Let’s talk 2 wheels. Chupacabra Offroad’s roots were in mountain and motocross bikes, long before these SxS ‘s exisited. Here’s a brief history, and some info on my current bike, and setting up a bike for tall riders. With all this rain we’ve been getting, the moto has been seeing a lot of love lately.

Transcription:

What’s happened recovering off-road and today we’re going to talk a little bit of two-wheel stuff I was looking at all the videos on our YouTube channel obviously we were side by side or unit but we haven’t talked much about the past about moto and kind of the birth of the idea and the thoughts of the brand Chupacabra and in my past and our roots in two wheels so we fun to do a little video about dirt biking within my past and I’m currently riding my initial addiction to this off-road lifestyle and two wheels would start to go there but not Michael do a video on that here as well but yeah standing here next to my career rack which is a 2017 Husqvarna FX 350 I live here in Arizona and I basically think this is the Holy Grail bike for Arizona guys so I’m mainly riding off-road I don’t even hit track that much anymore over the years I’ve done pretty much all of it growing up in Vegas I was off doing some desert writing and in desert racing and then moved to Northern California where I did write some more across but mainly up in North Cal the big scene is awful riding real single track that type of stuff like Clear Creek other places like Hollister Hills that my mom used to live in San Jose area as well as up a little bit further north up in Napa Valley and then when I live in Southern California in 2009 I end up moving to San Diego and luckily I was only about 30 minutes from Palo which is now called Fox Raceway which is still my favorite lost track of all time so did a lot of motocross stuff there some motocross racing most of racing that I could do was work racing which is you guys are familiar predominantly west coast so it’s usually an hour long loop or an hour long race with multi race usually based on a motocross track did a bunch of that and then my flavors kind of varied over the years so starting off back in the day my first bike was a 94 Kawasaki cakes 250 at the time I was heading like racing and knew that to get faster I needed to get used to riding at faster speeds whatever time so it would purchase my first dirt bike back then I think I was 19 years old and by the move over again I probably wished I would have got a 125 they set off a series of bad riding habits and bad behaviors on your bike so but growing up in the desert we kind of all decided to get bigger bikes you know we would go to the dunes we go to Dumont we would go out and try to find jobs and it was nice to have that power so there was no excuse whether you could have the moment that the thing and you know for one size fits all about the 250 two-stroke back in the day was was hard to beat but I say regretted because I never really learned corner speed they never really learned how to hold momentum it picked up on a lot of bad habits that I’ve taken years to kind of kind of read correct so I was a bike I moved on to a zoo Kyary to Vicki oh one mom you know back understand behind them it was a pretty cool bike kind of suffered hasn’t racing because the front end was nervous but it was a good bike and then up to old five I purchased my first four-stroke a few guys been riding mode already around the motocross scene back in the day you know that before so it’s really started to take over and then right old five I got the Honda CRF orchid got that blank bunch of desert races on it and then it’ll find them with the Northern California well like I said at this time live in Northern California I got in the motocross industry I started working for Fox Southern motocross gear so I move them toward their headquarters work which at the time was in mourning Hill just south of San Jose and it was awesome job I was fully immersed in motocross culture yeah we were watching walk across every single weekend going to a bunch of super crosses had somebody’s met my then boss at the time guys I used to that was really just the whole culture move they ride let’s preach all I did was ride so Road up there for a bit and then they’ve given a Kawasaki KX or 5000 six the first year that I came out and for a Fisher bike than that being pretty good and rode that for quite a while and then fast forward to 2010 2009 so the slope movement Southern California sold that thing that thing I’d like to fifty hours on it top-end ever never went out on me and then I picked up a Yamaha 9450 which was nice bike it was easier for me to ride cuz that a melon or power band I know we started with arm pump and then I just finally realize you know 450s I’m sick of it I’m sick of doing these sports races and just hold on for dear life after 20 minutes I’m sick over the motocross track and I’ve you know hold on for more than 10 15 minutes so I bought a 250f I bought a used race bike off a buddy of mine from one more concepts and it was probably the most fun I’ve ever had on a dirt bike I was in SoCal I was riding motocross I had this Yamaha to Vidia which at the time that bike was a real dog it wasn’t fuel-injected but like I bought a case suspension had extra triple clamps and you know pumped up motor I had to run race and it had a custom carburettor carbon fiber hubs like 10x 31 tires I just kind of fully converted to track clean when I was in SoCal and I really loved that bike and that bike really helped me become a lot better as a rider really learn how to have a lot of corner speed they can hold on to the bike for a lot longer