In honor of our friend and fellow racer Kenny Anderson:

Rider, Alan Cunningham sponsored a team called “Iceman Racing.” Named for Kenny “Iceman” Anderson. Race number 12, just like Kenny.

Race Dad, Eric Anderson was lead photographer and Crew Chief.

Riders, John & Amanda Erickson supplied the bike. RM-85.

Rider, me did some prep work on the bike.

Rider, Danielle Diaz won the sock battle and brought her Pit Dad.

Ringer Rider, Derek Keyes needed to warm up for the Suzuka 8 Hour, we were happy to help.

Crew:

Pit Dad, Peter is experienced and calm.

Alan’s wife, Beth brought great pit board encouragement.

Kenny’s brother, David brought his mellow vibe.

The race was an 8 Hour put on by M1GP at Grange.

A little practice on Friday:

Turn 87 is left? Gearing, check. Gas mileage, check. Tires, check. O-Ring chain, check. Suspension clickers, clicked.

Race Day:

Our strategy is to have a good time winning our class and overall.

With a great start we took the early lead. A little later we let others shine too. Back in the lead around the 1.5 hour mark and by then we were tired of sharing so we switched over to domination mode. Not to say that we were perfect, we did jump off 6 times… Our rider plan and the adjustments we made as the race went on were good. Our pit stops were just right. We rode to the strengths of our bike and worked around it’s limitations. We learned new skills and refined old skills.

Results:

Fast lap of the race. First in class. First overall. New friends.

The really neat part?

We won with a 12 lap lead.

Team Anderson!

Photo Bombed by Derek’s daughter, Carolynn.

My wife is still smiling even when hold up a 1600 pound spring and a BMW shock.

The owner of the shock only rides the BMW it goes on with his wife and all their gear when they are touring. Normally you only carry a passenger and gear some of the time so I have to spring for the lighter load because the ride would be too harsh when you did not have a friend along. In this case we can spring for the big load because the rest of the time he rides his other BMW.

The 1600 pounds refers to the springs rate. It takes 1600 lbs to compress this spring one inch.

It’s like lots of people ride Rich’s bikes all day long, learning and having fun! No more leaky seals Rich, time to make Donuts.

What do you do when you don’t like the standard location of your Penske reservoir? If you’r Bill you have me move it under the battery box.

The next set of forks for Deus Ex Machina are about to start going back together. These are the outer tubes, and feet in black and part of the caps in red.

Mike Woolaway builds the bikes for Deus Ex, he is an artist, hence the cool colors. I like working with Mike because he tells me what kind of bike it will be, how much it weights, how much power it will have and a little about the rider. Then he lets me do my thing, he’s never in a rush. I know a little about what this bike will be but I can’t tell you…other than to say it will be worth the wait.

NASA sent a rover to Mars. You may have heard about it. The wheels on that rover, Curiosity, were anodized by the same company that did this work. Funny thing is they don’t do just any job. If you want some work done by them you can ask me and if you have what it takes I may pass your name to them. 😉

The Triumph Tiger has a non-adjustable cartridge fork. It’s under sprung and the damping curve is wrong. The correct spring rate was easy. The correct high speed damping was not too hard to work out. But what to do about the low speed damping took a few tries.

If your bike has a non-adjustable fork, you too can have LE stickers because this fix will work on your forks just as well.