Competition Riding

Biker Bee and myself have feverishly prepping our stable of buckets, getting ready for the next KoK. We need to make the next meeting in Sept though to give the bikes and good shake down. here's how they stand;

IKASU ("Old but cool"), RX125 powered RG50 chassis, mid repairs, looking at transplanting engine into another frame.

WANISAMI ("Sword"), RG50, all ready to go. If anyone wants to have a turn at buckets PM me.

ZENSEN ("Fight the good fight"), CBR150, ...

Anyone interested in giving BEARS race ago? The BEARS club in Canterbury has 2 Ducati 400 race bikes they hire out for only $100 per meeting. This covers all costs, fuel, entry, day license. The idea is to encourage new riders into the sport by letting them have a go first before purchasing their own bike. You must be a competent road rider or had some junior competition experience. For more details & photos see their site. www.bearsracingnz.com

Now that was a good weekend cos I learnt a hell of a lot.

Saturday my wife and I rolled out of bed a bit later than we should've, buggered around for longer than we should've and generally dragged our arses. Neither of us wanted to get out of bed at such a ridiculous time, her because she doesn't ride bikes (working on correcting that particular failing but a fix is gonna take a while) and me because it'd been a long week. After I'd made us both a decent cup of coffee ...

Talk about wet!! The ducks have more brains than motorcycle racers cos the stayed home.

5:30am is a ridiculous time of the night (even though there's light it's ridiculous to call it morning) to do anything, but that's the time I set my alarm for. A short while later I was out of bed and making a coffee for the road. Throw the rest of my gear into the car and I'm off to McDonalds for the traditional grease-fest that gets me through a race day.

Pulling ...

AMCC Round 1 at Hampton Downs signalled the start of Summer racing and the first race for me since Paeroa in February, 8 months ago.

This time I planned to get an unusually early start so that we're not rushed even if something doesn't quite go as it should so I'd set my alarm for 5:30am. That's an insane time to be awake. On the average work day my body might be walking around but my brain isn't awake until about 10:00am. Even then that's only after some breakfast ...

Well the one last time ride I expected the last one to be wasn't and was followed by 2 practices and and 11/2 days of racing.

This first practice was lots of heart leaping little thomas the tank engine's "I can do this, I can do this."

The second practice was lets get some decent laps times and was more than happy with 46 sec laps (about a sec off my top consistent times)

With first day weather packing up and I crashing I'd had enough and went home after ...

I now see the beauty of riding the perfect race as for those 8 - 10 laps your out giving it your all and you become lost in the simple task of riding your bike. Almost nothing else going on in your life matters.

I raced late last month for "one last time" before going into hospital for treatment for cancer. It was the first time my health really affected my riding as I couldn't breath.

Tomorrow I am being admitted into Wgtn Hosp for further tests and start chemo and ...

I spent a nice 1/2 hr practicing starting on Zensen in 2nd and managed to scrub 1.3 secs off over a 110 mtr distance. With some more practice I will hope scrub another 1/2 seconds.

The bike does have a miss when idling, which it didn't happen until I put in the race cams and doesn't effect power at the back wheel.

Ikasu is also coming along. I have changed her over to racer change so I don't stuff up gear changes this Sunday. Started putting on race sliders, dropped ...