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June 2001: We took our six-year-olds to the local mini track for practice on their PW50s, and Mike hauled along Trigger. He was moving around the track quite well, until the last of two bolts fastening the linkage pull bars to the frame vibrated loose enough for its frame bracket to snap. (By the way, this KX250 is for sale. E-mail Mike at mkeefe@midwestmotocross.com if you're interested.)
Admittedly, many of Mike's trials and tribulations can be traced to lack of maintenance as much as bad luck, but here is where his 1998 YZ400F, hereafter known as the Big, Blue Bitch (or BBB), can make all the difference. There's a lot to be said for "hardly ridden" when the maintenance challenged are concerned.
This bike rocks, dude!
I hit Buffalo Range around 9 a.m. on Aug. 5, 2001, and was going to pack up in about 20 minutes when Mike showed up at 2:30 p.m. with the BBB. My first impression was the bike looked too clean to be a '98. My second was that the White Brothers exhaust was loud. Very loud. So loud other YZF owners stared in envy (or disgust) when we started it up.
The bike ripped on the track. Everything you've heard about four strokes is true. They torque through corners with ease. They pull to the moon. They hook up with monstrous traction. They are solid and stable. And they're heavy. Coming off a two stroke (a 2000 CR250 in my case), you immediately recognize the less fatigue, straighter tracking and greater forward momentum the four-stroke offers. However, going back the other way, you're giddy over how flickable and quick revving your two stroke now seems. A good four stroke not only lets you appreciate its benefits but also accentuates the positives of two-strokes. Weird, but nice.
The trouble started when Mike decided to take the BBB into the woods. While it hadn't rained for a few days, there were low-lying areas of deep mud from a storm earlier in the week that dumped four inches of rain on northeastern Illinois in less than an hour. In about 10 minutes Mike found the worst of these areas when he ran his bike above the wheel hubs into the sloppiest goop this side of a water reclamation plant. It took 20 minutes to dig out the bike, which at least now looked like a '98.
After swinging by the trucks for some liquid relief, we headed out to what we call "the dunes." The land around Buffalo Range -- this area isn't in Buffalo Range, per se, and technically is off limits -- has a high silica sand content, which has allowed some odd formations to develop. The dunes -- they're really mounds, but "dunes" sounds cooler -- are some of the oddest of those formations. They are massive hills of dirt covering varying elevations. Due to the elevation changes, the ravines between them can be much deeper than the dunes themselves appear. Some slopes plunge more than 100 feet with two- to four-foot ditches at the bottom.
The area is bordered on three sides by woods and one side by three steep hill climbs. A couple remote trails meander up to the dunes through the woods but the easiest and quickest route is directly up the steep hills. We climbed the steepest of the three, which also is the easiest because it's a no-ruts-just-gun-it-and-go hill.
Just on the other side of this hill is a tacky field that's perfect for doing wheelies. We played around there a bit before heading into the dunes proper. At this point, I could tell Mike was pretty tired. He was popping the BBB up easy enough but didn't have the concentration or energy to hold it. Mike has a seasonal business that keeps him pretty busy in the summer, and he was riding on less than three hours sleep (and probably with a stiff hangover as I'm sure he was celebrating the purchase of the BBB the night before). If I had a heart I would have headed back, especially because stalling the unfamiliar and finicky four stroke on a narrow ridge could have let Mike tumble to his doom. But he knows his limits, and I wanted to ride!