Predator at the Dunes... with video!
#1
12-09-2002, 12:30 AM
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Predator at the Dunes... with video!
I just got back tonight from Sand Mountain (Nevada), where I took my new Predator. I got there around lunchtime on Friday and spent that day riding it as gently around as I could to get more break-in hours on it.
On Saturday, I was joined by several friends, and since they ride kinda hard, my pace had to increase a bit. I finally got all the way on it a few times, but was still careful to let it cool for a little bit (by riding slowly or idling for a couple of mintes) after any intense throttle.
By Sunday, I was at 9.5 hours and was very close to what my friend Chuck considers to be the 10-hour point at which you can really open it up. So we rode for another hour or so and then it was time to really get on it. We headed over to Competition Hill and lined up. He rides a black & white 2002 Raptor with a K&N filter, jet kit and SuperTrapp IDS2 exhaust. He's been riding for many years so he's quite good.
First time up the hill, I killed him by 4-5 quad lengths... he got screwed up in the whoops area and had to let off a couple of times.
Second time, same result but only three quad lenghts. He still had to back off slightly, but I could keep it floored the whole way. The suspension on this thing is absolutely UNREAL.
Chuck was surprised by the results, and I think he's sniffing around for prices on a Stage II Hot Cam and some other goodies now. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]
So afterward, I had him ride it up the hill on his own, while I rode his Raptor. I found the Raptor to feel "higher" than the Predator, but it rode very well. It has an AWESOME seat (much more comfy than my 400EX or the Predator), good ergnomics, and lots of nice low-end torque. It very definitely doesn't rev as high or make power up high like the Predator. It turned predictably and I didn't notice any nose-light tendencies at all. This is the first time I've ridden a Raptor at any length, so it was pleasant to find out that what I've been told by people isn't necessarily true.
So we meet around the mountain to switch back, and Chuck gets off the Predator and goes, "WOW! That thing's part two-stroke!!!" He goes on to say that the top-end on it is, "explosive." I think he liked it!!! He also said they did an incredible job on the suspension.
So anyway onto the video... I shot 50+ minutes of footage in all, but not a whole lot of the Predator. All of the footage here is of Chuck riding it around various bowls and areas on the dunes. This all happened on Saturday, so at this point he hadn't discovered it's true power yet, because we were still being gentle with it for break-in. Sorry, but I didn't get the drag race on video. By the time we raced, only Chuck and I were left in our group so I had nobody to ask to run the camcorder.
The video is one minute and 47 seconds in length and I rendered it in low, medium, and high-res formats. It streams into Windows Media Player. For 56k dial-up, try Medium first and if it doesn't play smoothly, use Low. Low looks really awful, but I included it anyway just in case.
Low Res
Med Res
High Res
A few notes on the scenes... the big bowl area is called Superbowl. When you see the top of the mountain in the background, which Chuck rides up real close to, the tip of it is right about 600' above ground level, and is one of the highest points of the mountain. The bowl itself is only about 200' deep from the point at which he apexes.
Now, onto gearing thoughts. For just recreational dune riding in general, I think a 13-tooth front sprocket is a good idea. I never did put mine on. I've concluded that the stock one will probably work best (for now anyway) if you just ride faster. If you prefer to go slow, you'll really want the 13-tooth.
The handling on this thing is absolutely remarkable. It is just SO neutral and tossable. For Friday and Saturday I ran with Dunetrackers up front (paddles in back, of course), and it is just amazing how tossable it is. Over the course of the weekend I had to make some suspension tweaks so it felt stable going down steep hills (I mean REALLY steep). I added two clicks of rebound to the rear shock and also evened out the preload on the fronts -- for some reason, mine weren't set the same from the factory.
I've also concluded that I will cancel my order for the adjustable reservoirs for the front shocks and probably save up for a set of good fully compression and rebound-adjustable fronts from Ohlin or somewhere.
Now if my pipe will just get here, I'll be really happy!!!
