3rd and 4th July

Once again I find myself poodling up the A153 through Horncastle on my way to God's own circuit, wishing I was carving it's corners with Dunlop's best instead of towing a bloody trailer. Especially since today the car and trailer appear to have been the wrong option in spite of the constant drizzle. Today I'm particulalry wishing I'd ridden to the circuit because today I'm stuck behind some old Licolnshire crusty doing 35mph. "Overtake!", I hear you say. Well normally I'd agree - except in this instance it was made somewhat impossible by the two articulated lorries and 6 cars in the queue ahead of me also no doubt wishing they had two-wheeled transport - or perhaps a bazooka!

Suffice to say I rolled into Cadwell somewhat later than anticpated and dropped the bike in the paddock before retiring to Louth for liquid imbidment and some food. I was so much looking forward to the coming two days. Two days of Ixion trackday, glorious weather, and 562cc two stroke missiles reverberating off the Lincoilshire countryside! Two out of three isn't bad .. shame then that I only managed to get one out of three. My dissapointment is only tempered by the fact that the members of Ixion are a group wonderful people - the type of people who will happily loan you their pride and joy to go play on the circuit. Anyhow, before I get ahead of myself .... I think you may have gathered all did not go to plan.

Thursday dawned wet .. very wet, and by lunchtime I was going nuts. All thought of keeping the RS under cover were replaced and I had to have a go on track - a quick ride on a steel framed CBR shod with GP207s, got my juices flowing, and just had to have a go on the RS, and stuff the hours of cleaning I'd need to do afterwards. The CBR, by the way, was ex-Sanyo, and ex- James Dening. Now I know why he did so well in the rookie 600 championship that year.

Anyhow, out onto the damp tarmac with the RS. Pilot inters are very tentative in the wet, and the crisp delivery of the RS was making it feel terrible. I tried to satisfy myself with full throttle blats up the straights, but the occasional wheel spin, and the worry of straight line highsides put paid to that. By far the worst trait was the dragging clutch, making it virtually impossible to downchange without the appropriate revs dialled by blipping the throttle. Of course this was also hampered by the normal blurgh blurgh vrrrringgg needed to first fill the float bowls before the motor would spin.

One other worrying issue that's cropped up is that the changeable mapping does not seem to work. The Two-way toggle on the handlebar allows map changing, but there seems to be an issue with the "fook off and die map" as engaing warp drive results in popping, banging, and lack of drive!! Something to discuss with Mark

Ahhh well, back to the drawing board. A couple of quick forays at clutch adjustment, and deliberately slipping the clutch on fast take offs down in the far end of the paddock to try and bed the clutch in didn't help either. I started to think I was cursed, and decided there was nothing for it but to strip out the clutch. I had enough spare oil for one change, so out came the plates and I measured each one. No visible hot points, no visible burring on the basket, all plates well inside tolerance!! It is at times like this that you really question whetehr building a special was the right idea - basically it becomes the stock answer for everything, "it's a special innit ... what do you expect!". Talk about being deflated. So I put it all back together, topped up the oil, and headed for Louth for a night on the piss. Alcohol was bound to help.

It was about 11pm when

a) I suddenly realised I'd not eaten anything since lunch so I had a kebab
b) I was feeling worse for wear having downned 8 pints
c) Switching tpo Brandy's was probably going to be a bad idea

... 7am, the foul stale taste of garlic/chilli sauce, the smell of rank kebab oozing from my skin, and the headache to end all headaches! Oh, and it was still damp outside.

Today was Friday ... it had to be better than yesterday. First challenge of the day was to search Malcolm from Cambridge motorcycles out. He was there for this the second day on his CBR and RG250. A quick chat to him mid-morning and he convinced me to take the bike apart again. Before that though I'd been offered a session on TZR250 tuned by Graham File and was rewarded by one of the most enjoyable track sessions I've ever had.

Rusty from my long abscence track riding I set chase to Kevin Cordina who has been campaigning the TZR rounds of the BMCRC (Bemsee) season. Kev helped me in my SS600 and GP250 days, and I've watched him develop into a very handy club racer. I stood very little chance of out-pacing Kev - but what was the harm in trying?

