Archive for January, 2010
A Note from John Harris
Monday, January 11th, 2010
“The recent federal assault on OHV riding has been unprecedented. More federal lands are on the list to be inappropriately designated as Wilderness, shutting out responsible OHV recreation on millions of more acres. Our opponents are even blaming OHVs for the sudden rise in dust storms in the west.” quoted from interview with Rob Dingman, AMA President & CEO, American Motorcyclist magazine October 2009
Please review the End of Year Report (also attached) from the Trails Preservation Alliance. Also, click on the “News” link at the top right of the website to see some of the work the TPA has done in 2009. The TPA is a 100 percent volunteer, 501c3 organization whose intention is to be a viable partner, working with the United States Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to preserve the sport of trail riding. The TPA will act as an advocate of the sport and take the necessary action to insure that the USFS and BLM allocate to trail riding a fair and equitable percentage of access to public lands.
The TPA is the most knowledgeable and aggressive entity protecting motorcycle recreation (especially single-track) in the Rocky Mountain region. Your support will enable the TPA to continue to protect and promote our riding gems, including, Taylor Park, Moab, etc. The TPA is closely aligned with COHVCO and active not only promoting our sport (Colorado 500 and Rocky Mountain 400) and providing trail maintenance, but most importantly putting the power of extensive local knowledge to the ground legally.
The TPA has always encouraged and supported local clubs, especially the CMTRA. Director of Operations, Don Riggle helped bring the CMTRA back from the ashes not too many years ago. Please support and donate to the TPA, it’s tax deductible! Give ’till it hurts!
Thanks,
John Harris
President of CMTRA (Colorado Motorcycle Trail Riders Association)
Tags: Colorado motorcycle trails
Posted in News | No Comments »
Ohlins SD561 Steering Damper 2.0
Sunday, January 10th, 2010
Product information
The new Ohlins damper utilizes a sub-mount (under the handlebars) mounting system that does not raise the handlebar position. The Scotts sub-mount and the GPR both raise the bars approximately 1″ above the original position which is a concern for riders under six feet tall or for riders that always use the seated riding position. Raising the bars one inch creates a poor rider position unless the seat is raised the same amount.
* Damping Level Adjuster (DL) – Controls the general setup including a high speed valve.
* Return To Center Adjuster (RTC) – Variable set-up of the damping force on the return.
* All aluminum casing.
* Mounting kit, instructions, and tuning manual are included.
* A new improved low-speed adjuster that secures the adjustment knob from coming off accidentally and gives a better click feeling when adjusting the low-speed damping.
* Damping force fading reduced significantly. Internal friction and wear minimized giving improved service life.
* Flat bottom for easier mounting on bike in either direction.
Note: Because of the current weather conditions in Colorado the Ohlins Steering Damper test will be a two part review. The first part being about general product information, installation and fitment and the second part will cover the field test.
Installation
I’ve installed at least 100 Scotts Dampers so I consider this a good foundation from which to start this installation. After reading the multipage installation instructions several times (because the installation is much different from other dampers) I proceeded to remove the forks and triple clamps. The next step is to remove the top steering head bearing race. This can be done with a hammer and long punch but my tool of choice was a race removal tool by Park Tools which made this step easy.
After the race was removed and the frame cleaned it was time to install the new race that has a post attached that connects the damper to the frame. It’s a little tricky because the post must be properly aligned with the center of the race and the frame backbone. Be sure that your eyes are correctly calibrated before attempting this step and the next.
A clear template is provided to make three punch marks on the triple clamp, two near the steering stem and another near the handlebar lower clamp. The ones near the stem are for the indexing pins located on the bottom of the damper and the third is where a hole must be drilled in to the top triple clamp for a sleeved bolt that locates the damper in the correct position. This is where I ran into a snag. The location of the sleeved bolt was too close to the left side lower handlebar clamp and it would require grinding the clamp to resolve it.
I re-evaluated all of the punch mark locations, tried twisting the damper to resolve the issue but the original location was correct. Any rotation of the device created an alignment issue. There must be a straight line down the center of the frame backbone that proceeds through the two damper control knobs and the center of the steering stem.
Grinding the clamp was not mentioned in the installation instructions so a call was made to Ohlins USA and I was connected to the installation guys who had not heard of this issue. I emailed several pictures to him and exchanged a few more emails and phone calls but 5 days later nothing was resolved.
Five days seemed like long enough so I once again reviewed the instructions, punch mark locations and alignment. I then drilled the 6.5 mm hole in the top clamp, installed the locating bolt and sleeve, used my porting tool to grind the clamp and finished the installation.
Although I don’t like the grinding part, once installed it looks good and operates freely and correctly. Plan on 1 1/2 to 2 hours for installation.
