Desert Racing on 125 step-throughs

[Half Baked Henry]

Hello all,

I am leading a team of three riders in a race across the Sahara next year. We are all pizza deliverers and are riding old Honda Innovas donated by Domino's as a charity fundraiser and because we think it will be dead funny!

Has anyone here ever desert prepped one of these??

Any advice or spare parts anyone could chip in would be much appreciated!!
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Prepping to race a honda innova delivery bike across the Sahara, get in!!

[chris-red]

I wouldn't have thought a 125 would have the grunt to travel in sand, especially when you get to the dunes. best of luck is all I can say and travel light.

Be warned you will be interrogated about the financing of the trip by some members.
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Well, you know what they say. If you want to save the world, you have to push a few old ladies down the stairs.
Skudd:- Perhaps she just thinks you are a window licker and is being nice just in case she becomes another Jill Dando.
WANTED:- Fujinon (Fuji) M42 (Screw on) lenses, let me know if you have anything.

[G]

Only when they start to ask for money, by me .

First, perhaps some more detail on the terrain and the nature of the racing.


Sand will get EVERYWHERE.
I'd look at a variety of air filter/box systems for a start.
Try and tape any gaps around body work, etc.

The tyres and other mods required will depend on the nature of the event. Ie; I mullered my sand tyres before the start of the race by doing 15 miles on the road last year (beating that 675 away from the lights probably didn't help!)

On that, not much chance to practice sand riding in the UK, so beach races probably the way to go. Seen enough c90s at Weston in the past, but didn't see any this year.

[tatters]

Whats the route as the Sahara covers most of north Africa? have you been to that part of the world before on a bike?
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Past:NRG50,AF1125(x2),NSR125RR,ZZR250,CX500,VFR400,KR1S,ZZR600(x2),CB400N,YZF1000(x2),KH125,Z200,FX400R,CBR954RR(x2)GPZ500S,GT550,VFR750F(x2),RD350N,XR650R,CBR600F,CB250,KDX250,YZF750R,CRM250,400EXC,KLR650,TTR600RE,DR350S,R100GSPD,RGV250,VMAX1200,DL650,KZ750 Present:G650XC,C12,CRF450X,1190ADV

[Skudd]

Does Southport beach count?
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Famous last words of Humpty Dumpty. " Stop pushing me "
Petty Anarchists look at "1984".............. The Visionary looks at "Animal Farm".

[pepperami]

[G]

Oops, I missed that.

In that case, I can help you with "spare parts" when you "chip in" to my 'getting drunk on Saturday challenge' .

[Half Baked Henry]

Thanks for the replies, will try and answer the qu's now:

Power wise the theory is that the bikes won't sink that bad so won't need the same amount of grunt. I've had trouble losing a tiny russian bike of some description in a desert before, was pretty impressed by it! The main reason bikes have failed in this rally in the past has been excess weight - not an issue for us!

The race is a waypoint race so if some stages are totally unpassable then we can skirt round them and get to the final checkpoint without scoring any points, but that is an absolute last resort.

The route goes through Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal and Mali. Then the race ends, we turn round and do it backwards at our own pace. I've not been there before but have been through some proper sand deserts in central asia before. Thats sand though and not fesh-fesh.......

In terms of how we are financing the trip I am selling off everything I own, namely an FZR 600, K1100LT, Elefant 750 and Peugeot Chavfight. That should cover the petrol, I've upped my hours to 50-60 a week but this won't have covered the race fee which needs to be paid by June - then there's the suspension, rear swingarms etc.

This is why we have resorted to 'crowd sourcing' which is apparently the term for scabbing. Apologies if asking for help gets your back up, we don't really have any other (legal) options!!

I tried to get in a beach race and was told to 'naff off, not with those bikes' (in less polite terms though)......
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Prepping to race a honda innova delivery bike across the Sahara, get in!!

[G]

What beach race did you try?
If it was 'sand cross' (which is run along the lines of motocross), I can quite understand it. A big enduro like Weston however is a different matter with a massive range of skills and bikes - from new riders that won't last more than a couple of laps to the current Enduro world champion.
Definitely worth giving Weston a go - as they are well down on numbers, even more reason for them not to turn people away.

While the bikes are light, they also have skinny wheels/tyres, which isn't so good for the sand, especially for any kind of speed.

Will there be (m)any tarmac sections? How many miles do you expect to do in total?
You talk about swingarms, how much are you expecting to modify the bikes?

Crowd sourcing generally asks people to give their time for free to further your cause, rather than goods and money. Further, it's generally been for things that have a general benefit, often to the people involved.
Being a site highly ranked on google we get a decent number of people asking for us to pay for them to have fun.

