rchase

On the S10000RR the Race ECU completely transforms the bike. The base maps for the Race ECU are pulled straight out of World Superbike. You get full power in all modes and the mode selection no longer affects the engine map. The Race Calibration kit is an extra add on. This gives you the adjust ability and as Hotfoot said you can adjust just about anything you want on the bike. Most people go with the ECU and the RCK and the TI Akrapovic exhaust comes with the ECU. The RCK allows adjustment on DTC, DDC, ABS, ECU and pretty much any other system on the bike. It's pretty amazing. Tuning is accomplished with a Laptop connected via a cable to a port in the tail of the bike. The difference in DTC tuning alone is amazing. I own a 2013 RR with the HP ECU and RCK2. I can easily leave 2015+ models in the dust if I want to. Teamed with the HP Datalogger you have all the data you need to make adjustments that will get the bike to do what you want. Here's a video that covers all the HP options for the RR On the carbs vs injected bikes. Carbs are a little slower to respond but pretty close to the same situation as the injected bikes. One thing I have noticed with professional riders. If you watch a video of them especially of their hands they never allow the throttle to snap shut. They roll off. Much like the brakes the throttle is not an on off switch. If it were not for the safety issues of a throttle that retained it's position likely throttles would not have return springs. While the return spring does close the throttle when you want to roll off that's not what it's there for. It's there so that if the rider and the bike part company the bike does not keep going.

Bodywork installation is never simple especially track stuff. I removed the windshield on my BMW at the track once and had to get professional help to get it back on. Gotta love those tolerances on the track bodywork. Especially freshly painted carbon fibre stuff you are terrified of scratching. Those famous last words "oh yea I can just pull the windshield in less than 5 minutes". Yea right! Personally I don't like wrenching on my stuff at the track. Most of the time I bring a spare bike with me. In fact I'm not really a fan of the idea of wrenching on my stuff at all. When I'm riding at high speeds I don't want to think about that bolt that did not quite feel perfect when I torqued it. I don't want to think about the other parts that were acceptable but not "perfect". A mechanic doing this work for me lets me offload all of those worries. When I pick up the bike I know it's absolutely perfect and someone way more knowledgeable and anal than I am has checked and rechecked everything. I'm sure he had some of those same problems I might have run into but ignorance is bliss. I'm probably burned out though by working on my former FZR track bike. It was a 400/600 hybrid so you had to understand what came from where in order to be able to work on it. That usually meant me and even then I often ordered the wrong parts.

Yet another AH HA! moment. Switching out to the BMW HP Race seat likely resolved my slipping and sliding problems. Still some valuable advice to put your leg back on the correct part of the tank to avoid "walking" yourself into the tank.

That really depends on the specific fork and specific bike. On some bikes a set of cartridges are lighter than a full set of forks. There's also different grades of forks. Take everyone's favorite for a moment Ohlins. They have multiple different types of forks you can get for specific bikes. Some of them aren't listed on their more consumer oriented marketing materials. Some of the reasoning behind the different weights of forks is the feature set and the stiffness of the fork tube. Some of them have more components inside the fork and some of the tubes are thicker or thinner for various performance reasons. In order determine what the lightest fork option is you have to first determine what performance and features is the most important for you and then start looking at the specific weights of all of your options. It's a bit time consuming. But if building a high performance bike was easy everyone would be doing it. My RR has Ohlins cartridges. The consumer grade Ohlins options are all heavier than the factory BMW fork tubes. BTW Ohlins is not the only game in town. There are lots of other vendors out there making great products that are just as good as Ohlins stuff. Some of it lighter and some of it performs slightly better. This is due to the competition in this market and the willingness of the newcomers to the market to take higher end features found on more race oriented products and push them into the consumer market. They have to do something relevant otherwise all the suspensions would remain gold. It's interesting as well. The Ohlins stuff not listed for mere mortals like you or I to buy is quite expensive. My mechanic who did a lot of AMA racing told me about a bike that he rode that had some of the higher end Ohlins suspension on it. The chief mechanic for his pit crew would often remind him that the suspension was worth way more than the entire bike. OUCH!

Yes, stack something of equal height as the floor scale, so that the bike remains level, ( if your lucky the height of the wheel on stands will be very close ) weight each wheel with the bike upright and level, combine the values for total weight and then you can use some easy maths to figure your weight bias front and rear. You can also use this technique with super heavy bikes but need to add additional weight distribution on the scale to not over range it, and do a little more math as well Makes sense. Might have to do this sometime for fun. With most bathroom scales able to measure 300 lbs or so this is not that far fetched.