Rob
On Saturday, I was joined by several friends, and since they ride kinda hard, my pace had to increase a bit. I finally got all the way on it a few times, but was still careful to let it cool for a little bit (by riding slowly or idling for a couple of mintes) after any intense throttle.
By Sunday, I was at 9.5 hours and was very close to what my friend Chuck considers to be the 10-hour point at which you can really open it up. So we rode for another hour or so and then it was time to really get on it. We headed over to Competition Hill and lined up. He rides a black & white 2002 Raptor with a K&N filter, jet kit and SuperTrapp IDS2 exhaust. He's been riding for many years so he's quite good.
First time up the hill, I killed him by 4-5 quad lengths... he got screwed up in the whoops area and had to let off a couple of times.
Second time, same result but only three quad lenghts. He still had to back off slightly, but I could keep it floored the whole way. The suspension on this thing is absolutely UNREAL.
Chuck was surprised by the results, and I think he's sniffing around for prices on a Stage II Hot Cam and some other goodies now. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]
So afterward, I had him ride it up the hill on his own, while I rode his Raptor. I found the Raptor to feel "higher" than the Predator, but it rode very well. It has an AWESOME seat (much more comfy than my 400EX or the Predator), good ergnomics, and lots of nice low-end torque. It very definitely doesn't rev as high or make power up high like the Predator. It turned predictably and I didn't notice any nose-light tendencies at all. This is the first time I've ridden a Raptor at any length, so it was pleasant to find out that what I've been told by people isn't necessarily true.
So we meet around the mountain to switch back, and Chuck gets off the Predator and goes, "WOW! That thing's part two-stroke!!!" He goes on to say that the top-end on it is, "explosive." I think he liked it!!! He also said they did an incredible job on the suspension.
So anyway onto the video... I shot 50+ minutes of footage in all, but not a whole lot of the Predator. All of the footage here is of Chuck riding it around various bowls and areas on the dunes. This all happened on Saturday, so at this point he hadn't discovered it's true power yet, because we were still being gentle with it for break-in. Sorry, but I didn't get the drag race on video. By the time we raced, only Chuck and I were left in our group so I had nobody to ask to run the camcorder.
The video is one minute and 47 seconds in length and I rendered it in low, medium, and high-res formats. It streams into Windows Media Player. For 56k dial-up, try Medium first and if it doesn't play smoothly, use Low. Low looks really awful, but I included it anyway just in case.
Low Res
Med Res
High Res
A few notes on the scenes... the big bowl area is called Superbowl. When you see the top of the mountain in the background, which Chuck rides up real close to, the tip of it is right about 600' above ground level, and is one of the highest points of the mountain. The bowl itself is only about 200' deep from the point at which he apexes.
Now, onto gearing thoughts. For just recreational dune riding in general, I think a 13-tooth front sprocket is a good idea. I never did put mine on. I've concluded that the stock one will probably work best (for now anyway) if you just ride faster. If you prefer to go slow, you'll really want the 13-tooth.
The handling on this thing is absolutely remarkable. It is just SO neutral and tossable. For Friday and Saturday I ran with Dunetrackers up front (paddles in back, of course), and it is just amazing how tossable it is. Over the course of the weekend I had to make some suspension tweaks so it felt stable going down steep hills (I mean REALLY steep). I added two clicks of rebound to the rear shock and also evened out the preload on the fronts -- for some reason, mine weren't set the same from the factory.
I've also concluded that I will cancel my order for the adjustable reservoirs for the front shocks and probably save up for a set of good fully compression and rebound-adjustable fronts from Ohlin or somewhere.
Now if my pipe will just get here, I'll be really happy!!!
Rob
#3
12-09-2002, 01:07 AM
Predator at the Dunes... with video!
