KDX in National Enduro Series
Posted: 11:07 am Jan 04 2019
Sooo...I've made a major decision to enter the 2019 NEPG National Enduro series with my 1999 KDX 220. I'll be entering the 66+ class and have scheduled myself to ride 9 of the 10 events in the series. I'll skip the Oklahoma event as that is just a bit too far from my North Carolina home.
My intent is to chronicle my effort here on these forums. I have no delusions about winning. I'm not fast compared to most of the other riders and typically just finishing represents success for me. So why am I even bothering? It's a boring story, but since you asked.......
Like many guys my age,66, I rode and raced off-road bikes when younger. For me that was back in the early 70's. Yeah, I know, a long time ago. I raced hare and hounds, hare scrambles a little MX and a few enduros. Even rode in one 2-day IDSE qualifier (it was called ISDT back then). My favorite by far were the enduros. My first race bike was a stripped down Kawasaki 175 "enduro" model. We would call it a dual sport bike today. It wasn't the best bike I ever raced, that was either my Honda 250 Elsinore MX bike or my Suzuki PE250B, the last bike I owned before quitting. But it was my first so has always been special to me. In 1981 I had prepped my PE and had it ready for the upcoming enduro season. Unfortunately my then wife had other ideas. Long story short, I sold the PE and in a fit of marital anger threw out all the trophies and awards I had worked so hard to earn. This included my only National Enduro class trophy and my ISDT qualifier bronze medal. While I swore off bikes, as you know, it never really gets out of your blood. Every time I drove along a road and saw a trail going up a power line or went hiking in the mountains, I couldn't help but drift back in my mind to the days when I would have ridden that trail on a bike. It never truly was far from my heart and I always told myself "someday, I'll ride again!"
Fast forward to October 2014 and I'm laying immobile in a hospital bed after falling almost three stories off a ladder. I managed to crush both shoulders and am completely unable to take care of myself. My doctors are befuddled. According to them, about 90% of people who experience this much blunt force have severe life threatening, internal injuries. I do not. By all accounts I could have, perhaps should have, died that day. The docs tell me they don't see any reason I won't recover and should consider myself extremely lucky. Funny, I've never considered myself particularly lucky before, but I'll take it this time. So here I am laying in bed with nothing to do but think and I realize if there were things I had always said I would do, perhaps I'd better get to doing them. For some unexplained, crazy reason, tops on my list was riding trail bikes again. I shared this with my wife (version 2.0 and without a doubt the love of my life). While somewhat confused, she knew of my riding history, and the riff it had caused with my prior wife, and was surprisingly supportive. She understood the concept of "unfinished business". I got out of the hospital in November and was finally cleared to drive in December. In January I drove to Virginia to pick up a bone stock, 1999 KDX 220! Here we go again!
Why a KDX and why the 220? And why completely stock? Remember, my first race bike was a Kawasaki and "Team Green" had always held a spot in my heart. So the brand was completely understandable, almost inevitable. After all, I was doing this for nostalgic reasons. I readily admit I was recreating a past dream, not necessarily looking for the most modern bike. I had definite ideas about what I wanted for trail riding. The more I read about the KDX, a bike I had never known about since I got out of riding just before the KDX began to dominate the enduro scene, the more I was convinced the KDX, in particular the 220 with its increased low end grunt, was the right choice for me.
Why a stock model? Recall "back in the day" when I started, there weren't any race bikes. "Run what you brung" was the order of the day. You bought a Japanese "enduro" bike, stripped off the lights, swapped to "full knobby" tires and raced! Some guys even rode their bikes to and from the races instead of trailering them. If you wanted a better, faster bike, you modified that stock machine yourself. Most of the mods I saw were hardly upgrades and hardly professionally done. In my experience, the more you modified a bike, the less reliable it was. I never had a problem with my 175 Kawi until I made it into a 238 Kawi. Then the problems never ceased. I developed a distrust of mods, especially engine mods, that has stayed with me to this day to some degree. I didn't want to buy somebody else's idea of an "improved" machine but rather go with a stock bike with a proven track record. For gosh sakes, exactly what bike has ever had a better reliability and success record than the KDX? Besides, I didn't intend to race, just ride some trails and relive my past. You know, get that old 2 stroke thrill back just a little!
