Saxonator's Sick Enduro Video Diary

saxonator

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Damn what a ride, first the Waterfall section that sqeezed out all the juice outta me, than the Snake Trail upwards, what a torture and then after that connection to Samoeng and onto a river bed. About 120 Km which where mostly done on dirt and rocks. No wonder I feel sore everywhere today, haven't been on the dirt bike for 2 weeks. The longer the break the more rust one collects. The last 10 km I was barely able to hold my handle bars. What a day and some awesome dirt riders. Unbelievable speed over this technical staff, had hard time keeping up...555
Today no music with the video as I am too tired






 

saxonator

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Today we were quiet a few, that is good fun for sure. Gives me some time to actually film a little more than just trying to follow the frontman. The tracks are getting better and better, every time we go and what once seemed to be impossible out of a sudden becomes a nice track. The newbies did really good...



 
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saxonator

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what a beautiful day it was, today started from Mae Rim and slowly worked our way towards Samoeng, I crashed and broke my clutch lever, but it was an easy fix once we reached Samoeng, the next shop had a replacement for me for 120 Baht. From Samoeng we went on Road for about 10 km before we came on the Race Track from the Enduro Team of Chiang Mai. Very nice and fast single trail, but a little dusty at the moment. From there we entered a river section with giant boulders and rocks all over the place (love this stuff). This section put a lot of stress on riders and bikes alike, but we did better than expected and reached the river crossing in no time. Than I crashed again on a steep climb and flipped the bike over, because the carburetor cut out and the engine stalled at the last part. Bruised Belly and a Knee sprain once again. Today was crash day for me. Would I do it again? Most definitely yes





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saxonator

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it is getting hot outside now and the air is burning from the toxic mix of forest fires and smog, best thing to jump onto the bike and do some forest exploring. we started with 4 people, but the very first section one of the guys had some engine issues, they decided to turn around. good for me and Erich to explore some more of our crazy tracks. what seemed to be a gnarly downhill section just last week ago, became a crazy hill climb section. Erich got up there with the first attempt. my first attempt was a failure and second attempt I sent off my bike over the gap. luckily it got caught up in a tree branch. the cliff there was about 30 m and pretty steep, not a good area to do crazy stunts or mistakes. somehow with some help from E. I made it up there in one piece. the rest of the day was some fantastic single trail but very dusty at times. so dusty that at one section i was to close to E. and I landed in a deep rut and had to turn around to try again



 

saxonator

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Last ride I cracked my rear rim jumping a gap, as Erich is soon leaving, didn't have time to change the rim. So I tried out his second CRF250L, the heavy monster as they say. To my surprise it performed very well and executed every obstacle I threw at it with no issues. Only problem was the road tyre over the rocks. Stupid me honestly believed it would be o.k. On a very steep section I slithered down and had no chance at all. Was this the end? No, actually nothing happened and we had a great laugh. Our Swiss Counterpart abandoned us already before the waterfall section. So we had to rely on our Austrian-German Team for now. By now I was knackered and the weight from the CRF got heavier every minute. My dear Austrian Friend assured me there would be no more obstacles, but to my very surprise there was more and more, would would have guessed...555 In a nice little pothole it got a little hit to my wrist, which didn't help to improve my overall condition. So burned down to Ground Zero and a nice little injury at the wrist and now the hill climb with almost no traction with the road tyre plus my weight...plus plus plus.... The water level of my Drinking Bladder was beyond low and every time I tried to take a sip I got nothing but a vacuum. 45 Degree Celsius, no water a perfect condition to train your body....lucky there was a small water pool that I immersed myself into and catch some cool from the water. After that we had to do a few more kilometers along a foot patch around the hill....another day in the bush under extreme conditions
 
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Oddvar

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On road tyres? Very impressive.
The red ribbons at 16:30 and one later. Is it a marked trail?
I find the CRF with 14/48 sprockets ok offroad.
 
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saxonator

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On road tyres? Very impressive.
The red ribbons at 16:30 and one later. Is it a marked trail?
I find the CRF with 14/48 sprockets ok offroad.