The TZRs are so overshod with rubber that the order of the day is lean them until something scrapes, and brake hard enough that the front patters. With amazingly nimble steering, and gutsy motor (for a 1980's 250) the only limiting factors are ground clearance, bottle, and shit suspension. After lots of cursing at my ineptitue, and Kev slowing down occasionally to let me catch up, we ended up in a battle royale as I started to get on speed, and while I was quicker in some places, Kev's experience, and in particular his exit from Barn was paying dividends and I had to admit defeat (albeit against the my wishes), and I retired at the end of the session, knackered, crippled from the absurd riding postion on Wiz's bike, and thoroughly satisfied that I didn't do too badly considering the limited time on the bike. My entry is winging it's way to Bemsee for the August round of the TZR tour at Cadwell Park - we'll see how I do with the red mist fully engaged!

Anyhow back to RS ... we laid her against some tyres so that we wouldn't lose oil, and diassembled the clutch once again. The trained eye of a true mechanic is always worth it's weight in gold, and Malcolm spotted that the inner and outer thrust washers behind the basket were in fact level. The inner is supposed to sit proud of the outer so that the basket, while directly connected to the inner is separate from the outer and can move freely. Bloody brilliant ... at last we knew what was wrong - but no chance of fixing it today. Hey ... do I sound pissed of now? A solution will make a thousand dissapointments dissolve in an instant, and Macolm's offer of his CBR for a session helped further push the disapointment to the back of my mind.

Actually that session on Malc's fairly stock CBR proved quite entertaining. Marginal carburation, and a crap suspension set up made for interesting times around Chris curve, but I just couldn't build enough conrner speed, and found myself just a little short of Champ's pace (team UKRM) on his ZXR750 and had Malcolm snapping at my heels on his slick shod RG250. Something he seemed to enjoy - on the return to the paddock he had found following his own bike quite entertaining, especially as it bucked and weaved it's way around the track.

So all in all a rather mixed bag of a two day event. On the good news side:

a) there's always another trackday
b) my wheels are due at Camb Motorcycles on Tuesday
c) I rode lots of fun bikes
d) we know to fix the clutch drag
e) fuelling and the blurgh blurgh vrring can be cured with the right fuel pump
f) The problem with the second map turns out o be an issue with the switch not the map!

Roll on the next trackday is all I can say!

11th July

Wheels arrived yesterday,and in spite of trying to slice of my finger while trimming the fairing (8 stitches) I had to fit them last night. They have fitted perfectly, are an absolute work of art, and suprise suprise there's plenty of chain room - bollox to those doubters who wouldn't believe that a 5.5 with a 170 or 180 tyre wouldn't fit in the 250 swingarm. Currently shod with Bridgestone 010s, photos below.

So once again a big thankyou to Cambridge Motorcycles who, true to their word, delivered the wheels in 6 weeks, via Harris, via PVM. A little better than the 5 and a bit months I waited for the Marvics which never arrived.

18th July

Having just installed the new clutch (Kevlar) with the newly machined inner basket to give the right clearance on the spacer, I now have an absolutely beautiful clutch. No drag at all, no slip, and easy action. One more problem solved, and having a clutch that works really does help you enjoy the bike. All those issues were simply worn parts highlighted further when we [1] installed the new straight cut primnary drive.

Oh and today was the first ride with the new wheels installed. Just a quick 20 mile juant. New wheel bearings, correct tyre profiles, and the bike is transformed. The suspension even seemed to work a bit better (albeit still a little harsh for road use). I rode for 10 miles in a summer shower, unscrubbed tyres, and I'm showing only a 1/4 inch to the edge of the tyre ... Quiet secure even with a dampened road.

Oh and filling up at a petrol station is so much easier than premixing at home. You could say that I'm a very happy bunny.

