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Team Chicago – Grattan Pre-Season Shakedown

Grattan went well. As well as it could go for the first time out of the year. I really missed not doing Jennings or something during the winter to stay a bit fresher. Truth be told, I still felt pretty decent. The times weren't there, but they did drop pretty quickly in the afternoon after some significant realizations. Team Chicago put on the day's events, so there weren't many racers there overall.

Starting off the day, Gina and I arrived around 8am. Doug, Marion and Aaron were there and we setup shop in the lower paddock. Cool and very windy, we skipped the first session and went out just before lunch. The new bike was good. It felt different early on, but I thought that was just rust on my part. Turns out in the midst of all the last minute preparations of getting the bike ready, we didn't check the suspension settings on both the shock and the forks (we did check sag, go figure). So my first few sessions on the bike didn't feel good at all, and the times were showing it. Turns out after I checked the shock, it was about 5-6 clicks softer than we had run last year. Ugh.

I set the shock to where it was supposed to be, went out, and droppped 2.5 seconds right away. Phew. The rear end worked again. After that session, I put the front to where it was last year. Next session, another second dropped. Now we're going in the right direction.

Overall the bike felt nearly the same as the '08 did. Problems: The quickshifter wasn't working. It would try to work – lurching, but not shifting unless I rolled out of the throttle. Aaron, Doug and I talked about how you don't realize how much you like a quickshifter until you don't have one. That's one thing to fix. Levers, shifter positioning and the standard seat "bump pad" I normally use are about all we have left to finalize on the bike. Other than that, it's a matter of finding an overall better setup for Grattan, as I still struggled there last year once I got into the faster times. I need to do the times without having to work/fight the bike so much.

Good things were the new helmet, gloves and boots. The new Arai felt great. The new Handroids are awesome gloves. And of course the Alpinestar boots speak for themselves. The fresh new motor on the bike felt like a rocket. I'm not sure if that was just having ridden the fifty too long over the winter, but it felt extremely quick. Jamie did a great job building the motor and Steve at Honda East did a stellar job of mapping the bike on Saturday, just before we hit the track yesterday.

Now that I've got the first (ugly) ride of the season out of the way, I'm ready to get right back on the track. Time can't move quick enough …

Cheers,

- eddie

Monday, April 5th, 2010 | POSTED AT: 5:28 AM
FILED UNDER: General

2 Comments on “Team Chicago – Grattan Pre-Season Shakedown”

Ryan M. wrote on 7 April, 2010, 6:53 PM
those monster decals stand out, and look sharp on there. bike looks really good. i like how the honda east racing doesnt fit on that fairing. just looks cool, man. good luck this year. really hope to make it out to grattan one of the times
Eddie wrote on 8 April, 2010, 6:51 AM
Thanks Ryan. Glad you caught the cropping of the Honda East logo .. that was the look I was going for.