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Well, it's been a while since I've done much writing, or riding for that matter. The last couple of years have been interesting (well not so much) and challenging. For the most part I gave up riding. Dirt biking on the weekends and sitting at a computer all week had my wrists hurting so bad that after about 15 minutes of riding I couldn't even hold on to the bars. My doc told me to give up riding for a while to see what happens. This combined with continued arrhythmia problems resulted in me sitting around getting fat, lazy, and horribly out of shape. With that there were more arrhythmia problems, mildly high blood pressure, a few "unexplainable" ailments and all the discomforts of being fat. Now, I suspect that the riding was the only thing keeping this old bag of bones alive.
Well, the kids started hounding me to take them riding. Yes, I can't believe it but my six-year-old daughter has taken over the PW50 and loves to ride. My son stepped up into a TTR-90 and has just started shifting gears.
So with pressure from the kids and significant changes to my "day job," this January I chose to make several other changes in my life. The good news is that since around mid-January I've already lost 19 pounds and 2+ inches of my waist. It probably would be more like 20+ pounds, but a weeklong business trip and some vacation time ate into my workout schedule and briefly interfered with my diet. I hit the gym 3 times a week for 30 minutes of weights and 45 minutes of cardio workout. I do stomach crunches 7 days a week and I am also playing racquetball once a week. I modified my diet to get it down to between 1000-2000 calories a day and significantly reduced my fat intake. Yeah, this is the diet I was supposed to be on for years because of the liver and kidney problems, but I've ignored it the last few years. I feel healthier than I have in a very long time, but the most significant thing related to all this is that I can now squeeze back into my old Fox riding pants. But that however was just the first step in getting back on the trail.
My biggest problem was still my wrists, and here's the really good news. Prior to the hiatus, I tried various drugs and had been lifting weights to try to build strength, but nothing helped. Well, back in January I was wandering through the local sporting goods store looking for various interesting impulse buys when I came across a little gyro-gizmo-wrist-exerciser-thingy that is supposed to help strengthen the wrist and help with things like carpel tunnel and repetitive stress problems. Well to make a not-real-long-story shorter, this thing really works. I use it for about 15 minutes on each wrist every night. Now, I've been riding almost every weekend without any wrist pain. In fact I even quit using the wrist braces. I still need to work on strengthening my hands, they get pretty tired from death-gripping the bars over whoops and hill climbs. However, ol' Ev' is back in the saddle and hitting the trails once again.
This, my friends, has resulted in an unexpected realization. I've been riding the WR426 and feeling pretty good and slowly getting a little faster. Well, I decided I wanted to try some dual sport riding this spring so I got the ol' XR600 running and have put some dirt miles on it. Oddly, it seemed to me that I was going faster on it than on the WR. I thought to myself, "This can't be." Well I went riding with my neighbor Mike this last Sunday. Lately we've been going on a lot of Sunday morning rides together. We stopped for a break, and he looks at me with a puzzled look and says "Man you are so much faster on that bike than the WR." However, to be fair, I'm still faster in the whoops on the WR.
So anyway, how could this be? I mean, when I got the WR it fit me so well and I just loved it. I felt faster than I'd ever been. Keep in mind that this was a few years ago when I was in top physical shape, I was riding better than ever, and I was training to race. Well after thinking about it (well more like letting my mind wander when I should be working), I came up with a few ideas. First I have a few thousand miles on the XR and I only have about 400 on the WR. So obviously I'm more experienced and comfortable with it. Next, there's the power delivery. The XR comes on smooth and has all I need. The WR hits hard and often has more than I need. Then there's the suspension. The XR is soft and cushy and the WR is stiff and harsh. There's also the fact that I have nice brand new tires on the XR and old used ones on the WR. Lastly, every week I get a tad bit faster, maybe the last few rides I just found my groove and it had nothing to do with the bike. Well, it also could be that the XR is better suited to an old, fat, outta shape trail rider and the WR is suited more for a lean, fast, racer. I suspect it's a combination of all of the above.
I have decided however that for a while I will alternate which bike I ride so I keep fresh gas in both bikes. Yes, my poor RMX250 will still be ignored for now. It will be interesting to see if, as I get into better shape and more practice riding, I remain faster on the XR or if the pace on the WR picks up. But hey, it really doesn't matter much to me, at this point. As long as I can ride, I don't really care what I'm riding...
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