camera56
Well-known member
This appeared originally at www.midliferider.com
Looking through my feet as my bike slid across the turn and into the dirt, my first thought was about the bike. “I hope I didn’t hurt it.” My second thought was, “Hmm, maybe I should get off my hip and slide on my back.” Followed by, “Don’t start tumbling.”
I lay on the pavement for a moment looking at the sky. Everything seemed to work. From what I could tell, I wasn’t hurt. I couldn’t hear the bike, but I knew where it was, butted up against the hillside wheels first. A nasty place to go down, with nearly no run-off in any direction. I got up, brushed myself off, and walked towards my bike.
A Day at the Track
I had been watching the weather report for the past week. For the past two years, spring has come to the Seattle area reluctantly if at all. People make jokes about the weather in the Pacific Northwest, and mostly they’re wrong, but not lately. The week before had been lovely. The end of this week was going to be record high temperatures. But Wednesday at the track, my first track day of the year, was supposed to be 50ish with a 60% chance of rain. With some, it’s popular to put a brave face on and proclaim how cool it is to have the opportunity to ride in the wet. You get used to that where I live, but I would readily confess, I’ve never felt that way when it comes to riding on the track.
I had been looking forward to getting back out since last September. So much so that I had bought a new go-fast bike, an Aprilia RSV Factory, and gone to considerable effort to become a certified Lee Parks Total Control Instructor. 2008 is to be (or was depending on when you read this) the year I intended to advance my riding skills to another level. It’s hard to imagine how I could have been better prepared.
Most of the track regulars think it whacky that anyone rides to the track. The smart play is clearly to load your bike into a truck or trailer and proceed accordingly. They are of course right. Riding to and fro greatly limits the amount of gear you can pack along, not to mention fuel, tools, food, and all the rest. It also means you need to ride back and forth in a street legal configuration. And then there’s the possibility of chucking your bike. Getting it home pranged up was a possibility I was aware of but discounted.
Wednesday shaped up to be just the sort of day I don’t like. It wasn’t raining, but it wasn’t not raining. Leaving home at 6:15 AM pretzled onto the bike, things looked dry and hopeful. Track side at 7:00 AM was another matter. Things were generally pissy and wet. I took the opportunity to ride the track in the back of a truck and it was at least as bad as I expected. The pavement isn’t all that good on a dry day, and parts of it are genuinely snotty on a damp day. It was that sort of day.
Before heading out, I consulted with the Pirelli tech about the proper settings for my tires. I’m not a huge fan of the brand and have much more experience with France’s finest. We started out at 31 lbs in the front and 30 in the back, which is what the owner’s manual specs for the track.
The first couple of laps are meant to be easy and proceed under a pink flag. We rolled out onto the front straight and accelerated towards the long sweeper that traverses the front side of the track to the back. Under dry conditions, it’s a turn that I might take at 60 or 70 (the fast riders go faster than that). Today, I slowed to 50 and perhaps less. On the downshift, I could feel the rear end wanted to step out. Great. I’m straight up and down and I’m hydroplaning.
Down through the hard right hair pin and left hand return I remained light on the throttle and tried to move my still un-limber body off the bike to keep it as upright as possible. The traction wasn’t much better there either. Through the kinks at 5, 6, and 7, it was more dancing still.
After a few more laps of slithering about, I pitted to talk with the Pirelli guy again. Even after four laps, my rear tire was stone cold. He took me down to 27 lbs in front and 25 lbs in the back. Back out for two laps, the bike was still feeling spooky and the tires were still looking for grip. Mercifully, the checkered flag was out and the first run of the day was over.
Chucking the Priller
The RSV comes fitted with Pirelli Super Corsas. I hadn’t focused on it before and I wasn’t thinking about it then, but I later recalled that I had similar tires on another bike before, a Ducati Multistrada. I sold that bike after 6 months of riding it because I never could get comfortable riding it. The back end never seemed stuck to the ground and the bike always felt like it wanted to chuck me overboard. In retrospect, I think I should have tried changing out the tires. More on that in a bit.
For the third time in less than 90 minutes, I was back talking with the Pirelli guy about what I could do to get some traction. The answer was really nothing at all. We didn’t want to run much lower than 25 lbs of pressure in the back. That left doing my best to get the tire up to temperature, a task that was proving to be nearly impossible given the mid 50’s ambient temperature and still damp track.
Back out for the second session on reports that the track was starting to dry out. The race lines were mostly okay though still sketchy in spots. I was able to slowly work my speeds up as the tires started to find some bite, but I was nowhere near the pace that I knew I could ride in the dry.
