Well it's been a while since I updated everobody on the progress of this bike.
Since I last posted, I have done about 4 or 5 more track days and I am still in love with this bike! It is so quick in the corners that I find myself getting frustrated being stuck behind much larger bikes. Being between 20-40kg lighter than 600-1000cc bikes yet only 60-70hp, I find myself getting blasted on the straights, only to reign them right back in on the corners. It's really exciting and allows me to 'battle' with riders on much bigger bikes. On my last track day I was stuck behind a Daytona 675 and tried so hard to get in front that by the end of the session I was so exhausted that I physically couldn't remove myself from the bike.. When back in the pits I put the stand down and sat there for 15 minutes trying to get my composure. At that point, I decided that I was going to get into racing.
Now, having said that I had a big learning experience late last year where I low sided at crash-corner at Broadford, which taught me more than any tuition could have. I came in too hot - missed a gear on down shift - got flustered and was approaching the corner far too fast, which lead to me over compensating and grabbing the front brake. After a loud screech I found myself sliding across the track with the bike on top of me.
Thankfully, both the bike and myself were only bruised and slightly damaged:
My leathers were ruined and a ligament in my shoulder damaged, but nothing that a bit of TLC and money for the both of us couldn't fix.
After analysing it 10,000 times in my head, the 1,000 things that I did wrong became apparent. Among which, I needed to commit to corners, get used to braking late and learn to compensate for things that happen on the track. Following the crash, I took these things in and actively applied them to how I ride, spending every pre-lunch session focusing on a certain corner and aspect of my riding, then trying to combine it in the afternoon sessions into decent laps.
I quickly found that even though the forks had been rebuilt and setup correctly, the rear end was holding me back. I was exiting corners too wide and almost lost the rear on a few occasions on high speed corners. Due to this, I saw the need to upgrade. It was a situation of either spending $800+ to get the NC30 shock that I had spare rebuilt, resprung and sorted to offer compression, which I would quickly out grow and need to upgrade. As a result, I forked out and bought a $1200 custom built Nitron R3 shock:
This shock is absolutely beautiful and being custom assembled to my specs, it is as simple as fitting and riding. It includes ride height adjustment, high/low speed compression adjustment and rebound adjustment. The more time that I spend researching and watching Youtube videos on Nitron shocks, the happier I am with my purchase. After installing it today I cannot wait for my next track day in March.
Since the crash I have committed to getting into racing in the next year or 2, so I havn't worried too much about the cosmetics of the bike (as you can see by the crash rashes in the pictures), but since my last post I have also changed the gearing as a result of getting quicker in the corners and am looking to buy some aftermarket rear sets as my current stock ones are heavily ground on the right hand side and my old boots wore through past the sliders. Even my new ones have worn through, needing replacement of the sliders after the first track day of wearing them - I hope that the added ride height and reduced squat through corners reduces it.
At the moment the bike is still road registered as I have no need to set it up for racing regs as it is really just a track bike, but that won't last long.
