Well what can I say? I have just had one of the most enjoyable days on a motorcycle in my life. I finally decided to give track riding a go, on my one and only road bike, my Husqvarna Vitpilen 701 : www.husqvarna-...
My good friend Dick Lodge had been urging me to try track riding, and after purchasing a nice Dainese track suit, I had the gear necessary to give it a go. I decided to learn from the best from the get-go - and I booked a full day private course with Levi Day : www.levidayraci... or on Facebook : / leviday57
Where else in the world can you have a professional super-bike racer and coach, as well as a race track to yourselves for a price that is affordable and incredible value? Levi is in Australia for a few months at the start of every year (as he is in off season for his UK racing season) and runs clinics. As a newbie, I highly recommend the coaching clinic. I learned a HEAP, and throughout the day Levi coached me on body position, corner entry and exit, bike handling and setup. He had a wealth of knowledge and I was very keen to tap into it and progress my skills.
In this video you see a couple of laps of me riding the Vitpilen while Levi follows. This footage is from his forward mounted Go-Pro. I wasn't recording lap-times on the day, but I could figure it out accurately by looking at the footage. These are a couple of laps later in the day, and it is extremely valuable to be able to look at the footage and figure out when I'm on or off line, etc - so that I can work on my technique and improve my times in the future.
This was my first ever track experience, and I found Mac Park / macparkmotorcycleclub to be a fun and safe track to learn on. The surface was excellent and I enjoyed trying to improve some of the more technical corners. My Vitpilen 701 did very well on the day, but I ground off both ends of the footpegs, my toe sliders got a hammering and I got my knees down a few times which was a new experience (I've never done that on the road). I feel like I need a bit more peg height on the Vitpilen and might try to fab up some brackets so I'm not grinding hard parts on some of the hairpins.
If any of you guys are looking to learn how to track ride, then please get in touch with Levi. He can tailor a session to whatever ability level, and he's a nice guy to hang out with.
Hi to both Robert and Shorty - you guys were good company as we stood in front of the air-conditioner and tried to cool off. I hope my next track day isn't 38 degrees C, I drank about 5 litres and hardly went to the toilet!
I've booked some more track days for later in the month and am very much looking forward to it.
Cheers and happy trails
Tori