what

24 minutes ago, jbot said:

I haven't been following HD very closely and don't particularly want them to fail nor do I care what they do since they don't make anything interesting to me.... But maybe that's precisely the problem.  They should be the ones setting the tone for motorcycle trends and all eyes should be on them but they have been clinging to the same loser formula for years even as their customer base dies by the thousands every month.  Their electric bike is a joke, they sabotaged their only half assed chance at the youth market, and like you alluded to: not even an attempt at the very closely related rec vehicles market.  You can't sell stickers/shirts your way out of a dying market in a long challenged segment like motorcycles.   Even the Corvette went mid-engine eventually because they knew they had reached the end of that road.  Harley needs a serious overhaul but it might already be too little too late. 

 

They killed off their apparel division earlier this year I think, which, honestly... not sure about that. I feel like Harley should probably at this point be focusing on the lifestyle portion and get away from all the overhead of developing new bikes. Go hand-made boutique high-dollar versions of older more popular bikes. Sell merch to the die-hards. Rehab and certify their older/vintage stuff and resell as showroom. 

As for innovation at Suzuki, the variable valve timing in the newer GSXR1000 is really good. It gives the bike so much more midrange without sacrificing top end. Suzuki was the first manufacturer to put VVT in a superbike as far as I know. 

WD picture was a joke. Don't do that. Use Hondabond on your tires instead for superior grip.

Tires are ready to go for the next track day 

On 7/16/2020 at 5:27 PM, blue03636 said:

Yep, never ridden a bike on track before. I tried to help, you're apparently to good for it as all you do is make excuses and tell people how wrong they are.

 

Enjoy, I'll sick to giving advise to people that want it.

You're right, the way you behave I don't want your advice and I don't want to deal with your bullshit. And I never said you haven't ridden a bike on a track before, you just have no experience, at least to my knowledge, on that track. So, no first hand experience.

Anyway have a nice life.

22 hours ago, DerekClouser said:

 

Relax, this isn't meant to be a pissing contest. 

Andy, 

You were 6 seconds off the pace from Farkas who rides almost an identical bike to you (1.11.8 vs 1.17.6).  Yes, you have a weight disadvantage, but there is lots of time to be made up in places.   Maybe his suggestions will help or maybe you have the best line, but I will admit the bike does look pointed in the wrong direction.  No sense in having a pissing contest to prove you being right or him being wrong.  Just take it with a grain of salt and see if it helps.  If it doesn't, congratulations.  None of us are going pro, so no sense in not just listening and trying to improve. 

Prime example for me was seeing this photo 

 

I realize I wasn't getting the bike turned even though I thought I had the best line.  Made some adjustments and cut a good amount of time off my laps from last year.   

 

The community is small and we all need to support everyone in getting better.  

 

I've got work to do and I know that better than anybody, especially at that track as I've only been there twice. I'm happy to take feedback, hell I try to ask about things and learn as much as I can, but I dont need it from someone just trying to be a dickhead.

And yes, I was down on pace, and I have a good idea as to why. Hopefully some of the things being done with the bike rebuild this month will help there next time. The long downhill right-hander was a really bad section for me because of the exhaust can position and that really hurt my time as it affects the next 3 corners. Just about ate shit 3 or 4 times putting a little too much weight on the can and the rear started slipping out. The can will be high-mount now so more lean angle to play with in right hand corners. A (hopefully) additional 3 wheel horsepower will even out the weight disadvantage and then if I'm still down by 5 or 6 seconds I will figure out what is going horrifically wrong with my riding. 

12 hours ago, blue03636 said:

The fact that you are turning in early which it's causing you to point the wrong direction. But hey, you know it all.

I never claimed to know it all, I think that's your domain, Craig. Thank god we have someone on here with your vast experience to hand out sage advice on things they have no first-hand experience with.

2 hours ago, TimTheAzn said:

There is a lot to be learned from Craig.

Now since you cant remember if this is 15 or 16 I drew lines for both. Regardless of what corner you're in - your bike is pointed in the wrong direction. Black line is where your bike looks like it's pointed and green line is where it should be pointed as your stand it up from apex while you reduce lean angle and give it gas.

Look at the next picture, this kid has his bike pointed in the direction he wants to go. The red line shows where your grom was pointing. May not be the exact same corner but your bike is so far off direction wise this can be used as an example.

"Looks like" being the key phrase here. The photo you posted of the kid was not taken from the same angle and I don't think it is even the same corner (that may be turn 7 from the map above).

See the red line right between your green and black lines and right after the apex in T15? That's likely where the photo was taken. Where would the bike be pointed at that exact moment? At the grass, because I am mid turn. Your green lines make no sense for that section of the track as you would be scrubbing way too much speed to apex that late with the first green line, and your 2nd green line, while a bit closer to reality, is still not a great situation for that corner as again you'd be scrubbing too much speed to turn in tight enough to hit the apex there.

I said earlier that maybe that photo was taken one of the two times I blew that corner that day, but it's unlikely as both of those times I was battling someone and pushed wide, and they would have been in the shot. Obviously I need to find areas to improve otherwise I would be leading in points this year, but this whole discussion is pointless as it's just based on speculation.

