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Fiddy Cents

Last night I rode the fifty at Kart 2 Kart. After last week, I was unloading/pushing the front enough that on acceleration the front tire would skip, grip, skip, grip and want to wash out. It was pretty cool a couple times, where I'd catch it on my knee, but a couple other times I wouldn't. It was a graceful landing if nothing else. The last catch I made happened in slow motion where Keith Code rang in my head, "when in doubt, pin it" – which straightened the bike out and on I went to the next corner. It's good to be comfortable with the bike moving around underneath you. That's the best thing about riding these little bikes.

So after last week we were talking about moving weight to the front of the bike, so before last night I added a couple turns of preload to the shock and it was better, as I dropped four-tenths off my best time down to a :25.50. The front was still unloading though, so I'd check tire pressure, try to put more of my weight on the front of the bike, but it's a catch-22 as you need some weight on the back when getting on the gas to prevent the bike from stepping out.

I'm now going to switch back to the stock front wheel, as the aftermarket one on right now is slightly bigger than stock. And with the rear wheel recently put back to stock, this would balance the two of them out – running a wider front than rear wheel probably doesn't make much sense. I don't think it will make that big of a difference, but who knows.

Other than that, we mounted the timer on Danny's bike and he went out and did a :23.38 besting my time, but then he binned it pretty good in the back sweeper and tore off part of his bodywork, but seemed alright other than that. So since I'm a good tenth off, I'm going to change the wheel, add a little more preload and see what happens.

Thursday, April 9th, 2009 | POSTED AT: 7:42 AM
FILED UNDER: General