[Half Baked Henry]

It was one of the races near me, cant remember which one but will check. From the response it sounded quite MX styled. Westons a bit of a trek but by comparison to the rest of the trip isn't any distance at all, I'll look into it once we have the mods done.

There's only a few pure sand stages but some of these are 350 odd km with another 200km of tarmac either side to get to/from the bivouac points. Pioggio entered a team of fairly stock Vespas in the Paris-Dakar in the 80's and two finished - I think the modified Innovas will fair a hell of a lot better in the sand than they did but it will still be a mammoth task. I'll agree that it's almost impossible - we're doing it because of the 'almost'!

In terms of bike mods we are planning on using CR80/KX80/RM80 front ends and either lengthening the swingarm or using MT5/MT50 swingarms. We also need to drill the frames for a lower swingarm pivot - the current one is too high.

Frame mods we are doing are an extra brace from the headstock back to just under the seat (which we will mount an extra tank of a small crosser on), extra bracing for the rear subframe (or rather what would be the subframe on a normal bike), new footrest mounts, rear tanks and probably a few more... testing will tell!

I was told about crowd sourcing by someone that uses it to fund independent film production in return for a 'producer' credit - meaning thousands of producers. I've only come across a few people using it for bike trips and that's generally along the lines of 'crashed my DR650 and need a flight home' type emergencies so I didn't really know what to expect from this!
The only things we can offer in return are a thanks on our website. We're working with a small TV production company who are making a trailer to pitch to the network. This might result in a commission which would enable us to pay people back with a slight return but we won't know if this is for sure for about 6 months.

Sorry to hear you get pestered like this a lot, I'd thought we were trying to do something a bit different but I guess we're not as interesting as I thought!!
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Prepping to race a honda innova delivery bike across the Sahara, get in!!

[G]

Plenty have been on for "charity rallies" and various other similar things (riders for health, etc).

You need to work out your budget for tires, which will partly dictate your choices and also suggest the sort of wheels to look for.

I was thinking of using 80/85cc big wheel suspension for my next 'ped racing project, but if going that far, not sure if there's any reason not to go the whole hog and get it from a 125cc mx bike, which then gives you a better choice of wheels too.

I think calling begging/blagging 'crowd sourcing is pushing the definition a bit. It's not new and putting a new name in front of it doesn't change it .

It's worth keeping an eye on the enduroland site, sometimes they are at a Sandy venue. I've ridden a normal enduro land day (including some of the 'harder' options) on a completely stock C90 before.

If if you could easily stick a smaller engine in (I presume not), then you could do the fun endurance moped racing events some of us did last year - 6 hour on/off road race in teams should give you an idea of what your bike can do .

Oh and I've got a MT50 sitting here, but I did pay for it, so want to try and recoup some costs. If I haven't sold the swingarm, might even give in and let you have it for nowt when you need it .

[edit]
Finally, any reason for going in the 'race' category?
Surely the 'touring' category, which you'd get in for free, would be just as much of an adventure, even if you don't get your times on score sheets. Presuming you're not in much of a chance of winning, here!

[mysterious_rider]

keep us updated sounds like a laugh!

[Half Baked Henry]

Duly noted, I'll call a spade a spade and stick to begging!

I sent a few e-mails to Riders for Health but got no response at all, which is why we've gone with Practical Action - they're a great charity that specialise in appropriate technology for the third world which I thought was quite apt

The reason for going with the CR80 type front end is it has the same size wheel so shouldn't upset the geometry too much - the increase in height is only a bit more than the increase at the back with the jacked up shocks and lengthened arm. A 21" front would be great but would make the front end very light. The first day we have to crush out 1000km on tarmac so we need some on-road handling.

A swingarm would be awesome if you can part with it. I was told the MT50 was the part for the job by one of the Purple Helmets. They meant for a cub90 rather than an innova but I imagine it will require the same amount of frame conversion.

In terms of tyres for the sand we are planning on using vee rubber Catspaw tread which gives a massive footprint compared to say a Michelin Desert but this will need some testing... We are getting 'some' manufactures help but it's not going as far as a load of free rubber, even if we get the documentary sorted.
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Prepping to race a honda innova delivery bike across the Sahara, get in!!

[G]

If you're sorting the swingarm out yourself, you can add height to the back.
Also, nothing stopping you running a smaller front in big bike suspension - between a big wheel and a 125 there's not actually that much difference in the suspension travel by the way.

The trip I did around Europe on my KTM 690 a year and a bit ago I had a poorly balanced bike most of the way. Far too much weight on the rear (still want to get a hydraulic preload adjuster for the rear some time, didn't have time to fit the preload adjusters for the front I had got.)
In the Swiss alps I was actually quite glad I had a bike that handled absolutely terribly - that way I wasn't going quite so fast, but still felt like I was pushing it a bit.
However, would definitely want a properly balanced bike for the sand (I did do some riding in the sand with the KTM on road biased tyres - it was 'concerning' mostly!)