What's even more shocking is the weight of factory bodywork as well. The stuff is designed to last and look good for the lifetime of the bike. When I got my CF race bodywork my mechanic joked that the cardboard box and packaging materials weighed more than the parts inside. The crazy thing is it was true. Even the cheapest Fiberglass stuff way lighter than factory stuff. I did a CF fairing stay mostly to be slightly "over the top" but then realized the amazing weight difference. The Factory one weighed a few pounds and the CF one barely weighed anything. That weight is high up on the bike too.

Hmmm. One wheel at a time? Might have to try that. I did not think of banjo bolts and parts like that. I have done some Titanium on my bike but mostly stuff that is involved with unsprung weight such as caliper bolts and sprocket bolts. Might have to look at others. People also remove parts such as ABS pumps and while I could probably get away with no ABS it's really nice to have that safety net "just in case".

There's a TON of weight on a street bike. Here's a list of areas you could invest in weight savings. With some super rough estimates on weight not based on any specific bike (off the cuff guesstimate). On a bike of that caliber every gram counts. -Lead Acid Battery -5lbs -Exhaust 5-12lbs -Bodywork -5-15lbs (headlights and tail lights excluded) -Fuel tank 10-20lbs (Aluminum or Carbon) -Fairing Stay 3lbs -Wheels 10-25lbs -Subframe 3-5lbs -Forks 3-5lbs -Rotors 1-2lbs -Sprocket 1lb -Chain 1lb -Fasteners 1lb Generally as a rule of thumb the higher on the bike the more critical the weight. Weight at the wheels is also quite important. While every gram is important you do reach a point of diminishing returns where the amount of cost often does not justify the replacement of the part for such a small performance gain. Some of the biggest "bang for the buck" for weight savings is in the wheels and the Battery. A free weight savings is how much fuel you put in the bike. If you know exactly the distance it needs to travel and put in that exact amount of fuel and very little more you can save a lot of weight over a full tank. I really should go about weighing my track bike sometime. I have BST Carbon wheels as well as carbon race bodywork and most of the weight savings stuff on that list. When I sit on it I gain a lot of that weight back it still would be a fun figure to know. I have managed to stay somewhat sane with it and have only replaced parts that have a meaningful weight savings. Some people however spend tens of thousands of dollars for titanium and other parts without knowing their actual weight savings. I have even known people who replaced aluminum parts with Titanium and thought that saved them weight. Aluminum is lighter than Titanium. Ooops! The RR is 458LBS wet from the factory. BMW did a lot of good engineering on the RR and it has the lightest factory cast aluminum wheels in the industry and an aluminum gas tank from the factory. It's amazing the bikes out there running around with steel ones.

I'm still trying to figure out how to reduce the amount of pressure I feel in my hands when I'm heavy on the brakes heading into a corner. I keep my arms bent but somehow some force is traveling through them. I'm also working on my core strength a bit so I can support myself better without that energy transferring into the bars. It's one of the things holding me back slightly from braking like a pro. Along with many other things of course.

AH HA! Very helpful tip. That used to happen to me all the time!

Great experience. Thank you for sharing. Right or wrong I find that there's certain circumstances where it's impossible for there not to be some of my body weight on the bars. Heavy trail braking while hanging off tends to be one of those times for me. From what I have read this is normal. It's still worth trying to reduce this as much as possible as unintentional bar input can adversely affect the bike.

Have you attempted to set the sag? This will give you an idea if the springs are too soft if you end up running out of preload adjustment trying to get your sag numbers. For the street It's fine as if you are topping out or bottoming out the suspension there you probably have a lot more problems than the suspension with the police helicopter following you.

Yeah. The airbags go inside the rear springs and just help to beef up the rear suspension and give the van a bit more ability to support the tongue weight of the trailer. You still need to be a bit mindful of the fact that you may be close to the towing limits depending on the weight of your trailer. My friend was towing a relatively light trailer however they did not care for how much the rear of the van was sinking when he attached the trailer. It's a cheap upgrade that helps the van out a lot. Air tabs also help out a lot with large enclosed trailers. They help a bit with fuel economy but they also help reduce a lot of the swaying and wind turbulence and make everything a bit more stable. I did a semi tractor trailer kit for my trailer and was able to do both sides and the roof of my trailer as well as the roof of my tow vehicle and still have some left over as spares or to do the roof of a 2nd tow vehicle. They help out a lot more than I expected and make the trailer tow a lot more easily.

Figured I would share this. http://www.airtab.com/ Those are the vortex generators I bought. They are very commonly used on semi's to reduce the "suction" effect due to the flat rear section of the trailer. Even if I get just 1-2 mpg improvement they are worth it for me.