So all I need to do now is make sure the bike is fuelling well on prolonged flat out runs (anyone got clear plastic float bowls?) - probably will need to run a fuel pump (it's fitted but even Mark D's grose valves don't stop the pump pumping fuel out the overflow when at a standard still) .... And I need to make sure the tank is not pressurising. Some time on the dyno will help solve that one, and we'll be testing Mark's carb mods then.

I really do need to decide what to do with the suspension - either give the forks to Clive Horton at Racing Lines and cough up now, or continue to put up with the oversprung front end and keep vainly trying to get the fornt and rear to work together.

I've also trimmed the fairing, and opened up the triangular point [2] that sat over the forward carbs. This used to rest against the filter as it was indented twords the inside ... With this indent cut away the forward carbs have a much easier passage for the air, and on the road I noticed immediately that it was less prone to fouling the plugs when just tootling along through built up areas. Still did it, just not as pronounced as before.

So next is a dyno day with carb mods and fuel pump, and then I'm off to a trackday to enjoy her some more as God intended.

[1] That Royal we again :o)

[2] That's not the only thing I opened up ... My finger I still sore, but the stitches came out today.

22nd July

Up and bloody down like a rollercoaster - your emotions that is when you've spent as many hours in the garage as me, building your dream bike, but now struggling to find time to ride it! Having done so much garage time, riding time needs to be checked with the "She Who Must Be Obeyed". It's not so much that she's giving me a hard time about going out for ride. She'd never say, "no", but all women do have that slight cock of the head, and that slightly piercing look to their eyes as they say, "fine, up to you, if you have the time!"

"Of course I have the time, I'm a bloke, we always put off what should be done now when toys are involved!" Besides, Mark Dent was telling me just the other day how much he's enjoying his bike and how much he's been riding it lately - so I just had to.

That's where the up and down thing comes in. Fresh on with a 16 tooth front sprocket, down from 17, and with the 43 tooth rear, I was looking forward to a little bit of lunacy. Power lifting wheelies, that sort of thing (albeit wheelies are not my forte, but even I can allow a wheel to drift upward off the power). I was fair chomping at the bit, and with the weather being a bit cooler I'm thining I may even get to do a few more miles without worrying about the bike overheating. Well fsck me if the battery is flat again, no worries the regulator rectifier thingame bob should solve that. I really do need to solve that little problem.

Up she fires, and away we go, battery charging nicely according to the Aprilia clocks with their built in voltage checker. So after the normal 5 miles to warm up, we hit the local one mile straight and I nail her, expecting that wonderfully spine tingling zzrrrwaaaaahhhhhhhhrp, my heart sinks when all I hear is bluuuuuurrrgh. In with the clutch and a few twists to try and clear what I instantly think of as oiling up, and blip blrrr blrrrr rrrringgggg she goes. Right ... Try again, yeeeeharrr the world enters that other-worldly time zone that comes with nailing a fast bike and tucking down behind the fairing. Perception is a strange thing, but with those four pipes howling, and the racing gear change, lying flat on the tank in a racing crouch always transports me off into a strange place, everything focuses forward, and you just don't seem to be on your local 'B' road anymore. Well, until you sit back up out of the bubble, and enter normality again that is.

My adrenalin was way up by now, and the endorphins were well and truely kicked in and I shifted down a couple with every intention of carving out the series of bends up ahead. Today we were going to scrape a bit of plastic - just for entertainment purposes only you understand. Only the rollercoaster had just crested and noone had told me. I peeled in and wound on the gas, and there's that momentary falter again, and that horrible blurrrrgh sound. This time when the clucth comes in and the throttle is wound a few times it does not clear. In fact it takes several wrings of the throttle before she clears her throat and we can head off again. In fact, that should read, so that we can turn around and head home with our tail between our legs.

There is a chance for another quick razz along the straight of course, but it just doesn't help this time, and the bogging down threatens to stall me a few times in the 30 limit following it! Better pick up the phone and have a chat to Mark and see if there's anything we can do now - suppose a check of the plugs may help, but I suspect I'll be parking her up for a couple of weeks until the 9th August when we're at BDKs dyno again fitting the carb mods and having another set up day.

Better go and daydream about the sound of the pipes again while trying to do some work. :o(