I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily a whole lot faster but I do it worked race I could hold on to it a lot better and have a lot more fun of building I can actually race the second half of the race so from there that kind of leaves were around today I kind of went back in try a couple 450s and now I’m up to 350 which in my opinion is the complete Holy Grail even though I’m six-three 200 pounds I just think that 450 words yeah I haven’t written one of these new new 450s in the last couple of years the problem is smoother to operate navigate than what I used to derive but this view tip yeah I think it’s got enough power for me here in the sandy or washes that I’ll ride and do a lot of single shaft riding these days a lot of turn track stuff out here in the desert so I need something that’s a little bit more than a 250f but a 450 like I said it’s just it’s just not as fun so that’s why I say this bike is the Holy Grail and on top of that if you guys are familiar here on the ethics model it’s essentially than 350 motocross bike but you have a bigger fuel tank you got a meaty inner wheel and then you have a 6-speed wide range transmission so those three things are awesome I can go 60 70 miles I’m gonna worry about fuel the 18 inch rear tire is a huge huge deal and maybe some the rocky single track and washes I hear so much more compliant and it’s nice to have that six feet when you need it if you’re ripping or if I take anything to do a BA all right these days which I most likely will I’ve done the tall see the stock see I’ve done the tall bars the average bars move the bars forward drop-down pegs I basically tried almost every variation over the years to try to get rid of my arm pump and just having more fun ride so what I’ve arrived on today and to go back in the story to one thing I always used to do as a crutch was I always used to run a steering there for her so I’m going for the desert everyone used to have one the GPR is I had they weren’t that great the Scott’s tear me down when I was really worried it was that because you have a high low speed that you could control but uh but as long as I really kind of felt like it was a crutch and then I under different types of riding I was in Northern California some slope single track stuff we didn’t really need it as much for them of course I needed it when I would do some work races on some higher speed stuff so finally over the years my taller guys have evolved I gave up a standard ammeter I think five or six years ago try to focus on having better technique and where I’m at with the tall guy set up this I like the stomach steep starting off Hall seats were cool for that sitting the sanding and it did save a little bit of energy but then in the corners I was definitely higher so I like having the C stock high I also like having the handlebars basically at a stock height these are the stock handlebars and I just moved them forward and for the most over an option here the triple clamps so there’s also the type of a sensation on the handlebars same thing my mountain bike you start to get higher up in the air and you get higher off the ground I feel like that you lose that feeling and it just feels more of a it as a duck in corner as aggressively for sure when you’re riding motocross and even when you’re going to do some single track so another thing I like about the low bar is I’ve got such long arms and forces me to keep my weight over the front of the bike one of the bad habits that I have when you watch my video of myself riding the photos I’m Way off the bat I can like so starting off my two rural life in the mountain by the world leaving backs always gonna moto of course that’s not good you won’t have to go with handlebars back straight using your legs and yes I’m a big fan of the hip sunblock riot you set up Ryan Hughes I took his training class back in 2010 and I’m a big fan of everything that he preaches in terms of motorcycle riding technique balls of your feet using your knees using your legs so I’ve been working on that so combined with that regular see regular handlebars move forward the last thing the last couple things I do for one is I always run drop-down pegs so these are protaper pegs I’ve tried the faster pegs that broke up and I’m warned about these wear out and they do get slippery these Pro tapers but what’s cool about it is you can replace just the cleat so you can get tall cleats if you’re a short guy minor five millimeters down they are kind of my favorite doctor because they don’t bring them back they just bring them down and then finally I’m running these state pegs which look absolutely he is I hate I hate what Kate look like but unfortunately I run up because they work and what happens is when you have your foot on the peg you can rest your boot against them and for me to a big problem is accelerating on the corners be so far off the back of the bike it really just helps me squeeze a little bit extra not pump up this much when I’m accelerating out of turns keeps me mindful to stay forward on the bike you can adjust them which couple millimeters forward and back makes a big difference I think I heard Ricky grade that runs him I think a lot of guys like one of my buddies race Baja he’s not a tall guy like me but he runs them and I think this is really something that’s an upgrade that’s especially beneficial first all guys so the hideous hard to get to the air filter but they work for me so been one of those for almost two years so that’s kind of some basic upgrades that I do on every single bike just so I can be comfortable and then you can’t really talk about comfort and trying to go fast up getting your