Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1527076
October 2024 29 Of course, we were super excited and sent him an older set of Yamaha YZ250 forks and shock that we would be slapping on a 2021 YZ250X. We wanted to do a JDay Offroad setup with this stuff. Which, in my opinion, is probably the most difficult to make work. Seeing JDay is moto, woods, and extreme sec ons with manmade obstacles. Looking for a happy medi- um in these condi ons is a tall order for all tuners. Before sending our suspension out, I contacted Nate to give him all the setup info. Well, I got a lot more than that from this phone call. All the things I men- oned earlier in this story, such as me, tes ng, sus- pension language, science, and the inner workings of my suspension, were discussed, and I couldn't get enough. I was super thankful for the amount of me and effort Nate put into every one of our 45-min- ute convos reteaching me about suspension and its love language. You can't tell the guy what you want if you don't know how to convey the informa on needed to do the job. We learned a lot about each other during our first long conversa on. He was gathering as much info as he could about me, my riding abili es, what classes I run, moto and offroad, my style, whether I sit a lot or stand, my weight, height past setups, and what I like. He was sizing me up to get a star ng point on a setup explicitly tailored for me. We got the suspension out to Nate, who returned it to us in no me flat. We had two weeks un l JDay South- wick to test and set the bike up for Southwick sand hell. We got the suspension back midweek and hit up Diamond MX in Wareham, Mass. It's a great li le sand track for breaking in suspension and making minor adjustments. I spent about 1.5 hours on the bike adjus ng sag and turning some clickers and the high-speed bolt. I found a setup I liked and burned some motos on her. The bike felt good, but the track wasn't rough. We needed a rougher tes ng ground and some sandy, fast woods sec ons for our next day out, so we decided to head to one of my favorite secret spots for training and make some more adjustments. This me, I brought my good buddy Mark Hangos for his years of knowledge and input to get it as close as possible for Southwick, and we didn't have much me.