So I was able to take the bike out again today for a track day.
The day started foggy as hell, and stayed mostly overcast with the sun only poking out after noon. This was really helpful in keeping the temps down in the suit as the temp hit about 83 degrees. NOT looking forward to mid may when it's 93 or more out and the sun is blazing.
I am getting a lot more confident in the bike and picking my speeds up quite a bit here, finally getting over my I guess you could call it, anxiety that the bike is going to go flying out from under me under extreme lean when I really lay into it. I am finally trusting that it's going to do it's thing as long as I do my thing properly. I had several folks telling me, oh this track is super grippy, even when it's misty out it's got a ton of grip so around turn 8 I decided, ok bitch, lets see how low I can go and just tried to lay that thing over, ended up scraping my knee dragger again but bike held fast, and was very stable even over at that angle. I am sure when I finally learn to get my technique down and ME leaning over more it'll be even better! Transitioning is real easy too, ahh.. easy in the way of, there is plenty of working room for you to slide over, you are not smashed down in a little seat or something, it's a wide open area to slide across, but still at almost 600 lbs, it's a bit of work after a while especially on the turns with the triple pow one immediately after the other left right left.
I am getting a LOT better using the regen and trail braking instead of using the front brakes so much. I am finding that I like it a LOT better, have much more control over the bike and I can come into turn 1 at about 75 ish MPH now vs maybe 60 because I was too busy trying to get the bike flopped over after a hard braking to get down from 135 ish mph. I am able to decelerate into it at a good lean already, instead of having to slow down THEN really start the lean. The throttle is so responsive and learning to feather it, between the trail braking and tapping to get around corners, I am finding that I need to hone my skills judging a corner, as some of them I am seeing I am coming in a bit SLOW on them, and getting close to the inner edge. Im working on the idea of it's sometimes better to come in perhaps a little bit fast, because I KNOW I got more lean angle to work with the regen WILL pull me down 5 mph or so pretty fast if needed, and I can stand off and lay the bike over to keep the corner better than having to pick up speed or correct my intended path angle because im getting too close to the inner edge.
I really love the regen, it is so much more helpful going around corners, I am finding that I can regen into a turn and once I am confident that I have the control I want IN the corner, I can actually start accelerating THRU the turn, even coming up to the apex of it and once I am pointing about where I need to be, really open up the throttle. Im talking here for those long loping turns, not the ones where you dive in tap the apex and right back out but are hugging a long curve.
Right now my biggest issue is ME, (like it ever IS actually the bike
) and getting leaned over and hanging OFF the bike enough around corners. The tires are definitely being used to the sidewalls, there really is no more room on them, I just need to get myself off the bike more. I had a few folks running behind me giving me pointers, (AbsolUTELY appreciated!!) he's been racing for years and he's telling me, you got the lean down pat, you are on track you just need to get off the bike more, it'll give you more speed and that I really need to get tank grips on the bike it'll help a ton with the control AND getting off the bike when you have something to grab onto and not sliding around.
With speeds ranging from oh, say 145 ish high end to 60 ish, low end averages, I am averaging about 1 percent battery drain per mile a little bit more later on as I got my speeds up overall but as a general, 1 percent / mile is a good figure. Today there were not a lot of folks at the track so they ran us in 2 groups instead of the normal 3 so we had half hour sessions. That shit wears you out in about 20 minutes let me tell you !! I was averaging about 30 - 32, one shot almost 40 miles per session being put on the bike.
I initially wanted to test a theory that, with a normal 20 minute session, I can use the normal AC Level 2 charging at 15 amps to keep the battery up between sessions, but with us running extended sessions, more run time also equals less charge time, that went out the window and I stayed with the fast charger. I found that the sweet spot was about 35 amps up until about 85 percent then take it down to 30 so it don't trip the breaker, and eventually figured that I could leave it at 30 the whole time and not fiddle dick with it. I was running charge up to about 92 to 94 percent and stopping there as A:it's really slowing down up there and more balaning, and B: want to make sure I got room FOR the regen to work so leave some room up top.
