Mental Trousers
25th June 2013, 00:33
Racing in winter is usually an exercise in patience punctuated by sudden bursts of frantic tyre changing, but the first round of the Hamilton Motorcycle Club Winter Series was much more relaxed than most.
The weather during the week had been absolute crap with weather warnings and road closures all over the place and, unfortunately, a funeral. Due to the unexpected nature of the funeral I was going to have to get the bike ready on the Saturday before the Sunday's racing, so if anything didn't go as planned I wouldn't have much time at all to sort the problem.
The main issue I was having was the fluid level in the forks was too high. This was causing the front end to sit too high under brakes, bringing the back end up so I wasn't able to brake as hard as I'd like in most corners. The cure for this is, naturally, to lower the level of the fork fluid a little. Just a 5ml change in the fork fluid can make a dramatic difference to the handling of a bike and I estimated that the bike would still ride a bit too high under brakes but removing more than 5ml without good advice is asking for trouble.
Click to continue ... (http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/2783-Hamilton-Motorcycle-Club-Winter-Series-Round-1)
The weather during the week had been absolute crap with weather warnings and road closures all over the place and, unfortunately, a funeral. Due to the unexpected nature of the funeral I was going to have to get the bike ready on the Saturday before the Sunday's racing, so if anything didn't go as planned I wouldn't have much time at all to sort the problem.
The main issue I was having was the fluid level in the forks was too high. This was causing the front end to sit too high under brakes, bringing the back end up so I wasn't able to brake as hard as I'd like in most corners. The cure for this is, naturally, to lower the level of the fork fluid a little. Just a 5ml change in the fork fluid can make a dramatic difference to the handling of a bike and I estimated that the bike would still ride a bit too high under brakes but removing more than 5ml without good advice is asking for trouble.
Click to continue ... (http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/entry.php/2783-Hamilton-Motorcycle-Club-Winter-Series-Round-1)