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Hi Ardi, Why don't you give the office a ring and ask about the 17th? - all it'll cost you is a phone call and you just might be lucky enough to get an extra seat. I did exactly that last year when I was in the same position: instead of driving 900miles each way between from Copenhagen, Denmark to Silverstone UK for just one day, I rang the UK office and got a spot for Level 3 and Level 4, so I could do at least two days. It's great that you're not giving up - I can definitely relate to the "too safe" driving on the track and a slow learner/improver. Part of the reason that I'm very cautious is that I had an track accident that cost me 20-30% of the vision on my left eye back in 1998 and it's really ingrained in the that I don't want another accident like that (note: this was 11 years before my first CSS course, and entirely of my own fault). All the best, Kai

In spite of the best of my warnings against the Italian ladies: congrats on your new bike, may your new mistress serve you well. Kai

I'd like to extend a huge thanks to the CSS team for learning me the relaxation skills - that saved me from a front-end low-side crash last week at Anderstorp. I was riding in the 'B' group (the group just below the racers) during a 3-day trackday last week. On the second day, I was catching up on a slightly slower rider while going into the carousel turn (a 270 degree right-hander, which takes 10-12 seconds to get through). I decided to pass him on the outside simply on cornering speed (I've done that several times before), but when I was about halfway through, the handlebars suddenly started to rock back and forth during the turn! Instead of having all my SR's firing off and making me do stupid (expensive!) things, I calmly noticed that the front end was shaking and it probably was due to me going right at the edge of what the front tyre could take in terms of speed and lean angle. I also realized that if I hadn't been so relaxed on the handlebars, I probably wouldn't have noticed anything before the front tyre was washing away and sending me down the asphalt!. I completed the lap without incidents (yes, I did pass the other rider) and went into the pits. When I examined the front tyre, I could see that most of the rubber on edge of the right-hand side was worn away, so it was definitely time to have the tyre changed. So, I owe a pint to the UK team for saving me from a crash Kai

I can't really tell if putting the bike back to street condition is better than selling it as a track bike, but from what I've seen myself, selling all the trick parts alone will normally fetch you a higher total price, at the cost of doing some extra work and taking some more time selling everything. I sure know that when I sold my YZF600R back in 2001, I was unable to fetch even a dime extra for the Ohlins rear shock and fork springs. When I was looking at buying a 'new' trackbike in the winter 2007/2008, it became quite clear to me that the cheapest thing by far was to buy a race bike that was already tricked out. I saved around 35% on buying a tricked-out 1 year old bike, versus buying a new bike and new race fairings and trick parts. Now, whether the extra income will offset your extra work and time that you have to put into it, is solely up to your decision. Kai

Peter was hurt pretty bad indeed: http://forums.superb...indpost&p=12012

I know a couple of guys who ride/race RC8's here in Denmark (don't think they have RC8R's). If you're interested, I can probably connect you with them. Send a pm if you're interested, and I'll see what I can do. Kai

OK, I've fixed the squirming rear end! I noticed at one point while braking deep into huge a 180 degree left-hander, that the front end was shaking a bit from the braking. This led me take off the forks and recheck everything - oil levels, preload, compression and rebound. Seems like that there was a slight difference in oil, and the turd who set the preload last time (read: me) had set one to 10 turns and the other to 12 turns! So, the oil levels were reset to the same level, the preload was set to 10 turns on both legs: lo and behold, the squirming has gone (I did have to reduce the compression 4 clicks on the front, but that's because of the higher oil level caused it to be very harsh). I've taken off the rear shocks off both the track and the street bikes and will have them refreshed with new oil & nitrogen next week. Hopefully this should also get me closer to understanding why the new SC2 rear tyre is getting worn from just 1½ days of riding, when much faster riders don't get the same wear marks with 2 x 20min races on the tyres.

