I am rapt not to be in the vast group of riders who have visted the Island - but only seen others ride around. I have ridden the Island! And a fulfilling and interesting day it was.
I wasn't sure, at first, how I would go. Having a dedicated racebike, I have enough tracktime, but not for years on the SV. I didn't know how fast I would be able to ride it. But I should have had faith! The SV handles every extreme, from inaccessible 4wd tracks (I never did write about that adventure, did I...?), to the fastest circuit on the GP calendar. GREAT bike, for those who didn't pick up on it.
Whilst I had a pottery first session - slow even by 1st session standards - I did get into it in the second. I had been thinking about asking to be moved down into the slower group, but with growing ease with the race-track context, I was becoming as comfortable at full speed as I am with the SV on the road. And I wasn't being left behind either, despite having (probably) the slowest bike in the group!
The only real bugbear I had was braking into T4 (Honda): it is not that the SV couldn't, or wouldn't, but again and again I realised too late that to actually stop the thing (from faster than I realised - 180+ on a fast run) really required a fistful. Spoiled by the stopping power of the GSXR, actually manhandling the lever was hard to get used to - the result being that in the first two sessions I ran straight on four times. It is a great spot to have the back entrance to the pits!
The third session though is when the fun really started. The level of comfort I was riding with made me really conscious of how utterly uncomfortable I am on the GSXR. It might be faster, but it doesn't do it with the same familiarity. On the SV, I knew how it would wiggle, I knew how to hold it, push it, let it go, to lean forwards or backwards, how to get off and get on it, how the front skips on bumps and the rear wobbles under power. It was like being at home!
I was actually entering corners quite quickly, feeling the front threatening to go, skipping, rather than bumping, over surface irregularities; the rear was sliding on the downshifts into two; finally, I could feel myself pushing lean angles I'm not used to (on the SV), getting frighteningly sideways, but feeling 100% there. Most of the time. Not all.
Most of the time, but not all - is not always good enough. My old friend caught up with me, and my rising confidence this time convinced me not to just run straight on. Halfway through T4, way off line, I found myself still with my hand resting on the brake, needing to get the bike properly tipped in to get it through to the exit. I wasn't going too fast, and had plenty of lean to spare, so I let my fingers off the brake and
The front end didn't like it at all. There is one rule with the SV, above all others: play nice, and BE SMOOTH. The pogo-stick excuses for forks do not take kindly to inconsiderateness, and they responded by prompty disappearing from under me.
There are few things more annoying than stuffing up and dropping a bike, but really once the adrenaline wore off I had to admit I was quite lucky. If I had made a mistake through T1 instead, and one of those bumps had pushed the front too far... well it would have been a lot more damaging at 200 than at 50 or so.
Even then, the damage was remarkably minimal. Considering myself now a veteran of the crash, one look at the damage drew only one question: where can I find a brake lever? Surprisingly, not a single SV/GSXR of an appropriate year at the track, but I did manage to track down a racer/mechanic at Rhyll who had a lever lying around which 'might' fit - fit it did, and with only one session lost I was back out there to confirm the SV really can do anything.
Sadly, the crash made me paranoid about running into corners on the brakes. I don't trail heavily (usually), but braking and turning have always overlapped for me (for a couple of years at least), so avoiding doing that really screwed around with my entries. Sure, I was still going fast - fast enough to remain in that group - but not as fast as I would have been. The afternoon was spent working on my consistency, working out the track, and trying to push the SV in ways I was comfortable with. More of a pleasant post script to an exciting morning than a continuation of the day's work.
And the morning really Was exciting, not just because it was fun, but because I really was doing good work. The SV at times was being pushed way beyond its standard zone of operation, and I moreover was pushing it into territories that I don't normally push it. Even the GSXR I have never felt comfortable enough to push like that - never have I thrown it into corners, feeling the edge through the front rather than from what I know it will do, pushing it on the entry rather than just trying to get it quickly through to the exit.
I guess the crash brought about a sobering awareness of why I Don't ride like that - while I think I would have been safe if I was at 100%, I wasn't, and on the road you can never bank on 100% - riding like that is never safe in the public domain.
I'm not in a position at the moment to be thinking about another trackday, and at any rate I need to do a lot more riding on the road to ensure I will be able to take full advantage of another opportunity, but it was a seductive taste of actually progressing on the bike, and I don't know what exactly will come of the aftertaste.
@JohnSBaxter
2009-traveldiary.blogspot.com
2009-motorcyclist.blogspot.com
jsbaxter.com.au (coming soon!)
Posts
