TMX Says: Talking sense when in a rut
By TMX Archives on 15th Mar 17
FOR someone who prides himself on not talking a whole lot of sense I cant help but think that Leo Cordingley talks a whole lot of sense.
For those of you who don't know who he is, he's a bit of a legend on the enduro scene and is well-known for being an ace spanner-spinner, bike set-up merchant and merciless p*ss-taker – basically a good guy to know unless you don't appreciate deprecating humour.
As a follower of his on social media I often get an insight into the depths of his mind. Sometimes it's LOL funny, at others downright scary and occasionally insightful enough for me to have to use that ‘musing' emoji, albeit sparingly – we don't want his already mahoosive noggin to get any bigger now, do we?
Anyhoo, the particular comment that made me like it enough to hit the ‘like' button was in a thread started by VMXdN head honcho Dave King about how modern track design is whack and the 1990s were so much better etc etc...
Leo's comment was basically along the lines of when you're at a ripped-up track and everyone's looking at all the ruts in the corners saying ‘ooh, look at all those lines' the truth is that there's only one good rut and a stack of bad ones.
So, although it looks like ripping the track up has created a stack of choice the opposite is actually true – everyone will use the good rut until that's no longer working and then the next one will take a hammering until that's next to useless and so on.
To explain it to death let's all think of a perfectly flat corner piecing together two hellishly rough straights with acceleration and braking bumps.
Now think how many ways there are for you to get round it depending on which lines you fancy taking down the straights it connects. Wide-tight. Tight-tight. Tight-wide. Wide-wide. Wide-tight-wide. Tight-wide-tight and my own personal favourite – tight-wide-faceplant-dirt snooze-ambulance ride.
Ripping up tracks has basically taken some of that creativity – and passing opportunity – away and to a degree has made racing a little less exciting, although motocross is still absolutely awesome, obviously.
To a certain degree the same could be said of jumps with landings – tabletops, doubles, triples and the like.
When the landing spot is dictated to you then the speed you can hit it is kind of limited too. Go too slow and you come up short, too fast and you go long and then there's the sweet Goldilocks spot – just right and just right.
Fortunately, scrubbing was invented in the early-to-mid noughties and that became a way in which to make up the time you can no longer make up in the turns – as everyone's railing the exact same rut.
Perhaps the disappointing thing is that away from the vintage and evo scene, the want to ride tracks that aren't ripped and prepped to perfection is more or less non-existent and the new breed of riders will never know what it's like to have to string together several corners to set-up a pass or gain that all-important time advantage.
On the subject of old school stuff I'd just like to congratulate Dick Law on filing his 1,000th report to TMX Towers.
Dick's been providing content to us for longer than any of us can – or want to – remember and we'd like to whole heartedly thank him for his efforts. If – like us – you've enjoyed Dick over the years then please write in and tell us all about it. Until next week...