suspension done so I roll up this bike for over a year it’s not configuration year and a half and one thing I don’t like about these trail bikes these off-road models from KTM and Husky is the suspension is pretty soft and it blows through this truck it’s cool if you’re going for a second here and it’s in single track but when I would try to take it to the motocross track I’d have to pump the air Forks up to 153 pounds just to keep this thing from bottom so I don’t you guys are familiar but basically on model year 2017 a newer KTM Husqvarna have moved to the AER or they recalled that extract I think explore fork so basically now all the new KTM monkeys are running air fork so I like the idea of the air fork and I made me like that get air fork is because when I do ride some singletrack stuff and I’m goin slower some rocky technical terrain like we’ve got kind of like in my backyard I’ll drop the psi in the forks down about 10 psi I don’t get beat up as bad but then when I am riding moto RM riding some turn track stuff which I do which is kind of like some rough motocross work trains work racing style stuff that I like to do to stay in shape I keep it back up to my normal you know off-road motocross that up so after buying these things and getting them rebound I was really blown away at a local dealer here ATO cool guys they basically run the shire and there was one of the open up a dealership in some but Gerry the order is a really cool guy guys do some good work on service for reasonable prices so they are a husky dealership they’re pretty well versed on the WP suspension so I had a reef Alvin a respring man to stiffen up my rear spring because again one bad habit of me being law and my keys my way to live back more so it’s important that I’ve got a stiffer spring right that keeps the bike balanced out should be and I kind of notice it’s not all my likes now you know Mike I’m going with stiffer look was stiffer than the front to keep the back end up and then I don’t have that way that much wind over the front end so I tend to run the forks pretty soft so that’s just kind of something that work that has worked for me I don’t really like that I kind of wish that they were both really balanced kneeling but I don’t necessarily write down so that’s kind of just what I learned for me so best thing about the suspension valve is that it’s way more plush on the little small bumps and now I’ve got my fork pressure again I think 135 so it’s 15 18 psi almost 20 psi lower and the stock side which just talked down there was mediocre at best so big fan of getting these things we sprung and we valve there’s another company almost whether we’ve called craft and I was really interested in their front WP for rebuild because they have an externally adjustable revalue which is really cool it’s got $1,000 for the forks alone and I kinda cheaped out on deciding to go with this so I’ve been happy I’m real curious about that crap setup because it would be cool to externally adjust the valving like I said from the extreme difference of first second gear technical rocks to go fast motocross track it seems like it’d be kind of cool so when you have a future we’ll see but bikes have an awesome bike it’s been really reliable I think I just hit 90 hours on it and just have 800 the same vo do a floor rebuild just on the top and preventative maintenance time to do all fluids go through everything make sure there’s a nice hunky-dory and you know bikes awesome you know kickstart of course electric start this bikes really light I think it’s under 225 pounds I didn’t have to upgrade some something I’m starting to wear out put some new sprockets and chain on it another nice feature about now run in the 450 they definitely don’t need sprockets and changes much as what a 450 is used to and the entire Weiss I’m running and MX 52 in the front and I’m running 80 81 in the rear so back when I was in SoCal I got really spoiled good dirt tires and we’re out that quick sub 1 MX 32 s and X 30 ones and I’ve kind of always been a Dunlop God every time I’ve kind of got away from Dunlop particularly fronts I haven’t been as happy but now I’m out here in the desert I try hurt him to 32 and I took the knobs off like way too quick so I’m just too cheap to replace and tires that often like yeah the traction is insane but they just were too quick out here at the rock so when was that 52 is gonna hold up a little bit better probably a decent compromise and then for the 81 I just kind of decided try this out just to see how that would hold up I’ve tried all different types of careers I’ve done like the Maxis ite deserts I’m not as picky on the rear just a more about having just some knobs that we’re gonna hold up that’s just kind of like the chief desert out of me just kind of hope he’s wanting to get as much as I can out of my rear tire now we all usually flip up and then of course I run heavy-duty tubes out here so so a lot of my buddies have been meeting out here in Arizona been running bibs I’ve only ran those once or twice in racing environments and you know I might step up to bibs one day or even trying to to bus which I’ve heard it’s pretty cool but honest air about the expensive heavy duties like the Michelin’s or three four millimeters thick and I run 14 psi and as long as my tires are really really worn on I generally don’t have any issues with flat tires get away with a little bit less time you learn psi when I go run the lower cross traffic so I’m just kind of old-school with that I guess I don’t want to deal with I do my tires myself and heavy doodoos tend to work well for me so that’s kind of a basic rundown of all the upgrades I did