Fifty Improvements

Not fifty improvements numerically, but figuratively speaking.

As I last talked about, I went and got the upgraded steering head bearings for the little bike.  It's impressive just visually, the difference between the stock bearings and these ones now in the bike.  The steering stem has two of each and both of these were packed with grease and replaced.  Afterwards, the difference in just steering the bars from side to side with the bike stationary was noticeable.  That with a new spark plug and I was ready to take on the big bikes.

On the track, it was definitely an improvement.  It made the bike less twitchy and the front end less sloppy than it had been (some of the exact things I had felt when riding Justin's bike).  I was still sliding the front tire around, so I've got to continue to work on body position, but I didn't feel like I was riding out of control quite as much as I had been before to do quick times.  

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In this video, there's only a few bikes here so far, but as you can see – many of them are fairly tricked out.  As the video progresses over to my bike (the #48), you can see my wee little bike sitting there all nice and cute.  Stock forks, stock wheels, stock frame, brakes, etc. 

I didn't get any times with the transponders.  When using it, the times post automatically to Kart 2 Kart's website and the serious kart guys freak out when their best overall times get trumped, and they don't know it's from a bike rather than a kart.  They're trying to figure out a way to delete our sessions once the night is over (right now it's a manual and time consuming process).  I was however able to find my old lap timer over the weekend, so I'll have that ready for this upcoming night of riding.

In the end, Justin and I had a good old time banging bars and riding around chasing the big bikes.  We had them covered for the most part.  Womack and Gonyou were there as well and were flying around on their stock machines.  Jim (Cottrell) got his bike running and back on track, and a few of the other guys we ride with are well accomplished and/or Pro flattrackers, so it's great riding.

Cheers.