bentwheel
Serious Thumper 2005 No Login
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Ride free, citizen
Posts: 658
Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
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Susan, the bentwheel moniker was unceremoniously bestowed upon me in 1975. It only lasted a few months but I have chosen to resurrect it as an ID decades later. Going back in time to 1975 I was racing motocross on the newly introduced Suzuki RM. It was fall and the end of the racing season, but I was out at our clubs track practicing, trying to improve my lap time. Coming off a jump I thought times would improve if I could get on the gas quicker when landing. I held the throttle partly open when landing and the bike wheelied away from me careening off track hitting hard. I bent the front wheel both vertically as well as horizontally. Now the sad part of this is I had the bike pre sold prior to the end of the season. Technology leaps, back then, dictated you race on current year bikes or else you were not competitive. It’s probably still that way I reckon. Now the new buyer still wanted the bike (at a reduced price of course) but his father was not going to pay for it until spring. Since that was the case, then I was going to ice race the RM in the winter. There wasn’t much I could do to repair the bent rim so I studded the tires and headed to our practice track when the ice formed. I knew I wasn’t going to be competitive but ice racing is just so much darn fun I wanted to be out there. The front wheel wobbled badly but with enough practice I adapted to the darn thing. I discovered if I stayed high and squared off the corners it worked best. The ice racing season was mostly done at a club level between two other cities about 75 miles apart forming a triangle. Each club had about five to fifteen members competing on the ice circuit. We were racing out of town and in my class there were four riders from my club in the mix of about ten riders. I remember my buddies condemning me for racing with the bent wheel but I assured them I had adapted and it really wasn’t a problem. Entering the first corner of the first race of the season I carried more speed than I had been practicing at, plus had to dive into the corner on the inside since the preferred line was crowded and I went down hard hitting other riders at the turn’s apex. Picking up my bike I looked around and saw the riders who were down were all from my club. One of my buddies yelled “way to go bentwheel”.
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