vtec
21st August 2006, 22:28
Hi all
Well, I suppose most of you might have heard. I've got hold of an absolute beast of a Formula 2 bike. It's a 2003 CBR600RR with all sorts of goodies on it, and 111hp at the rear wheel. Was planning on giving it a race at this meeting, but it was not to be...
Me and dad left on Thursday night after work to head down to Taupo for the night before going the rest of the way to Feilding on Friday morning for the open track day, as I was keen to get on the 600 to see what it's like, and try and learn to ride the bastard. Got there about midday, and fluffed around trying to get some contact lenses on my eyeballs as I had finally decided that my eyesight was too dodgy to be hooning around the track at well over 200kph with limited depth perception.
Got the lenses on, and took the bikes to the track, signed up, and decided to start small by taking my little trusty streetstock (1990) CBR250RR out for a burn to get the track programmed back in my brain before going crazy on the F2 bike. Got out there, and felt pretty scared, as I hadn't been anywhere near that fast since the last race meeting about a month previous, and there will still a lot of dodgy areas on the track where there just wasn't much braking or cornering to be had. Wizzed around for a bit, started to settle in, and then after a bit they called us in so the cars could have a turn.
Now, I decided I would jump on the 600 for the next session, so I gave it a looking over. Checked and adjusted the tyre pressures, looked at the little oil window (plenty) topped up the gas, and warily hopped aboard my rocket, and waited for the call. I got out there, and took it easy for a lap to let the tyres and engine get some heat. Then I started to wind it up on the straights. I looked down, and noticed an indicated 250k/hr on the clock, holy crap. I think it must have been the gearing affecting the speedo, as it seemed rather close ratio, but it sure felt like 250k/hr, my very tight fitting helmet was being buffeted all over my head. Shooting along the back straight at great speed, I hit a few bumps just as I was getting on the brakes, and the force of the bumps caused me to lose my footing several times and kicked me out of the seat. The suspension was miles too hard, and caused me a few very scary moments when I way overshot the corners and nearly ran out of track to haul it up. Decided it was probably wise to start the braking at the end of the pit wall on the front straight for the moment, and that would give me a chance to learn how to corner the beast. At one stage, LooseBruce came wheeling past me on the infield straight, gave me the thumbs up. I had thought I was doing alright until Bruce came carving me up with such ease. Still I was extremely happy with how I handled my first ride on a TRUE race bike.
Bruce came over to me in the pits to have a chat about lines and tactics for brushing off speed using lean angle as opposed to brakes (which I found really helped me on the 250 on race day). But most importantly he had a look at my suspension setup. As suspected, nearly everything was wound to its maximum hardness. Bruce started by backing off all the front fork settings heaps, and then had a look at my rear suspension, and had a go at backing that off too. Discussed the fact that after getting on something with some decent power, he didn't give his ZXR250 any respect as the fear just disappeared after blasting around on a true rocket ship. I felt the same way, that the 250 just wouldn't be the same any more.
I did another 2 sessions of practice on the 600. Had Bruce blasting past me, and I think Craig Shirriffs was out there too making a mockery of me. The suspension was still way too hard, and lost my footing a few more times on the brakes going down the back straight, still I was having a blast, and it still handled alright in the corners, and I started getting the knee down for guidance, and powersliding out of the odd corner. I found that when you've got a lot more power, you don't need to keep as much corner speed, and you're better off tightening up your lines, so that you can come into the corners tight, and leave them tight so that you can get on the power early and drift wide out of the corners. Loved it, was truly an exhilarating experience, can't wait till I get the suspension sorted so that I don't have to fear the bike so much. Due to the extreme winds you get at those kind of speeds, my contact lenses played up a few times, and eventually one popped out, but with one eye still at 100% I still had really good vision, so it didn't affect me much. Apparently KickingZebra was chasing me around for quite a while, until I hit a bad patch on the brakes at the end of the front straight locked up a few times, and ended up shooting right to edge of the track, and only just stopping before the gravel trap... got lucky.
Out for a last blast on the 250, they said we had 30 minutes, but I didn't want to give the 250 a solid 30 minute thrashing just in case something went wrong, but I was still keen to get out there again. Sure enough, it felt like there was something wrong with the bike, as it just wasn't accelerating much into the headwind down the back straight. It just must have been that my perspective had completely changed after riding the 600 for quite a while. I found myself braking too early, and not using up the track on the exits, as the bike just didn't have the power that I was allowing for. But I soon retuned myself to it, felt that I was putting in some pretty sweet laps with a bit of knee sliding and tail sliding over bumps. Really gained a lot of confidence on the 250 in that last session and was just pumped for race day. What a difference some practice time the day before can make. A month off loses you more than just your edge. It can even cause you to lose your balls, and it takes a few decent thrashing sessions to get them back... Pumped
Well, I suppose most of you might have heard. I've got hold of an absolute beast of a Formula 2 bike. It's a 2003 CBR600RR with all sorts of goodies on it, and 111hp at the rear wheel. Was planning on giving it a race at this meeting, but it was not to be...
