| Author | Message | ||
     Benm2 |
Saw one other H-D twin there, NOT a buell. An old AMA 883 roadracer, from Modesto (still on the tank). Not very fast, but very cool. Neat to see, lots of prep on the bike to get it ready for the track. Unfortunately, one of the two guys that brought it went down in the first session (dislocated shoulder, 2 cracked ribs). He walked the pits for a while wincing, while his friend tried to repair the left-side damage. I lent what I could, as I was the only other guy in the pits with any need to carry spare US hardware... 1. A Buell with any apparent hp is suprising & annoying to R6's, 600F4i's, and 749 Darks. Couldn't pass the R6 or the F4i on the straights, but they couldn't lose me there either. I did pass the 749 though, but I think I just exited the turn at a better RPM on a relatively short straight (topped out in fourth). I could NOT stay with any R1's on straight parts.  2. The really fast riders are even more impressive from the bike. Just when you think you're doing well, one of the control riders comes past like you're parked. 3. Can't seem to lean the bike real far. I was watching guys in front of me lean to the point of getting a knee down, and they were going slower than me (some of the time, not all the time). Is there some special trick to getting the bike to lean further, or is this just a mental-block issue? 4. Scraping bellypan is MOST disconcerting. Hopped the rear tire in a left turn. During the break, I wound the preload on the recall shock to within 1/4" of max. Almost there with the forks too. 5. Losing you're front brakes into a third gear left is ALSO very disconcerting. I somehow managed to keep the bike up during my 50-yard foray into the dirt, then spent the NEXT break bleeding the front brakes from a fresh bottle of racing DOT4, with some help from the friendly folks around. 6. Some people have too much money. Many ducatis, including 748R's, new 749's, and some seriously modified 916's. 7. 55 mph in the truck on the way home felt like pit speed for the first few miles. Questions for the racers & such. Does a new rear shock (such as a pen$ke) really make a difference? Same with forks. Will stock rebound adjusters support stiffer springs? | ||
| Sportsman |
1st, Do you have the race front shock mount to raise ground clearance? After that you may have to trim and remount the pan if it still scrapes. 2nd the shock you have is OK to a point, but yeah the screws will be almost shut as you get nearer to race pace. A Penski is alot stiffer and different springs are available for guys that really know how to set their stuff up. I remind you I'm NOT real knowlegable, but I've used both. You'll be draggin a knee before it's necessary.IMHO 3rd Is this an M2 fromt end? If so get one from an X1 and for about $400 from Traxxion that end is ready. The leaning thing is based on how smooth you can enter and exit, how smooth you make the transition from brake to throttle, and tires. Being careful not to overload 1 end or the other. At VIR this friday, Team Yamaha was practicing at a CCS practice day, and I have to hand it to them. They made everybody else look epeleptic. All 4 of them were soooo smooth the bikes appeared to just float. (Message edited by sportsman on September 26, 2004) | ||
| Benm2 |
Thanks, Doug. Didn't know there was such a thing as a race front shock mount, I've got the recall mount that came with the recall shock. I've had to mount the pan tight to the supertrapp on the left side, realistically I would have hit that anyway. Thanks for the input on the shock. We'll let it go for a while more. On the forks, the X1 parts sound nice, but finances may dictate otherwise. Maybe I'll just Racetech / Traxxion / LE those if I can. Ben  | ||
| Buelliedan |
Your thinking is a bit skewed when it comes to putting a knee down. Putting your knee down actually causes the bike to lean over less not more. Thats why racers do it, so that the tire is more in contact with the road. If leaned over too far you roll over the sidewall. | ||
| Sportsman |
Welcome to the addiction. You'll learn so much so fast you'll be broke in no time  The mount just raises the rear about a inch or two which steepens the fork angle a hair for quicker turn in and it gets the pegs up a little. You do have to cut the belly pan and custom fit it to get it up high. You'll probably have to dig out the rear opening for the supertrapp. Easiest to just use a belt sander a little at a time. And save the rubber nuts and use rubber flat washers inside and out with fender washers with locknuts everywhere you can. Those pans crack pretty easy. You look good in the pic, Have fun! | ||
| R1DynaSquid |
Dans right. You start to hang off the bike once you start dragging hard parts. If you arent dragging parts there really isnt a need to hang off other than to look cool. By hanging off you end up shifting the center of gravity & this allows the bike to stand up a bit straighter while still maintaining your cornering speed. | ||
