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[Specter]

charging

[Specter]

yes it tears up tires!

[Grauteufel]

There’s something wrong with your tyres mate, the edges shouldn’t get chewed up like that. Mine are nice and clean, even after dozens of laps. 😂

[Pard]

No chicken on them there strips!

Nice riding!

[Specter]

Im told that if I flip the tires I should get an extra day out of them, because Jennings is such a left handed track, that it wears that side out so much faster. Im going to give it a try, at $400 a set it's definitely worth a try.  So, how exactly Do you turn a tire inside out?     Just kidding.

Trying to think of things to do with the old tires.  Maybe drill some holes in them, fill the inside with dirt and plant strawberries in them.  I can sell them to the tree huggers as Strawberry Circles.  Actually, if I stand 3 or 4 of them up, and make a den out of them, throw in some straw, I can get the chickens to nest in them, that way I won't spend 20 minutes searching the yard to find where the little b4354es hid the eggs at this time.

I know on some highways, they mixed ground up rubber with the pavement and laid it down.  I wonder how that worked out?  Imagine if they could grind up old bike tires, and mix with the pavement and lay it down for a bike track.  I wonder how THAT would work out?  I bet you they would be REAL grippy!  I need to win a big lottery so I can buy a racetrack, or 200 acres and build my own and try it out!

Tank grips.  Any suggestions or are they all pretty much alike, besides for personal looks /  preferences?

Aaron

[Grauteufel]

I know on some highways, they mixed ground up rubber with the pavement and laid it down.  I wonder how that worked out?

Be still my beating heart, you know about recycled rubber binder pavements?

They’re marginally more difficult to get right (industry is still learning) and while initial costs are slightly higher, they have much better service life than traditional mixes. Vastly better grip, quieter, better frost resistance and less surface water retention.

[Specter]

I know on some highways, they mixed ground up rubber with the pavement and laid it down.  I wonder how that worked out?

Be still my beating heart, you know about recycled rubber binder pavements?

They’re marginally more difficult to get right (industry is still learning) and while initial costs are slightly higher, they have much better service life than traditional mixes. Vastly better grip, quieter, better frost resistance and less surface water retention.

So it sounds to me like they'd be ideal for a bike race track then.  The service life I'd think would be even more on a bike track, while yes the bike is tearing it up on the track, it's also much lighter than a truck as far as that wear goes.  Frost resistance, might not have to worry about that TOO much in the south, but the water retention, that is another huge plus, especially for the morning runs when the track may not be quite as hot yet as many would like to think it is.  (Why is it always the EXPERT group, in the first lap or two, that gets the first red flag of the day )  hehe.  The better grip, that goes without saying.

While I am not sure, I want to say, haven't these been around for oh god 20 or more years now?  Hopefully they are about there with the tech by now.  With all the grief you hear about how to get rid of old tires, this would be a perfect way IMO, instead of mountains of mosquito breeders piled up, waiting for a lightning strike to burn for a month and a half.

How are they on your tires?  If they wore out tires less, that'd be another huge plus on the track, well, at least from the racers perspective.  The tire guy, maybe not so much.

Well that does it then, I am going to have to play a powerball ticket this week so I can win the 1 billion dollar prize, and we can make this rubber track race way a reality!  Florida can always use another race track open to the general public to use, just too bad it would probably have to shut down half the season due to heat, UNLESS, I put lights on it, so we can race at night when it's cooler.  With 1B to spend, that is a drop in the bucket.  Throw some solar panels on it and get the government to pay for 30 percent of it HAH !!  Oh we're doing this now... 

Aaron

[Grauteufel]

I haven't seen any studies about traffic tyre wear, but I imagine it would be unchanged as the aggregate is what causes tyre wear.

While your bikes and race cars are much lighter, so don't make compressive wear on the surface, the lateral forces are much higher and this rips the aggregate out of the binder which I believes wears faster than a standard light traffic pavement.

Yes, they have been out for more than 20 years, but we wouldn't have had more than a handful of council and main road departments wholesale adopt them. Also have you met anyone in civil construction? Its not exactly the fastest moving industry, and processes take time to come into practice.

Have you ever been to a drag track? They literally are covered in glue (resin), it'll rip shoes off. Probably skin too, but I didn't want that stuff on me.

[Specter]

I have not been to a drag track yet, I wish there was one by me TBH, and not one of these 1/8th mile wanna bee tracks either.
I have umm, there are some very long side roads / access roads, onramps type things one could theoretically get on and let it rip.  the resin umm no I would NOT want to get that on my skin.   Civil service,ahh yes, I worked a CS job for 19 years at the power plant, so trust me, I know how slow government works, especially union jobs.

