First "real" ride of the season - Motorcycle-Journal Forums

**87gsxrnut** · 05-01-2005, 08:42 PM

Well, finally went riding with some of the locals here today. Know some guys down the street that always are out polishing their bikes. I decided to ask them if I could tag along. There were a lot of 2-up riders, so the pace was "allgedly slower" than usual.

Ride itself was fairly short, but I got introduced to some local twisty roads. Not bad if I do say so myself. I hung back during the first half of the ride. Mid-pack or so, to see how these guys rode. Everyone had on decent gear (a first really from what I have seen around here). Everyone seemed to ride within their limits from what I saw. A lot of "gas it like crazy" on the straights, and grabbing the brakes entering the corners, but nothing over the top.

I didn't even want to match their straight-line speed (120-130 mph+), but I usually caught up to everyone at the corners. Just steady Eddie on the gas and latebraking and smart down shifting allowed me to catch up to many of the guys. I picked off a couple when it was smart to do so.

I made one error and misjudged a corner, crossed the double yellow. Hate when that happens. Luckily, it wasn't a totally blind corner. That really made me focus more for the rest of the ride. No more errors either. I had a guy on an R1 tailing me for the first half of the ride. He would catch me in the straights (because I usually wasn't gassing it hard). In the beginning, he followed me through a few of the corners quite well. Then I got into "racer" mode slightly. Nope, he couldn't match my corner speed.

During the second-half of the ride, I was more relaxed and rode probably with the front 1/3rd of the group. I had more fun just hanging a bit, then outbraking the riders ahead of me into the corners. I was trying to find a real good spot to set up four of them for a pass, but it wasn't happening. So, I delighted myself knowing I could stuff any of them IF I WANTED TO. I really thought about it, but I have no idea if the rider would panic and either crash, or crash and take me out with him. Not a racetrack. No competition. No trophies. Not worth it.

Well, it was fun. We'll see if I go out with them again. Maybe in the future. I need to get new tires on the 1100 before I can feel more comfortable and trusting there. These are a couple of years old already, and I don't want to push them that hard.

FYI: Judging on the speeds and effort coming back, I was riding at MAYBE 60% of track speed. Really comfortable and not pushing it. I wasn't even really trying and was keeping up just fine. Not bad for a 19-year-old bike.

- Nut