Other Multistrada’s on the track

I always love it when I see other Multistrada’s on the track. Jeff over at his “adventures of jeff” blog shows off his track riding skills. This was his first time on the track and I think that he did really, really well. The pics look great and he is close to getting his knee down (something that is HARD to do on such a tall bike). Hopefully I will end up doing a track day with him sometime. Take a look at his blog here.

748 in its natural habitat…the track!

I recently took my “new” bike to the track. The day started off really rough for me though. The bike just did not handle well at all and was very much less than confidence inspiring. I ended up taking it to Dave Moss from Catalyst Reaction Suspension Tuning who came out to our track day. WOW! That is all that I can say. Dave just did an amazing job of setting the bike up and getting the suspension right. I could not believe the difference that it made in my riding and my confidence in the bike.

Enough talk…here are some pics. My body positioning still sucks though. I really need more track time and some more schooling to help me with that.

DOCSD Track Day #2

Took the 748 to the track yesterday and had a great time. We were at The Streets of Willow for this track day which is a much tighter and more technical track than the big track. The 748 did really well although it took some time for both me and my bike to get dialed in. My suspension really needed setting up and I went to Dave from Catalyst who was available. For $20 he sets the sag, rebound, and compression. The rear was really off of where it should be and setting the sag made a big difference for me. The front was pretty good but he made a couple of small rebound adjustments and everything was perfect after that.

Well, almost perfect. During the second to last session of the day my bike started to cut out. I thought that maybe I was low on fuel (although we did not get many sessions in that day) and I managed to limp it back to the pits. Once there I checked the gas and it was fine. I then tried to start her again and nothing but clicks. So, the troubleshooting is going to begin. I will take the battery in to see if it will hold a charge. If it will then that means that something else is wrong. I just ordered the Haynes manual and hopefully that will help me shed light on the problem. Thank goodness I own two bikes!

I will have pics posted in the next few days along with a possible update on my bike!

Almost track day…

Well, October is halfway over and I only have a few days until my next track day. Wow, I cannot wait! This next day is a track event that is put on by the club so it will be all Ducati’s (save for a couple of different bikes…a Triumph, couple of Aprilla’s, a Japanese bike or two). I really like our club track days because you know everyone so there is an added air of “familiy”. That makes the day even better.

I have noticed that I have been taking it easy more on the streets now that I do track days. I just don’t trust the streets like I trust a track. There are plenty of guys who haull butt on certain local roads (Palomor…the most overrated road in SoCal) but I just get nervous of all the other riders and the cars that can’t seem to stay on their side of the road.

I do love long trips on backroads though. I gotta plan a winter trip to the desert. I am really looking forward to next summer. I am going to plan a trip in May to correspond with the West Coast Regional Meet of Sport-Touring riders. I have a wedding to go to in July but it is going to be in Elko, Nv and riding through the desert just sucks. I might ride up through the Sierra’s to Reno to meet with my in-law’s then take a car to Elko. Hmmmmm…that sounds like a plan. The next weekend (approx) is MotoGP! Man-o-man…I do love living here in California!

What goes up…

Took the Multi to the track again. This time with a company called TrackXperience. The purpose of this was really twofold. The first was to get a nice track day in and the second was to try out this new (to us) track day provider for our club. Seth, Jon, Jay, Jeff, and I all attended. Jeff and Jon went to their school and the rest of us did open lapping.

Overall it was a great time. I did have a spill on the Multi though. Coming up in turn 3 I was just getting on the gas when the rear end slipped out and I slid accross the tarmac. I still don’t know exactly what happened but can tell you that leather works really, really well. I can also tell you that riding on the track is a heck of a leg workout! I was sore for several days after this day. Man, I gotta get in better shape!

Luckily Seth had brought up his 749 for me to ride too! Thanks man!!! Here are some pics that were taken of me. The first few are of the Multi (pre-crash of course) and the others are of me on the 749.

Down but not out part 2

Ahhhhh, spent a lovely day on Monday at Willow Springs. I am really beginning to like that track. It has a nice combination of sweeping turns, tight turns, and good elevation changes. Here is what it looks like:

We went to try out a new track day provider for our club. The idea was that 5 of us would go check it out. Two would be enrolled in their school, I would open lap in level 1, and two would be in the level 2 open lap sessions. If things go well then we will use these guys next year for our track days.

I took my Multi up there and also brought Seth’s 749 for me to ride. My plan was to take the Multi out for the first few laps then take the 749 out a bit later in the day. The first laps were pretty boring actually. 30 minutes of going really slow around the track playing follow the leader. It would have been OK if it were for just a few laps but for the entire 30 minutes just kinda sucks. I do much better going faster if I am going to follow someone’s lines. For me it is gaining the confidence to take a turn faster or to pick a new line. During the second session I was going pretty well overall. I was feeling strong but also felt as if I was pushing the bike a little too much. I am having a devil of a time moving around on the bike to lower the center of gravity. But, the only place I felt unstable was the “omega” which is turns 3, 4, and 5. The rest of the track felt OK to me. Well, halfway through the second session I decide to lowside on turn 3. I am not sure of what happened exactly. I was actually taking the turn pretty mildly, was not scraping parts, and was not hammering the throttle. The Multi is powerful but not that powerful. Well, one second I am looking up through the turn and the next second I hear scraping and watch my bike slide off of the track. I am getting this view as I al sliding across the track too. Now, the bike clears the track just fine but I do not have enough momentum to carry me through. All I can imagine is getting run over by the folks that I just passed! I run off the track, give the thumbs up to the corner worker so he knows I am doing alright, and move my bike out of the impact zone.

Here is the damage:

Vroom, vroom, vroom…DOCSD Track Day

Well, I was finally able to take the Multistrada to the track. It was a lot of fun!
Our club rented out the big track at Willow Springs. At first I was pretty concerned about my bike being able to keep up with other bikes there as it is not that fast in the straights. But, that was never an issue. The cool thing was that we had two groups of 25 so it was never that crowded on the track. A couple of times there were some traffic jams but they normally cleared up pretty quickly.
Overall I was pretty happy with my performance there. I was not the fastest but I was not the slowest. I still need to work on my body positioning as I think that is still a limiting factor for me as seen here:

Here are a few more pics of me riding on the track:

What a great time! If you don’t do track days (for whatever reason) I would urge you to change your mind. You will not find a safer environment to practice on. I really liked that our track day was limited to our club. It really kept the attitudes down and made sure that everyone was civil towards each other. It really helps when you know everyone on the track personally.
The only folks who I thought were too aggressive were the TrackDaz people. They are the group that we went through to reserve the track and they were pretty aggressive. I think that is appropriate in the fast group but not so much in the street group. But, that feedback was given and I would not expect to see that again.
Big thanks to Jay for setting this up!