Since you want to do endurance racing, I'd take a looong hard look at the service- and maintain-ability of the bikes. Simple stupid things like "how easy & quick is it to change the f***ing wheels?". I just had to take the rear wheel off my R1 2003 streetbike (in order to have the Ohlins shock serviced), and while taking the wheel off is a breeze, putting it back on again always make me want to cut the heart out of the stupid Yamaha engineer who designed the bugger with a blunt spoon!!! (so it'll hurt more) :angry: Dunno why, but it's been designed so you need to be a two-headed, two-necked*, four-armed monster in order to put the wheel & rear brake holder in the right place while pushing in the axle. *) you need at least a pair of eyes and arms on either side of the darn swingarm to align the bloody wheel. Since fitting the rear wheel on the R6-2008 is a breeze, either someone has beaten me to getting to the engineer, he's committed harakiri from the shame, or - even worse - he's roaming at one of the other jap companies, scheming on doing another attack on some unsuspecting motorcycle design. Ah, suggestions: How 'bout an KTM RC8R? At least the sound is awesome For racing, I wouldn't dare touch a Duc or Aprilia with a 12 foot pole, but that's just me. The 'blade is clearly a safe bet. Being in the UK, you should also have a reasonable steady supply of "slightly used" bikes and parts as donors for the racebike, should an accident occur From what I hear about the cross-plane R1 engine, it can be tuned quite a bit, but is lacking power in stock conditions. Cheers, Kai

Hi Jason, I actually tried to find that data on Pirelli's webpage (read: glitz-marketing-###-only-containing-superficial-information-page) before posting, but couldn't find anything about the SCx/SPx terminology. So, yes it could be "supersoft" as well. YMMV. But at least I wont do that mistake again

I appreciate your concerns and hard-earned experiences. I already have checked the oils levels in the front fork last year (had to fix a leaking seal in the left leg anyway), so that end should be OK. I looked have verified that the shock spring is the standard stiffness. Wait, let me rephrase that: I have verified that the NUMBERS on the spring at the same as on the standard spring. YMMV. I've found a local suspension guy who is getting rave reviews from racers. As soon as he's back from vacation (should be next week), I'll call him up to have him go over the rear shock and give some recommendations for the setting up the suspension in general (including my next little issue). As for the grand scheme and plan to fix the squirming rear: I found I had bigger fish to fry, than a squirming rear Until two weeks ago, I was running Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa SC2's on both the front and the rear. As my final SC2 rear was shot, I replaced it with a Dragon Supercorsa Pro SC0, which I got a good deal on. Notice the differences: Diablo <> Dragon and SC2 <> SC0. SC0 is a soft, while an SC2 is a hard tyre. The Diablo's are also supposedly a better tyre (it's definitely more expensive). "OK, so the SC0 is softer, so it'll just go a little quicker, but that's OK since they're a lot cheaper" was my thinking (the rear SC2's have lasted 5-6 trackdays each). - Bzzzzzt! wrong, but thank you for playing! As it turned out, I was tearing through the SC0 within 1 full trackday, to the point where it would slide from applying the power (kind of cool to feel it very controlled, but a tad bit expensive in tyres!). I had a bit of help from a very friendly Swede, who suggested that I decreased the compression on the rear since he had previously had the same kind of tyre-shredding problem while riding motocross. I tried it and found that if I went from 8 to 6 and then to 4 clicks of compression, the tyre would stop tearing up (actually, the wear pattern started looking quite nice again at the end of the 2nd day), but it would still slide when pinning the throttle out on the straight It dawned on me that previously the suspension was set up relatively hard, for a medium/hard rear tyre. But with a soft rear tyre and a suspension with hard compression, the tyre was trying to handle the full load, instead of "sharing" the compression load under acceleration. So in order to make the best with a soft tyre, I had to soften up the suspension too, to make then work better together. Or at least that was my take-away from the problem & the solution to it. Oh, I did try to loosen up the preload on the rear and adding a bit of compression in the front, but the rear still squirms under braking (maybe not as much now, but I didn't pay too much attention to it). I'll take a bit of squirming over a sliding rear tyre any day.

Officially, yes. But I've never felt it kicking in, and when I asked a Yamaha dealer about this, his reply was that it didn't really work and if I wanted a slipper clutch, I should get an aftermarket unit.