Ouch. I don't feel so bad now about my fuel economy. I could care less about the cost of course. It's the constant stopping for fuel that annoys me so much. I just invested in some vortex generators for my tow vehicle and for the trailer so hopefully that will help with the fuel consumption a bit and and give me a bit more time between stops. Most of the fuel economy issues that you see towing is not due to weight and is due mostly to aerodynamics. Nothing wrong with the Odyssey. A friend of mine tows with one of those. Something to consider is some airbags for the rear suspension to level it out a bit and take some of the strain off the rear suspension. He did this with his and it tows really well. I tow with a Range Rover myself. It's probably not on any "best of" tow vehicle lists but it has a #7500 tow capacity and is super comfy to soak up the miles.

Very nice. Hermann Tilke is the architect of this track. I regularly ride at AMP which is another one of his designs and each time I ride it I love it more and more.

Yeah. REALLY looking forward to those two straights. As well as all of the corners. As I mentioned before BMW's going to have their world superbike engineers there for data analysis. I'm going to take advantage of this with my data but my focus is not going to be as much the data itself as it is going to be learning how the engineer approaches the analysis. I'm going to take lots and lots of notes. What I'm not looking forward to is the drive. I'll be driving at about 9-10mpg across country to get there and then back.

Yeah. Just a standard track day where you provide your own bike. The BMW demo truck will be there but I doubt you could borrow one for more than a few laps. All bikes are welcome not just BMW's.

Double R Fest this year is at COTA. Oct 29th and 30th. I'm going. Anybody else? BMW Demo truck is going to be there as well as a BMW WSBK engineer to work with riders on their data. https://www.facebook.com/kerntrackdays/?fref=ts

The manufacturer has to factor in all intended use cases. From the slow guy to the fast guy. The pressure variances that you will see with the "super low pressures" are heat related. The more friction and temperature a tire a tire see's during use causes the pressure inside to grow. The fast guys lower the pressure because even off the warmers their tires will heat up and the pressure will grow. There's a black art to this that I don't fully understand yet but find yourself a fast guy who understands it and you will get some "magic numbers" that will work well for your tires. Be sure to make sure he understands your pace otherwise he will recommend the pressure for his pace which might not work as well for you. I run my Pirelli SC2 slicks at 34/26-27. Slightly higher pressures in low temps and slightly lower in hot temps. The fast guys run theirs at 34/24-26. Utilizing tire warmers accomplishes the following for any rider. 1. Gets your tire, carcass and wheel as hot as possible so that they remain hot throughout your session. 2. Allows you to set a more accurate hot pressure. 3. Eliminates doubt that can rent space in your head and slow you down (are my tires hot enough?) 4. Provides a margin of safety by preventing cold tires.

The problem is that you can't take the human factor out of the results. Very likely you put a person who's never ridden anything bigger than a 600, they're going to be a little timid. How many sessions does it take to get a rider comfortable on a bike? I rode the schools ZX6 and didn't feel comfortable in the 2 days I rode it. I had a difficult time integrating with the bike. Fatigue and dehydration may have also been a factor but I've always eschewed Kawasaki's (except I did like the ZX-12R). The irony is I was one of those people at one time. I thought my ancient R6 was the most powerful bike that you "needed". I adapted to the BMW almost instantly. With a bit more experience under my belt and bikes adjusted specifically for me I do see what you are saying though about "adapting" to the bike. I rented a school bike this past school and only rode it in the rain and for a few other sessions. Going from a bike that's literally an extension of me to a stock bike takes a bit of adjustment. I wish we were doing a track day this week. Next one is in September. On another note since the cat is out of the bag now as of a few minutes ago the October date that I was speaking about is Double R fest 2016. It just got announced. It's expensive but it's limited attendance and they are going to have a BMW WSBK engineer doing data on riders bikes this year. I can't wait. There's rumors floating around already about the VIP guest riders.

Having just got my first Literbike, I think the insurance market has some influence too. My current insurer gives us a great rate that nobody can beat. It's so good they're trying to get out of insuring motorcycles but have to grandfather all current policies - so we keep it. When I added the 2006 CBR1000RR 2 weeks ago, they didn't offer the same level of medical liability as they did on the other 2 bikes. And furthermore they have in small print that all coverages must be equal. So we had to reduce medical liability, which was reflected in the premium from what they originally quoted. Keep in mind also that in Europe many riders have a provisional licenses and have to graduate up the cc ladder. In America if you can pay for it, you can own it. Insurance s a problem wherever you go. It has a lot to do with a business model straight out of the stone ages and government protection. Where's the incentive to be logical or reasonable when your customers are forced to do business with you? I'm not a fan of the idea of tiered licensing. For every rider with poor impulse control that it helps it unfairly punishes those who are responsible. It's logic is to protect the lowest common denominator who still manages to get themselves hurt on a low powered bikes.