My favorite part of the track is on the backside following a short straight through the trees. The proper line is to work your way back and forth across the track to straighten out the kinks, and then set up to the right for sequence that goes left, straight, right, right, left, and then up the hill in the space of about 100 yards. The idea is to tip in late, push the bike upright, move across to the other side of the bike, wait for it, tip the bike to the right, then back to the left hard so you can fire up the hill. So it’s right edge, middlish, right edge, and then hard back to the left edge.
The tricky part is the very short straight part as that’s where all the transitioning needs to be done. How you come through there sets up the last right-left transition. It’s a fun piece of road and puts a premium on your bike handling skills. There is also no run-off with a ravine, hillside, and then air fence to contend with. Oh, and the drainage sucks. The uphill on the left side weeps and leaches moisture onto the track.
While there are a couple of ways to attack the sequence, there was by round two, only one dryish line and that’s the one I took. The grip wasn’t great but it wasn’t bad. The tires had decent but not great bite and I was moving well on the bike.
Finally the checkered flag came out. I backed off a tenth and rolled around the course into the 5, 6, 7 transition determined to make it home. It’s not easy to reconstruct exactly what happens when your bike goes down, but I remember taking a slightly wider line the last time through, wider by maybe 8 to 10 inches. I also remember being a bit more up on the saddle than normal, more leaning in than hanging off.
Probably going 40ish, I added some throttle as I tipped to the right to keep the bike balanced and pulling as the pavement rose to the left. The bike rolled over onto its grooveless sidewalls. And then it happened. The ground was whacking me hard on my right elbow and I was watching the bike through my feet as it went agricultural. No warning, just gone. As I replay it in my mind, I feel the back end go and then the rest of the bike with it. A classic no-warning low side.
Later I discovered that I had actually hit my elbow pretty hard along with my left hand. I scrubbed through a seam on the pad over my right hip and picked up a nasty bruise under the armor over the right elbow.
The bike came to a stop, wheels first against the hillside. The distance from the edge of the pavement across the dirt is probably six feet. A crappy place to go down.
The corner Marshall helped me pick up the bike. There was dirt and grass everywhere. It’s funny what you think at a time like that. I was pissed and sad that my bike had gotten so dirty.
Back to the pits and checked by the EMTs, I found a hose and went to work at the muck. The bodywork on the right side had some scuffs but was otherwise in pretty good shape. The frame, bar end, and fork sliders worked their magic. In fact, if the bike had stayed out of the weeds, there would have been absolutely no body damage. But it didn’t.
I’ve been down only once before. That time it was on the road, going around a roundabout in similarly snotty conditions. I got the rear tire on one of those big fat white arrows and sliding I went. That’s the thing about riding motorcycles: It’s all about traction management, and sometimes, it’s just not there.
One thing I later learned is that particular stretch of track is especially treacherous and lots of people, including the number one WERA plate holder who did this year, have lost it there. Some comfort there I guess.
Later, after the track dried out, I went back out and ran two sessions. The bike ran strong and true and with the tires finally up to temperature I was able to pursue a proper race line at what is for me a decently elevated pace. I was able to attack through the 5, 6, 7 sequence with good confidence.
There is no question the Pirellis are great dry weather tires. Finally warmed up, they have tons of grip, particularly leaned over on those no-groove sidewalls. There is also no question in my mind that they’re wretched in the wet, an opinion shared by the Pirelli rep and a couple of Aprilia riders I spoke with who have been on the Super Corsas as well as similar tires by Michelin and Dunlop. Having ridden both the Super Corsas and the Michelin 2CTs, I can tell you from experience the difference is remarkable. I’m putting a set of the later on in the next few days.
In the end, it’s neither the tires nor the road; it’s the rider. Although I’ve got 1000 miles on the bike and I’ve ridden big twins, it’s still a new bike to me. Through a combination of too much throttle too soon and picking a bad line, I ran the bike past the limits of available traction. Twelve inches or less to the right, and the amount of throttle was manageable if not just right for balancing the bike. The lack of grooves wouldn’t have mattered. Same line but hung further off the bike, I might have had some tread under me instead of slicks. But I was just a touch lazy on the last part of the last lap of the session. Same line with less throttle and I probably could have skated trough. But none of those things were what happened. I crossed the line.