Me and dad left on Thursday night after work to head down to Taupo for the night before going the rest of the way to Feilding on Friday morning for the open track day, as I was keen to get on the 600 to see what it's like, and try and learn to ride the bastard. Got there about midday, and fluffed around trying to get some contact lenses on my eyeballs as I had finally decided that my eyesight was too dodgy to be hooning around the track at well over 200kph with limited depth perception.
Got the lenses on, and took the bikes to the track, signed up, and decided to start small by taking my little trusty streetstock (1990) CBR250RR out for a burn to get the track programmed back in my brain before going crazy on the F2 bike. Got out there, and felt pretty scared, as I hadn't been anywhere near that fast since the last race meeting about a month previous, and there will still a lot of dodgy areas on the track where there just wasn't much braking or cornering to be had. Wizzed around for a bit, started to settle in, and then after a bit they called us in so the cars could have a turn.
Now, I decided I would jump on the 600 for the next session, so I gave it a looking over. Checked and adjusted the tyre pressures, looked at the little oil window (plenty) topped up the gas, and warily hopped aboard my rocket, and waited for the call. I got out there, and took it easy for a lap to let the tyres and engine get some heat. Then I started to wind it up on the straights. I looked down, and noticed an indicated 250k/hr on the clock, holy crap. I think it must have been the gearing affecting the speedo, as it seemed rather close ratio, but it sure felt like 250k/hr, my very tight fitting helmet was being buffeted all over my head. Shooting along the back straight at great speed, I hit a few bumps just as I was getting on the brakes, and the force of the bumps caused me to lose my footing several times and kicked me out of the seat. The suspension was miles too hard, and caused me a few very scary moments when I way overshot the corners and nearly ran out of track to haul it up. Decided it was probably wise to start the braking at the end of the pit wall on the front straight for the moment, and that would give me a chance to learn how to corner the beast. At one stage, LooseBruce came wheeling past me on the infield straight, gave me the thumbs up. I had thought I was doing alright until Bruce came carving me up with such ease. Still I was extremely happy with how I handled my first ride on a TRUE race bike.
Bruce came over to me in the pits to have a chat about lines and tactics for brushing off speed using lean angle as opposed to brakes (which I found really helped me on the 250 on race day). But most importantly he had a look at my suspension setup. As suspected, nearly everything was wound to its maximum hardness. Bruce started by backing off all the front fork settings heaps, and then had a look at my rear suspension, and had a go at backing that off too. Discussed the fact that after getting on something with some decent power, he didn't give his ZXR250 any respect as the fear just disappeared after blasting around on a true rocket ship. I felt the same way, that the 250 just wouldn't be the same any more.
I did another 2 sessions of practice on the 600. Had Bruce blasting past me, and I think Craig Shirriffs was out there too making a mockery of me. The suspension was still way too hard, and lost my footing a few more times on the brakes going down the back straight, still I was having a blast, and it still handled alright in the corners, and I started getting the knee down for guidance, and powersliding out of the odd corner. I found that when you've got a lot more power, you don't need to keep as much corner speed, and you're better off tightening up your lines, so that you can come into the corners tight, and leave them tight so that you can get on the power early and drift wide out of the corners. Loved it, was truly an exhilarating experience, can't wait till I get the suspension sorted so that I don't have to fear the bike so much. Due to the extreme winds you get at those kind of speeds, my contact lenses played up a few times, and eventually one popped out, but with one eye still at 100% I still had really good vision, so it didn't affect me much. Apparently KickingZebra was chasing me around for quite a while, until I hit a bad patch on the brakes at the end of the front straight locked up a few times, and ended up shooting right to edge of the track, and only just stopping before the gravel trap... got lucky.
Out for a last blast on the 250, they said we had 30 minutes, but I didn't want to give the 250 a solid 30 minute thrashing just in case something went wrong, but I was still keen to get out there again. Sure enough, it felt like there was something wrong with the bike, as it just wasn't accelerating much into the headwind down the back straight. It just must have been that my perspective had completely changed after riding the 600 for quite a while. I found myself braking too early, and not using up the track on the exits, as the bike just didn't have the power that I was allowing for. But I soon retuned myself to it, felt that I was putting in some pretty sweet laps with a bit of knee sliding and tail sliding over bumps. Really gained a lot of confidence on the 250 in that last session and was just pumped for race day. What a difference some practice time the day before can make. A month off loses you more than just your edge. It can even cause you to lose your balls, and it takes a few decent thrashing sessions to get them back... Pumped