ONCE A RACER ALWAYS A RACER!
Four months later there I am with my bone stock 220 on the starting line of my first "modern" hare scrambles! I barely finished one lap and was begging the sweep riders to show me a shortcut back to the start line so I could die in the relative comfort of my air conditioned truck! But inside, deep down, in that place where you never let anyone else go and don't even like visiting yourself, that place where you are forced to look at yourself in complete honesty, I knew I was hooked again! I had tried racing sailboats for a few years, but that was just too docile. I tried mountain bikes but had no real interest in something with two wheels and no motor. I was back! Feeling my age for sure, but back braaaaping again!
Since that initial miserably hot and exhausting, "less than a lap" day, I've not looked back. I'm better, but not good. I'm among the slowest riders on the course but I'm also riding with perhaps the biggest smile. After all, I'm racing a dirt bike when by all rights, I should be dead. No one is having a bigger time than I am. No one enjoys seeing a checkered flag at a hare scrambles or the final check point at an enduro more than I do.
My wonderful wife still questions my sanity I am sure. But I also believe she has a bit of pride that her husband still dreams of competing and is NOT sitting on the sofa watching football and eating cheeseburgers. When I presented Jane with the idea of riding the national events, she was immediately supportive. No comments about being a crazy old man trying to recapture my youth, a position I could hardly have argued with. Instead, after a brief pause, she simply asked, "How well can you do, really?" "Top 10 in class, maybe better if I don't get hurt and can get in better condition" was my honest answer. "Then I think you should do it."
So, I invite you to come ride along with me as I travel to the varied locations and terrains of the 2019 NEPG National Enduro Series. We'll go from South Carolina, to Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and Virginia. All in all, we will drive well over 10,000 miles to and from races. I'll do my best to give you as accurate a feel as I can of the adventure, the experience and of course, the competition.
let the good times roll!
My intent is to chronicle my effort here on these forums. I have no delusions about winning. I'm not fast compared to most of the other riders and typically just finishing represents success for me. So why am I even bothering? It's a boring story, but since you asked.......
Like many guys my age,66, I rode and raced off-road bikes when younger. For me that was back in the early 70's. Yeah, I know, a long time ago. I raced hare and hounds, hare scrambles a little MX and a few enduros. Even rode in one 2-day IDSE qualifier (it was called ISDT back then). My favorite by far were the enduros. My first race bike was a stripped down Kawasaki 175 "enduro" model. We would call it a dual sport bike today. It wasn't the best bike I ever raced, that was either my Honda 250 Elsinore MX bike or my Suzuki PE250B, the last bike I owned before quitting. But it was my first so has always been special to me. In 1981 I had prepped my PE and had it ready for the upcoming enduro season. Unfortunately my then wife had other ideas. Long story short, I sold the PE and in a fit of marital anger threw out all the trophies and awards I had worked so hard to earn. This included my only National Enduro class trophy and my ISDT qualifier bronze medal. While I swore off bikes, as you know, it never really gets out of your blood. Every time I drove along a road and saw a trail going up a power line or went hiking in the mountains, I couldn't help but drift back in my mind to the days when I would have ridden that trail on a bike. It never truly was far from my heart and I always told myself "someday, I'll ride again!"