Yes the trail was marked, but I honestly doubt it was meant for Off Road Riders, it might be a Trekking Trail or maybe Mountain bike. The ground clearance and too stiff front suspension was my only issue with the CRF, but I don't know what the owner what viscosity of oil he put in the forks
 
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saxonator

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So happy my son finally rides a bike with clutch and he is doing well. Now we can go ride together and have some fun in the jungle. After a few hours practicing at the Cowboy Farm in Mae Rim, I thought he was ready for the MAE JO LOOP. Not so easy at all, but he lasted out to the very last part of it. Great job little man. Here's the video.
 
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Eoin Christie

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Great job, indeed! There are few things better in life than introducing your children to activities that have given you great pleasure, and sharing their sense of achievement as they find their own path.
Well done, Dad and Son!
 

saxonator

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Yeah, thanks a lot. Agree, it is good for the kids to be out in nature and try to achieve some goals other than playing games at home.
 
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Eoin Christie

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Indeed - The Real World provides them with the experiences that allow them to turn potential to kinetic. I introduced our youngest daughter to bicycle racing when she was 8 and, of her own volition, she went from this...
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a020 by Eoin Christie, on Flickr

...to this...
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b007 by Eoin Christie, on Flickr

...to this...
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A018 by Eoin Christie, on Flickr

What did work for us was simply providing the opportunity for experience, without any pressure on whether she should follow or depart from the activity. Along the way, the greatest game changer was her learning to take responsibility for herself and her actions - Not to blame external factors for failures, but to look at what she could control about them.
I have a great mate in NZ who used to be a high level enduro rider, but life / work took over. Decades later he returned to the sport as something he could share with his young son. His son is now at university, but is very competitive in enduro, and gets the same thrill and sense of achievement that his old man did so many years ago.

That time you are spending out on the trails with your son is true quality time, and is a reference he will look back to later in life.
Great job by you both! I hope we see more video’s of both of you out there.
 
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saxonator

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wow this is totally awesome, thanks for posting this. It gave me an insight how things could develop with my son. I don't like to force him to do anything. Your approach to this is absolutely great. I want to try the same with son, learning thru experiencing and own responsibility is a great way to find peace and inner wisdom at a relatively young age. I was never a big fan of schools and especially here in Thailand it is just repeating and not really knowing why things are the way they are. Sorry for my poor English...I hope you get what I want to say. Soon more videos to come for sure. Have a good day
 
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Eoin Christie

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Thanks, Saxonator. I didn’t want to hijack your thread, it’s just that I’ve seen how nurturing that responsibility and confidence through providing opportunities for them to test themselves (and failures are at least as important as successes), opens the path for our kids to see and tap into their potential. The truly great thing, to me, is that they discover that these life skills are transferable, so it doesn’t matter if they shift from Enduro to Entymology - It is still the “I don’t know what I’m capable of until I try” that shines through.
One other thing that I have learned from coaching is that, in the Junior ranks, which are often age-group defined, it is often the strongest / oldest that win. Unfortunately for them, they may not get to experience failure, and learn how to grow from it. When failure does come (stepping up to being a small fish in a big pond), they may be too fragile to accept it, and will take to blaming everything / everyone else. ‘Failure’ is a great teacher, if we are observant and follow lessons learned.
The Elite ranks are filled with people who have faced adversity, and found a path forwards. These are great lessons for kids to discover, and something like riding Enduro is an excellent battleground to provide those lessons. I suggest you encourage your son to talk about each ride, or each obstacle that he overcame, or was pushed back by. Keep the focus on self-observation - What worked / what didn’t / what does he think he could do better next time. Each time he starts to place the ‘blame’ on external factors, bring the discussion back to what he could have done about it. This process slowly creates an incredible set of observation skills, and an awareness of the extent to which they can control the outcome.
In the World of sport, it creates very ‘coachable’ athletes, which transfers well to education, work, and life in general.
I hope this is useful, Saxonator (and ignore it if it isn’t) - At the end of the day, the main thing is that you and your son are enjoying sharing quality time out on the trails (a win by itself), and you are experiencing him facing challenges along the way, and the automatic growth that comes from that - Great Job!
Again, sorry for the unsolicited intrusion, but this series of shots was when our daughter was 17. She’d just been taken out in a 70kph crash in the Sprint Finals at the Aussie Champs, and was knocked unconscious and wearing half the track as splinters. The Commissaires determined that there was no fault, and decided to re-run the race. She had 20 minutes to decide if she wanted the ride. She went on to take the Title, but it was that moment of her choosing the harder option that I found inspirational - That’s when I knew she had ownership of her life...
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t001 by Eoin Christie, on Flickr

