further . He stated it was in Alabama , called the Covid Crusher , hosted by the South East Extreme Riders ( SEER ) and looked awsome ! Lots of gnarly rocks , and his crew of Latino hard enduro junkies were renting an RV and Heading south to crush it ! ( Or get crushed .) Some back and forth conversation , and I got the green flag ! There was room for me in the RV , and they wouldn ' t mind my tagging along . SWEET . SEER uses the european hard enduro style of difficulty ranking which consist ' s of Gold , Silver , Bronze , and newly added Iron Class ( ranked from most difficult to easiest ). I was used to the normal AMA- A , B , C format and wasn ' t sure what to register . Being a newly bumped A rider , and Advanced Trials rider , I opted for Gold . Gold and silver would ride the same line , and I figured it would be a tactical advantage of less bottlenecks right off the bat .
Bike Prep is essential before any race , and I ' ve tailored my " program " Over the years . What originally consisted of wrenching on a beat to death kdx250 till 2am , sleeping a few hours , then heading to the race , has been revised to trying to finish atleast a day ahead of time . Uneeded stress , and loss of rest as it turns out , are bad for your overall race day performance . I took the prep for this race even further and used it for my annual overall bike tear down and check up . Full bike bearing cleaning and repack , or replacement , new chain , sprockets , and guides , adjusting , unbending , lubricating various items on my 17 ' Husqvarna te250 . I added some more linkage protection , and a new plastic skidder . I even pulled out the least broken plastics I had and zip tied them together enough to make it through another race ! I ' ve always been a performance over pretty guy , and its even less important during a hard enduro where scratches , broken plastics , gouged rims and swingarms are the norm after a few events . By far the most important part is tire selection for the terrain . I opted to keep my Shinko mx216 fatty with a bib on the front since I ' ve been happy with it overall in everything . The rear got a fresh Kenda Knarly , and modified bib setup . Most of the pictures seemed Rock oriented and I ' ve heard good things . I finished prep a whopping 3 days before we left for the event ! So Shocking that my moto buddies were asking if I had actual Covid !
I ended up taking a sick day that friday ( You have to be semi mentally ill for this kind of racing ) and was up at 1:30am to begin my day . Packed bag , CHECK , personal effects , CHECK , Coffee , CHECK , and I was off . After driving an hour I arrived at Nicks where I met Jason , and him to carpool to the RV meetup . Another 2 hours on the road and we had arrived in VA to meet Mauricio ,
VOL . 6 ISSUE 3 - MARCH 2021 // PAGE 103