Buck 25 Part 2 Web Extras

Photos By Drew Ruiz, Scott Hoffman, Adam Booth, Karel Kramer, Mark Kariya, Joanna McMorris, Pete Peterson, Casey Sheets And Mike Farmer

If you’ve read the October 2012 Dirt Rider “Buck 25 Part 2” story, then you know these bikes. We had so much fun building and riding the things we wound up with an overflow of stories. Below are the bike builders’ comments on how their Buck 25 compares to their favorite bikes of all time. Mike Gosselaar also shares some behind-the-scenes decision-making on Ricky Carmichael’s switch to four-strokes… twice. Brian Catterson takes you on an adventure this story may send you on – buying that used 125. Destry Abbott snuck into this story when he railed some laps on the 2004 KX with a GoPro on his head, and finally we assembled the companies that make these seven project bikes possible.

My 125 vs. The World

After the pre-mix buzzes wore off, we got the builders to give us a ranking of how their 125s compared with the other bikes they’ve owned, ridden, or raced:

FACTORY FRANKENSTEIN
2005 Suzuki RM125

What sticks out in my mind from the times I got to ride a full works 450 is how good the suspension and brakes work. But the engine’s just too much and I have a hard time riding it to any sort of potential, where with my 125, when I ride it I feel comfortable, I have a lot of fun, it makes a lot of noise, I don’t know if it’s going anywhere but you sure feel like you are. You’ve got to really think ahead and think about where you’re going to enter the corner and where you’re gong to exit where on a 450 you just get to the corner, put the brakes on, turn it, turn the throttle and get out of the corner. You can’t do that on a 125. I encourage younger riders, and all riders, to see what a 125 is like. I think it makes you a better rider because it forces you to keep momentum in the corners. I see a lot of people nowadays – you go to a local track and people can jump anything because they have the torque, but you watch them go through a corner and a lot of them don’t have a lot of cornering skills because it isn’t required on these powerful four-strokes. Riding a 125 is a unique opportunity and before they all disappear, and I hope they never all disappear, I think everybody should go out and try one. It’s not for everybody, but it’s a really affordable way to go racing or just to own a dirt bike and be able to ride on a track. – Mike Gosselaar

FUNBUCKET
2005 Honda CR125
The best handling bike I’ve ever ridden is any fresh 2004-08 Suzuki RM250. My Honda 125 might not be as eager to lay over, but it has that same sureness through the rut, plus that Honda build and component quality. The 2006 KX250F and I clicked, but I don’t want a four-stroke for that heavy, less-fun feeling. One fine day on a deeply-tilled track I could do no wrong on the potent 2007 KX250, but that’s because bikes handle better when you’re on the power. When the dirt isn’t so deep I can still twist the right grip on my CR. I wish my bike had the current model YZ125’s power and plushness, but my bike corners and responds to body English better. The current KTM 125’s buttery-smooth vibration tone would be nice, but I feel more natural riding my Honda, and the last KTM 150 I rode (2011) hit too hard for me to ride effectively. A CR’s narrow powerband is easier to ride than the KTM’s nuclear one. If I could cherrypick just the best traits from those bikes, I’d have the perfect ride. As the world stands, the closest I’m going to get is my little retro 125. – Pete Peterson

SPARES BIKE
2003 Yamaha YZ125
I do love my 125, but my all time favorite is an ‘06 or newer YZ250. I really don’t think there is a better, more user friendly, Do All Bike, that really does nothing wrong, ever. If I had a second choice it would be a Gas Gas 200. They feel really nimble, have the best hydraulic clutch there is to offer and are just a super fun bike to ride. But that’s just me. For now I’ll be on my “One Duce Nickel.” – Scot Dorsey

THE CAT’S MEOW
2003 KTM 125 SX
Unfortunately, I’ve gotten lazy riding big-bore four-strokes, and not even a year on a KTM 350 SX-F could prepare me for the effort of riding a two-stroke again. It’s a myth that racing a 125 is easy: They may be lightweight, but you’ve got to stay on top of them, pinning the throttle, fanning the clutch and shifting constantly. Rule number one is you should never race a bike that you outweigh, thus my 125 struggles to haul my butt off the starting gate and up hills. Lower gearing and liberal clutch abuse work wonders. Fortunately, it’s a simple matter to up displacement to 144, 170 or even 200cc. Not that I’d ever do that—it’s cheating! – Brian Catterson