Pros: Sub-mount location
Cons: Price, complicated installation
Tags: Husaberg Ohlins Steering Damper, KTM
Posted in Test Lab | No Comments »
Bullet Proof Designs KTM/Husaberg Swingarm Guard
Friday, January 8th, 2010
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Tags: Chassis Videos
Posted in Videos | No Comments »
2009 Denver Endurocross
Friday, January 8th, 2010
A few quick shots of the Team KTM, Yamaha, Kawasaki, and Husqvarna bikes in the pits at the 2009 Denver Endurocross.
Tags: 2009 Denver Endurocross, Customer Bikes
Posted in Photos | No Comments »
Short Arms Syndrome
Monday, January 4th, 2010
If you haven’t already noticed (head in the sand syndrome) the liberal Democrats are enjoying their newly found power and are enabling the frigin tree huggers to close down our trails. They are organized, well funded, and now they are backed by the politicians. (more…)
Tags: Colorado motorcycle trails
Posted in Rants | No Comments »
Profile
Monday, January 4th, 2010
Racing in central Illinois - Circa 1973
Jeff Slavens is a 36 year veteran of the motorcycle industry, having worked as a line mechanic, factory mechanic, dealership owner/operator and current owner of Slavens Racing.
In the 70s he and his two brothers raced Maicos. It was kind of a Team Maico Slavens but as Randy Hawkins once stated, too many stallions in the same barn is not always a good thing. Every race day their mother was worried sick because when the gate dropped (back then it was actually a rubber band) the brotherly love was gone and the race was ON and they thought nothing of taking out the other in the pursuit of the win.
Those early Maico days are where Jeffs engine and suspension skills began to develop. Maico Brake-O was not allowed if you wanted to beat your brother so there were endless hours devoted to repairs, rebuilds, tuning, and suspension mods. He and his brothers studied magazine pictures of the factory Maico team bikes and cut, bent, and welded their frames to accommodate a lay-down shock position and increase wheel travel. From there shock and fork mods were developed by Team Slavens because there were no off the shelf items available.
His first affiliation with factory race teams was in the 80s with the then dominate Team Husqvarna. Later in the 80s and 90s it was with Team KTM and Team Suzuki and from then until now with Randy Hawkins Team Am Pro Yamaha.
When he worked for the Husky team he ported cylinders and did head mods for the entire team (enduro, HS, desert, mx). Boxes with dozens of cylinders (for the many National Champions and up and comers like Randy Hawkins) would arrive several times per year and of course they always needed them yesterday.
Also during the 80s he started a long working relationship with then new comer Rodney Smith, who rode MX for Team Yamaha at the time. They first met just a few minutes before the first moto of a Washougal, Washington National MX. Jeff was there tuning for a top ten Yamaha support rider when Rodney rode up and asked for help. His YZ125 was a dog so Jeff took it for a little test spin in the jetting area. He returned and told Rodney to run up to the start line and pick a starting position while he rode the bike over to Rodneys pit and started barking out orders to Rodneys dad whom he had never met. They tore the carb apart in record time, changed some brass and Jeff blasted up to the starting line where engines were running. Rodney hopped on the bike, pulled the holeshot, and they’ve been friends every since. Rodney went on to win 5 Brazilian national Championships, placed 3rd in the World 250 MXGP, 3 National HS Championships, 5 National Reliability Championships, 6 ISDE Gold Medals (top American twice), and 5 GNCC Championships.
Cagiva bought Husqvarna in the late 80s and ran it in the ground so the team riders were all looking for work . Many of them switched to Suzuki so then Jeff became the engine guy for that team. At approximately the same time Team KTM asked for some help and Jeff built the 290cc engine that Kevin Hines used to win the National Enduro Championship.
And then came the Javelin, Randy Hawkins. Jeff had built engines for the new young punk from South Carolina while he was with Team Husqvarna but the funny talking kid came on strong when he got comfortable on his Slavens ported, Dale Stegal tuned RMX and later on YZs. Randy went on to win 73 Nationals, 7 National Enduro Championships, and 12 ISDE Gold Medals with Slavens Mule Motors. He was recently inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame.
Now at age 56 Jeff enjoys traveling the world with his wife Sue to see the sites, architecture, learn about different cultures and find new friends and great places to eat. During the summer and fall you’ll find him riding the Gnar on some of Colorados gnarliest trails.
Tags: GNCC, Jeff Slavens Racing, KTM, Profile, Randy hawkins, Rodney Smith
Posted in Profile | No Comments »
The $22K KTM 300 Mule
Friday, January 1st, 2010
I’m currently building what may end up being the most expensive privateer KTM 300 on the planet. I’m sure that the factory boys have much more expensive 300s but this is going to be an ultra trick dream machine for a client in the Philippines. When completed I’ll crate it and ship it 7600 miles to the final destination.
Tags: Expensive KTM 300, Jeff's Bikes
Posted in Garage | No Comments »