Totally Right
Tomasz brought me his R-1 to help set it up for the Pikes Peak race. We did his forks and shock plus geometry.
We did follow up work helping him dial in and understand set-up before he headed of for the clouds.
Cell calls from the mountain for advice resulted in this nice text message after he took 5th in his class and 9th overall out of 90 bikes.
“btw you were totally right about the shock!”
Like most people I enjoy being right about anything but being “Totally Right” is even better.
Great job Tomasz!
SO MUCH BETTER
Joe sent me his Buell 1125R forks for the full treatment, rebuild, re-valve and stronger springs, $560. He sent me this message after taking it to the track:
Hi, Ed
I wanted to let you know that I finally had an opportunity to track the rebuilt forks on my Buell. Man! What a difference! The bike handles SO MUCH BETTER!
Great work!
Joe
The term, so much better, could have many meanings but I think we all know what “SO MUCH BETTER!” means.
Thanks Joe.
Crash # 36
Crash number 36 is the 3rd time ever that I crashed a F-1. On the right side the rear set, bar and tail are damaged. On the left just scuffs on the body work.
Tasty Chicken
This set of new ‘11 to ‘13 GSXR 600 body work was used for one show. $700 takes it all including the tank.
Iceman Ninja
This is the 250 Ninja that Eric was building for Kenny to race. The body work is being painted with Kenny’s design. I’m putting it together and will be racing it soon in gear that will match the new paint. Eric may race it too.
Stay tuned to watch the progress.
Manic
The clock on the wall says eleven pm. The 900RR front end is ready. A bunch of other small jobs are done, mostly reducing weight. Check out the nice superbike tail. Less weight. No longer have to remove the tail to take the lowers off. Nice new white paint. Recognize it? It’s from a Fischer MRX.
Ranson
MG really likes his energy drinks. He left these two Monsters and the little cooler bag in my trailer at Willow this past Sunday.
MG, if you ever want to see your drinks again you will bring to me a large ice tea in a cup with ice and a straw at the next MWGP event at Streets Backwards.
If you don’t I, these two Monsters may come to harm.
Motorcycle Mecca
Russ is going to race on the Isle Of Man. After he talked to his tuner/crew/Dad his next call was to Lindemann Engineering. He tried to fool me into going along by offering me a sleeping spot on the floor of the shipping container in the pits but I was able to resist.
His RC-30 forks and Penske shock have been rebuilt, re-valved and re-sprung. We will do some set up work at a MotoYard.com Track Day so he can get use to the new set up. Then Russ, his Dad and his bike will be on their way to Motorcycle Mecca.
LE or Aftermarket?
The question is can your OEM suspension be improved to make it work as well as aftermarket suspension. The short answer is, yes and for a lot less money.
Inside your cartridge forks and shock is a piston that the oil is forced to pass through. Long ago, OEM pistons restricted this oil flow because the holes were too small. This is no longer the case. Oil flow is controlled by the shim stack.
The shim stack is a bunch of washers of different thickness and diameter. I change the shim stack to get the damping curve I want.
The color of the piston makes no difference.
Bracket Racing
Why you should start Bracket Racing:
Rather than base racing classes on the motorcycle we should base the classes on the riders. We race because we want to battle with our friends but most of our racing time is spent zooming around by ourselves.
WERA tested this idea with the ED Sorbo International Invitational.
Moto West GP has 4 Bracket Classes. You pick the time spread that works for you. The only rules are that you get DQ’ed if you break out and you can’t use an on board timer.
In my 6 lap bracket race yesterday I remember making 6 passes but I think there were more. I was battling from start to finish. I know that next month I will be in the same kind of race. How cool is that?!