SUZY (My Dirty Girl)
2003 Suzuki RM125
As far as performance goes, I wouldn’t exactly put this bike up against the world, but if you are talking fun factor, then you might have a battle on your hands. I spent plenty of time teething on a ’97 and ’98 RM125. I was quite a bit smaller then, but this bike brings back some great memories. I can feel this frame flex and at times it has me wondering what all it has been through. Yes, that is in the back of my mind when jumping, but give me a natural track of turns and hills and I’ll ride this bike carefree all day. The motor is stronger and less finicky than my 2000 CR125 and it is hard to beat that patented Suzuki handling. I would love more power similar to the latest YZ, KTM or Husky 125s, but this bike brings me one thing those don’t… childhood memories. When compared to the latest batch of four-strokers… sure the performance isn’t at the same level, but this bike screams fun. I can’t resist smiling when I ride my RM125 and that alone speaks for itself. – Chris Barrett

FREE PUPPY
2002 Honda CR125
When you spend many years on one particular bike you tend to adapt to its weaknesses and maximize its strengths. When you spend those years on a 2006 Husky TC 250 you develop a love/hate relationship. I’ve won more enduros on that bike than anything else and I’ve also become a much better rider. It turns great, has decent suspension, and carries its tremendous weight down low to help plow through the rocks. However, once you hop off that bike onto another you realize how down on power it is, even compared to a 125. The CR is top notch in the handling department and even though she’s a skinny gal, she goes through the rocks and junk incredibly well. I’m a need-it-all type of guy, I need a bike to moto well and handle off-road too, and since I’m slow and don’t jump, unless it’s to the front of the line at the bar for last call, I can pretty much get the best of both worlds on the CR 125. You sacrifice power on the small bore two stroke but make up for it by having an easy to start, lightweight bike that really doesn’t wear you out. At the moment, my fleet of bikes includes the 2002 CR125, 2006 TC250 and a newly acquired 2002 RM250 so I have a pretty broad choice of bikes to ride, each with good traits. When I walk into my garage and get ready to go ride, I find myself looking at the 125 more often than not…– Chris Tidwell

THE CHAMP
2004 Kawasaki KX125

My all-time favorite motorcycle is the 2012 CRF250, it has great suspension, an easy-to-use motor and is light handling. That bike helped with my confidence in the turns and around the track. As for my new Pro-Circuit KX125, it is even lighter and the suspension works amazing with its Buck 25 feel. My 125 handles incredibly and builds my confidence in the turns which actually improves my cornering. The big 450s have too much power and end up slowing me down in the turns because it’s easier to just gas it down the straights. This 125 motor is easy to use and strong all the way through, so I don’t have to always ride it wide open like most 125s. If I’m not comfortable hitting the outside, I can change my line to the inside and just roll on the throttle. Sure, it doesn’t have the torque of the latest four-strokes, but it is still quite impressive. With this PC motor and suspension combo I would put this bike up against any of the late model 125s. This bike steals the show at the track; everyone stops to check it out and everyone wants to ride it. 125s are a lot of fun and when you start pumping up the performance… well… they become even more fun. – Mike Barrett

RC’S SWITCH UP, AND BACK, AND UP, AND BACK AGAIN
Mike Gosselaar tells the story of Ricky Carmichael’s 2-4-2-4 switch-up.

Mike Gosselaar was the mechanic for Ricky Carmichael when RC went from two-strokes to four-storkes… twice! As much as the Buck 25 Part 2 story is about a love for two-strokes, we didn’t want to leave out this story of an insider’s perspective on one champion’s first switch from smokers to thumpers during testing at the end of 2003 –

“When Ricky made the decision to go from two-stroke to four-stroke we’d been testing with Japanese engineers for a week straight and I forget if it was Ernie’s (Fonseca) or Nathan Ramsey’s bike [Honda], I think it was Ernesto’s, but at the time we were at the track and at the end of a week’s testing, we were getting ready to go to Europe, and Ricky goes, ‘Hey, let me try your bike on the supercross track.’ And I remember standing there with Johnny O’Mara and we’d been keeping lap times for a week. Ricky jumped on the four-stroke, on the supercross track, and on the second lap he was a second and a half faster than his best time on that two-stroke. And he wasn’t even really pushing and he came in and Johnny and I look at each other, ‘Did you get that time?!’ Johnny goes, ‘Yeah, I got that time.’ Ricky came in and said, ‘This thing feels pretty good.’ We tell him, ‘You’re going almost two seconds a lap faster.’ He says, ‘No way, I’m not even pushing it.’ Ricky decided right then and there, he said, ‘You know what, all this testing we’ve been doing, I need to switch over to a four-stroke.’ And unfortunately he never really got to race it in supercross because, this was on a Friday, and the next Monday when we went out to start doing four-stroke testing his knee popped out and he was done for the season. But it was just a decision just like that – riding the two-stroke, jumped on the four-stroke, for a guy with his skills, it was definitely a step up, but you’re also increasing the displacement by almost double… The Japanese had come out – they come out right before the supercross season, they figure out what you’re going to need to go racing, they do all the testing then they go home. We had finished testing, and Ricky jumped on that four-stroke, and changed his mind right then and there. The Japanese were blown away because, it was like, ‘Wait a minute, we’re not even set up for Ricky to go race a four-stroke.’ Then in ‘05 he went back to the two-stroke. That was the thing, he never raced the four-stroke in supercross because, like I said the next Monday we went up to Castillo’s, we were doing a top-secret four-stroke test, and he went out just to go warm up, and in his warm up – he didn’t do anything funny, he already had problems with his knees, and his knee came out, and we were done. We never raced the Honda 450 in supercross. He raced it outdoors and went 24-0, then we went to Suzuki and he went back to a two-stroke. He’d always wanted to ride another brand of two-stroke and see what they were like, and I think it was a great opportunity for him to get one more year on a two-stroke. He was the last one to win a championship on a two-stroke.”

