watc h people go over a jump. Some go high , float aro und up there, an d finally ge t bac k down so they ca n put some power o n the ground. The fast racers stay low an d in a very . short ti me th ey are touch ing d own an d their rear t ires are

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