Fast forward to October 2014 and I'm laying immobile in a hospital bed after falling almost three stories off a ladder. I managed to crush both shoulders and am completely unable to take care of myself. My doctors are befuddled. According to them, about 90% of people who experience this much blunt force have severe life threatening, internal injuries. I do not. By all accounts I could have, perhaps should have, died that day. The docs tell me they don't see any reason I won't recover and should consider myself extremely lucky. Funny, I've never considered myself particularly lucky before, but I'll take it this time. So here I am laying in bed with nothing to do but think and I realize if there were things I had always said I would do, perhaps I'd better get to doing them. For some unexplained, crazy reason, tops on my list was riding trail bikes again. I shared this with my wife (version 2.0 and without a doubt the love of my life). While somewhat confused, she knew of my riding history, and the riff it had caused with my prior wife, and was surprisingly supportive. She understood the concept of "unfinished business". I got out of the hospital in November and was finally cleared to drive in December. In January I drove to Virginia to pick up a bone stock, 1999 KDX 220! Here we go again!
Why a KDX and why the 220? And why completely stock? Remember, my first race bike was a Kawasaki and "Team Green" had always held a spot in my heart. So the brand was completely understandable, almost inevitable. After all, I was doing this for nostalgic reasons. I readily admit I was recreating a past dream, not necessarily looking for the most modern bike. I had definite ideas about what I wanted for trail riding. The more I read about the KDX, a bike I had never known about since I got out of riding just before the KDX began to dominate the enduro scene, the more I was convinced the KDX, in particular the 220 with its increased low end grunt, was the right choice for me.
Why a stock model? Recall "back in the day" when I started, there weren't any race bikes. "Run what you brung" was the order of the day. You bought a Japanese "enduro" bike, stripped off the lights, swapped to "full knobby" tires and raced! Some guys even rode their bikes to and from the races instead of trailering them. If you wanted a better, faster bike, you modified that stock machine yourself. Most of the mods I saw were hardly upgrades and hardly professionally done. In my experience, the more you modified a bike, the less reliable it was. I never had a problem with my 175 Kawi until I made it into a 238 Kawi. Then the problems never ceased. I developed a distrust of mods, especially engine mods, that has stayed with me to this day to some degree. I didn't want to buy somebody else's idea of an "improved" machine but rather go with a stock bike with a proven track record. For gosh sakes, exactly what bike has ever had a better reliability and success record than the KDX? Besides, I didn't intend to race, just ride some trails and relive my past. You know, get that old 2 stroke thrill back just a little!
ONCE A RACER ALWAYS A RACER!
Four months later there I am with my bone stock 220 on the starting line of my first "modern" hare scrambles! I barely finished one lap and was begging the sweep riders to show me a shortcut back to the start line so I could die in the relative comfort of my air conditioned truck! But inside, deep down, in that place where you never let anyone else go and don't even like visiting yourself, that place where you are forced to look at yourself in complete honesty, I knew I was hooked again! I had tried racing sailboats for a few years, but that was just too docile. I tried mountain bikes but had no real interest in something with two wheels and no motor. I was back! Feeling my age for sure, but back braaaaping again!
Since that initial miserably hot and exhausting, "less than a lap" day, I've not looked back. I'm better, but not good. I'm among the slowest riders on the course but I'm also riding with perhaps the biggest smile. After all, I'm racing a dirt bike when by all rights, I should be dead. No one is having a bigger time than I am. No one enjoys seeing a checkered flag at a hare scrambles or the final check point at an enduro more than I do.
My wonderful wife still questions my sanity I am sure. But I also believe she has a bit of pride that her husband still dreams of competing and is NOT sitting on the sofa watching football and eating cheeseburgers. When I presented Jane with the idea of riding the national events, she was immediately supportive. No comments about being a crazy old man trying to recapture my youth, a position I could hardly have argued with. Instead, after a brief pause, she simply asked, "How well can you do, really?" "Top 10 in class, maybe better if I don't get hurt and can get in better condition" was my honest answer. "Then I think you should do it."
So, I invite you to come ride along with me as I travel to the varied locations and terrains of the 2019 NEPG National Enduro Series. We'll go from South Carolina, to Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and Virginia. All in all, we will drive well over 10,000 miles to and from races. I'll do my best to give you as accurate a feel as I can of the adventure, the experience and of course, the competition.
let the good times roll!