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Sportbikes & Sport-tourers Got a supersport, sport-tourer or streetbike? If you prefer the twisties to the open road, this is the place to talk about it!

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Old 05-01-2005, 08:42 PM   #1 (permalink)
Ho Dog
 
87gsxrnut's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Bike: 867-5309
Location: Terror Lake
Posts: 4,404
Default First "real" ride of the season

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