First trackday of the season. First trackday on the R1.
The thing is a bit of a beast on highways etc. On a closed circuit with sharp second gear late apex corners following straights, the thing is downright mental.
We have a bit of a short track here (lap record is 57.8 seconds and average intermediate pace is around 1:04:00 ballpark) Coming out of our turn 2 onto our back straight, ideally I should have it revved up and ready to hit its powerband as it straightens up. Instead I keep it a gear high to give me some room to breathe. Still running street plastics and won't have race plastics thrown on until next time out.
Even then, The front wheel touches up off the ground right as the road hits a small ridge and the whole front edge chatters wildly as it sets back down a bunch of the time since I'm still coming down ever so crooked half the time.
As the day progresses, 8 hours of working on pace and getting steadily more comfortable on the bike, I start to get progressively more aggressive. I enter each corner a little bit quicker, and get a little bit harder and later on the brakes each time. Starting to trailbrake at the end of the back straight dropping from near 200kph the rear has a tendency to squirm from side to side.
Still, I'm feeling good. I've never managed a pace anywhere close to this before. The FZ6, while a great bike, was not set up ergonomically and didn't quite have the brakes or turn-me-you-bastard mentality of the R1, not to mention the motor.
Trackdays on an R1?
In a word?
Weeeeeeeeeeeeee
Having faith in the bike, yourself, your tires, you really start to throw into corners at speeds you previously thought ludicrous. Never would have dreamed of entering some of these corners as recently as last year as hard on the brakes and as high in speed as I found myself managing.
People, get out there and pick up a trackbike.
Seriously.
Anyway, I've got a bunch of video and pics but for now I'll just post these. The rest are at home.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wwertI6ND8&feature=share]Off-roading at Strato - YouTube[/ame]
:BLAA:
Obviously it was bound to happen. Still made it through the day without crashing. Next time I will for sure be putting on race plastics. I don't want to mess up my street kit. I had told myself I'd be "just having fun and keeping it slow". That didn't last long haha. Bout halfway through the day I managed to start wearing my kneepucks down properly.
I've got some more video and stuff I'll throw up later.
The thing is a bit of a beast on highways etc. On a closed circuit with sharp second gear late apex corners following straights, the thing is downright mental.
We have a bit of a short track here (lap record is 57.8 seconds and average intermediate pace is around 1:04:00 ballpark) Coming out of our turn 2 onto our back straight, ideally I should have it revved up and ready to hit its powerband as it straightens up. Instead I keep it a gear high to give me some room to breathe. Still running street plastics and won't have race plastics thrown on until next time out.
Even then, The front wheel touches up off the ground right as the road hits a small ridge and the whole front edge chatters wildly as it sets back down a bunch of the time since I'm still coming down ever so crooked half the time.
As the day progresses, 8 hours of working on pace and getting steadily more comfortable on the bike, I start to get progressively more aggressive. I enter each corner a little bit quicker, and get a little bit harder and later on the brakes each time. Starting to trailbrake at the end of the back straight dropping from near 200kph the rear has a tendency to squirm from side to side.
Still, I'm feeling good. I've never managed a pace anywhere close to this before. The FZ6, while a great bike, was not set up ergonomically and didn't quite have the brakes or turn-me-you-bastard mentality of the R1, not to mention the motor.
Trackdays on an R1?
In a word?
Weeeeeeeeeeeeee
Having faith in the bike, yourself, your tires, you really start to throw into corners at speeds you previously thought ludicrous. Never would have dreamed of entering some of these corners as recently as last year as hard on the brakes and as high in speed as I found myself managing.
People, get out there and pick up a trackbike.
Seriously.
Anyway, I've got a bunch of video and pics but for now I'll just post these. The rest are at home.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wwertI6ND8&feature=share]Off-roading at Strato - YouTube[/ame]
:BLAA:
Obviously it was bound to happen. Still made it through the day without crashing. Next time I will for sure be putting on race plastics. I don't want to mess up my street kit. I had told myself I'd be "just having fun and keeping it slow". That didn't last long haha. Bout halfway through the day I managed to start wearing my kneepucks down properly.
I've got some more video and stuff I'll throw up later.
