Meeting good people in the pits.

Well another month down and another month without any updates to the blog. As I get closer and closer to the day I uproot my SoCal family and ship them off to Japan, things get busier and more hectic. That hasn't stopped me completely from doing Motorbike activities. It has slowed them down a bit. This post has been sitting in my 'draft' box for a few months now. I have finally finished the work and can actually finish the post. Have a read and I hope the wait was worth it. 

One thing that has stuck out with me since I started taking my various bikes to the track. There is a mutual respect that most track riding people share with each other. I suppose that it has something to do with the fact that we all choose to take part in an potentially very dangerous activity. There must be a sense of trust between riders when hurling themselves at high speed around a circuit. The sense of trust also seems to make people very generous. Usually it is sharing water or bike set up tips. Having a chat with your pit mates is also very common. Other times people will surprise you with so much more. This post is a story I experienced on day two of my Moto Anatomy class at Blackmore Ranch.

During the morning of the second day of training, I was chatting with another rider in the parking area of the track. At this point in the day most of the students had already arrived, but no one was dressed out or had their bikes unloaded. One rider was busy turning wrenches while the conversation floated on around him. He was changing out his handle bars. I was intrigued as there are things to be learned from how another rider sets up their bike. He was tightening up the riser bolts when I asked him what kind of bend he was changing his bars out for. He said he was putting on a more motor cross style of bar. I have a motor cross bar on my bike and said that I wanted to try out a flat track specific bend. I had one in the shopping cart of one of my favorite online retailers just waiting for me to have some extra money lying around. He laughed and said he was swapping out the flat track bend for the MX bars. Before I could ask why, he offered it to me, free of charge. I was floored by the generosity of someone I'd only met the day before and gladly accepted the new-to-me handle bars.

There are no 'during' pictures of the install. I had a limited time between getting home from work, eating dinner and my kids bath time to get this done. The camera only came out when all was said and done. Here is the final product. The major thing to note in this picture is that the extra width of the flat track bend Pro Taper bars required me to take the upper triple tree off and pull the throttle and clutch cables from their original routing inside the forks to outside. At full lock the cables would be under tension. I am a bit worried about the cables being so exposed. I wouldn't want another riders handlebars to get caught in my cables and dump me on the dirt. I may take some cable ties and try to bring them in a bit closer to the fork legs to ensure they stay out of the way.

These two pics show some of the features that differ the old bars to the new. I mentioned the width and you can see that very easily. The bend is what I am most eager to try out. The way the new bars are bent, my elbows are automatically up in the dirt track attack position. They set my arms up high and get my hands out wider. Trying it out in the garage, I laid the bike over in the traditional flat track left turn stance and found that my right hand fell naturally into a screwdriver grip and that the web of my left hand was wrapped gently around the grip. This keeps my grip nice and light and prevents me from gorilla gripping the bars affecting my ability to turn. Another affect of the new bars is that they push me back on the seat. This is something that I worked on during my American Supercamp school that I went to just before my last race. I have to get a new left grip as the old one is friggin set on the old handlebars with an amazing amount of grip glue.

The other thing I got to do was finally clean my chain, change the oil and get a new set of tires on the FZ1. This time I got some Dunlop Q3+ tires instead of the Q3's I've run for the last two sets. The Q3+ version is supposed to be longer lasting. While the Q3's have great grip, the center section only lasts somewhere around 4,000 miles. These gave up the ghost around 3,700 thanks to my January desert road trip. These new Q3+ tires are supposed to grip just as well as the Q3's, but last much longer. I may not get to try out many of those miles as I will be selling the bike in the next month or so. Until then, I intend to try to see how they work in the twisty canyon roads near Palomar Mountain, my own little motorbike playground.

The last update I have is that I will be racing Saturday the 13th for my last race of the 2019 SCFTA season. I was a dufus and packed everything up set out to the track last Saturday. It was a nice couple of hours driving alone through the desert to the track and back, but it did free up my weekend to have dinner with family and drink some beer. I will have a post about my race sometime before I have to pack my computer away for the overseas trip. After that one, there may not be much content for a while. Enjoy the riding season friends and stay safe! Later!

Blue