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Jennings Successful

The trip to Jennings was a long one, but worth it. With 70+ degree weather on both Saturday and Sunday, I was able to get some good riding in and learn the fun Jennings layout. The warm weather was perfect for shaking off some of the winter rust and getting a feel for the new suspension pieces on the bike.

The bike had a completely different geometry to it when we arrived at Jennings, per James' recommendations. However throughout the weekend, I made a series of changes to the bike and ended up going back to basically the same setup we had at Mid-Ohio – both in the height of the bike up front (amount of forks showing above the triple), and the eye to eye length of the shock. We made some other minor suspension changes as well. The consistent dropping of time in each session on Sunday and improved feel of the bike showed we were heading back in the right direction.

We didn't ride Monday because it was raining all morning; plus we wanted to get a bit of a head start on the 15 hour drive back home and arrive at a decent hour. That was a bit disappointing, as I had a couple additional changes that I wanted to make to see if the bike continued to improve. Given how much better the bike had been feeling throughout Sunday coupled with more laps around a new track, I know the times would have continued to come down if we had ridden on Monday. I had put in some respectable times on Sunday and dropping them even more would have been real nice. Ah well.

The one bit of misfortune during the weekend was Dave suffering a mechanical problem with his motor early in the weekend, but that didn't stop him from being able to ride; as he became the test rider for 3-4 different bikes throughout the weekend, which was good. Making a long haul all the way down to Florida and not being able to ride isn't fun.

All in all, the trip was definitely beneficial. It was a great chance to get the bike out and work out the few kinks that always seem to come about when hitting the track the first time in the season. We should be able to get all of those worked out before the season officially starts which will be nice.

I had a really good time with Dave and Eric – both of which were helpful and entertaining the whole weekend ("Shake and Bake!"). Thanks again to Dave for his help on setting up the bike, since he wasn't able to ride. It was much appreciated. And congrats to Eric for gaining speed and getting faster each time he's been on the bike; it definitely showed.

Cheers.

Wednesday, January 24th, 2007 | POSTED AT: 7:38 AM
FILED UNDER: General