| Blake |
"If you arent dragging parts there really isnt a need to hang off other than to look cool." And you know this how? | ||
| R1DynaSquid |
Cause I aint dragging parts....at least not on the R1...the X1 I had to hang off a bit because I was grinding the crap outta my footpegs. | ||
| M1combat |
I hang off my XB long before I drag hard parts... I think leaning an XB over far enough to drag hard parts is VERY difficult (I haven't actually heard of anyone doing it, but there was one guy that seemed to have taken an angle grinder to his pegs  ). I did drag the outside of my foot the other day and it was indeed tucked in. I had dragged it a few times while being lazy and have re-trained myself to pull them in to the cases now. I hadn't dragged them in a while and it startled me a little. Hanging off is always capable of more speed at a given lean angle. Practicing the technique even when you don't need to is good form. Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent. If you don't practice hanging off, you won't know what to do when you need it to go faster. You'll have to pretty much start over again with your learning curve. Or at least that's my opinion... | ||
| M1combat |
Speaking of which... I think I would be very aware of pegs on any other bike. I think that the XB has the greatest available lean angle (57 degrees?). I was going to ask my local dealer for a test ride on a V-Rod the other day, but I figured I'd bring it back with the pipes or pegs all scraped up and they'd make my buy new ones... | ||
| Blake |
"Cause I aint dragging parts....at least not on the R1...the X1 I had to hang off a bit because I was grinding the crap outta my footpegs." The truth is that there are indeed valid reasons to hang off other than to prevent things from dragging. I'm sure if you think about it for a while you can think of a few. | ||
| Wyckedflesh |
"If you arent dragging parts there really isnt a need to hang off other than to look cool." ...Dyna "And you know this how?"...Blake Trackday instructors comments on my riding and that by trying to not drag my knee I could infact go through the corner faster then I was currently doing. I had yet to get the bike leaned over far enough to surpass the contact patch of the tire. I was told that once I got fast enough to be pushing the edge of the contact patch then I would benefit from leaning off. Again a reminder that my previous trackday experience was on vintage bikes running vintage style tires that ran out of contatc patch quickly so leaning off was a neccessity, I was just doing it incorrectly relying as one instructor put it when he questioned me, more on my weight way out off the side of the bike to pull me through the corner rather then proper technique. | ||
| Benm2 |
I understand the logic for hanging off, I just wasn't quite adept at it. I'd shift my weight, but not do the knee-stick-out thing too much. For example, here's my friend on the 749, about to be passed  Clearly, leaned over WAY further than me, hanging off, and dragging knee. He was slower just the same. So, confused me. The truly fast at the track did hang off, and did so at dizzying lean angles. I'm more puzzled at the ability to take a corner significantly slower, and still appear to be leaning the heck out of the bike. I started hanging off a little more later in the sessions, after I banged the bellypan on the ground. Not rubbed, banged. Doug, did you get that shock bracket from Henry Duga? Is he still the right guy to call? Again, thanks for the bellypan tips. The left side is already "clearanced" for the supertrapp, via coping saw & woodrasp. Ben | ||
| Sportsman |
Yeah, Henry had them. On the lean angle debate, you were turning in earlier than your buddy which generally will make you slower, but at that same point he is still coasting and you've already hit the apex and are returning to throttle. It looks like you were headed for two different points. Is that Pocono turn 3? (Message edited by sportsman on September 27, 2004) | ||
| Blake |
What Douglas (Sportsman) said. Two different lines, one better than the other could allow a lesser lean angle but better speed. It's not clear from that photo that your friend on the 749 is leaned over farther. In fact it appears that your bike may already be leaned over farther and you are not yet to the apex. Some guys are real timid on the throttle and brakes when leaned over. That makes a big difference in cornering speed too. | ||
| Benm2 |
