Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/241252
Wheel Spin INGLORIOUS MOMENTS by Kevin Novello A friend and I had a recent conversation about some of the inglorious moments we've had on dirt bikes. The length of the conversation revealed that there were a lot of them....a lot. Some happen without the benefit of witnesses to bust your cookies while others happen in front of people that are so skilled in the art of nut-cracking that the painful reminders will never cease. And if the story becomes old and you become numb to the abuse, their skills and creativity will add some fabrication to keep it fresh. I had perhaps my most inglorious moment just last year. The details were mine and mine alone but the evidence was incontrovertible. So why share it? Eh, I'm over it. The scene was the Black Coal National Enduro in Nowheresville, Indiana, 2012. Mike Lafferty offered to let me race test the new 2013 Husaberg TE 250 - it was one of the only ones in the country. I bought my plane ticket within the hour. A few weeks later I hopped a plane to Indiana and showed up ready to race. The day before I rode the new TE around the KTM demo track to get the bike all dialed in. I wrung that thing out for an hour and felt good on it. In fact, I felt so good that I was already parked in downtown trophy town; all that was missing was a turn of the clock and the ticker tape. And then it began to rain, hard. It didn't just rain, it poured buckets... and buckets...and then it kept raining for most of the night. It was suggested that I swap out the stock tires for a used pair of Dunlop 739's which would have been a better choice for the following days' mud. I scoffed at the idea. Being from New England and all, technical, muddy terrain is my specialty. Besides, I was already in trophy town, I wasn't leaving to change some stupid tire, I'm from New England, remember? I got this. When I slipped and fell down in the mud on the way back from sign up, you would think that it should have triggered something. Nope. When the cards flipped on our row I took off down a trail that felt more like a skating rink. The mud here felt more like silt that the type of soil I was used to. Riding in the mud isn't anything new to me and up until then I had a been there done that mentality. But this Midwestern farm dirt was a whole other deal. It wasn't like the mud back home, and it certainly wasn't like riding in snow. It was like... chicken turd. Within a few yards the front tire was completely packed up with mud and the front end pushed all over the place. I could keep the back wheel spinning well enough to keep the mud flying but the front was a mud magnet, seemingly made of some of some mud-philic compound. The first section was a complete shitshow, I did nothing right. I tried my damndest to be aggressive and keep the tires from getting See that dent in the pipe? That was just the begining of an ugly downward slide. Photos by Shan Moore 4 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com