2013 Desert 100 Iron Man Poker Run

I just got back yesterday from the Desert 100 in Odessa Washington. This event has been going on for 43 years although this was my first time. Thousands and thousands of RV’s, non-stop sound of dirt bike from sunrise to sunset and dust, lots and lots of dust!
I have a 2008 WR250R. I have changed the gearing to 12/48 but otherwise its bone stock. It did great! I hear a lot of comments that these bikes don’t have enough low end power and while that may be true, I have to say there were so many times I was not able to downshift when I had to slow down for some tricky sections and had to rely on what low end power there was, never let me down, even on steep climbs. After playing around the day before the ride I did make one change to the rebound on the rear shock, maximum damping, really helped though all the whoops, was not getting slapped in the butt all the time any more.

Something I learned about our bikes during this ride that I thought is worth sharing with this group.

This may be something many of you already know, but not something I recall hearing anything about. I almost killed my battery twice trying to restart my bike after dumping it. It would crank and crank but would not start. The first time, after the battery was clearly getting weak, I thought I should better push it to a downhill section an bump start it before the battery is completely dead. The second time, thought I should just let it sit and wait for a bit before trying to restart it, no improvement, and again once the cranking got weak, I push started it again. The third time I dumped it, I had a thought, turn the key off. Then when I turned it back on, the electric fuel pump primed itself, and the bike started as normal on the first press of the button.

Lesson learned, if the bike dies after dumping it, turn the key off and back on before trying to restart it.

Yes I learned that the hard way too. I think it is true of all FI bikes - cycle the ignition switch before a restart.

I learned this after a tip over too.

You need to shut the key off for a second to reset the lean angle sensor, it shuts the fuel pump off if the bikes on its side for more than a couple of seconds.

Most efi bikes do the same thing.
Carbed bikes dont need anything like this, they flood and stall when on there side.

Its a safety feature to save the motor and fuel pump, without a tip over/lean angle sensor an fi bike would run up side down untill the motor burned up from lack of oil and the fuel pump would burn up too.