This topic reminds me. I never reported back on my tire switch experience. More about that in a second. Q3's are an absolutely amazing tire. Great life, great in the wet and great grip everywhere. You can't go wrong with them. Whenever I get back onto a school bike it takes me all of 2 seconds to re calibrate back to the Q3. Even without warmers. It's probably one of the most well rounded tires that's on the market. I switched to Pirelli's recently and it's been quite an adjustment. Their profile is completely round unlike the slightly pointed profile of the Dunlops. This one thing has taken me the longest time to get used to. The Pirelli's are not as good as the Q3 in the rain. They aren't bad but they do give you a lot of feedback with squirming and occasional squirming and twitchyness in the rain. Honestly in the rain I'm probably faster on the Dunlops because when the Pirelli's start taking I start backing off. So why am I still on Pirelli's? It's the grip honestly. The Supercorsa SP has absolutely amazing grip in the dry. Even though I know it's not limitless it certainly feels like it. It's just planted like crazy. The Pirelli SC2 slicks that I have on my track bike have even more grip than the DOT's and have a LOT more carcass stiffness and they are rock solid in the corners. Even when I slow down at an unfamiliar track or get tired keeping them hot is never an issue. I'm coming up on a tire and wheel change interval on the street bike that's been on Supercorsa SP's. I'm really tempted to put a set of Q3's on it. With the pointy profile and lighter forged wheels it could be an interesting combination especially with the slightly better wet grip. It's a tough decision really because the Pirelli's in the dry really are confidence inspiring. I may stay on the Pirelli's for the dry grip and so I have more seat time on a rounded profile tire. Decisions decisions..... Bridgestone is the only manufacturer that produced the 18inch rear tire for my first track bike. I ran a BT003 on the front and a BT090 on the rear. Not a bad tire really. Decent grip in the wet and in the dry.

Is the L4 consultant a world famous racer (wishy thinking right?)? an additional coach? a coach in training? a BMW motorad engineer who speaks english? probably not a returning L4 student? Does the consultant do the heavy lifting as the coach goes out riding with the L1/L2 students? Whereas you can request specific coaches, you probably can't request specific consultants? So many questions and sometimes not sure if I should ask here or wait to ask in school. Unfortnately, if I wait too long, it might be too late or I might forget about the question all together because of how busy things get at school and other reasons. Already searched the cornering forum for hook turn but still have lots of questions, but I think I'll wait for next CSS session. Hope I won't forget. Both of my personal bikes are equipped with the BMW Datalogger so I just ride those. Quite honestly you could buy your own datalogger and within a matter of about 3 minutes install it on the school bike and have your laps and everyone else who rode the bike's laps as well. Bring a laptop and pull your sessions and just erase the rest. Don't expect to be able to make heads or tails of the data at the track. Just pull it and store it. The useful analysis comes later. You can check some of the "20 mile views" such as the min max tables and other fun statistical data but as for understanding "what am I doing in Turn 1" that requires some detailed analysis and looking at multiple laps and sessions which takes a while. If I'm 100% honest. The data from this year's CSS is still on my datalogger right now as well as probably at least 10 other tracks too. After the "fun factor" of playing with the data wears off you are left with a lot of information to sift through. I'll still use my logger for solving specific problems when other methods fail but I'm having a lot of fun doing it the old fashioned way for a change. L4 consultants aren't just coaches that can't ride. They are full on coaches and have all the capabilities that the ones on the track do. In fact to be 100% honest they tend to be the faster and more experienced coaches. They take L4 consulting very seriously. This year I had Keith Code for a L4 coach. Most of the coaches have racing experience but you won't hear them talking about it. Their focus is the student rather than anything else. This is helpful too for new people. I might have been REALLY intimidated to find out that the nice lady towing me around the track was a very successful 250 racer when I was doing Level 1. She was just a normal person to me and I trusted her not to tow me over my head. This actually even spills over into the rider bios on the site. You won't see much information there about what they have won and where they have raced. They know they are fast. They are trying to help you accomplish exactly the same thing without all of that getting in the way. This forum exists to help riders. Not just students. If you have a question lay it on us. While you will get the most out of being able to ask a coach directly and being able to practice the technique and then discuss it afterwards sometimes the forum is helpful. I have solved a number of my riding problems here by asking. Both students and others associated with the school and coaches and anybody else who's on the forum can answer. The focus here is helping rather than anything else. The hook turn is a technique used to lower your center of gravity and alter the bike's geometry. When you get into the hook turn position you lower the overall CG of the bike/rider and the front forks compress. The lower the front end the more willing the bike is to turn. It's VERY useful and one of the better tricks I learned when I was taking L3.

P.S. This is one of the main reasons I avoid working on my own bike. I'm just as guilty as everyone else is and the mechanic seems to have that "perfect touch". My parts don't fall off and they aren't bound up.