Leaving Cycle Gear in Las Vegas bound for the Mojave desert, I crunched the numbers to figure out how many miles we would have on the new 2025 CFMOTO Ibex 450. The bike was still on break-in protocol that Thursday. By Saturday and Sunday, we’d be racing the lite adventure bike in the arid desert, with sandy washes, rocky outcrops, and open plains, providing a variety of terrain to test out the new motorcycles’ chops; and our own. The cold equation left us with only 460 miles on the new motor for the first oil change.
REVER was an official vendor for the Biltwell 100 and we were on-site to showcase our LiveRIDE functionality so spectators could track riders' locations while on course. We spent the day Friday on-boarding new users and demonstrating LiveRIDE as well as our community features and offline navigation. The Ibex was front and center at our booth, bringing in a constant stream of curious on-lookers with questions. While we had less than 500 miles on this particular unit, Bjorn and I are no strangers to the Ibex 450, having ridden 1300 miles over 5 days through 3 states last summer on the Great Northern Adventure Route. As the crowd dissipated, we completed the first oil change and adjusted the handlebars for a better racing stance.
Ready for battle
Saturday morning we finished on-boarding folks to REVER and prepared for the race ahead. The Ibex, with fresh oil, was ready for battle with several CFMOTO accessories; skid plate, engine guards, rally seat and footpegs and an aftermarket Yoshimura slip-on exhaust. We switched the stock CST tires for some more aggressive Motoz Tractionators. Everything else was stock, including the suspension, although the Biltwell race stickers probably added at least 5 horsepower.
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About 400 motorcycles and racers were all lined up in their rows. It was a rubber band Grand Prix start by class, with the fastest classes first. The race was delayed due to traffic on the course. Row after row of riders waited on varying degrees of ridiculous steeds for the desert; full size adventure bikes, vintage air cooled, mono and dual shock, scramblers, off-road custom-built harley hooligans, and even coleman pull-start mini bikes. As the race got underway each class pulled up to the race line and, in a moment of fury, disappeared into a dust cloud of chaos. Some riders got bucked in the first stretch as the sandy whoops were indiscernible.
Gone in a cloud of dust
Then Bjorn’s class was up. The Ibex sat proud among the KTM 890s, T7s, Tigers and Tuaregs. With almost half the horsepower of any other bike on the line, it would need all the help it could get from the Biltwell race stickers. The line dropped and Bjorn appeared to get the hole-shot for a split second. At least having a clear sightline through most of the first whoops, the Ibex was eventually passed by most of the bigger bikes. As the cloud settled, the racers were on course and out of sight. I turned to my phone to check Bjorn’s progress on the 25 mile loop with LiveRIDE.
I joined Maja, REVER's Support Specialist who raced the Biltwell 100 the last two years, in the pits to await Bjorn’s three stops and hope for a smooth race. Sure enough he came in for the first and second pit with a smile on his dusty face and eager to get back out for another lap. Then on the third stop we added some gas and turned the GoPro on. What happened next was iconic. Lucky for us, Ed Subias, The Faction Moto Magazine creator and solid human being, was there to capture it.
Up in the air
Bjorn started his 4th lap full of energy and course knowledge. With the GoPro taking us along for the ride, though admittedly blunting the difficulty of the track, Bjorn hooped and hollered to other racers, flew through the sandy whoops, and shouted excitedly for the only marked jump on the course. The sign said to send it and Bjorn obliged, while Ed Subias was waiting, finger on the shutter button. As our friend and colleague, Patrick Garvin, put it “that’s what happens when two people who are really good at something work together.”
Bjorn ended up finishing 4th in his class and 24th overall out of 343 finishers Saturday. Satisfied that he had not crashed or damaged the bike, we began getting it ready for another day of punishment. I started preparing mentally, as well. While Bjorn’s experience racing motocross as a teen definitely helped him soar, my lack of experience kept me grounded, with only the goal of completing the race in one piece; me and the bike.
Staying Grounded
I woke up Sunday with butterflies in my stomach and an eagerness to get started. As I pulled up to row 11 to join my class (age 30 - 39 novice men) all on much lighter, modern dirtbikes, I turned on some music to get in the zone. The first riders in the expert class took off, 10 rows ahead. I started tracking on REVER so I could share my location via LiveRIDE, 5 rows from the start. I began to regulate my breathing. 1 row away. We pulled up to the line and I zeroed in on my path. The line dropped and we were off. I was excited to finally be doing the thing, but soon the visibility forced me to slow down a bit and I settled into my rhythm.
