I attended a QMX Rider Training class today

[ccdhowell]

And damn what a day it was! The school was at Caddo Point in Greenville, Texas and the instructors were Cody Miller, Hunter Miller and Thomas Brown; that's allot of talent there. The class was 3 1/2 hours away and cost a fortune but was worth every penny. I learned more in 7 hours today than I've learned in a year pounding around by myself. There were only six students and with three pros we got allot of one-on-one training. Amoung the things I improved on today are breaking bumps, high-speed whoops, sharp deep uneven whoops, off-chamber turns; you might say the whole repetoire of riding skills. We finished off running through some big high-speed whoops and right into a long left-handed sweeper with a berm on the outside, we worked on keeping our speed up through the whoops and the turn and exiting correctly for the straight. The little things I learned are important, I started this section pinned in second through the whoops and the corner, with a little coaching I got around to shifting up to third in the middle of the whoops to increase corner speed, it's a little unnerving having Cody Miller standing six feet from the outside wall of a big sweeper as you fly through pinned in third. He did it to keep us from coming in to the inside of the corner. There really were eye-opening experiences like this all day long. Things like doing a whoop section double-double-triple, I've never had the composure to pull off a triple that deep into a whoops section before. The pros really were very friendly and easy to talk to. I will say that, Todd, the guy running the QMX Rider School is a great guy, had everything in order all day, provided lunch and got Cody, Hunter and Thomas to sign posters for us at the end of the day. I am getting old for this kind of abuse, as I sit here typing I have two heating pads on max heat and have taken a goodly number of pain pills, at least I can sleep in and review what I learned today.

I almost forgot, the best part of the day was when Cody jumped on my Raptor and took it for a lap, rolled back up and said "let me help you with your shocks." He spent thirty minutes or so and made a total of 4 laps on my Raptor. When he gave it back it was much stiffer than I'm used to running, but dang it made me faster. I'm a little worried about being that stiff on an XC track, but Cody assured me that he races XC stiffer than that and it's faster, just takes some getting used to. It was cool having a pro help with suspension setup and the best part was that he said my Raptor had plennty of punch for serious racing.

[BigGreenMachine]

Awsome! That experience will make you tons faster.

[smokinwrench]

It would be nice to attend something liek that but I would have to travel 500 miles for it.

Be nice to see how you do in a couple of races after all of this soaks in and becomes habit.

[BigGreenMachine]

Thats what I was thinking. Do you have any races coming up Chris? Seems winter months would be prime riding time in Texas with the cooler temps.

[ccdhowell]

We're down to one last race and it's likely to be a mud race so it will be hard to apply my new skills. I do intend to go to my local MX track and practice, practice, practice. Will be cool when some more of this stuff becomes second nature.

[BigGreenMachine]

Awsome! Those Raptors are such well rounded quads. I wish I had the torque that 700 makes for the trail riding I do. The g/f and I are frustrated beyond words at how easy this 450 stalls.

[tecat-z]

Recluse auto clutch. Great for trail ridden 450 quads where momentum is hard to maintain. My buddy has one on his TRX for the same reason you explained. Works great!

[ccdhowell]

Here's a link to some pics the promoter took during the class. I'm the big, old guy on the white Raptor, #443.

Link

[BigGreenMachine]

Looks like a fun time!

[deathman53]

Awsome! Those Raptors are such well rounded quads. I wish I had the torque that 700 makes for the trail riding I do. The g/f and I are frustrated beyond words at how easy this 450 stalls.

I have a quad with a 03 crf450r motor, you complain about how easy yours is to stall, you should try mine!!! It was a real hard learning expierence coming from a 2 stroke. I ran a woods race with it, talk about hard. First gear is too low, second is too high, loves to stall out and tight, narrow turns all together. To add all of this together, a yz250 kicker(real short), backward kick and its fussy about starting(have to hold hot start and kick perfect on tod) when stalled also. I usually only run it on mx, come out of a turn in too high of a gear and it stalls. I installed a recluse auto clutch, just rode it about the storage unit parking lot. However its real hard to stall now, I only mangaged to stall it, locking up the rear and trying to give it gas at the same time. I've ridden an 07 and it wasn't too bad, right gear sellection is a big thing on them, expecially with the stock pipe and jetting. This one is ONLY a e-start and it didn't start too well. I don't trust e-start, I need a kicker. There can be a e-start, but there must be a kick start on it also.

One thing, if you get a recluse, if for some reason you lose your kicker(or e-start fails), you can't get pull started. I'm primary for track riding, so its not big deal. How do you deal with the thumb throttle on yours? The one I rode was stiff and ackward to use. I put a crf450r twist throttle on mine, infact all my atv's have twists. If you do only have e-start, there is a kit that consists of all honda oem parts to add a stock kicker on it also. Don't ask the honda dealer, its not a honda accessary, try calling some of the atv shops, they can usually get you parts or the parts you will need with instructions. I'm told the whole kit is ~$400, if you buy the parts yourself from a discount place or ~$500 if you buy everything from a shop.

[BigGreenMachine]

Deathman I have a twist throttle kit sitting here in the floor waiting to go on. I'm getting comfy with the thumb throttle though.

I like the Rekluse ZStart Pro but can't afford it right now or rather I shouldn't spend that much right now. :P

The girlfriend also states that she does not want the clutch to be taken away since she is getting a 450 KTM of her own and would like to have as much practice on mine as she can get first. I'm perfectly fine using the clutch and helping her learn.

Sorry Chris to jack your thread here.

James