I have a tendency to "turn in" very quickly; off the brakes (or trail braking only) and drop the bike into the turn. Even if I turned in at the same points, I'd be be "turned" sooner. I spend most of the time in the turns on the throttle, rolling it on through the exit. The instructors said I have a tendency to miss my exit points on the turns. Things to work on I guess. The guy on the ducati would turn in late, and lean hard into the turns, but his entry speed was lower. It is Pocono, the "east course" I think. If the pit in/out is considered the turn starting point, I think its turn 12. Its the turn just at the pit exit. Ben | ||
| Reepicheep |
One of my lowsides was the result of not moving my center of gravity enough. The further you get from vertical, the less suspension travel is available. At full lean (impossible), the only suspension travel if you hit a bump is the flex of your tire sidewall and swingarm... not much. At full vertical, you have the full 5 inches or whatever. As you lean further over, you have less of the vertical component of the suspension. I'll leave it to the mechanical engineers to sort out the ratio... Anyway, if you are leaned over and hit a bump, the ability of your contact patch to remain contacted is limited by your unsprung mass and suspension travel. The further you lean, the less your suspension travel. I was on my cyclone, leaned way over and scraping pegs, but not anywhere near "full lean". I hit an invisible pothole (more of a sinkhole) that was about three inches deep, and lost the rear and lowsided. Had I been further upright but with my body center of gravity further over, there is a better chance the rear could have remained in contact with the ground, and that I would not have lost it. (Message edited by reepicheep on September 28, 2004) | ||
| Sportsman |
Turning in late and hitting a late apex only works if you really drive it in hard,turn, upright and drive it out hard and it can't be done safely in traffic. The concept is great but in our reality, most of us really don't want to push braking like that on a track day to the edge of the track even if it is a slow corner. Hitting your marks consistantly will raise your skill alot more than I hope it stops thinking. Once you hit every mark every time, you can move them around to see what gets you through faster without the heartpounding drama. A good control rider that's working with you will get you going faster than you thought possible. I've been fooling with this stuff a couple years and still just try to follow the fast guys. To think I'd come up with a better plan for a corner than Bryan Bemisderfer or Jeff Johnson would be pretty ego stupid at my level. Try to follow the fast guys and try to understand why it's faster. I've fooled myself thinking wow I caught so n so in this corner, then poof he's gone. It was because he went slow to position himself to rail the next. It's intresting what ends up working. | ||
| Blake |
Greg, What Bill (Reep) said. It is very important on some tracks that are less than smooth through the turns to allow the suspension to react most efficiently to incongrueties in the track surface. Not only does hanging off allow more efficient absorbtion of bumps by the suspension, hanging off also gets the rider's mass off the seat. In effect the rider's legs become an effective suspension of their own reducing the workload of the bike's suspension. It's kinda like having springs between the seat and frame like some of the old hardtails. That effect also helps keep the bike stable as it reduces the workload of the bike's suspension. Of course the rider needn't hang off to help isolate his mass from the suspension, he can also simply raise up off the seat, but the point is that in hanging off, the rider is also achieving the same effect. So, as you can see, there really are other reasons to hang-off than just to prevent things from scraping. | ||
| Starter |
We're missing lots of simple stuff here. It's not essential to hang off the bike and go fast but will help improve lap times. Hanging off allows the bike to carry greater speed around the corner with less lean angle, which makes for a greater margin of error for amatuers. It also positions the body in a favourable position to enhance tendancy to counter steer, and outside peg weighting. One of the biggest benefits I find with hanging off is that the outside knee will be correctly tucked in under the frame providing more control of the entire chassis and reducing gorilla grip on the hand controls. As for knee down it comes naturally after practise. | ||
| Benm2 |
Oh well. I had my requisite conversation with Buell customer service, who could neither confirm nor deny the existence of any race shock mount. They said I needed to contact me dealer about getting any race parts. ...sigh... Valley Forge HD-Buell. Dedicated bikers, nice enough staff. Mostly Buell clueless. Guess I'll be calling Dave... | ||
| Sportsman |
I feel guilty, I had an extra but cut it and rewelded another piece to it to lower my girlfriends S1. If Dave can't get one, get in touch with Henry direct or The HD store in Baltimore, but ask for Jason in service. |
