Twist the throttle...and hold on.

This is a bit of a flashback post.  Hope you enjoy it.

 Many new riders make the mistake of thinking that motorcycle engines are relatively generic, and that the size of the engine dictates everything.  We've all heard it and many of us started the same way. "Yeah, my (insert basically any brand here) cruiser is a 950, I'm sure I can handle your little 600cc sport bike. How the heck do you manage to go so fast on that thing?" Or "You race that little 125?  I had a 125 enduro back in high school.  Why don't you race Harleys?"

 Well, I've been at this a long time now, and I confess that I started with the same erroneous belief.  In my defense, my motorcycle obsession started at the age of 10 and I really had no one to guide me.  To say my first few years were a learning experience based on trial and error is really putting it mildly.

 My first "real" bike was a Honda XR75.  Purchased used for next to nothing back in the mid 1970's, it was only a couple years old but gave real meaning to the words "clapped out."  It had no back brakes (which was a common theme in my first couple bikes) - the pedal and linkage were missing when we got it.  The levers were broken off short, the foot pegs were always falling off, and the tires worn almost to the point of being totally useless.  The tank was dented and the bars were bent, and it looked like it was ready for the scrap heap.  In reality it was my brothers bike, but he was kind enough to share it and over time I adopted it.  Ah, the joy of family!

 I'm mentioning that bike because it started to open my eyes to cc's and power.  There was a little motocross track in the woods a couple miles from my house, and I'd go there as often as I could and flog that little Honda until either it or I had nothing left to give.  It was a cool little track, cut out of an old sand and gravel operation by local kids.  All of the kids I ran onto there had similar bikes to mine; clapped out hand me downs that allowed us to live out our MX dreams.

 Discovering these tracks in the woods, I always felt like an archeologist looking at dinosaur bones.  In most cases there was no one else there, and I'd look at the ruts, berms and braking bumps and wonder how they were created.  No matter how much I flogged my bike, I could not seem to create my own ruts in the corners.  "They must be doing all this when it's muddy" I'd tell myself.  The dirt that was all over the area behind the berms in the corners?  Maybe someone was there shoveling it out for some reason.  There was certainly no way I could do that with my bike.

 So back to the story.  One day a new kid showed up on a shiny new YZ80.  He couldn't ride very well, and I easily kept up with him and passed him anywhere on the track.  His super cool new bike sounded way different than mine (I had yet to discover the difference between a 2 and 4 stroke engine), and yet he couldn't seem to get any power out of it.  We stopped to talk after a few laps, and he turned out to be a bit of a stuck up snob, telling me that my bike was junk and that his buddy who actually raced would come by tomorrow with his YZ80 and show me how slow my bike really was.  I laughed and told him that he only had 5cc's on me, I wasn't the least bit afraid.  Bring it on!

The next day I rode the school bus home looking at the YZ80 ad in whatever MX magazine I happened to be reading and thought to myself "those things look great but are not all they're cracked up to be."  Silly, wasn't I?

After getting home I fueled up the old Honda and made my way to the track.  Sure enough, the jerky kid was there and so was his racer friend.  His YZ80 also looked pretty new, but it was worn from use. He was much nicer than his jerky buddy, and after talking to me for a minute about the track he put on his helmet and kicked over his YZ.  I immediately knew I was in trouble.

That engine sounded like nothing I had ever heard before.  Yeah, it was similar to jerky kid's, but racer kid knew what he was doing.  He warmed that thing up and revved it in a way that jerky kid never did. Brrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaap!   Brrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaap!  I was terrified and mesmerized at the same time.

Before I knew what was happening he pointed it down the first straight, revved it and let the clutch out and was gone.....and I mean gone.  It was about 50 yards to the first corner and I don't think his front tire touched at all. He never let off the gas; his shifts indicated only by slight dips in that beautiful music coming out of the tailpipe...BrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaAhaaaaaaaaaaaaaAhaaaaaaaaaaaaaAhaaaaaaaaaap!

He did a couple laps to get the feel for the track, and then I tucked him behind him and he cleaned my clock.  I did a respectable job keeping up in the tight sections, but on the straights or the sandy corners I was hopelessly lost. That little YZ just walked away from my XR.