I was thinking of what they call the "pogo" effect. This is when you do not have enough damping for the shock to do its job. The spring is compressed while you are riding but as you apply brakes to the front, the down force on the front and shift of weight snaps the back up. If you dampen the compression on the front another 2 clicks and slow the rate of the forks compressing while damping the rate of rebound or pogo in the rear to 10 clicks, the transfer of weight to the front might be reduced....just a thought. You said you reduced rebound another two clicks and nothing happened? You are way down on the amount of rebound damping which makes me believe you don't have enough... has the rear end felt a little bouncy or squirmy while riding over bumps or on the throttle on exit? Well, not bouncy and squirmy enough for me to notice it. I'll watch out for it. Kai

OK, first I need to correct myself: I have 7mm travel left on the front, not 25 (I confused the numbers from by roadbike, which seems to be heavily oversprung on the front. But that's a separate topic). Here's the hard data: Front: 12 clicks compression / 8 clicks rebound / 10 turns of preload. There are 20 clicks of compression and rebound, and 16 turns of preload. Rear: 10 clicks compression / 6 clicks rebound / 5 turns of preload. There are 22 clicks of compression and rebound, and 16 turns of preload. The reasoning for reducing the rebound damping was to allow the rear to extend quicker and thereby keeping a better contact with the road. Bullet's point is that it might be that the rear shock is topping out, in which case rebound has no effect at all. Fossil, what is the logic for increasing the rebound damping on the rear in this case? So far my plan says: 1) check sag, 2) reduce preload on the rear (-2), 3) increase the preload (+2) and/or compression damping in the front (I'm thinking preload as 3a, compression as 3b). Thanks, Kai

Hi Bullet, Yes, I had help to measure out and adjust the static sag last year, but didn't write down the details and frankly .... I can't remember the numbers :-| Are you thinking too little sag on the rear? Kai

Ever since I got my 'new' YZF-R6 2008, I've been experience a bit of rear end instability while braking - something that I didn't experience with my old R6 (a 2001 model). The old bike had the original Yamaha shock and front fork, but with slightly harder springs (Öhlins, 0.95kg/mm) to accommodate the 87kg of fleshy bits on top of it. And it didn't have a steering damper either. In short, pretty much stock conditions. The new bike, on the other hand, is decked out with Öhlins everywhere: Öhlins YA789 TTX36 rear shock, Öhlins FGK137 Front fork kit, and Öhlins steering (Yes, the swede I bought the bike from was very patriotic ). What I experience is that if I brake medium hard to very hard, the rear end feels like it is squirming around. Enough to distract me, but not in any way that it feels dangerous. If I brake hard enough to lift the rear tyre, the squirming feeling goes away (had to do that when a guy cut across my front tyre a one point). So far I have put zip ties around the front fork legs to verify that the forks don't bottom out (check - there's about an inch of travel to spare) and tried to turn out the rebound damping on the rear end two clicks (from 8 to 6 out from minimum) to see if it made a difference - It didn't. The rear shock is length adjustable, but it's at the standard (~minimum) length. What I can see is that the front fork has been lowered 10mm through the triple-clamps (the service manual says "flush mounted"). I checked out the bike of a guy who's racing at the national level here in Denmark, and they have also lowered the front by 10mm on his bike (but he's probably 6" shorter and maybe 15kgs lighter than me ). I'm starting to wonder if the lowered front is making all the trouble, but since I'm quite a newbie when it comes to dialling in suspensions, I'd appreciate any input. As I'm going to a local track that I know well for 3 days this weekend, so I should have plenty of time to experiment with any suggestions. Thanks, Kai

No, it isn't only you. It was up here when it was first posted but I don't know where it went. BTW, it was a very large image making it difficult to view it but it was up here - now its gone. Well, by golly, I can see it now in posting #138 (03:49pm timestamp).

