Hailwood

Got the front page updated with the time/location. No worries on the newbie. We'll be waiting at all the stops, and make sure that we keep everyone together as much as possible.

It's at the corner of I-77 and OH-212 off exit 93. I have no problems starting a little later to give you guys time to make it down. How about 10:00 AM meet, shoot for 10:30 start?

Sounds like we've got a decent ride shaping up & the weather is looking perfect. Let's meet at the DQ in Bolivar @ exit 93 off I-77 at around 9:00 and plan on heading out no later than 9:30. I should be on the Speed Triple, but it's been running a little weird lately, so I might bring the FZ instead.

*Updated with time and location* Time: Meet around 10:00 AM, Leave by 10:30. Location: DQ on OH-212 right off I-77 (exit 93) in Bolivar. Map of DQ Really looking forward to seeing everyone! *Updated with time and location* Looks like the weather is shaping up to be great this weekend, so I wanted to gauge interest in getting a group ride together. This won't be a 400 mile all-day thing, probably 3~3.5 hours from start to finish, starting down in Bolivar and heading up to OH-164 and ending in East Canton. Pace is whatever you are comfortable with, but I tend to keep the speeds reasonable on the straights (70ish in a 55) and whatever I'm brave enough to try through the corners. I like to keep groups together, and don't mind sitting behind cars for a few miles to avoid having to make risky passes. I'd like to start a little earlier (9:00~10:00 AM), but if there are multiple folks from Cleveland interested, I'd certainly be open to delaying a little. Anyway, if the weather forecast stays nice, I'm going to be going no matter what. Let me know if you are interested, and we can work out the details.

Have a great time guys, and be safe. I was hoping to be able to make this, but unfortunately had some family issues come up. Properly setup suspension = win. I just go out and tinker with it for awhile. It's not as good as a proper setup (Racetech, etc), but it's a right sight better than out of the box (the S3 was especially bad stock), and it's not too hard once you try it a few times.

Really nice pics man! The only comment I would have, is that for crops of this size you could probably get away with additional sharpening and not have any funky halo effects. Composition is seriously fantastic, especially the first and fourth ones.

Nice pics man. I especially like all the detail shots from the pits and walking around.

Photoshop Elements. 7 is the version that I have, but I think previous versions included some type of batch-processing as well.

Really nice shots Casper. Editing can definitely seem like a job. Fortunately PSE's batch processing w/ auto-correction works well enough for most images. Look forward to seeing some more!

Nice photos! I would be proud to have such nice pics from a trackday (I'll get to one eventually). Looks like you had a great time, which at the end of the day is the most important thing.

I have really been enjoying my SmugMug account. I tried Flickr initially, and like using SM better. It's not free, but I like what you get (unlimited space, nice galleries, easy print ordering) for a relatively small amount per year.

I was shooting full manual, most of the day at 1/800 @ f8. I knew I wouldn't get the look of nice, slow SS panning, but I wasn't sure how well the IS would really work with my shaky hands, and I wanted sharpness more than I wanted that look. I tried some panning, but didn't really get any good ones. Here's one at 1/200 that turned out ok:

The rest of the ones that I was really happy with are posted on my SmugMug account. Here are a couple more that I liked: Ducati dry clutch. Turn 1 during the MotoGT race. Corona Extra Honda coming off the back straight into the Esses. 1098R with GSX-R1000 hot on his heels. Ducati Sport Classic in the Carousel. Mladin about to brake for the Esses.

These were all taken with my 40D and a Canon 100-400L IS lens that I rented from the above site. Some of them were shot on a monopod, but most were hand-held. The clouds yesterday made for some really good lighting, so I really lucked out there.

Thanks man. Lens Rentals.com They have just about anything you could want for most of the major systems out there. The process was very smooth, and the prices reasonable considering what it would cost to buy the lens.

Depends on what you want for performance/wear. I'm a Bridgestone guy, and have tried most of their Sport and Sport Touring tires from the last few years. The BT-002 Racing Street tires I had on my RR were phenominal. Literally never put a foot wrong in all the time I had the RR, but the wear life wasn't so great. If you want a sportier tire with reasonable wear life, the BT-016 are quite good. I'm currently waiting for the Pilot Powers (which are quite good BTW) that came on the S3 to wear down enough to justify a set. I have a set of the BT-021 sport touring tires on my FZ and absolutely love them. 5000 miles of sport touring (many with my wife on the back) and they still have good life left, and there's never been an instance where I've not had the grip I've needed for spirited street riding. All that out of the way...pretty much any sporty street tire from any of the big names will be fine for street riding. Nowadays it's pretty tough to find a 'bad' tire.

Yates is very good at Mid-O. Back in the late 90's ~ early 00's it was his track, and he would either dominate or crash out trying. Based on yesterday's race, I wouldn't be surprised if he takes the top spot today. Those Jordan bikes were definitely looking good, and I'm glad to see them doing well.

Great pics, fox. The Hooter's bike blowing up is an awesome capture. The weather was much nicer yesterday, so hopefully you got some more good ones.

Holy balls was it cold yesterday morning! We left @ ~7:00 AM, and I was woefully underprepared for the ride down (perforated jacket, FTL), and my hands were numb by the time my dad and I got there. Good times, and a really great Superbike race. I took a ton of pictures and posted some of the best ones here in the pictures thread.

Went down to Mid-O yesterday with my Dad and had a great time. I was concerned about the weather, but other than being a little cold (ok, *really* cold) in the morning, it was actually really nice. I wound up taking about 400 decent photos of Superbike/Supersport Qualifying, MotoGT, and the Superbike race. MotoGT was actually really cool. Lots of interesting bikes that wouldn't really fit into the other classes, and the 2 hour, 2 man setup was really cool. Here are the best ones: Aaron Yates coming into the Esses during Superbike Qualifying Yates coming off the back straight Hodgeson hard on the brakes coming into the Esses Larry Pegram on the Ducati 1098R coming off the back straight into the Esses Random R6 coming through Turn 9 during SS qualifying. Ducati Sport Classic coming through Turn 1 in MotoGT. Josh Hayes leading the front-runners through the Esses during the Superbike race. Superbike race winner Josh Hayes on the Yamaha R1 coming into the Esses on one of the last laps. There are a ton more here on my SmugMug site.

I'm definitely headed down on Saturday and possibly Sunday as well. Will be either meeting up with my Dad there, or he might come up here and we'll go down together.

I remember that corner quite well. Fortunately I had the wife on the back of the FZ and was taking it pretty easy, otherwise it might have been ugly. Even so I remember thinking I was carrying too much speed through there.

Wow, sounds like I missed a (mostly) great ride. Rob, really sorry to hear about the mishap, especially since I know how pristine you kept that CBR. Just glad to hear you're ok. Now I'm really wanting to get in on one of these. I'd really like to ride 536 again (without my wife on the back), and it sounds like 255 is definitely worth checking out. Hopefully I'll have a free weekend when another one of these happens.

Would love to get in on the CORE ride, but unfortunately I have family plans this weekend Definitely sometime soon though. I'm curious to see what a 400 mile day on the S3 is like.

That's my Speed Triple with the rim tape. It's actually the tapeworks reflective blue, which normally looks like a nice dark blue, but for whatever reason is reflecting here. Nice pics knicks.