Trail Bike Adventure Magazine

DNS. 28 September, 2009

Tuesday, 29 September 2009 10:49

I didn't race on Sunday. The forks for the SX came back from KTM on Thursday. I was on the mainjet finishing issue #30, so I jammed the legs in and started bolting everything back in place when I was interrupted. When I finally got back to the bike on Saturday and fitted the front wheel, I found both axle-cap bolts on the right-side leg were stripped. I'm so keen to race the bike I seriously thought, for a tenth of a second or so, that perhaps I should risk riding it anyway.

Fortunately, I decided that would be a completely dick-headed thing to do, and I ended up staying home.

I'll get the bike into the workshop tomorrow and have the stripped threads helicoilled, then look for the next race day.

Meanwhile, to balance that little snippet of disappointment, I found a spare pipe on e-bay. I was pooping my pants about crushing the expansion chamber, and a genuine KTM spare is $1152. I found an aftermarket pipe for $469 which I didn't mind paying, but still, it's a chunk of change for a spare.

Then, like a gift from Dog, a pipe appeared on ebay, and - I still can't believe this - I scored it for $50!

I can't see any brand name on it, and it's had a few dings taken out, but it'll do me just fine as a spare.

Also, a mate found a brand-new front wheel, with disc, which had never been used, and offered it for a good price, so I grabbed that as well.

If only I could get the bike to stop shaking itself to bits. And if I stopped finding stripped threads.

It'll all be good, but.

Gotta do some work.

TF