Brands Hatch Eve Trackday #2

On Monday evening, a few of the LB gang went down to Brands to have a few hours on track. Before riding down, I prep'd the bike, which is very simple nowadays, consisting of a wash, that's it, I don't bother with mirrors anyhow, so nothing to remove there, and I leave everything else as is. The suspension is setup for the track as well. I also installed a new Powerbronze double-bubble screen to help with the wind blast and make it easier to tuck-in at high speeds. I took the opportunity to take some snaps of the bike as it was such nice weather.

This is the second evening session I've done at Brands Hatch now, and I'm really enjoying it, you get a good amount of time for not masses amounts of cash. The heat was very high for me, at 28c, I'm not used to riding hard in full leathers in this heat and it took its toll on my body, with me sweating like a paedo in a kindergarten.

During the ride down to the track, I somehow managed to convince myself someone had altered the rear preload on my Ohlins shock, as it felt like the bike was sitting low a the back, and understeering, so spent the first couple of sessions worrying about this, winding up the preload and ruining the handling, coming in and being unable to go fast as I was running wide everywhere.. so I cut my losses and put it back to how it was.. then it was perfect and I could feel at one with the bike, the first time since buying it! WOHOOO!! (idiot)

I'm getting back to the pace I was riding at last year before I had the lowside at Rockingham, repaired the 750, sold it and bought the K5. I have much love for this bike now, I feel confident mid-corner and am surprised at the amount of feedback I'm getting through the chassis. It's superb.

Tasha and I did the trackday together, with her on her Fireblade. She was in the same group as me, as the organisers were running two groups instead of three, so mixed skills; novice & intermediate, then intermediate & fast. This was the first time I've seen her on track, and I have to say, she is very good and was putting a number of men to shame. I got me a fast one!

Everyone had a good time, though I think most of us had some sort of trouble throughout the evening, i.e. I was fiddling with my suspension when I didn't need to, Tasha got the red-mist and was out of her seat at Clearways, Grant ran out of suspension adjustment and was running wide all over the shop, Iain felt flustered and let down by his lap-timer which couldn't work with the trackside beacon as it was turned off. I think the only person who didn't have trouble was Brian! He was putting us all to shame and showing us a clean pair of heels at least twice a session, grr. He's going to be lethal on his new K5 750 when it arrives this week!

Video to come soon. The full collection of pictures (with high res options) is up on londonbikers.com

Speed

Woohoo, the sun's coming out to play a little bit more each day, which means life can resume at the track. Brands Hatch Indy & Silverstone International were GREAT fun recently, with a few of the boys having fun changing positions frequently, until one of us overcooked it and ended up nursing a sore body and battered R1, oops.

Next Monday a group of us have booked up an evening trackday at Brands Hatch again. The event is £70, with Focused Events. I get a lot of kicks out of this circuit, with the amount of time you get at an evening trackday. It has some amazing corners that are very hard to master, I'm so slow round this circuit, compared to the real fast boys (58secs in traffic, hoping to lose three seconds or more), I'm really motivated to up my game and learn to do better next time round.

The K5 is booked in with Crescent to have the power commander I bought recently, fitted and a custom fueling map designed for it. This will take good advantage of the radical Racefit exhaust and race BMC air filter (not yet installed), I'm hoping that the Crescent 160mph ram-air dyno machine can get some pretty good power gains across the range. The bottom-end of the rev range is quite fluffy as standard on the k5's, so any improvement there will really help around town. The mid-range is already very strong, and the top-end just phenominal, but if more can be had, then I'm game for trying to get it :)

londonbikers.com is progressing nicely, there's still a mountain of work to do on it, to make it the best community site for bikers in the London area, but people are talking about it, joining up, using the forums, more articles and galleries are being posted, and I'm planning a marketing scheme for it over the next few weeks. I've also been in contact with several suppliers about getting discounts for members and review material. It's been well received. Next up is more exposure and a large number of contributors.

Time for two wheels

Things are going well, the weather's improving, trackdays have begun and the K5 is starting to take the shape that I have envisaged for a while. I've just taken delivery of some new items, which you can see installed here. Additions being: KTech built Ohlins 46PRXLS rear shock, Carbon Fiber rear hugger, Suzuki CF accessories and PP Tuning (USA) race rearsets. There's also a Power Commander USB 3 and BMC race air filter sitting aside, waiting for dyno time to get a custom fueling map built for the Racefit exhaust and air filter.

Last bank-holiday weekend a number of us did a couple of trackdays, Brands Hatch Indy and Silverstone International, the day after the WSB races were on there! The weather forecast had changed to gloomy and we were all disheartened, but after arriving, spirits were upbeat as there was a great atmosphere with the WSB trucks still there for us to oogle over. It rained for the first session but after that the sun and wind came out to blast the track dry and everyone was having much fun! Cezar, Grant and I were having a little play in the fast group, a really good time was had, love it! Unfortunately though, one of our friends, Pete, had a pretty hard high-side coming out of Copse corner. He's healing well, no broken bones, just battered. The bike is in need of a bit of TLC.

Pictures from Silverstone are online at londonbikers, here. Pictures from Brands Hatch to come soon! This day was also good and a few of the London lot went along to test out their new bikes.

I hope the weather holds out well for us over the weekend!