Great video Snarf, sure beats my low quality ones [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-blush.gif[/img] With the stock gearing, what gear are you having to use to pull the long hills? After gearing mine down I am running 2nd & 3rd on the big hills where it was 1st & 2nd before. It was a must for me to gear down as we do a lot of fast trail riding, more like follow the leader, but the leader tried to loose the rest of the pack with quick turns and stupid moves that can make you end up in the bushes. Man you need some trees down there, but those hills and bowls do look fun. You know I couldnt find one single Raptor today, I really wanted to see how it would do head to head.
#4
12-09-2002, 01:27 AM
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Predator at the Dunes... with video!
Trees? What are those? I'm not familiar with that word. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]
I totally understand the part about gearing down. I will very probably put the 13T on before the next trip just to try it. Chuck's gonna drop one tooth in the front too. I was using 2nd gear for all the big hills. I'd start out in 3rd, but I'd have to drop. As Chuck even noticed, this thing really does like to rev so keeping the R's up is very important. I did notice, however, that as long as you can keep it up above 6000 RPM (I love having a tach), it'll pull a hill in whatever gear you're in pretty much (though I rarely even got into 4th -- remember that sand sucks up a ton of power), but once I was accustomed to riding at a faster pace (mandatory with these guys), I found third very usable.
I'm debating a few things with regard to gearing. Like I said, I'll try the 13T and see how it goes. I'm also going to order up the 36 and 38T rear sprockets from the dealer tomorrow, and I may experiment with the 14T front and a 38T rear, and even try the 36T in back with the 13T (to lengthen it slightly since I suspect the 13T up front may be a bit extreme).
My concern about going down in the front is that pulling Comp Hill could end up being slower than it is now. Basically, I come off the line hard in 1st gear and hit 2nd at about 100 yards (if that). From there, I just stay in 2nd all the way up the hill. I never do hit redline, but it does continue to accelerate up the hill in 2nd. I do remember seeing 8500 RPM, but I have no idea where redline or the rev limiter is on this motor.
As for the video, I use a Sony DCR-PC9 Mini-DV (digital) camcorder (gotta love eBay). It plugs into a Firewire port on my spare PC and I upload the video onto a spare 120 gig hard drive (videos eat hard drive space rapidly). From there I use Pinnacle Studio 8.3 to edit it all together. I looked at Adobe Premiere and didn't like it. Studio came with the Firewire board and it worked out really well so I bought the upgrade.
To "compress" it all I did was specify that I wanted it output in Windows Media Player format. It gives me the choice of video tape, AVI, MPEG, Windows Media, Real Video, or DVD. I like to set it up for streaming because it requires less download time, plus the videos stay on the server rather than getting downloaded and spread all over the 'net.
I'm still learning how to make all this stuff sing... I only got the camcorder a couple months ago and this is my second real video. My first one you can see here, all forty seconds of it (which I got out of about 15 minutes of footage). It's another Sand Mountain one... with Chuck on his Warrior and me on my 400EX.
First Video High Res
First Video Med Res
Rob
I totally understand the part about gearing down. I will very probably put the 13T on before the next trip just to try it. Chuck's gonna drop one tooth in the front too. I was using 2nd gear for all the big hills. I'd start out in 3rd, but I'd have to drop. As Chuck even noticed, this thing really does like to rev so keeping the R's up is very important. I did notice, however, that as long as you can keep it up above 6000 RPM (I love having a tach), it'll pull a hill in whatever gear you're in pretty much (though I rarely even got into 4th -- remember that sand sucks up a ton of power), but once I was accustomed to riding at a faster pace (mandatory with these guys), I found third very usable.
I'm debating a few things with regard to gearing. Like I said, I'll try the 13T and see how it goes. I'm also going to order up the 36 and 38T rear sprockets from the dealer tomorrow, and I may experiment with the 14T front and a 38T rear, and even try the 36T in back with the 13T (to lengthen it slightly since I suspect the 13T up front may be a bit extreme).
