Having signed up for the Taupo track day back in February, about three weeks after I got my learners licence, I was a little nervous about the track day, but was looking forward to improving my cornering skills without all the distractions you get on a public road.
Saturday afternoon I went for a short cruisey ride to meet friends at Okere Falls for pancakes. It was a lovely day, saw quite a few bikes on the road, but it was a little chilly. I zipped the thermal liner into my trousers when I got home, and stuffed all the warm clothing I could into my panniers. I headed to Taupo late afternoon, the road was pretty quiet, and the trip fairly uneventful, except for the huge number of roadworks (and badly executed ex-roadworks) along SH5 and Broadlands road. Not all of which were well signposted.
I arrived at Monster Garage HQ to find that Clint's Lexus conversion was nearly complete. And Brad was making spare handlebars for his KRR in preparation for the track day. We walked into town later in the evening and went to Plateau to sit by the fire and sample the new Monteiths Tripel and Winter ales.
Early the next morning we cruised out to the track, removed my mirrors and put nice silver tape over the headlight. I forgot to put tape over my speedo, but was far too busy out on the track to be looking at my instruments. After the trackday briefing we went out for a 'slow' lap to check out the track. The slow lap went at a reasonable clip (or so it seemed to me), so those people behind me had slightly longer to become acquainted with the track.
The first session was the slow group, we had quite a range of different bikes there. I tootled around fairly carefully for the first few laps. Everyone overtook very considerately, and I could generally hear the bigger bikes coming over the whine of the little 150, so no-one took me by surprise. The track surface is really nice, and the track is fairly twisty, giving me lots of opportunity to practise my cornering. I'm always a bit nervous on corners, I'm convinced I'll go too fast, and something dreadful will happen to me. So I got plenty of practise choosing the line I wanted to take, leaning a bit, looking where I wanted to go. My rather plump chicken strips were noticeably slimmer by the end of the day, so I was obviously doing something right. And managed to change into 3rd and 4th more and more during the day.
The bike was a little temperamental starting a couple of times, sending me out onto the track a few minutes late. At least my kick starting leg got a good workout.
Brad took his KR out in the last 600cc+ session to see how he compared to Clint on the 640, they seemed fairly evenly matched, but the session finished before we could see much of a showdown. Probably a good thing, since Clint had already crashed once.
We packed up and went back to the workshop to reflect on the day, then I headed home before it got too dark and foggy along Broadlands Road. It was dark, but there wasn't any fog. I haven't ridden in the dark much before, so I was taking it pretty easy, especially with the random road surface - quite a shock after the beautiful smooth race track. There was a little drizzle as I got closer to Rotorua, and the road was pretty wet when I got home, so it looks like we were lucky with the weather in Taupo. Overall it was a great day and really helped my cornering skills and overall confidence.
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Originally Posted by Weasel
, I too kinda have a curvy figure which makes it worse beacuse im a guy. Well the waist kinda goes in and the bum pushes out. When I was in college the girls in my year would slap me on the arse and squeeze because apparently it is firm, tight...
I wear jeans
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