 Thankfully, he wasn't a jerk about it and we actually talked a little after.  I tried to bum a ride, but he said his Dad would kill him if someone crashed his bike.  I remember telling him that I could not get over how fast his bike was, and yet it was only 5cc's larger than mine.  He said "yeah, but it's a 2 stroke race engine."  I had no idea what that meant, but of course pretended I did.

Fast forward a year or so and I'm that much closer to a real motocrosser.  The XR is gone, replaced by an equally clapped out Kawasaki KD100.  This bike actually had a back brake, but was lacking everywhere else.  Regardless of its shortcomings, it featured a 100cc 2 stroke engine, which was as good as any race engine as far as I was concerned.  Ah well, I was still very young.

 The KD was an enduro bike, which to me meant it was a motocrosser with a bunch of other stuff that I'd simply remove.  Lights?  Who needs them? Certainly not Bob Hannah.  Gauges?  I don't think so.  An oil tank and pump?  That was actually handy and I had no idea how to take it off - I bet the Hurricane didn't like mixing gas and oil either.  Soon I was out ripping up the track on my wanna be KX, but something was still nagging me.  Yeah, this bike sounded more like a YZ, but still wasn't the same.  As even though it was a little faster than my XR, it didn't handle as well and there was no way it seemed as fast as that YZ was.  Of course, that kid never came back and I had nothing to compare it to.

I soon discovered yet another track a bit further away.  This one was much cooler, featuring a long whoop section and some jumps and serious sand hills.  There was almost never anyone else there, and I dominated the place in my mind.  I'd roll through that whoop section in second or even third gear, my front tire sometimes even leaving the ground! How cool was that?  I could not imagine anyone doing it faster.

One day I had stopped to take a break when I heard a familiar sound in the distance.  Much like racer kid's YZ80, but a little more urgent sounding and just as thrilling.  I had no way of knowing at the time, but it was the sound of someone who really knew how to wring the most out of a 125cc motocrosser. To me it was like a message from God.  It got louder, closer, and louder still.

Then off in the distance at the other end of the whoops I could see clouds of dirt in the air.  And then suddenly a flash of yellow and black and a roar....

WhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaraAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

This new unknown rider went though those whoops faster than I could have gone through the flat part of the track next to them...mostly one one wheel.  He rounded the corner and was gone from sight, but I could hear that engine all the way around the track.  Much like racer kid, he really revved it out.  Unlike racer kid, however, this guy was either on it all the way or off - no in between.  I'd hear BRRaaaaaaaap!  Then silence for a second. Then another BRaaaaaaaaaaaaaap! Silence again.  From the seat of my bike I could see other parts of the track, including a long left hand corner with a nice berm.  I liked to think that I got through that corner pretty fast...until I saw him do it.  He came screaming up to it at a pace I could never match, braked for a split second and laid the bike over and was back on the gas - all the way - entering the actual turn.  Dirt flew off his back tire for what seemed like miles as he flew through that corner like a slot car in a rail.  I was stunned.

I looked down at my trusty KD as he disappeared again around a corner.  I didn't know what bike this mystery rider was on yet, but it certainly seemed better than my ride.  How could that be?  I had 100cc's of 2 stroke power!  Maybe I just needed to wring the snot out of it like this guy was doing.  It didn't even sound like he was shifting...may the secret was to keep the damn thing in first or second gear all the time - that might explain the ridiculous RPM this guy seemed to operate at.  Plus that sound....it was intoxicating.  My bike sounded like a Lawn Boy lawnmower.  His sounded like a thousand angry bees.

After a couple laps he pulled over to talk.  Turns out he was a really nice guy, a couple years older than me and like racer kid, he actually raced.  His ride? A close to new YZ125.  It looked like a space ship next to my KD100...there was no comparison at all.  It looked to have a foot of suspension travel compared to my 4 inches or so.  The knobs on his tires were huge, making my street tires now look exactly like the street tires they were.  There was nothing extra on the bike, it looked like raw horsepower sitting there.  I lusted over that like nothing else I had ever known.