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t003 by Eoin Christie, on Flickr

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t004 by Eoin Christie, on Flickr

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t002 by Eoin Christie, on Flickr

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t005 by Eoin Christie, on Flickr
 

Eoin Christie

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That’s great, Saxonator. You can see Oskar testing himself, and his confidence growing with it. I particularly liked when he went down the drop-off - He talked himself into it, and was successful.
Congratulations to you both - If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

Keep ‘Em coming - That made my day!
 
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saxonator

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So Oskar is slowly getting there and liking it. Much faster then I ever thought. Unfortunately there were some issues with his KLX 125, stalling a lot. So we didn't go too far today. Yet a great day out in the jungle.
 
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saxonator

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Good ride today with an old friend of mine. Mae Jo Area perfect riding at the moment. The Öhlins shock on my XR250 and the CRF250 Rally forks really work very well, smooth riding in all sections, love this set-up

 
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saxonator

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So after 2 month not being able to ride due to a Fibula Fracture I am back on the bike. In the meanwhile a lot of changes happened, I am now riding the CRF250L of a friend. So far I like the engine a lot. Last week we finally found a new Loop in the Mae Jo Area and we named it after "Ron" the guy who showed it to me initially. That was only the first part, after that we had several attempts that always ended very quickly due to exhaustion or running out of time. So last week we finally did it and made this thing a loop. Today we did the loop in the opp. Direction, because we were afraid that my 13 year old son wouldn't be able to make it. But he made the complete loop without complaining too much, this was hard work.....very hard work. Very well done little man, you will have a great future riding bikes, now we need to train your cleaning skills and maintenance skills....555
 

saxonator

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So we changed the rear sprocket on the KLX125 to 55t on the rear, big improvement for Oskar getting up the hills. He is still under powered for his weight but nevertheless he is doing great. No complaints and doing his duty. Awesome little Dude! You rock. Keep on going :)
 

saxonator

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Nice day out in the jungle with perfect conditions and clear blue sky and temperature to my liking. Always nice to take along some new members in our ever growing family of Enduro fanatics. The trail was managed by everyone fairly ok with some minor issues but nothing to complicated. After a couple of KM's we stumbled across the first problem. Mark's Brak Disk Rotor was bent due to a small crash at the rocky section. So the brake wouldn't engage no more properly. After trying to fix the bike with very little tools, we had to gave up on it. Two of our Buddies returned to the truck. Me and Erich continued to ride the new section of this track and it was just as good as he said. Nice long uphills with a lot of rocky sections and obstacles, just what I like. Awesome. Finally we came to the T-Intersection in the Jungle that connects 3 different tracks. To complete the loop we had to turn right and continue with more up and down craze for a while until we reached the Monster Downhill Section. After that we met more Rocks on our way and managed to deal with them in a stylish way. But than to my all surprise, my CRF250L made bad noises when I hit the starter bottom. I called back Erich and he could not believe his ears. He's a professional Mechanic and told me to leave the bike in Jungle and get it out another day. This is the first time ever something like this happens to me in the middle of nowhere. I walked about 1km and than rode Erich bike for some time and than walked again until we finally reached our destination. In the meanwhile one of our two riding Buddies returned to come help, but it was no more necessary. So we made plans for the next day to get the bike out of the jungle. After this video I will post the Rescue Video shortly, so please stay tuned. Cheers
 
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