The course was challenging, not because it was particularly technical, but because it required good positioning and endurance. This was not a sprint, so I knew I needed to conserve energy as much as possible. Picking up a ~430 lb bike after a crash would be wasted energy. So in my mind, I kept it slow and steady, though it was definitely quicker than my typical weekend-warrior pace.
I finished the first lap with plenty of energy and without any incident, waved at my pit crew and kept going. Lap two felt pretty good, and I didn’t have as much traffic so I picked up the pace. Soon enough I was passing a few riders, though I wasn’t sure which class. As I gained confidence I chose new lines and felt like I was gaining ground, until I came to the bottom of a sandy wash too fast and lost the front tire. The fall didn’t hurt me as bad as my ego while the three riders I had passed rode by. Sure enough, picking up the bike wasted a lot of energy.
The rest of lap two went by smoothly, and I felt good coming into the pits for the second time. I decided I had enough energy and didn’t stop for a break, but that might have been a mistake. About halfway through the 3rd lap, I felt like I hit a brick wall and my body position and ability to react to the terrain was noticeably impaired. I just had to hang on and finish out the race, which worked, until it didn’t. I crashed in the sandy whoops two more times with less than 10 miles to go. My calves were beginning to cramp. Picking my bike up each time and getting started in the deep sand was a chore to say the least. My main goal was to finish the race, but I convinced myself I could finish in under 3 hours. I got through the sand and was relieved to be back on the rocky, solid trail. I crossed the line at 2:53:23, satisfied and exhausted. I finished 21 out of 48 riders in my class and 153 out of 279 riders overall. Good enough for a celebratory beverage.
Bringing it home
Bjorn had to drive home and fly out to Philadelphia the next day, so we parted ways on Sunday. I stayed at a hotel in Ridgecrest, just about 30 miles from the race venue. After a soak in the hot tub, I plotted out my route home. On the table was the Southern California BDR and perhaps a night in Tahoe, but my back and legs were already sore, and judging from Bjorn’s slower movements on Sunday, I didn’t think I was going to enjoy it much. Instead I opted for a quick detour through Death Valley, a stop for lunch in Bishop with some family friends and a quirky hole-in-the wall town in Nevada called Austin.
There’s a restaurant in Austin called Grandma’s that is owned by a rad couple I met while riding the Nevada Backcountry Discovery Route last year. Sarah and her spouse Brandon make great pizza, margaritas and conversation. They also own the Cozy Inn Motel, and I needed some good sleep, because I was hoping to make it to Boise the next day.
This ride might’ve been the most ambitious part of the whole experience. It was not offroad, nor was it scenic and twisty, as much of my highway miles had been previously. I was going through Elko, Jackpot and Twin Falls via popular trucking routes going 70-80 mph through mostly windy plains. While the ride wasn’t all that exciting, with the exception of the blast of wind I felt every time a semi passed on the 2 lane part of the Great Basin Highway, I still enjoyed it. I stopped in Elko at some quaint cafe near mainstreet; the kind of place I know from experience where I can always get unlimited cups of medium roast, fairly weak coffee, which honestly might be my favorite thing to drink on a road trip.
Back on the highway, I had my tunes on as loud as my Cardo could manage, with earplugs to blunt the wind noise. The Ibex doesn’t have cruise control but neither did my Yamaha Tenere 700 that I put 16,000 miles on, and even though the motor is much smaller, once you got to cruising speed, the two bikes didn’t feel much different. I was in the zone again. Instead of racing though, this time I was chipping away the miles. By the end of the trip I had over 1500 miles on the bike and more than 30 hours in the saddle since thursday, and I have to say, the rally seat provided more comfort than I'm used to.
If you’re curious whether a 450cc twin cylinder lite adventure bike made in China is capable of racing somewhat fast and also somewhat moderately in the desert, then riding home 1000+ miles on both scenic and twisty roads as well as high speed trucking routes in traffic, let me tell you, not only IS it capable, it can also be downright enjoyable. Though if I’m honest, I should have scouted a more interesting route in REVER from Austin to Boise, rather than the quickest.
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