Leaderboard

I'll be "doing" the triple nickle (555) at the Ohio rally next weekend. It's er.. occasionally challenging.. from South to North. North to South can be a sphincter squeezer. You'll come to the top of a hill with a sign saying left turn for instance. What it doesn't say is it's an *immediate* left turn once you get to the top. I boiled the brake fluid on the AeroLario the first time I ran it that direction.

You better know if that off ramp is a sweeper or a 90 degree turn . I used to do EXACTLY that until I was up in Ky and went to do this . I found myself grabbing hold of every cast iron rotor on my 87 SE to come to an almost stop and then going 25' , then a complete stop and appreciate what just happened and living to die another day . There is nothing wrong w/playing Rossi , just make a practice lap first .

Off ramps are tricky. You never really know what you are going to find at the bottom. I tend to take them a bit easier. On ramps, on the other hand... All things being equal, they lead here very often on to an unlimited section of Autobahn, and it is in your interest to hit it (the Autobahn...) already doing a respectable speed. Except if you have to tuck in behind a truck (speed limit 80 km/h), or there are road works, or there is a traffic jam, or there is lots of traffic and you have to juggle to get in, or.... So yes, I enjoy (on) ramps that I know, but always with a bit of reserve for unforseen circumstances.

G'day Well with a break in the weather on Thursday I thought I'd brave the cold and take the bike into the office as I really wanted to try the C6 and R12 fork set up.I was pretty impressed with C4 truth be told... The first 20 kays at -1 were brutal on the hands and it took 5 minutes to get my wallet out of jacket at the servo to pay for my gas....Thank god it warmed up further on. Anyways on the way home..Wow! Theres this one BIG dip early in the piece just out of sight after a tightish left hander (this is after a series of great corners to get you in the mood) usually taken at about 100 k's because of it.I've tried several lines through it and hit it every bloody time a coconut so you can't avoid it! It's a huge hit and definitely wouldn't take this corner at any more than 100k in fact often slowed knowing it was coming up! Well the other week at C4 it was a BIG improvement BUT holy snapping ducks urine Batman...This time around it was hardly noticeable.. just another wee bump in the road! I thought maybe I finally got lucky and found a way to avoid it but no I definitely hit it! Very impressed and can't wait to test it more, as couldn't ride the rest of the road at my usual pace due to traffic wet roads and the looming spectre of a polaroid in the post for a previous misdemeanor! Cheers

It is easy enough to measure your sag. If your sag says you need springs to really get your sag numbers right, springs are a great first step. Odds are, you need springs. But, as mentioned, you can measure your sag and see if you need different springs. In a nutshell, if you set your sag with you on the bike and that leaves the bike sagging too little without you on the bike your springs are too soft. That means you have to add too much preload to get the sag where you want it, which results in not enough sag under the weight of just the bike. Too much sag with you off the bike is the other way, the spring is too stiff.

I could see three cold stamped markings: -There is an "S" which I believe stands for Sinistro or Sinistra for left in Italian; does it mean TDC Left Cylinder? should there be a "D"? -there is another one with =- - which last indentation could be a 1 There is a third one which has been painted on and makes it unreadable. I reviewed the workshop manuals but could not find any nomenclature on those. Anybody knows?

Yes, that is correct. I did the valve clearances on mine recently, and found a mark for TDC for the left cylinder. I don't remember what it was, though. I'm not quite sure, but I reckon I didn't find a mark for the right hand cylinder. Should be easy to check though: with the rocker covers off, watch what the valves are doing. Find the combustion TDC, go back a bit, and turn the motor slowly past the TDC whilst keeping an eye on the flywheel through the hole. That's how I found the mark for the left cylinder. The most difficult part of the process was getting the cover off the alternator to be able to put a spanner on the front of the motor and turn it over in a controlled fashion. What a pain in the proverbial...

I rode to work again today, taking the freeway entrance/exits at high speed, OH BOY! That is so fun, handling mucho better!

Springs

Good. The number of clicks doesn't matter, the suspension can't count, how the suspension works is what matters. It is a matter of more or less dampening to get it where it needs to be. Once you are happy, knowing where that happy point is is a good idea. But obsessing over numbers before you know where that happy point is is a waste of time in my opinion.