City Slickers Guide to Blisters: Ride Report

It’s not a secret that I often write from the mean streets of NYC. Far away from the fun and dirt we all love. So when I get a chance to fly home to Michigan and moto I jump on it. Literally?

For those of you that can spare the inconvenience and headache of predictably delayed air travel, I recommend the Spirit 9$ fair club. For 60$ per year you get the opportunity to sit around an airport at significantly reduced prices. When the weather warms up this ‘club’ allows me the chance to travel back to my KTM and break her down regularly.

This time after a 7 hour delay I finally landed in Detroit, dodged a few bullets and by 10am the next morning was back on my scooter. We rode at PPS Boss man Danny Blooms house, sand galore. It had rained the day before and the dirt was premium.

Bloom rides his TM MX 300 over the sand rollers at Big T’s Superplex.

I wanted to get in as much moto as possible but first had to attend to some much neglected maintenance on my young bike. While living afar from your steed ( much like your girlfriend ) when you get back together you just want to ride. So the oil may have been in a moto too long, the chain might have had a bit too much slack, but outside of that she was good to go. Right?

I fired the 150cc thunder and headed off to start feeling out the new track layout and my first time on a dirtbike in 8 months. Bike felt good, we started reconnecting again and I was starting to get in the zone.  After a long time away from the bike it is always good to start out working on getting your timing points down again, clutch, brake points, and working on corner speed.  Acceleration from corners was not where I felt the 150 should be, and it sounded a bit odd.  Wait is that pinging?

After two days of moto, my hands were throttled.

My bike was pinging like no other, so I figured it was the heat and eased up on the throttle.  After a bit longer I pulled into the pits, gave her a once over and Dan noticed my famous KTM exhaust issue.  The main stay bolt on the expansion chamber had rattled loose and one of the two exhaust springs had fallen into the dirt of the track.  Shit.  I had been riding with an exhaust leak. I gave everything the proper inspection, sealed it up and then started to put it together into longer and longer motos.  By the end of day one I had done two 15 minute motos back to back.

Day 2:  We shifted to Alex’s house in Saline in order to get a look at some new terrain.  He had done some track work and as soon as we pulled into the driveway Dans response to the work?  ”Oh man, Alex f*cked that doubles face up.”  Oh well.  When you don’t ride often, and your job relies on you being physically able to workout with other athletes, jumping the doubles is suddenly less important than it was two years ago.  My moto this trip is going to mostly be on the ground.

All this time spent on the ground lead to one serious issue, tons and tons of blisters.  My soft city-slicker hands were not used to the beating they were taking.  They turned into a serious set of dots and spots.

Risk racing has a set of palm protectors for sale over on Rocky Mountain MC I am looking forward to reviewing on my next trip home to Michigan.  In the meantime, without a slick set of Palm Protectors I utilized Gorilla Glue Super Glue.  Cover the blistered area with a thin layer of glue, let it dry and repeat.  This creates a short term callous and let me moto for the rest of the day.

Next ride trip, I will be putting Palm Protectors by Risk Racing up against the tried and true ‘super glue’ method. Which will work best?

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