Last Saturday Motodisiac and I rode out over 100 miles to watch the AMA Supermoto championship held at Morongo casino in Cabazon, CA. After quickly fixing a loose chain on my bike (courtesy of the “professional” tire change work of Moto Club Di in Santa Monica, CA a couple of weeks ago) we took off around 10 in the morning and arrived there right when the race was about to start. The ride itself was slightly tiring. It took a little over an hour to get to the races. No significant traffic on our way, cruising at 85mph (hopefully CHP is not reading our blog :)). But it seemed like either I am not used to riding such long distances yet, or my bike’s seat is not the most comfortable in the world, or my bike is a little low for me. It could be the combination of the three as well.

We were excited to see the riders take off and happy that we got there right on time. The start is the most impressive part. Over 20 riders take off and immediately try to take a sharp turn as fast as they can. And they are doing this in a tightly packed group. Very impressive.

For those who don’t know Supermoto is a cross-over of motocross and road racing. Races are held on road racing tracks with an off-road section. Most Supermoto race tracks are typically configured with approximately 70% tarmac and 30% dirt with small jumps. This sport is very popular. Unfortunately it did not seem like it was THAT popular here in the US. The track was built on a parking lot right in front of the casino featuring beautiful mountain views all around.

Unfortunately other than that not a lot of stuff to look at for a wandering eye. Yes, there were pits. Yes there were some good looking Red Bull girls. But the scale of the event seemed meek. Regardless of all that we had fun watching the races, being slightly perplexed at times at how the heck they don’t drop their bikes when taking turns at such speeds and almost highsiding their bikes on the way out of turns. Even though it seemed like a pretty aggressive sport the riders were true professionals and tried avoiding being too aggressive. We witnessed only 3 collisions all at the crazy group starts.

We headed out around 5:30 in the evening. And that is when I started feeling that I desperately need a winter jacket. My Rev’it Airforce is great for warmer weather. But it was 60 degrees outside, no sun in sight and the wind was pretty strong. So we decided to take a small detour and hit Chaparral Motorsports store in San Bernardino on our way back. When we got there the store was closing in 15 minutes. Turns out 15 minutes was plenty to make a purchase. Now I am proud owner of the black Fieldsheer Tour Temp TX jacket. Gear review coming soon.

We hit a very heavy traffic on our way back. Evidentially there were a couple of car accidents on the 10 freeway. We had to slow down to 30-40 mph as we were splitting lanes in a stand still traffic. The way back took us 2,5 hours. I could really feel a seat discomfort then. The only positive thought - thank God we were on bikes. It would have taken us hours to get past that traffic jam had we been driving.

We safely get home around 8pm. Discussions start about whether my bike is too low for me. Motodisiac pitches an idea of me changing my bike soon. I don’t object strongly. Today I am already looking at my options online. “I am sorry SV650s. I will have to break up our beautiful relationship soon. It is not you, it is me” :).

This entry was posted on Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 12:07 pm and is filed under Racing, Motorcycles, Street, Offroad, Riding, Gear. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.