rchase

Quite interesting actually. The TC engagement thing actually stuck with me and perplexed me. I suddenly realized that the guys in the front had such good throttle control that they did not need the TC until they started really pushing and even then it was not needed as much as the guys in the back. TC is a sword that cuts both ways. Used correctly it's a great safety net. Used incorrectly it can rob you of your abilities and make you dependent on it. I'm taking the gamble and hope that it allows me to stretch some limits and see an orange light when I reach the limit of traction rather than a face full of asphalt.

Some great info here. Thanks for all of the suggestions. In the short term at least my bike won't be seeing slicks or racing anytime in the near future. I might try the warmers on a cold day early in the morning to get some initial temp in the tires and see if they help. Might be interesting to do a comparison. What's interesting is during warm up laps I have felt the level of grip change. Each lap the bike seems more planted and stable. So a question off a tangent. If someone wanted to "play" with low grip situations what would be the best way to go about it? Traction has always been my greatest fear and in order to conquer fear you have to face it. I have done this a bit already in the wet but now I'm wanting to explore a bit more. Of course the preferred method would not involve lots of crashes. Anybody have any ideas?

So. I'm a average track day rider on Dunlop Q3's. I have a set of tire warmers and a generator but have never used them. I always have taken the time to do a few laps before really expecting a lot out of the tires. I'm wondering though. I have ridden a few days where it's been downright cold in the mornings where it's taken a while for it to heat up for the day. The first few sessions are always a bit on the concerning side because of the low temperature with a bike that's sat in the cold all night. Would I get any advantage out of putting warmers on the tires before the first session of the day to "get them up to temp" to avoid the initial warm up cycle? I probably would not use the warmers after that and probably would still allow them to heat up. I'm just wondering how much residual heat the tire will hold and if it would provide any additional margin of safety or if I would just be wasting my time.

Phil, Thanks for the information. The last helmet I purchased was an Arai Corsair V my Arai sales guy gave me a helmet and said "trust me this is your size". I could barely get it on and it was pretty tight but not uncomfortable. I trusted him and he was right. Over time it's broken in and is perfect but its starting to get older. I think for my next helmet I might want to go to the extra step of getting one that's a custom fit. I looked at some of the construction videos on the Schuberth helmets and was quite impressed at the level of detail that goes into them. I have seen some in the showroom at my local BMW dealership and the materials used in the insides look quite comfortable. Next time I'm taking Level 4 at the school I'm going to have to take one of your helmets on a test drive. I have a feeling one might end up following me home.

My mechanic Opie Caylor is one heck of a nice guy. He's an ex racer who opened up a shop and works mostly on track bikes. I was lurking on Youtube and found a recent video of him at Road Atlanta having a good time. His bike is a completely bone stock GSXR1000 with mirrors on it that he rides on the street. I find this video quite inspiring. He's going pretty darn fast but is really relaxed and courteous to other people on the track. The effortless nature of his riding is quite impressive. One of these days I hope my riding is as effortless as his. I thought it might be interesting to share.

I don't run warmers and usually just take it easy and allow the tires time to warm up before asking much out of them. Even after a few laps the traction was just not there (it was a hot summer day). It actually seemed like it was getting worse but that may have just been my perception. After the tire change the bike completely transformed. Even the suspension seemed to work better. Of course luck was not on my side. All they had in my size was Michelin Supersports and after another session it started pouring rain. As much as I love the rain I did not want to risk the bike on tires not intended for rain use.

It was a good learning experience. People can give you great advice. Experiencing it for yourself certainly gives you much more understanding. After sliding around on a set of dried out tires I have no issues at all replacing a set that are slightly questionable. Tires are way cheaper than accident damage. I lucked out on the Tarot cards that time for sure.

I had BT023's on one of the R6's for a while before I knew better. It's a multi compound tire with the softer compound on the sides (the soft compound is probably completely missing on the ones in the photo). When I first had the tires on the bike I noticed the sides of the fronts "sticking" to the pavement on really hot days because of how soft the compound was. That's probably why you are getting the weird wear. Tires with edges like that are a terror. I had flat spotted tires on my Harley and went riding with some friends at a spirited pace on some twisty roads. It felt like it took a lot of effort to get the bike to turn but then once the bike started to lean in it wanted to DROP into the turn because of the extra effort involved. There's nothing more unsettling than wrestling an 800# bike not designed for corners on a twisty road on worn out tires. Even worse than bad wear patterns are tires that are old. The first time I took my MV to the track it had some Michelin Pilot Power's on it that looked nearly brand new. They were a lot older than I realized. On dry pavement it seemed like I had less traction than I did in the wet. The rear end wanted to constantly get out of shape any time I even thought about getting near the throttle. Here's what they looked like after one very cautious session before I came to my senses and bought new tires at the track. They looked normal before going out but have a bit of a dried out look after some terrifying riding.

Well. I'm stumped. It's not much fun to ride on tires with an edge like that though.

Wow. Quite impressive. I was at Barber so lots of right turns. Also dealing with some visual issues at the time (solved at this last Level 4) so that's why I was so hard on the brakes. I actually warped that set of rotors shortly after the photo was taken.

Welcome to the forum Cee. Lots of helpful advice and things to learn here. The School is simply amazing and it's well worth every penny. Most of the biggest improvements that I have made in my riding has been with CSS. I'm a Level 4 repeat offender and I'm still amazed at the improvement every time.

