I didn't crash and I didn't blow anything up.
Man oh man, what a day! I finally got the CRF450R flat tracker repaired as detailed in last week's post. No mechanical job is complete without a complete test of the repairs. Last Sunday I was able to get out and burn some laps doing that test. I loaded up and went out to Apex Racing Center for a bikes only day and my first day back at the track since my Motoanatomy training. While there I snapped some pics and had a good time getting reacquainted with my race bike. Have a read to see how it went.
Take a look at that view! It was a beautiful day at the track. The temps in the early morning were in the low 50's. I was a bit concerned about that, but I'll get to that in a bit. As I mentioned in my intro, it was a bikes only day. Apex occasionally has bikes only days as well as karts only days. These are great as you can ride when you want without trying to make the most of each of the 20 minute sessions usual for a combined kart/bike day. Its like the local skate park. You roll in when you're ready and roll out when you're done. As expected there were a good number of bikes out on the track. I was a bit nervous as it has been over two months since I last fired up the CRF on the track.
The mix of bikes was interesting. My CRF450 is your standard supermoto bike. There were a few of those. There were also some mini motos. Mini motos are smaller displacement, usually 65cc or 85cc, two stroke bikes. There were a few NSR50s, CRF100s and even a Ninja 400 and Yamaha R3. My first session was terrible. I was stiff and tight and couldn't find my race line with a map and GPS! It took 4 or 5 laps just to settle down and figure out how to operate the bike. By the last session I was comfortable again. I may not have been the fastest thing out there, but I did pick up speed throughout the day. getting passed by a 100cc mini bike being ridden by a fast rider can be humiliating if you have a fragile ego. Good thing I lost that a long time ago.
Doesn't this bike look fine! The new (to me) supermoto tires and wheels just look so good. I was interested in testing out my repairs. I was confident that they'd hold, but wanted to get the bike up to temperature to ensure there would be no overheating and no oil leaks. I also wanted to check the weep hole for any signs that I damaged the right side engine cover when I removed the old water seal. I was also very keen to gather some data on the bike in this configuration. I was very religious about taking data on tire temps and pressures when taking the old Ninja out to the track. When doing flat track I haven't been as diligent. Since the tires are race only slicks I wanted to get a baseline for how they performed in the conditions I had at the track. A little work with my foot pump got them aired up for the day.
In these shots, you can see a little bit of the difference between the start of the day cold tires (left) and the end of the day warm tires (right). I did a few seconds of Google searching to get a guess at what pressures make sense for these tires on this bike and settled on starting at 22 psi for the front and 23 psi for the rear. I wanted to run them on the lower side since the air temps were in the mid 60's by the time I got to the track. The skies were clear, but I figured that the track surface would be cool enough to pull heat from the tires for the first few sessions. I don't have tire warmers and race tires are picky about temps. They require hard loading to get the temperature up enough to be sticky. A cold track can prevent them from getting into the right zone for best traction. I took it easy for my first session and gradually stepped up my pace as the day went on and I got more comfortable with the track, the tires and the bike. By the end of the day I could see that the tires had gotten some heat into them and I only had a couple of minor traction losses early in the day. If I can afford heaters some day, I'm sure these tires would be fantastic!
Well, that's all I have for this week. The holidays are coming and the kids will be home, a lot! I want to get back to the track a few more times and I have some parts to try out. I'm hoping to meet up with some cool people to do some riding. I hope you have a good winter season during the holidays and we'll see you again soon!
Blue
Take a look at that view! It was a beautiful day at the track. The temps in the early morning were in the low 50's. I was a bit concerned about that, but I'll get to that in a bit. As I mentioned in my intro, it was a bikes only day. Apex occasionally has bikes only days as well as karts only days. These are great as you can ride when you want without trying to make the most of each of the 20 minute sessions usual for a combined kart/bike day. Its like the local skate park. You roll in when you're ready and roll out when you're done. As expected there were a good number of bikes out on the track. I was a bit nervous as it has been over two months since I last fired up the CRF on the track.
The mix of bikes was interesting. My CRF450 is your standard supermoto bike. There were a few of those. There were also some mini motos. Mini motos are smaller displacement, usually 65cc or 85cc, two stroke bikes. There were a few NSR50s, CRF100s and even a Ninja 400 and Yamaha R3. My first session was terrible. I was stiff and tight and couldn't find my race line with a map and GPS! It took 4 or 5 laps just to settle down and figure out how to operate the bike. By the last session I was comfortable again. I may not have been the fastest thing out there, but I did pick up speed throughout the day. getting passed by a 100cc mini bike being ridden by a fast rider can be humiliating if you have a fragile ego. Good thing I lost that a long time ago.
Well, that's all I have for this week. The holidays are coming and the kids will be home, a lot! I want to get back to the track a few more times and I have some parts to try out. I'm hoping to meet up with some cool people to do some riding. I hope you have a good winter season during the holidays and we'll see you again soon!
Blue
Comments
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comments and for following My Motorbike Obsessions!