PHOTOS BY MIKE EMERY 061
relatively neutral, as are his handlebars—running
near parallel to the fork angle—although he does
run a taller bar clamp that felt great. He runs a
quick-turn throttle cam that ultimately allows him
to get to full throttle quicker. It is also worth men-
tioning, you cannot find neutral on this bike. A
false neutral on a jump face could be catastroph-
ic, and the team takes no chances.
The most notable difference in his setup was the
seat. Every seat I have ever seen has a smooth,
tapered transition from the top of the seat that
gradually gets wider at the base and follows the
same taper into the side panels. Dean runs a grip-
per, pleated GUTS seat cover to keep him planted
while sitting on the seat, but the sides bulge out
a couple inches, mushrooming out over the side
panels with soft foam. Think muffin top. Dean says
it gives him something extra to hold onto with his
knees as he stands up on the bike. Being tall my-
self, I often find that trying to squeeze the bike
while standing leads to an awkward knock-kneed
stance. I fell in love with his seat in two minutes.
The grip and control was amazing.I grew up with the impression that factory race
bikes hit so hard they would want to rip the bars
out of your hands. Nothing could be further from
the truth with Dean Wilson’s bike. The power
is strong right off idle; however, the delivery is
smooth and measured from the bottom and into
the midrange. I was surprised at how easy it was
to control. In fact, there were points in the pow-
erband that I thought were actually stronger on
the stock bike. For instance, I spent a little time
on the vet track—which was extremely fast and
smooth—to strictly concentrate on the power de-
livery with no other distractions. The stock motor
was fairly progressive down low, but there was an
aggressive surge in the midrange that made thebike consistently want to wheelie about 100 feet
out of the corner; it required me to either slide
my weight forward considerably or break the
drive to the rear wheel with a quick stab of the
clutch. Either way, it was extra work and less ef-
ficient. Dean’s bike on the other hand, felt every
bit as fast; however, the linear delivery was much
easier to control and kept the front-end down,
which allowed me to twist the throttle hard and
not think about playing defense. The geometry
of the bike may have played a role in the front-
end staying connected to the track as well—I will
get into that in a moment. The top-end was just
as versatile. It made awesome power whether I
shifted or not. In fact, I couldn’t find the rev lim-
iter or a flat spot in the power—the bike pulled as
far as I wanted until I ran out of straight. Although
the bike ripped, the first words I would use to
describe it would be user-friendly and efficient
rather than crazy fast.