The bike is now back from the dealer all checked out and ready to go. The new tires get mounted before I ride again. The bodywork will stay as it is until next fall. New sliders are on their way. I’m ready to get back out there.
copyright 2008, midliferider.com
Looking through my feet as my bike slid across the turn and into the dirt, my first thought was about the bike. “I hope I didn’t hurt it.” My second thought was, “Hmm, maybe I should get off my hip and slide on my back.” Followed by, “Don’t start tumbling.”
I lay on the pavement for a moment looking at the sky. Everything seemed to work. From what I could tell, I wasn’t hurt. I couldn’t hear the bike, but I knew where it was, butted up against the hillside wheels first. A nasty place to go down, with nearly no run-off in any direction. I got up, brushed myself off, and walked towards my bike.
A Day at the Track
I had been watching the weather report for the past week. For the past two years, spring has come to the Seattle area reluctantly if at all. People make jokes about the weather in the Pacific Northwest, and mostly they’re wrong, but not lately. The week before had been lovely. The end of this week was going to be record high temperatures. But Wednesday at the track, my first track day of the year, was supposed to be 50ish with a 60% chance of rain. With some, it’s popular to put a brave face on and proclaim how cool it is to have the opportunity to ride in the wet. You get used to that where I live, but I would readily confess, I’ve never felt that way when it comes to riding on the track.
I had been looking forward to getting back out since last September. So much so that I had bought a new go-fast bike, an Aprilia RSV Factory, and gone to considerable effort to become a certified Lee Parks Total Control Instructor. 2008 is to be (or was depending on when you read this) the year I intended to advance my riding skills to another level. It’s hard to imagine how I could have been better prepared.
Most of the track regulars think it whacky that anyone rides to the track. The smart play is clearly to load your bike into a truck or trailer and proceed accordingly. They are of course right. Riding to and fro greatly limits the amount of gear you can pack along, not to mention fuel, tools, food, and all the rest. It also means you need to ride back and forth in a street legal configuration. And then there’s the possibility of chucking your bike. Getting it home pranged up was a possibility I was aware of but discounted.
Wednesday shaped up to be just the sort of day I don’t like. It wasn’t raining, but it wasn’t not raining. Leaving home at 6:15 AM pretzled onto the bike, things looked dry and hopeful. Track side at 7:00 AM was another matter. Things were generally pissy and wet. I took the opportunity to ride the track in the back of a truck and it was at least as bad as I expected. The pavement isn’t all that good on a dry day, and parts of it are genuinely snotty on a damp day. It was that sort of day.
Before heading out, I consulted with the Pirelli tech about the proper settings for my tires. I’m not a huge fan of the brand and have much more experience with France’s finest. We started out at 31 lbs in the front and 30 in the back, which is what the owner’s manual specs for the track.
The first couple of laps are meant to be easy and proceed under a pink flag. We rolled out onto the front straight and accelerated towards the long sweeper that traverses the front side of the track to the back. Under dry conditions, it’s a turn that I might take at 60 or 70 (the fast riders go faster than that). Today, I slowed to 50 and perhaps less. On the downshift, I could feel the rear end wanted to step out. Great. I’m straight up and down and I’m hydroplaning.
Down through the hard right hair pin and left hand return I remained light on the throttle and tried to move my still un-limber body off the bike to keep it as upright as possible. The traction wasn’t much better there either. Through the kinks at 5, 6, and 7, it was more dancing still.
After a few more laps of slithering about, I pitted to talk with the Pirelli guy again. Even after four laps, my rear tire was stone cold. He took me down to 27 lbs in front and 25 lbs in the back. Back out for two laps, the bike was still feeling spooky and the tires were still looking for grip. Mercifully, the checkered flag was out and the first run of the day was over.
Chucking the Priller
The RSV comes fitted with Pirelli Super Corsas. I hadn’t focused on it before and I wasn’t thinking about it then, but I later recalled that I had similar tires on another bike before, a Ducati Multistrada. I sold that bike after 6 months of riding it because I never could get comfortable riding it. The back end never seemed stuck to the ground and the bike always felt like it wanted to chuck me overboard. In retrospect, I think I should have tried changing out the tires. More on that in a bit.
For the third time in less than 90 minutes, I was back talking with the Pirelli guy about what I could do to get some traction. The answer was really nothing at all. We didn’t want to run much lower than 25 lbs of pressure in the back. That left doing my best to get the tire up to temperature, a task that was proving to be nearly impossible given the mid 50’s ambient temperature and still damp track.
Back out for the second session on reports that the track was starting to dry out. The race lines were mostly okay though still sketchy in spots. I was able to slowly work my speeds up as the tires started to find some bite, but I was nowhere near the pace that I knew I could ride in the dry.