Running a lower charge rate also helped the battery temps too, but TBH I never got more than midway on the temperature graph, and I think the hottest I ever had the motor was up to like 150 degrees ish, (it may have been more, I was looking after I got on the paddock, NOT while racing for obvious reasons) so it had time to cool off. With the liquid cooling, that thing is NOT going to get hot on you.,
One thing I AM noticing though is, the EGO is black, on black, on black. When running, the fairings are great I am sure for getting the air thru where it needs to be, but when sitting there stewing in the sun, charging, is NOT helping keep things cool, it then traps the heat around the battery. I was thinking of getting a little fan and putting it on front of the radiator or something that I can blow air thru during charging sessions. LOOKS are a lot too, so I don't want a big honking fan on it and having people go, oh what? it can't keep cool? While back to back to back hump it hard, charge it hump it hard the battery NEVER got in the yellow on me, I am sure when the year progresses and the outside temps are 90 plus degrees and the sun is just blasting down on you, that'll all change. Putting a roof over my head will work as well with one of those little tent thingies.
As far as actual battery performance, of course topped off it's going to give you max wham for your buck, but even down to say around 60 percent, yah you may be a small little bit slower on the accel, it's NOT huge like the street bike's can be, the battery has plenty of power to give you that stupid acceleration you need to shut the ICEholes up on the straightaways. TBH I really didn't notice any real performance drag until the battery got below 50 percent, and it really took it to go down to about 40 before you really could start noticing that the top end was a bit slower getting up there. As a side note, once you DO go below 50 percent battery, it really starts to suck them down then, and while I was not paying attention when I was looking at that, I am sure that in that range, that hard suck was really pushing your temps up faster too.
One oddity though, at least on the race bike setup, the battery starts Balancing at around 80 percent, or at least, that's what the screen says but it's still sucking the full charge current, so not sure what that is all about. On that, I might have to experiment at a later date but, you got full current up to about 93 percent or so, but then again, I was only asking for 30 to 35 amps, maybe if I was asking for 60 it'd be curtailing more, Ill have to see and report back.
The only drawback, and really it's just me, is the bike has a very aggressive race stance, and standing there, all hunched over, waiting for the shift over between groups, for 5 minutes hunched over, is hard on the back. When i am running the Ribelle, it's a nice upright stance. On that though, my tires are a bit on the big side yet for me. I have that triple S going on here. (Short Shit Syndrome), so maybe if I dropped down a size, maybe instead of running a 200, dropping to a 190 that extra half inch or whatever it gives might make slow handling / standing a lot easier. I may play with tire sizes too, just to see HOW they affect the handling of the bike and all. TO be honest though, I am going to have to really be a lot better than I currently am skill wise before i do that, so Im actually able to SEE genuinely, what that difference might be.
The bike came with an optical chrono on it, that I had on ONCE, but for the life of me, I can not figure out how to get that bitch activated again. I don't think I really need it though, as the track suit data is providing me with so much more data than I bet that chrono ever could hope to.
For those who are considering a racing suit, Id recommend the Dainese, as the data the thing collects on the Airbag unit is insane, and a stupidly powerful analytical tool for you. The program is free to download and analyze /graph the data but it's a steep learning curve that's for sure! Another nice thing I figured out is, although the use applications for the data is not quite as good on an open track, as it is with a closed track mode, if you have a regular street airbag, leather jacket, you CAN download the data off that too and analyze it. You do need to be aware though, that the suit samples 1000 x a second so be prepared for quite a lengthy data download time over USB.
Well, let me get some pictures up here and can't wait for the next time.
If anyone has any questions or 'stuff' they want me to test out and report back, please let me know and Ill try to get you some answers next track day, which looks like it might be this weekend !!!
Aaron