7 minutes ago, blue03636 said:

Oh I understand the pic, what I don't understand is your lack of wanting to learn.

Ok professor, please enlighten me. What should I be learning from you?

15 hours ago, Pauly said:

If something is already leaning one way, it's easier to push it further in that direction.

5 hours ago, blue03636 said:

I'm confused as to why none of your pics show you pointed straight in to the grass.

I apologize for posting a photo that you find hard to understand, here's one more your speed:

My green RST gloves finally got a hole in them 3 years of hard abuse for $70... probably the best gloves I've ever owned.

BUT

I think they can be fixed! Just a small hole near the stitching in the right index finger.

2 hours ago, Crusadee said:

Hey what kind of wrap was used? And is it hard to do? Ive really been wanting to change up the color on my ZX14R.

3M vinyl I found on Amazon. It can be easy or hard, depends on what you're wrapping. Lots of little nooks and crannies/uneven edges, rounded corners, etc add to the difficulty. The stuff I wrapped wasn't that hard but it took a little while and patience. It's cheap enough that it's worth trying though at least.

Grom is torn apart for a full race engine build, looking at a realistic 90% increase in horsepower over stock 125.

Yeah signing up prior to knowing the weather is a good way to waste your cert/money. They are going to need to invest in fixing the problems with the track before this mindset changes for a lot of people.

double post

24 minutes ago, TimTheAzn said:

This is what I see:

 

The red line represents where your bike is pointing. The Green line represents where I think your bike should be pointed approximately. The blue line represents the "time lost" meaning you are having to wait for your bike to find direction to point to the next apex. The longer you have to wait for direction - the longer you theoretically have to wait to stand the bike up, get on the fat part of the tire, and open the throttle. It looks like you may be pin'd already but did you have to increase lean angle while pin'd to find that direction? Probably - which opens you up for more risk. You may be able to get away with this running mini's but on a big bike this wouldn't work out as well. You'd have to increase or stay at lean angle to find the proper direction and therefore make you wait longer to open up the throttle, and you are spending extra time in the riskiest zone (high lean angle).

Your body looks good! 

The line pushes way wide (yellow). But who knows maybe I blew the corner for this photo, I never know if I'm going to make the turn or not 100% because yes, the line pushes you out to the edge of the grass. I've run off there a few times carrying too much corner speed trying to set up a pass or fighting someone off who tried to take the inside. And yes, I use throttle input to turn the bike mid-corner. I can ham-fist it on the minis for the most part but it's much more subtle on big bikes.

21 minutes ago, blue03636 said:

That omrl line on the entry to 15 doesn't look like the best idea. 😂

There's a big paved runoff patch on the entry to 15 that we use as track surface, it's just not on the map. The first apex shoots you way out to the edge of the track mid-corner, that photo was taken just after the first apex.

10 hours ago, Tpoppa said:

Source?  That sounds different than what I  remember from biology classes.

 I guess the answer is yes and no. The likelihood of infection is higher with more droplets and after reading through some research it seems they were reporting that people with more viral load were found to be more sick. Though I think a lot of this disease's symptoms are caused by our own immune system causing excess inflammation. So it depends on how intensely a person's immune system reacts, which I think viral load can have an impact on.

9 hours ago, TimTheAzn said:

lol the direction of your bike needs to catch up with the direction of everything else going on. idk how you did this haha

Pretty sure this was taken in turn 15/16, it's a long double apex.

1 hour ago, motocat12 said:

Does the amount of droplets change the intensity of the infection though?

yes.

if you get hit with 1 droplet it starts small, then grows over time and allows your immune system time to get ramped up. if you get hit with 1000 droplets your immune system is essentially getting nuked from everywhere all at once.

some hot grom action. yes that's half a roll of duct tape holding my leathers together. they take a beating 😐

https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/firefighter-shot-on-freeway-while-driving/

😬

just remember the safest place of all:

1 hour ago, Tpoppa said:

Like what?  Is it at least entertaining?

 

Buddy posted a video of some squid splitting lanes doing 120 down a busy 23 (main street here in Columbus) . An hour later someone else posts up a wreck, people ID the bike as the same bike in the video. Kid proceeds to post up saying some lady "pulled out right in front of me". People call him an idiot for doing 120 in a 35. Kid starts talking mad shit, goes straight up racist, his older meat-head brother jumps in and starts threatening people with violence, his criminal record gets brought up - he's facing 2 felonies and prison time. Kid continues running his mouth from his ICU bed, starts a gofundme for medical bills, wants to fight everybody in Columbus Riders and Columbus Bike Life (both main squid groups in Columbus), starts contacting people he thinks are in biker gangs to go beat people up for him, biker gang people tell him to go fuck himself then post screenshots of their chat. Kid calls them racial slurs.

Pretty much I'm leaning towards this kid wanted to die, tried to suicide into some poor lady's car. Survived. Now wants to piss off someone bad enough to come finish the job. 🤷‍♂️

Likely not enough people registered for it today. If they didn't send out any sort of update, that sucks.

22 minutes ago, HeavyDuty said:

I work retail we have 150 employees per store 10 stores in my district over 20,000 customers a week per store. Over 4 months now not a single employee has gotten sick. Real world FACTS. 

Nobody symptomatic at least.