My favorite part of the track is on the backside following a short straight through the trees. The proper line is to work your way back and forth across the track to straighten out the kinks, and then set up to the right for sequence that goes left, straight, right, right, left, and then up the hill in the space of about 100 yards. The idea is to tip in late, push the bike upright, move across to the other side of the bike, wait for it, tip the bike to the right, then back to the left hard so you can fire up the hill. So it’s right edge, middlish, right edge, and then hard back to the left edge.
The tricky part is the very short straight part as that’s where all the transitioning needs to be done. How you come through there sets up the last right-left transition. It’s a fun piece of road and puts a premium on your bike handling skills. There is also no run-off with a ravine, hillside, and then air fence to contend with. Oh, and the drainage sucks. The uphill on the left side weeps and leaches moisture onto the track.
While there are a couple of ways to attack the sequence, there was by round two, only one dryish line and that’s the one I took. The grip wasn’t great but it wasn’t bad. The tires had decent but not great bite and I was moving well on the bike.
Finally the checkered flag came out. I backed off a tenth and rolled around the course into the 5, 6, 7 transition determined to make it home. It’s not easy to reconstruct exactly what happens when your bike goes down, but I remember taking a slightly wider line the last time through, wider by maybe 8 to 10 inches. I also remember being a bit more up on the saddle than normal, more leaning in than hanging off.
Probably going 40ish, I added some throttle as I tipped to the right to keep the bike balanced and pulling as the pavement rose to the left. The bike rolled over onto its grooveless sidewalls. And then it happened. The ground was whacking me hard on my right elbow and I was watching the bike through my feet as it went agricultural. No warning, just gone. As I replay it in my mind, I feel the back end go and then the rest of the bike with it. A classic no-warning low side.
Later I discovered that I had actually hit my elbow pretty hard along with my left hand. I scrubbed through a seam on the pad over my right hip and picked up a nasty bruise under the armor over the right elbow.
The bike came to a stop, wheels first against the hillside. The distance from the edge of the pavement across the dirt is probably six feet. A crappy place to go down.
The corner Marshall helped me pick up the bike. There was dirt and grass everywhere. It’s funny what you think at a time like that. I was pissed and sad that my bike had gotten so dirty.
Back to the pits and checked by the EMTs, I found a hose and went to work at the muck. The bodywork on the right side had some scuffs but was otherwise in pretty good shape. The frame, bar end, and fork sliders worked their magic. In fact, if the bike had stayed out of the weeds, there would have been absolutely no body damage. But it didn’t.
I’ve been down only once before. That time it was on the road, going around a roundabout in similarly snotty conditions. I got the rear tire on one of those big fat white arrows and sliding I went. That’s the thing about riding motorcycles: It’s all about traction management, and sometimes, it’s just not there.
One thing I later learned is that particular stretch of track is especially treacherous and lots of people, including the number one WERA plate holder who did this year, have lost it there. Some comfort there I guess.
Later, after the track dried out, I went back out and ran two sessions. The bike ran strong and true and with the tires finally up to temperature I was able to pursue a proper race line at what is for me a decently elevated pace. I was able to attack through the 5, 6, 7 sequence with good confidence.
There is no question the Pirellis are great dry weather tires. Finally warmed up, they have tons of grip, particularly leaned over on those no-groove sidewalls. There is also no question in my mind that they’re wretched in the wet, an opinion shared by the Pirelli rep and a couple of Aprilia riders I spoke with who have been on the Super Corsas as well as similar tires by Michelin and Dunlop. Having ridden both the Super Corsas and the Michelin 2CTs, I can tell you from experience the difference is remarkable. I’m putting a set of the later on in the next few days.
In the end, it’s neither the tires nor the road; it’s the rider. Although I’ve got 1000 miles on the bike and I’ve ridden big twins, it’s still a new bike to me. Through a combination of too much throttle too soon and picking a bad line, I ran the bike past the limits of available traction. Twelve inches or less to the right, and the amount of throttle was manageable if not just right for balancing the bike. The lack of grooves wouldn’t have mattered. Same line but hung further off the bike, I might have had some tread under me instead of slicks. But I was just a touch lazy on the last part of the last lap of the session. Same line with less throttle and I probably could have skated trough. But none of those things were what happened. I crossed the line.
The bike is now back from the dealer all checked out and ready to go. The new tires get mounted before I ride again. The bodywork will stay as it is until next fall. New sliders are on their way. I’m ready to get back out there.
copyright 2008, midliferider.com
