Winter Preparations

This past Saturday was spent working on the bike.  Doug came over and together with Joe, we went through nearly the entire bike.  We started at the front end; removing forks, triples wheel and all.  We took out the steering stem, bearings and cleaned and regreased everything – then reassembled.  You can see some pictures from the day here.

We went down to the brake calipers and took those apart, cleaning each set of pistons and putting them back together.  The forks had been recently looked at by Mike Fitzgerald, so they were ready to go.  Brake lines looked good and all we had to do was bleed the brakes and put some fresh fluid (which is on the way from HE) in them.  We put everything back together and moved onto the back of the bike.

Once there, we pulled off the stock shock and swingarm (the Ohlins shock was sitting on the table after being sent to Fitzgerald for freshening up and a new, updated valving) and went to work.  With the swingarm off, my dad and Doug took everything apart, cleaned it, and again regreased and reassembled, careful to not disrupt the detailed number of roller bearings that are inside each side of the swingarm itself. 

We then took off the shock linkage and did the same thing.  One of the bearing pieces/collars that sits in the linkage was showing signs of wear when we had looked at it a few months earlier, so we had a new one ready to replace it with.  More cleaning, more grease and we reinstalled the linkage and Ohlins shock back into the frame.  A new sprocket on the rear wheel, along with cutting a new chain and things were moving along.

Some other odds and ends including cleaning out the air box, which had accumulated a fair amount of gunk from running VP race gas in the last few races of the season.  From the velocity stacks in the air box, to the air filter, to the injectors – everything was gone through.  We had also just gotten the tank and bodywork back from being painted, so the fuel pump and everything associated with the tank was put back together.  We then moved some wiring from outside the frame to the inside, just to keep it looking clean and away from potential damage in a crash.

That was our Saturday.  Doug was stuck driving back in the snow-storm we had, which wasn't much of a good time.  Last time Doug was over, he was stuck driving in similar conditions and before that, we had to turn back from our trip to Mark Rozema's – after getting to the border and realizing that a trip to New Jersey in the ice, sleet and snow just wasn't going to happen.  Fortunately Doug drives an Audi and scoffs in the face of snow-covered roads.

The weather hasn't scared him off fortunately, as Doug's coming back over tonight while we install the motor and put the rest of the bike together in preparation for Jennings this weekend.  While Doug and Joe aren't traveling on this trip, Garry will be and he and I are leaving Thursday and making the drive down to Florida to ride on Saturday and Sunday.  I'm pretty excited for it – being able to spend two solid days riding in warm weather – and having Garry there to make things even better.  It will be a huge benefit and it'll be a good test to see where I am in terms of fitness and being ready to ride.  I've been to Jennings before so we should be able to put in some solid laps.  Chris Jensen, the big man at Pirelli now will also be there, so it'll be good to talk with him in person.

It's sort of funny – when last season ended, I thought the bike was all set, ready to go, and didn't need much of anything to be ready for the 09 season.  And yet here we are, taking the bike down to the frame again and going through every little detail.  I wouldn't prefer it any other way though.  At this level, it's all the little details that add up to something significant ..

Cheers.