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Rod Matt Joe and Lisa Smith will be there Saturday morning. if we can't get in our trailer we can at least lock it up and keep an eye out.

Awesome!
Will the "Mr. Rod Smith" be taking photos of the sand whoops again this year?

Mark I will be there staying in hotel silver bullet (my Honda pilot) just like I did at 100miler.

Forward Motion had strong representation and race results at the National this past weekend.

The event itself was killer and if you are a FB or Instagrammer, you've probably seen the posts and photos already. Conditions were about as perfect as you can get. Blue skys, rain the week leading up to the race. Over 500 riders. I saw rows 101 and 102 on number plates. My personal race report would be rather uninteresting. It's more fun to say that Jared and I got to ride on the same row. He put it on me most of the day and it was fun watching him from behind. One mistake on my part and he was out of sight pretty quickly. He exceeded his goal and finished well into the top part of the 250B class.
Lauren had a shortened outing due to "impact damage" but brought home a 2nd place plaque. Hubby Jeremy did great and ran the distance with style. Brother Brad Stretz tried not to destroy his borrowed bike.

I had one over the bars tumble and jacked up my exhaust a bit and wounded my pride a tad; but regrouped and finished that section and the rest of the day. They even felt pitty, it seems and gave me a plaque for 5th in 45+B. Next year, it's 50+B.

The results for the whole group were really strong and I'll let others tell their own story.

I have to thank Letko Cycles for the usual great team support and lining us up with some parts to make sure we were ready to race.

Shout has to go out to James Mellinger from MCC ("the" KTM dealer in the Chicago area) for coming down and racing his KTM250SXF "moto only machine" off road and seeing how our half lives. It went home less shiny than it came.

Mark was right racing conditions were primo! Not to mention the trail had anything you could ever want in an off-road event! Being my first national enduro I was really impressed with the organization and trail they had to offer! As for my race report it was pretty sad. First 2 tests I struggled with arm pump or blowing out corners. 3rd test I decided to just ride and was slow but smooth. The 4th test I decided I would just try to hang with Ethan as long as I could (we were in the same row), well that lasted until I didn't see a rock and resulted in one of the worst woods swaps I've ever had. The crash resulted in what I thought was a broken collar bone but ended up being a seperated shoulder. I cruised until I found blacktop and made my way back to the truck. Ended my day before test 5 the "epic sand section" as Jeremy would call it lol, but lucky for me it was no longer a sand section! Congrats to everyone who finished and especially to KC O. And Macon on 5th and 1st place finishes in Open A!

I'll see everybody at Ballard I'll be collecting at the gate and spectating/filming with Brad!!

After the demo rides we all got through tech inspection without a hiccup. The line was long but we all got through quickly. After tech I went to look for anyone who had an impact wrench so that I could take off the front sprocket on my "borrowed" TXC250. The gearing was way off; better suited for the highway than an enduro, but never the less I was going to race it. I found Hall's Cycle and they were able to attempt to help me out, but alas it was just not meant to be. Even an electric impact was not getting that front sprocket off. I guess 4 years of water/dust/mud/dust (did you notice I mentioned dust twice) and just sitting in the garage was too much. We couldn't get the nut holding the counter-shaft sprocket off, thus sticking me with a 14-50 gear ratio, on a underpowered endure 250f (compared to my potent CRF).

I was going to be stuck with shifting between 1st and 2nd all day long-

Race Time: I went with my tried an true mirrored lenses, but during the middle part of test 1 I took them off in favor of the “Oh I can now see because it was too dark before” routine. That cost me some time, but I felt much better and faster after that. Finding neutral happened often and it goes without saying, I was not super pumped on it.

Test 1 and 2 was spent trying to relearn how to ride again, I was starting to get the hang of the motor and really trusting the bike on test 3. I gotta admit, other than a soft fork, the bike was handling pretty good. I got a few weird kicks in some of the rutted corners, but I think that was because the rebound wasn’t fast enough in the forks, or it would blow through the stroke on the compression side of things. I’ll need to do some more riding and testing on it to know for sure.

After getting a fresh pair of clear goggle lenses and some new gloves, I was having a lot of fun on test 3and really starting to let it hang out, before "attempting" to jump one of the many ravine/ditches found in that test. I say attempting loosely because in all reality I did jump it and make it to the other side, but when I landed the bike abuptly stopped with a hiccup and sent me straight into the handlebars with my chest and left knee. I buckled and flopped over to the right hitting my head on the ground hard enough that it left me with a headache and a little woozy. I knew what had happened, and it was directly related to the gearing multiplied by the lean ECU program from the factory.

I caught my breath and picked up the bike as a few riders went around me. As soon as I took off I realized the bars and clamps were twisted so bad I nearly hit a tree just trying to ride straight. I straightened the bars out with a swift turn of the handlebars hitting the steering stop and I was back in business.

I quickly caught the other couple of riders that had passed me and I felt like I was riding really well again. I now knew the limitations of the bike and accepted that I was no longer going to be jumping anymore ravines/ditches/g outs/v’s and whatever else you wanna call them. I really was jelling with the bike and felt good until I hit a rock that made that dreaded front wheel ‘ping’. Soon after that I hit another, and another, and another: Yep front flat! If I only I had swapped out the tube for my bib on my CRF! I rode the majority of test 3 with a flat and was still having a blast. Toward the end of test 3 I made the decision to head back to the pits and call it a day. My knee was started to lock up and was really making it difficult to sit/stand/sit/stand.

I was bummed about the flat and my knee but ultimately I was more bummed about never really having a shot at riding well with the gearing being so tall. I was at a serious disadvantage from the get go. It was like riding on a tight rope; I couldn’t really let the bike rev out because the shock would get bound up, but I couldn’t let the bike lug with how tall the gearing was.


All in all I learned a lot about the TXC250. I enjoyed the balance of stability and agility. This bike does really well and is a serious threat with the right set-up.

I finished 14th in B. Most importantly my wrist has held up for 2 big races so far. Here’s to hoping for no more wrist issues in the future.

See you next year Leadbelt!

well I guess I will do one too. Started back on row 96 so the course was petty much beat in by the time it was my turn to ride. trail was pretty rutted almost like a slot car track so I spent a lot of the time trying to avoid all the ruts. I finished all 6 tests, waterfall section was a piece of cake compared to what it was made out to be, but the 6th test proved to be the toughest out of all of them. ended up in 10th in the A +30 class. I gave it what I had so im pretty happy with my result since this was my first enduro and national event that I have done. Met a lot of great people and had a great time! cant wait to do it again!

Had a great time with everyone, we should do it again sometime!

The race was just awesome, I got slotted in row 16 with two other A riders so I had a good group to ride with all day. The first two test my forearms were so pumped up I could hardly get my fingers out to the levers, and it showed. Tests 3 & 4 I felt the best on, they had some awesome trail out there for us to ride.

Test 5 had me so excited because I remembered 2 years ago it was a good mile or two of sand. I got everyone in my row all pumped up about how much sand there was going to be in this section and it was just a "pin-it" type of test. Once we got started I found out how wrong I was; Only the first 500' and last 500' were sand, everything else looked like the first lap of this years' 'Offroad Cup' race. Just leaves and rocks all over the place with no real trail to ride on. Trees spaced 2" shorter than your handlebar you had to ride through... I'd say I played a pretty good trick on those guys, because they were so psyched about sand they didn't even see this coming! Test 6 was awesome and miserable all at the same time. I basically made it through the waterfall and made my goal to not be in the pro's way.

Ended up 10th in Open A and had a blast, thanks everyone!