throw on and FMF slip-on exhaust mainly just because it looks cool it’s a little bit lighter and it does have a nice throw your sound I could say anything noticed some language of it I think it’s a couple of pounds lighter but I’d say it definitely feels a little bit more peppy maybe slightly but another cool thing about these 2017 and newer husky cams they do have the different Maps so I’ve got a one in a tomb at my house I’ll have a traction control so if I’m getting tired if I’m running a really slippery slow speed stuff I usually turn the traction control on or I’ll go with the more aggressive that if I’m riding mode or something with good traction is the difference is there solidly me you know not that big of a deal so like I said the bikes been amazing I’ve blown a couple fork seals clutches worked great I don’t run a recluse a lot of guys and do ride off-road with one recluses here but I don’t really think it’s super technical compared to stuff I rode in Northern California so I’m not too happy on the clutch I’ve heard know people that go in the recluses they just absolutely love them but I something I really needed out here I don’t really get too tired when I’m Fanny and the technical hill climbs I’ve hit out here aren’t that bad on that well nothing like nose in NorCal with that slippery roof simply much the rocks all that type of stuff so maybe in the future I’ll try it but other than that definitely threw on a skid plate of course got some sweet arm guards here to protect the swing arm I mean you just kind of lack the bike out and they can look pretty as you can see I won with all the teal each of these plastic always won of course promote the brand Chupacabra looks a little bit tacky I know how to do it again and probably do something a little more muted I really tried to disguise all white because I don’t think white and teal look that great together it’d look better if it was a black frame but I wasn’t really about to take the whole back end of the frame you just don’t look pretty for for an off-road bike insanity hangers but I tried my best blocked it out covered it all up looks pretty good works good and that’s it that’s pretty much a little breakdown so when you leave you guys are some footage here some stuff I got to go riding it’s not ready to be rain so I think I’m gonna hop on this thing here again next several days but I heard in Arizona we do get some of those monsoon rains in the summer and the winter like honestly it’s the first thing I’ll reach for because when it does rain there’s some puddles taking the razor out as a mess whereas I loved it you know it’s been some laps I recently turned 40 last year and have a race in a couple of years but I’ve been working a lot in pretty good shape so I’m thinking I want to go a lot hand it to those little time there’s maybe every race so they booked up to a workspace or something local out here maybe desert rates just for fun just to go see him I definitely missed that that feeling of doing a long hard ride or racing just how sore anymore and the feeling of accomplishment of pushing yourself on a biking that’s something something I love about Moto’s working at Fox I love the culture there we had a fun fun time a lot of amazing experiences I have to go right at Ricky Carmichael’s house at the ranch with a big rig room the track and Ricky was giving us riding tips which was a once-in-a-lifetime experience got immersed with a lot of different cool experiences gonna hang out certain athletes you know like Ken Roczen and Jenna and I got to be a name dropper but that’s how it was there’s a lot of fun and I really miss those days a lot especially living in Southern California and riding pala all the time my favorite track that’s all we used to do my wife and I when we first started dating I got her into riding well then up in North Cal doing a lot of AMA district 36 Harris Campbell racing I just really really loved that and I’ve always been kind of average bad at everything but I enjoy desert racing I enjoyed you know Woods racing I enjoy moto you know it works is kind of between all that and I just love riding man just love being in the dirt so maybe wanting to have to be fun YouTube video to go out and do a do race in the razor and you can race this thing you know somebody’s district there were the races that we’re doing they got a motor race in the morning so I’m kind of trying to get the edge I need to go get some real seat time in because I don’t wanna show up unless I’m but love love this thing that I highly recommend if you ever in the 350 you go check one out it was cute and rusty demo day and unless I think you’re really fast and really strong I think of 450 is too much bike for most riders in my opinion so hope you guys like watching this you do some more to go top from up soon with the mountain bike if you like the content here some singletrack stuff out here a couple different places one is me or I live here like Pleasant sand fun single track this was a insanely epic day we have rain the night before it was nice and moist and cold I don’t think I’ve had more fun riding single track out here behind where I live other than this day and some other footages from my buddy took me out there gonna spot Kalevala Canyon which is outward of Scottsdale area first time riding out there definitely more of it decomposed granite less rocky really fun to me I enjoyed that as well so you guys are two little guys you like me that’s kind of birds that get together to do some ride with you guys out there and bring this bike after some more razor lines we go on places like ocotillo or just as much fun on to Moses for thanks for watching.