Will have the MT50 stuff up for sale. Give me a shout when you're going to be doing stuff and if it hasn't sold, I'll at least consider it .

Had you considered trying to shoe horn the 80cc swingarm in too?

I've used the 'cat pawl' tyres on my c90 and they seemed 'ok', though nothing that amazing. Sure they'll last ages at least.
You probably want to be running low pressures. Definitely get rim locks at the least.

[Half Baked Henry]

The reason for racing is that this is the chance of a lifetime, probably won't be able to afford anything like this for some time, I'm not getting any younger either... You could call this a mid-life crisis?!?

Win? maybe not - we are aiming to not come last though! We only need to hit about a third of the waypoints to be looking at an outright win in the bike class so who knows.... The touring category is a definite back-up option - it would be a great adventure but not a real test of our mettle compared to the race.
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Prepping to race a honda innova delivery bike across the Sahara, get in!!

[Half Baked Henry]

[Half Baked Henry]

[G]

Could you not basically follow the race route and do what the 'race' class does (it says route is open) in the touring class - thus testing yourself in just the same way?

[Half Baked Henry]

If we can't get the fees sorted out thats a possibility, but we wouldn't be given the GPS or the roadbook. From what I've been told by the organisers they would want us well out of the way of those racing as well.
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Prepping to race a honda innova delivery bike across the Sahara, get in!!

[Half Baked Henry]

It seems even the cream of British racing have decided small is beautiful!
https://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/News/newsresults/General-news/2011/February/feb2811-redding-wins-on-honda-c90/
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Prepping to race a honda innova delivery bike across the Sahara, get in!!

[G]

It does depend on the terrain, but for sandy stuff I'd go lower on small tyres to try and distribute the weight a bit.
Rimlock will stop the valve being ripped out.
I generally run enduro bikes at 12psi with a rim lock.

Depending on the wheel sizes, could also consider a tubeless conversion - then no worries about pinched innertubes and can run even lower pressures. I have a small 12v compressor (stolen from a jump pack) which I use to pump up the tyres when I get back to the road. So I can go down to 6psi for really nasty sections where you're going for trials like tactics.

By the way, this was the first moped race we did last year as an idea: https://blip.tv/file/3661917 (but, as I say, suspect it'll be a bit too much hassle for you to enter one of these.)

[Half Baked Henry]

Great vid! That looks like a blast. I tried to get Pizza Hut to let me borrow a bike from work for a moped race a few years back. Unsurprisingly the said no! I can't blame them, I've totalled enough bikes delivering in the snow as it is...

Do you know anyone thats used the budget rim lock alternative - short self tappers through the rim. Chris Scott reccommends them in the Adventure Motorcycling Handbook but I'm not convinced?
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Prepping to race a honda innova delivery bike across the Sahara, get in!!

[G]

Not personally, but you're not on that much of a budget if you can afford the fuel!
2 for £12 delivered (combining postage) on ebay.
Can be taken off and sold after if need be.

Can see self tappers being hassle when changing tyres and possibly causing some problems with the tube too - wouldn't want to be using that solution under 'race conditions' given the choice.
Probably won't unbalance the wheel as much, but not an issue for the speeds you'll be doing.

[Half Baked Henry]

As we wont need locks until we hit the rough stuff I'll get some and stick them in the Ambulance with the tyres, pop 'em on when we get to Morocco and balance the wheels then. I'm pretty dubious about self tappers either not going into the tyre properly or just ripping through them

Wheel balance won't be a massive issue at the speeds we'll be doing (50-60 mph on the black stuff, 40 odd off road is the target speed) but over the distance it will still contribute to an early bearing failure so I'll try and avoid it
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Prepping to race a honda innova delivery bike across the Sahara, get in!!

[tatters]

Theres not much real sand in morocco/western sahara its mostly rock/gravel, I was riding a 230kg R100GSPD last year with tck80,s which are a 50/50 tyre and did,nt get stuck even on the soft sand bits.

The rocks are quite nasty so best to as G said and carry a 12v pump so you can let when down when needed and pump them up again, also tyres can get ripped easily so a strong stiff tyre like the michelin desert or T63? is ideal.
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Past:NRG50,AF1125(x2),NSR125RR,ZZR250,CX500,VFR400,KR1S,ZZR600(x2),CB400N,YZF1000(x2),KH125,Z200,FX400R,CBR954RR(x2)GPZ500S,GT550,VFR750F(x2),RD350N,XR650R,CBR600F,CB250,KDX250,YZF750R,CRM250,400EXC,KLR650,TTR600RE,DR350S,R100GSPD,RGV250,VMAX1200,DL650,KZ750 Present:G650XC,C12,CRF450X,1190ADV