My concern about going down in the front is that pulling Comp Hill could end up being slower than it is now. Basically, I come off the line hard in 1st gear and hit 2nd at about 100 yards (if that). From there, I just stay in 2nd all the way up the hill. I never do hit redline, but it does continue to accelerate up the hill in 2nd. I do remember seeing 8500 RPM, but I have no idea where redline or the rev limiter is on this motor.
As for the video, I use a Sony DCR-PC9 Mini-DV (digital) camcorder (gotta love eBay). It plugs into a Firewire port on my spare PC and I upload the video onto a spare 120 gig hard drive (videos eat hard drive space rapidly). From there I use Pinnacle Studio 8.3 to edit it all together. I looked at Adobe Premiere and didn't like it. Studio came with the Firewire board and it worked out really well so I bought the upgrade.
To "compress" it all I did was specify that I wanted it output in Windows Media Player format. It gives me the choice of video tape, AVI, MPEG, Windows Media, Real Video, or DVD. I like to set it up for streaming because it requires less download time, plus the videos stay on the server rather than getting downloaded and spread all over the 'net.
I'm still learning how to make all this stuff sing... I only got the camcorder a couple months ago and this is my second real video. My first one you can see here, all forty seconds of it (which I got out of about 15 minutes of footage). It's another Sand Mountain one... with Chuck on his Warrior and me on my 400EX.
First Video High Res
First Video Med Res
Rob
#5
12-09-2002, 01:44 AM
#7
12-09-2002, 12:29 PM
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#8
12-09-2002, 01:10 PM
Predator at the Dunes... with video!
Great video. Sony should hire you for their commercials.
How was the sand? Had it smoothed over from the Thanksgiving weekend? Still wet? (Didn't look that wet from your video.)
Pretty impressive how you were able to beat your buddies Raptor. Were you going up the main comp hill? What paddles did you have? What did he have?
How was the sand? Had it smoothed over from the Thanksgiving weekend? Still wet? (Didn't look that wet from your video.)
Pretty impressive how you were able to beat your buddies Raptor. Were you going up the main comp hill? What paddles did you have? What did he have?
#9
12-09-2002, 01:19 PM
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Predator at the Dunes... with video!
The sand varied a lot depending on where you were... a lot of it was still damp underneath, as the paddles would REALLY try to dig in when you'd hit spots like that, especially at low RPM. Yet other areas were soft and dry as usual. It depended a lot on what areas got sunshine and which didn't, I think.
Yes, we raced up the regular Comp Hill. We are both running identical paddles -- Sand Skate II's on 10" rear wheels. And we were both on knobbies on the front (I had switched back to 'em from my Dunetrackers on Sunday to compare).
The sand was actually pretty bumpy... moreso than I can remember. There were new whoops where there weren't any before. There's apparently been a lot of wind, though, because the eastern entry into Superbowl now is not for the faint of heart (it's now a very sheer dropoff)... instead it's the western side that's easy. Also much of the mountain's ridge has been flattened out because people have been riding it so much.
And unfortunately, litter is at an all-time high. I guess nobody really has any respect or consideration once they've ingested a little alcohol, because the entire place was littered with beer bottles, beer cans, and spent fireworks packages. It was EVERYWHERE.
Rob
Yes, we raced up the regular Comp Hill. We are both running identical paddles -- Sand Skate II's on 10" rear wheels. And we were both on knobbies on the front (I had switched back to 'em from my Dunetrackers on Sunday to compare).
The sand was actually pretty bumpy... moreso than I can remember. There were new whoops where there weren't any before. There's apparently been a lot of wind, though, because the eastern entry into Superbowl now is not for the faint of heart (it's now a very sheer dropoff)... instead it's the western side that's easy. Also much of the mountain's ridge has been flattened out because people have been riding it so much.
And unfortunately, litter is at an all-time high. I guess nobody really has any respect or consideration once they've ingested a little alcohol, because the entire place was littered with beer bottles, beer cans, and spent fireworks packages. It was EVERYWHERE.
Rob
#10
12-09-2002, 02:48 PM
