I had a good time this past weekend at Streets. Nine happy clients on Friday with MotoYard and some great racing on Saturday & Sunday with Moto West GP.

Some of you noticed that I do the Bowl and the Skid Pad different than most. I was on the Iceman 250 Ninja. My best lap was 1.31.89 on 3 weekend old Dunlop’s set at 19/19 psi hot.

The wide line I take on the Skid Pad lets me use full throttle much sooner than the tight/common line and it helps me miss most of the bumps. But the real advantage is the speed I can carry onto the Skid Pad because I don’t need to slow down till later.

In this photo I’m pinned in 3rd just below red line while 611X is already braking for the Skid Pad. This is the same line I use on my 600 and every other bike I’ve ridden/raced here.

The question for you is, are you as smart as Stephen Lin? Lin could see that what I was doing worked but at first glance it just looked like I ran wide. The smart part? He asked me what I was doing just like Andrew did the day before.

Andrew saw my lines on Saturday in the endurance race and put them to good use on Sunday setting a new personal best.

If you look up you can see the Sun moving across the sky but that is not what is really happening. Now apply this lesson to your riding.

Photo’s by http://motorbikeroadracing.blogspot.com/

Today’s “Cosmos” inspired thought:

The next time you learn something new and mind blowing like the bit of evidence we just found supporting Expansion and the Multi-Verse. Don’t think, wow that’s crazy. Think instead, wow what else is can I learn from this.

The Universe works the way it does. It is not for us to limit the Universe by our misunderstandings. Rather, it is for us to learn.

Wave’s stock rear caliper and the TZ250 caliper she has now. Still some work to do but you get the idea.

Lindemann Engineering is pleased to announce a major breakthrough in suspension technology – the world’s first Digressive springs. Through an ingenious combination of metallurgy, manufacturing process and particle physics,

Lindemann Engineering’s Ed Sorbo has found the Holy Grail of suspension technology.

Progressive and straight-rate springs are well known in the suspension world. But a digressive rate spring has long been sought for the ability to let the suspension move just as fast at the end of the travel as it can at the beginning.

The breakthrough came when Sorbo was doing a thought experiment. Says Sorbo, “The problem with making a digressive spring is getting the metal to act in two different ways. I was pondering light’s ability to behave as a wave and as a particle. Then I remembered something Jim Lindemann said to me, and that was the eureka moment!”

Sorbo says his recycle bin has some very expensive scrap metal in it after some spectacular failures. But three years of hard work has paid off. The first test was a complete success with Bill Wickersham riding the test bike, a Fisher MRX appropriately named Particle to a win in it’s first-ever race. The long delay since that win, which proved the value of digressive springs, was caused by the development of a manufacturing process. Sorbo made the first springs by hand. Says Sorbo, “Never again!”

Particle’s sister, Wave, is being built right now with the first set of production LE Digressive Rate Springs. Sorbo says the potential uses for his springs are limitless, “I think we will see a set on the next Mars rover. In fact, if NASA asks I’ll sponsor them a set. Heck, I’ll even give them a lifetime warranty. I wonder what April 1st is like on Mars.”

Photo Caption: Bill Wickersham at Willow Springs with LE Digressive Rate Springs equipped Fischer MRX “Particle” and his First place California State Championship trophy in the bike’s first-ever race.

These are progressively wound springs. The part where the wire is close together is weak while the part with the wire loops farther apart it stronger.

Yes, I want you to think of springs as stronger or weaker not softer or harder because their job is to hold things up not for you to rest your head upon.

A progressively wound spring starts out weak and gets stronger as you compress it. A straight rate spring gets stronger at the same rate as you compress it. A straight spring with a rate of 100 lbs will compress one inch when you place 100 lbs on it, two inches with 200 lbs and so on. A similar progressive spring will start with a rate of 75 lbs, when that’s used up the stronger rate of 150 lbs takes over.

This sounds nice and comfortable and it is if you are sitting on a coach. But you are riding a motorcycle with suspension that moves fast near the top of it’s travel and slow near the bottom. You want to spend most of your time near the top so the wheels can get out of the way of the bumps. A spring that gives up the best part of the travel as soon as you sit on the bike is not what we want.

What happens when you ride over a bump near the bottom of your travel. The suspension can’t move up fast enough so that end of the bike has to move side to side to make up for the extra distance it has to travel over the bump compared to the other wheel. This is what causes that “cheap wallow” in turns.

So unless you have a fiddle and play it well keep away from the Devil and his agent of despair the progressively wound spring.