That's a handy bit of information. I was wondering what was up with my tires on the FZR400 for exactly this reason and now I know. Ok. I know everyone is itching to post photos of their tires so I'll start. Front tire on my FZR400 with the weird globs of rubber.

One thing I just ran into. The 2014+ firmware for the datalogger had some issues on my bike a 2014 S1000RR. For some reason the data I was getting was a bit skewed showing me revving up to 20K rpm. Going to the 2012+ version of the datalogger firmware resolved this for me. My bike may be down rev on it's systems software. I'm going to bring this up to my dealer the next time I am in for service. If you are getting impossible data try switching to the earlier firmware. It just takes a few minutes to change it.

Does Schuberth do any events for custom fitting of helmets to riders? When shopping for a helmet what's the most critical things to look at fit wise for track riding? I learned some of these the hard way by buying an Arai that was a size too big. Would love to avoid some other traps in the future.

For those who are curious. Here's the way that the wire is supposed to be routed per the instructions in the manual.

None that I'm currently aware of otherwise I would have not done the install this way. I also notice that in a few of the BMW sanctioned videos that the datalogger is installed this way. If you look close you will notice the Datalogger on Nate Kern's (BMW test rider) bike installed this way. Either way will work of course but my preference is not having a black wire traveling up the side of my white tail. My other concern was having a wire that could get caught on something or having it flapping in the breeze at high speed.

That's an awesome article. It also sheds a bit of light on what it takes to win races which is having everyone hate you when you make a mistake. It's good that Kevin is still around and did not get beaten to death by a Japanese man with a hand full of crushed motorcycle exhaust.

Yeah. It's pretty amazing to be honest. It's scary how serious BMW is about this bike.

The more I learn about the S1000RR the more I'm absolutely amazed by it. Here's a video I recently ran into. The Race Calibration kit allows you to adapt the bike down to VERY granular levels of detail to suit your needs on specific tracks. If I was racing the S1000RR turning off the TC would probably be one of the very last things I would consider doing. With the ability to adjust it any way you see fit gives you options that until recently were only available to well funded factory race teams.

One of my references for deciding to do the install this way. http://www.s1000rrforum.com/forum/s1000rr-hp4-tech-performance-chat/24858-datalogger-installation.html

I wrote up these instructions for a friend who needed to install one of these on her HP4. I thought it would be nice to add it here in case anybody else needed the "how to". These instructions are not "the factory way" but I did do a bit of research in the S1000RR forums to see how other people were doing theirs. Step 1: Take the instruction manual and put it back in the box. The instruction's include directions on removing the seat and license plate bracket and tail from the bike and the cable snakes up the side of the tail and looks unsightly. This method is cleaner and easier but is not the factory way. Step 2: Remove passengers seat. Step 3: Locate the larger of two connectors tie wrapped to the frame rail. Cut the tie wrap and remove the resistor plug from the end of the connector. Step 4: Plug the datalogger into this cable. It can only go one way. Make sure you hear it click when you plug it in. Step 5: Plug the resistor into the other end of the datalogger. Also a one way deal and you want to hear it click when it is plugged in. Step 6: Route the cables and mount the GPS sensor on the tail. Velcro included in the kit. Step 7: Add some tie wraps to keep everything secure and to keep the cables from moving. You are done! I routed the my cables around the space in the very front of the tail and used a tie wrap around one of the passenger seat brackets to secure the cable and keep it from moving around. I replaced the tie wrap around the original connector and put it back in it's original position. Once you have the data logger installed the blue light on the front of the unit will flash when the bike is on. The first time you use it the software will not recognize the USB key on the computer. You have to put the key into the datalogger after you have started the bike and blipped the throttle a few times to get some data so it will write to the USB drive. The blue light will go solid as the unit is writing the data. Now the key will work with the BMW software. Not sure why but that's what happened with mine. Also. It's worth noting! Before you use the software there are several online updates. You can get to the updates through an update menu in the software. There's actually 2 updates so run the updater until it does not have any more updates (there may be more or less depending on what happens in the future when you read this article). It's also a good idea to rename your datalogger to something you recognize and to make sure that the datalogger is running the firmware flash specific to your bike. It's in the options menu of the main screen. To flash the device just plug in the USB key to your computer. Select the options menu so the software will put the firmware on the key. When you get to the bike insert the key with the ignition off. Switch the bike on but don't start it. The light will go solid and then blink and then go solid again. Let it sit until the light flashes blue again. You are done. Shut the bike off and turn it back on again with the key removed. Here are some photos of my install. Under the Passengers Seat Outside View I hope this saves someone a bit of time.

Is that not allowing them to accomplish their goal of intimidating you perhaps not to pass next time? I'll be the first to admit I don't know a lot about racing but I do know a bit about human nature.

YellowDuck! That's one HECK of an amazing accomplishment! Way to go! It's also quite inspirational to someone like myself who's dealt with some of the same issues. Thank you so much for sharing that!

That's an awesome article. Thanks for posting the link!

I certainly would. Every time CSS is at Barber I make it a point to go. I'm always completely amazed at the progress I make. Great coaching and a positive environment really is amazing. Oh. Don't get the wrong idea. Not all of my bikes are "nice". My Track R6 is all business with plenty of scratches and war scars from the previous owner.