Hi OZ, It's hard to tell without having seen you ride the bike nor seen the tyres, as there could be several things. 1) How much wear is there on the front tyre? It could simply be that you're scrubbing off speed with the front, from the classic "fast in, slow out" riding style. Going in slower, not scrubbing off so much seed with thr front, should help both on the front understeering, but also allow you to get a better drive out. 2) If you're riding with hang-out, the bike could be reacting to some involuntary rider input as you move from side to side. 3) The suspension could be set up incorrectly for your riding style and body weight. 4) Those 40 psi's sound like an awful lot to me, especially if it's the front tyre. A simple thing is to take a look at your tyre pressure. What is the recommended tyre pressure in the bike's manual? and what does Michelin recommend for your bike?. The recommended pressures for my R1 roadbike are 33 front and 36 rear, but your bike is heavier than mine. Try lowering the tyre pressure to 36 psi - this will allows the tyre to move around a little more, causing it to be warmer, which should make it more sticky. You will find that the bike feels a bit "squirmy" until the tyre has properly heated up, but stick better after that. If it helps, you might even want to try 33 psi. As for the rear tyre breaking away first: not necessarily. The tyres deal with very different loads under different situations. Under which situations would the rear break away? - and in which situations the front? Best regards, Kai

The handlebars don't move more than perhaps +/- 10mm, when countersteering. If you have The Twist-II DVD, there is a scene where they've put a gauge on the tank so demonstrate that you're actually countersteering, but it also shows just how little the handlebars actually move. But it still can take a massive force to move, when at higher speeds. Kai

As a good friend of mine is saying: I have a wife in the menopause and two teenage girls: My hearing is not impaired, it's just selective! (this is getting waaay off topic) Kai

Bullet and others: Just exactly how to you do a clutch-less shift between first and second (either way)? I invariably find that trying to do that will end me up in Neutral (bummer!). Kai

Good to have you back, Bullet!

I noticed an interesting picture on motogp.com yesterday, but I can't find it there for the life of it. The shot was taken from behind the bikes, showing Pedrosa and Lorenzo in a turn where BOTH of them were very clearly leaning away from the bike with their upper bodies! Now, I have my own little pet theory about why they do that, but spilling the beans don't make much for conversation. So, any takers - why do they do it?

Well, if this topic isn't on the verge of being profetical ... Randy de Puniet went down in the German MotoGP at Sachsenring just yesterday, breaking the tibia and fibula (just like Rossi). The breaking of the leg wasn't even caused by his own crash, but my Mikka Kallio hitting his leg. http://www.motogp.com/en/news/2010/de+puniet+on+surgery+after+sachsenring+crash

I would wait until I break the stock clipons As for the aftermarket parts, they are often made of higher quality aluminium (ie they don't break as easily, and they can be bent back into shape, rather than just snap off), are easier to repair and order spare parts for. Also, they tend to be more adjustable on the fork leg. My PP Tuning clipons were fitted to the bike when I bought it Regards, Kai

That's a great question Bobby...beyond my pay grade mind you but you framed it very well. BTW, I dunno the answer but do understand the question. I can't say I know (or even understand) the answer, but let's pitch the two situations against each other from a physics point of view: The "no braking" entry, with a steady pace: The front tire just rolls along, with approx 40-45% of the load from the bike+pilot on it. The "hard braking entry, with a gas-it, brake-it pace: During the acceleration phase, lets than 40% of the weight is placed on the tyre, due to the gas transferring most or even all the weight to the rear tyre. Hence, the tyre will deform less and thereby generate less heat in it. During the braking phase, almost 100% of the weight is transferred to the front tyre, deforming it from the forces and also some of the kinetic energy from the bike is bound to end up at heat in the tyre. Thus, the tyre should see a significant heating from the braking action. Unless I have missed something obvious (if I have, do speak up please!), the braking entry is bound to give you a warmer tyre, which in turn should give you more grip*. If I understand the tyre experts right, the difference between a race tyre and a road tyre is that a race tyre offers a very high level of grip, but in a rather narrow temperature range, whereas a road tyre is designed to yield a good level of grip (but not quite as high as from a race tyre), but over a fairly broad range of temperature. *) assuming that the tyre isn't decomposing from the heat, of course So yes, I think ACE is right in claiming that the braking action will give you a better grip level. The question remains: do they actually need this extra grip in order to make the turn? I haven't seen any of the motoGP races this year, but I recall at least Stoner explaining that he had a hard time "loading up the front end" to get the grip that he wanted. If that's the case, then maybe we're killing two birds with one stone in this thread! Cheers, Kai