diary of an Endorphin Junkie

Because Jay was in town, I got suckered by calendula_witch into joining them at Writers With Drinks. It was fabulous. The first one was a funny lesbian vaguely ranting thing which had me wondering, but each one was progressively better and the final two had me in stitches.

Against my better judgement, Charlie and Jay talked me into going out to dinner with them (and many others) and we had further drinks and discourse there too. All of which put me home at midnight, alarm set at 5am to head up to Thunderhill for some testing on the recently dynoed and remapped Superstock bike. Oy.

I only got three sessions in today. Being overly tired I wasn't feeling the pace much. The repaving was generally an improvement, but it removed all my brake markers and left a few nasty bumps on the entry to turns 3 and 8. We had to soften the suspension up a bit because the much smoother track left me spinning up the rear everywhere. By the third session I had completely destroyed my rear tire, so that was the end of the day for me.

After lunch I suckered someone into letting me run their GSXR1000 around the track for a few laps. It was GP(reverse)-shift so I had to focus carefully on shifting, while trying not to get too eager with the throttle. I really only have a few thoughts:

1. Unlike my bikes which really only generate power in the last 1000rpm before redline, this bike has power everywhere. Forget to downshift? No problem. It's ridiculously easy to wheelie all the way down the front straight. As a track day bike, it's... just cheating. It's too easy to go fast.

2. Because of all that power on the real wheel, it *always* felt like the rear was giving it up. It might have been a tired old tire, or just that I've never loved Dunlops, or maybe the suspension was off. But I really had to be careful when opening the throttle.

3. 170mph down the front straight was exhilarating.

Once I got comfortable, I started chasing the A-group guys around the track. And pretty soon I realized I was pushing the front into corners, and spinning up the rear on the exit chasing people down. Uh... not so smart. So I brought the bike back in and returned it safely in one piece, hoping to get a chance to do this again sometime.