ADVENTURES IN BUYING
From The May 2012 Motorcyclist Column “Cat Tales” By Brian Catterson

“Super clean runs great bought it from a friend that needed money about three months ago still in the garage needed room newborn on the way.”

So read the Craigslist ad for the 2003 KTM 125 SX I bought recently. Never mind the lack of punctuation (EE Cummings didn’t use any either), the fact that a newborn can’t be “on the way” or the Metal Mulisha stickers on its radiator shrouds, I got the thing for just $1200, which is a steal. A brand-new 2012 model retails for $6299.

Why was I in the market for a 125cc motocrosser? Good question. In the interest of keeping two-strokes alive, and racing affordable, REM recently started a 125 A (for Adult) class with discounted entry fees. “Bring out your trusty-but-rusty 125s,” read the announcement. And while I do own a rusty (though not particularly trusty) 1983 Cagiva WMX125, that’s about 15 years older than the next eldest bike out there. So I needed to get something newer.

But which 125 to buy? Poring over old road tests, I learned that 2003 KTMs had two qualities I desired: power and durability. Moreover, because that was the first year of the current-generation engine, they can be updated or—should I find myself getting my butt kicked and resolve to cheat—punched out to 144, 170 or even 200cc by mixing and matching parts from other models.

From the moment I spied the framed Kat von D poster on the garage wall, I knew I was in trouble. A macho Latino who apparently didn’t believe in birth control, the seller rolled his ATV, a mini-bike and four or five bicycles (some with training wheels) out of the way, and there stood the KTM. It didn’t look too bad from across the room, much as it had in the low-resolution images on the Internet. As I looked closer, however, I wished I hadn’t…

From the pretzeled radiators and broken pipe mount to the flattened rear rim with its spokes as loose as bass guitar strings, there were a bunch of problems that needed fixing. The trouble with 125s is they’re typically ridden by teenagers who crash a lot, can’t afford to make repairs and neglect basic maintenance.

I checked to see if the pipe was warm (it wasn’t), then asked if I could take the bike for a spin. It started on the first kick, and while it smoked like a mosquito fogger on its stale gas/oil mix, the obligatory blast up and down the street revealed that it ran fine.
I thumbed the kill button, hopped off the bike, took a long, hard look at it and told the seller I didn’t think he could get much more than $1200 for it.

“Cash? Now?”

I knew I should have said a grand.

I handed him a dozen Benjamins and he handed me a title signed by his friend nearly a year prior—so much for having bought the bike three months ago. The DMV will ding me for that extra year’s registration, on top of sales tax, which will likely cost more than the $300 I talked him down. But who cares? I’ve got a 125 now, and gave an obviously abused motorcycle a good home!

What’s my point? Just this: If you’ve ever wanted to buy a dirtbike—or really, any motorcycle—there’s never been a better time than now. With nearly one in 10 Americans unemployed, people are reevaluating their priorities and selling those “toys” they don’t absolutely need dirt cheap. You could feel bad about taking advantage of them, but by giving them money for their motorcycle you’re actually helping them.

