The Torture Test: Defined

You're in for a treat: Jesse Ziegler laid out the day as it had initially (time-wise) been planned for you here:

The Test: Building a bike, getting it to California and having it ready to rip at 7 am is one thing; but putting it through Dirt Rider's day is another. Here's the schedule every bike had to follow:

7:30 am: Weigh-in and measure for the bikes. We put the bikes on the scales with full tanks and measure the seat height, ground clearance and footpeg height.

7:45 am: Radar Test: Each bike goes through two full-on motocross starts to near top speed. One run is done with the team's hero rider and one with Dirt Rider's Jimmy Lewis. The radar graphs are stored for comparison during final evaluation and, as we've seen, really show what the bikes are putting to the ground.

7:45 am: (Riders have their choice to go to Radar or Escargot) Escargot Test: It's the constant circle resembling a snail's shell from the air. Riders enter and exit the test in the same spot spinning to the left on the way in then turning right on the way out. Two test times are taken, one with the Hero rider of the teams' choice and one with DR's Chris Denison or guest test rider Alexander Smith who's accompanied Denison to the top of Pikes Peak on CRF150R's so they have history.

8:30 am: Moto Test: Full-on motocross sprint laps for time. Rynoland's lower motocross track is huge, beat up and old-school bad (in a good way). It features rough off-cambers, distant straight-aways, tight-faced jumps, enormous sand-whoops and multiple-line sweepers around every turn. Again, every bike's hero rider spun a fast lap and then either DR staffer Jesse Ziegler or guest tester Dave Donatoni followed suit. Lap times for the Dirt Rider mortals were right around three minutes! That's a long lap.

9 am: Trail Test: Trail #2 was the site for the standard trail test. Its two miles of mixed single-track and open GP trails proved the perfect proving grounds for the off-road versatility of these machines. Here, the test bikes heroes had their turn followed by DR all stars Kris Keefer and Ryan Orr.

9:30 am: Extreme Test: EnduroCross. Erzberg. Last Man Standing. The Tough One. Romaniacs. Extreme enduro competitions inspire this beast of a test. Its short-but-sweaty course tortured bikes with rock piles, sand hills, behemoth rain-ruts and a near-vertical wall ride perched above a dirty pond. After all, it's not the Tame Test. It's the Torture Test. Again, national champions from different disciplines took their laps and then handed the bikes over to Lewis and DR cover-boy Chris Barrett for comparable times.

9:30 am: Stationary Sound Test: This is pretty basic. Excessive bike noise kills riding areas, tracks and our sport in general. In Dirt Rider's ongoing effort to kill loud pipes, we sound test each Torture Test bike to encourage better sound management. Test bikes were not required to meet a specific sound level, but really bike builders should know we hate loud pipes. That didn't stop some bikes from being too loud.

12:30 pm: Lunch, Red Bull Area: Yep, it's lunch. And it was provided by Red Bull. However, there were so many more people there than who RSVP'd that lunch actually ran out. Next year, we're doubling our order.

1 pm: Test Bikes to DR Test Teams: After the standard tests were completed, Dirt Rider Staffers, Jimmy Lewis, Karel Kramer, Jesse Ziegler and Chris Denison split the bikes into categories based on engine size, configuration, purpose or style and went off with groups of four additional testers to evaluate and compare the bikes head-to-head. This was crunch-time where each bike had to perform in a variety of terrain types with a small sample group of talent aboard. Testers rode, discussed, rode, discussed, stated their cases and finally, by 5 pm, each group had narrowed it down to the best-of-the best.

5 pm: Dinner, Red Bull Area: Ok, as popular as lunch was, there was some nervousness about the quantity of dinner, but Red Bull pulled through with some of the best track food Dirt Rider has ever enjoyed. And, there seemed to be plenty this time. After a day of testing for the teams and test riders, and a day of playing for the hundreds of industry insiders who came out for the ride day, the meal was a welcome break.

6 pm: Final Bikes Selection: the best bikes were singled out of the line of test bikes. 6 models made the final cut and will be tested in the following weeks by the Dirt Rider staff with the goal of finding the Torture Test Champion. You'll see full tests of all the bikes here on www.dirtrider.com soon as well as the announcement of the top six contenders. We'll be shooting those out in the magazine for page-flipping goodness.

7 pm: Evening Poker Run: Now that most of the work was over, anyone with headlights on their bikes was invited to participate in Dirt Rider's 2nd annual poker run. The winner would get a shiny new t-shirt but the ride was the real prize. The poker run course consisted of all three trails (two of which were built for industry-guest-fun-only-no testing) with hidden card checks spread amongst them. The checks are the most interesting part and while the trails connecting them were a blast, the Gorilla suit at check five and San Felipe Bob at check three were entertainment on a whole new level. Dubach Racing Development's Terry Beal won the poker run with three Kings, even though we tried to cheat with four Kings.

Wed Feb. 4 8-11 am: additional testing and specific photo shooting (cover): We like Torture Test bikes on the cover of the magazine so; we took a few of the selected six and sent them out to Rynoland's acres once again with some fancy riders to shoot possible cover photos. The groups didn't roll into the pits until around noon and the other bikes were being tested by Lewis, who doesn't ever get tired, apparently.