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Some of you guys on here have blown my mind with how low some of guys can get. Throwing low blows at a man down.. (like punching a guy that's for sure knocked out).
That crash was nasty. One of the worst I have seen. .
The Shop
Ken was probably looking too far forward down the race track. Heal soon, Ken.
If you look at the video in slow-mo, Roczen's rear shock is fully compressed upon landing and then continues to be fully compressed as he leaves the jump and encounters the kicker. The resulting kick was massive as the shock was fully packed and it had no remaining dampening available to help whatsoever.
Now that we've seen this twice with Roczen on the Honda (MEC and A2), I wondering if there is a inherent flaw with the new design of the rear shock. Honda lowered the shock to accomodate the intake track, did they reduce the length of the shock shaft, or make some other possible compromise?
At the level and speed Roczen is riding, it's conceivable that the 1st generation design is a factor in what we are witnessing and kRoc is being Honda's test pilot.
Can some of you just be decent human beings and show some compassion for gods sake? Some real shit heads on this site. You ever crash and get jacked up like that? Most of us that actually ride have and I can only imagine what's going on in Roczens head right now. The pain was probably ridiculous. He's probably just worried for his health and his mind is running through the crash. He's somebody's son and his parents are probably worried sick. What if that was you laying there with people pointlesssly commenting about how his cockiness and over confidence caused this. Just keep your fingers crossed that this young man is not permanently messed up.....then you can go back to making the sarcastic, compassionless comments like before.
Note....the negative comments got changed or removed!
Tonight, he landed a little deep off the first rhythm, into a rut, blowing the shock through the stroke right as the bike hit a very abrupt triple face (a few guys had similar bucks with the abruptness of this lip).
Another factor, in my opinion, on why the reaction was so severe is Ken typically likes softer settings (from what I've been told by both his prior teams) which could compound this reaction.
Lastly, the bike itself wouldn't have a "flaw" in my opinion. The linkage ratio on this bike has been modified to match up to a near equal value of the previous models (well within the range of what other manufactures use). Their shock travel/stroke length wasn't compromised with the change either.
The track bit him is the ass tonight in a bad way. Motocross is such a mental sport and when you are on it feels like a magical high. The unfortunate part of that is the "magic" is like an addiction. We've seen it numerous times over the past few years. It's bitten James, Eli, Reed, RV, Pastrana, and now Kenny. The riders that have learned to modulate it over time like Carmichael, McGrath, and Dungey have been the most consistently successful. They learned to straddle the line between a high and an overdose.
Motocross is a bad drug.
Pit Row
As for the shock... Yes, the total length of the unit shorter. This is due to a much shorter clevis and using up some of the dead space inside the shock. All said and done, the total stroke length is only about 2-3mms difference. Yamaha has had shorter stroke lengths than this recently. Hell, some tuners place 10mm plates in their shocks to lower them and remove more stroke length than Honda did with this all new shock.
Hoping Kenny will be ok and will have a speedy recovery.
I wish him a full, speedy recovery.
This sport is full of risks and can bite ya at any time.
I may not be good at racing but I am decent at crashing. He should grip with his knees/legs and hang on to those bars when this stuff happens.
Post a reply to: Another Ken Roczen Update: Latest Elbow Surgery