If you can’t deal with the guilt, offer to sell it back to them once they get back on their feet…

VIDEO Buck 25’s “The Champ” Piloted by Destry Abbott At Zaca Station

And if you haven’t seen this video yet, Destry Abbott jumped aboard Mike Barrett’s 2004 KX125 during a Kawi event up at Zaca Station in Buelton, CA. Listen to that engine scream for a couple laps, and don’t miss Destry’s two-word bike opinion as he pulls off the track.

http://www.dirtrider.com/features/destry-abbott-blasting-a-kx125-two-stroke/

Company Lists

And last but not least, and the best place to start if you’re building your own Buck 25, the companies that made these bikes possible…

FACTORY FRANKENSTEIN
2005 Suzuki RM125
Builder: Mike Gosselaar
Companies:

Pro Circuit www.procircuit.com 951.738.8050
MotoTassinari www.mototassinari.com 603.298.6646
Hinson Racing www.hinsonracing.com 909.946.2942
Cernics www.cernics.com 800.237.6425
RG3 Suspension www.rg3suspension.com 714.630.0786
Works Connection www.worksconnection.com 800.349.1475
Wiseco www.wiseco.com 800.321.1364
Dunlop www.dunlopmotorcycle.com 800.845.8378
Factory Effex www.factoryeffex.com 800.866.0709
Suzuki www.suzuki-racing.com

FUNBUCKET
2005 Honda CR125
Builder: Pete Peterson
Companies:

JD Jetting www.jdjetting.com 253.939.7114
Factory Connection www.factoryconnection.com 866.220.1151
Fasst Company www.fasstco.com 877.306.1801
FMF www.fmfracing.com 310.631.4363
Sunstar www.sunstar-mc.com 937.743.9049
DeCal Works www.decalmx.com 815.784.4000
SDG Seats www.sdgusa.com 949.752.5227
Cycra www.cycraracing.com 800.770.2259
BRP www.brpmoto.com 800.834.9363
Scar www.scar-racingusa.com 800.749.2890
Twin Air www.twinairusa.com 800.749.2890
Motion Pro www.motionpro.com 650.594.9600
Dunlop www.dunlopmotorcycle.com 800.845.8378
Spectro Oils www.spectro-oils.com 203.775.1291

SPARES BIKE
2003 Yamaha YZ125
Builder: Scot Dorsey
Companies:

Millennium Tech www.mt-llc.com 920.893.5595
Noleen www.j6shocks.com 760.955.8757
John Burr Cycles www.johnburrcycles.com 909.823.1338
IMS www.imsproducts.com 800.237.9906
Excell www.rkexcelamerica.com 760.732.3161
DEP Exhaust www.deppipesusa.com 302.337.3285
Pro Taper www.protaper.com 951.736.5369
G2 Ergonomics www.g2ergo.com 815.718.5860
Kenda www.kendausa.com 614.866.9803
Yamaha www.yamaha-motor.com 800.962.7926

THE CAT’S MEOW
2003 KTM 125 SX
Builder: Brian Catterson
Companies:

Race Tech www.racetech.com 951.279.6655
Renthal www.renthal.com 877.736.8425
Factory Effex www.factoryeffex.com 800.866.0709
Acerbis www.acerbisusa.com 800.659.1440
Myler’s Radiator www.motorcycleradiators.com 801.955.1421
FMF www.fmfracing.com 310.631.4363
MotoTassinari www.mototassinari.com 603.298.6646
Dunlop www.dunlopmotorcycle.com 800.845.8378

SUZY (My Dirty Girl)
2003 Suzuki RM125
Builder: Chris Barrett
Companies:

Factory Effex www.factoryeffex.com 800.866.0709
Renthal www.renthal.com 877.736.8425
Kenda www.kendausa.com 614.866.9803
Acerbis www.acerbisusa.com 800.659.1440
Pivot Works www.pivotworks.com 515.402.8000

FREE PUPPY
2002 Honda CR125
Builder: Chris Tidwell
Companies:

Fasst Company www.fasstco.com 877.306.1801
Mid Cities Honda www.mid-citieshonda.com 888.643.6686
Mad Jack Racing www.madjack-racing.com 805.842.1313
Hinson Racing www.hinsonracing.com 909.946.2942
Eric Gorr Forward Motion www.eric-gorr.com 630.825.5645
TBT Suspension www.tbtracing.com 951.707.7837
BRP www.brpmoto.com 800.834.9363
Dirt Tricks Sprockets www.dirttricks.com 775.267.6361
FMF www.fmfracing.com 310.631.4363
TCR Wheels www.wheellacing.com 209.368.9800
Maxxis Tires www.maxxis.com
PG Graphics www.ridepg.com 800.903.6764
IMS www.imsproducts.com 800.237.9906
Works Connection www.worksconnection.com 530.942.9488
SDG Seats www.sdgusa.com 949.752.5227
Acerbis www.acerbisusa.com 800.659.1440
AME Grips www.amegrips.com 702.835.0681
Streamline Brakes www.streamlinebrakes.com 909.987.4213
Myler’s Radiator www.motorcycleradiators.com 801.955.1421
Pivot Works www.pivotworks.com 515.402.8000
JD Jetting www.jdjetting.com 253.939.7114
Torco Oils www.torcousa.com 909.980.1495
CV4 www.cvproducts.com 800.448.1223