Like nice guys often do, he complimented me on my bike despite the utter lack of comparison to his own.  He watched me do a couple laps, and when I pulled back in shocked me with one simple sentence.

"That looks like fun.  Want to trade bikes for a couple laps?"

I don't remember the details of my reply, but I remember climbing on that YZ and feeling like the king of the world.

"You ever ride a 125?" he asked. "It's probably a little quicker than your bike."

 I was honest. "Never have" I said, "but mine's a 100 so it's gotta be pretty close."

 He smiled a knowing smile and said "Take it easy at first and make sure to hold on."  With that he kicked over my bike and disappeared around the corner, still going fast but now sounding at least a little bit like me.

 From the spot we were on the track a rider had one of two options to take.  One was the corner my new friend just chose, which lead around the back of the track and over a couple smaller jumps.   The other was a long, sandy hill that ended in what I now know to call a tabletop jump.  The hill itself was about 50 feet from top to bottom. The flat part of the tabletop was probably about 30 feet across, and then you had a shorter down side of the jump and a short straight before you entered the really cool left hander I mentioned earlier.

 I say that I now know it was a tabletop jump because back then it was nothing more than a hill to me.  The face was steep. So steep, in fact that my KD needed a running start and would need to be in second gear tapped out to climb it - that sand was a horsepower thief!  Sometimes I'd even have to drop into first gear, and on a few occasions I'd get stuck and have to turn the bike around and roll it down.  The concept of cresting that hill with enough momentum to actually leave the earth - never mind jump 25 or 30 feet - simply was outside of the realm of possibility.

 I kicked over that YZ and felt the entire bike vibrate as I revved it a little.  I now understood what all those motorcycle writers meant when they talked about crisp throttle response.  It was like this engine actually wanted to rev.  Without hesitation I pointed it at the approach to the sand hill,

 I remember thinking that since this bike was only a little bigger than mine cc wise, that I'd take the same approach as I would on my bike and go with second gear tapped out.  The last thing I wanted to do was get stuck on the hill and have my new friend see me, or worse yet dump his bike and never get another ride.  Yep, second gear tapped out was the way to go.

 I pulled the clutch in and clicked it down into first.  I took off the way I did on my bike, slowly letting out the clutch and ramping up the revs.  Funny, I remember thinking, it didn't seem to be much faster yet. While it did sound cool it didn't sound anything like it did when he was riding it.  I guess I need to twist the throttle a little.

 My memory of the next few seconds is sketchy at best...but here's what I recall.

 I had only rolled about 20 feet in first gear, and was barely off idle when I had the "I need to twist the throttle a little" thought and clicked her into second.  Since I still had most of the approach to the hill left, I let the clutch out and twisted the throttle to the stop. The bike, of course, woke up immediately.

 BRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!

Before I had any idea at all of what was happening,  the approach was gone and I was flying up the hill like it wasn't even there.  I crested the hill - now certainly a jump - at speed and launched into the air like I was thrown from a catapult, easily clearing the entire jump and scaring myself to death in the process.  I landed back wheel first on the downside and my sloppy landing sent me jerking backwards, opening the throttle yet again and sending me careening down the straight toward the corner.  I certainly would have blown right over the berm and crashed into the woods, but through the grace of God I managed to pull the clutch in and slow myself down.

After regaining my composure I babied the bike back around to the place I started.  Nice guy pulled in a little bit later, a big smile on his face.  "Your bike is a lot of fun" he said. "You can really ride the heck out of this thing.  What'd you think of mine?"

 I was probably still white as a ghost after my near death experience.  "The power...." I mumbled......"it's..........it's awesome."

 I made my way home that day with a new sense of reality.  CC's, it seemed, did not have a 1 to 1 correlation with horsepower.  I realized right then and there that there was nothing I could do to my little motor that would get it to perform at the level of that YZ.  I also realized that despite reading everything I could on motorcycles, there was no replacement for actual seat time.  You can't read your way into the experience of ridding a real motocross bike....or any other bike for that matter.   At the end of the day, you have to twist that throttle. And hold on :)