The glue, oh man, we had some double sided stupid crazy glue sticky tape for the turbines, some sort of repair shit for the heat proofing panels.  Anyways long story short, one of the guys had a piece in his hand, pulled the one side off, and for some reason went to smell it.  Well someone else of course smacked his hand and plastered it to his face and it was NOT letting loose.  He ended up with a very painful Brazilian to his face removing hair along with a layer or two of skin along with it from that!  We were laughing so hard and he was so PISSED, but what could you do?  Acetone, on your face? umm no thanks.  Hospital, and get in trouble for horseplay at work, umm NO... suck it up buttercup it was !!!

So there is actually resin on the drag strip and that's not just rubber that'd been laid down over the years?

Aaron

[Grauteufel]

Yep, they spray it regularly. They also have regularly scrape off the rubber because it’s too slippery.

The trick with glue on skin, just wait, your own oils and sweat will get it off. If you’re in a hurry, add some good ol vasoline.

You should hit up a drag strip sometime,m, hell, an esseesse (non rs version!) won what I believe was a national 1/4 mile drag in street bike class.

[Specter]

Ill have to look and see what dragstrips are around here.
The Ribelle I pop a wheelie on so have the traction control trying to tame that.  the ego, because it's a much more forward stance I don't really do that so I bet I could really light up a drag strip with it.

Aaron

[Specter]

Hmm, well well... seems I found another rabbit hole to fall down into.  Gainesville seems like it might be a decent track and they have bikes there too it appears.

I am sure i'll need some kind of license to get into that, so will have to work on obtaining that first, of course before any of the racing starts.  My plan here is actually, get my act together this year, my trailer and supporting stuff all pretty much in place, then next year 2025 launch (hopefully) any racing / fun tours I may decide to get into.

Given there's not a ton one can do with an electric bike, as far as performance enhancement, besides maybe sprocket ratios and tire sizes, it will be fun to see what I can manage to squeeze out of one of these buggers.  The only downside is, one of the brackets I see is only for street legal bikes.  That leaves the EGO out, unless I do a quick patch kit to it to make it look 'street legal' at least for track  purposes... and the Ribelle being capped at a buck 25, well that sucks for a dragstrip.  Hmm, interesting times ahead I predict !    I may have to carefully word a question when I ask them to 'define' street legal.

Aaron

[Specter]

Back out at Jennings today, they had a running in reverse day today and hmm, that was an experience.
it's hard to 'forget' a track or pretend  you don't remember parts of it, especially when they are backwards.
Coming out of a turn, into a tightening circle is a whole new beast as well, as compared to the normal run on the track.  the apex's are all opposite and while it's fun, it's also something you better be VERY careful at the first times thru.

My first few laps were sanity laps I call them,  especially on a new track.  Take everything real slow and get a feel for it.  Even if Ive been on the track 100 times, every new session, the first lap, i'll take it a bit easy, get a new feel for everything as it is NOT the same as an hour ago and most importantly, make sure I am back into the groove and 'feeling the bike' the same as well.  There are turns where you have a lot of leeway to correct a mistake, and then there are turns where you'll get grassed real fast if you don't come in just right.  The lenient ones are good for testing the latest waters.

The good thing about going in reverse, I didn't have to spend the 20 bucks to have the tires flipped to wear out the other side before replacing it  

I found that once I got my comfort / confidence level up where it needed to be, after a session, and got into my groove, the bike was handling the really stupid tight turns very well, even when I was off my mark a bit and had to really turn INTO it to get back where I should be, it handled the decreasing radius really well and let me really get bent over to handle the tighter feeling turns.  I was worried that in the really tightening turns that I was going to really have to slow down bad to handle it, but the bike let me really lean into it very stable and keep the speed at a respectable level.  It's kind of funny how turns that are a bit challenging going lefty loosey are now eazey peazy going righty tighty.

Being Florida though, yep there was rain in the forecast and it did find us.  It started as a slight  drizzle that turned into a pretty shitty shower pretty fast.  That is typical though, it can be sunny on turn 1 and a tornado on turn 4, welcome to Florida.  While nobody was really going stupid fast,we all were making our ways to the pit, and in the middle of the final turn, THIS is where I found the slick spot on the track. 
The front tire slid then hopped back up, slid / jumped again hopped back up, by this time it's got my FULL ATTENTION and im letting off the throttle and readjusting to try to get the seat out that I just sucked up my a hole. it slid a little bit a third time then everything straightened out and i was good thru the rest of the turn.  Not entirely sure what saved me here, it certainly is not my skill !!  By all rights, I believe I probably should have highsided here or at least a nasty spinout,  but the shocks / tires were able to save me.  The race bike really does not have traction control, however it does have ABS and easing off the throttle probably did kick in regen which would put that into play a bit as well.  I can think back on it now but all in all it probably took a second at most to all occur.  So while I can sit here and armchair quarterback everything I did, in the moment ..you don't have that privelige. 
Another thing that is kind of neat, I can download the data off my airbag suit and slide right into the event and see everything that happened down  to like a few milliseconds.  While I do not know the software nearly as good as Id like to, yes it does have a pretty in depth instruction manual, for me at least, it's still a pretty steep learning curve.  I am sure once I DO get better with it, there are plenty of teachable moments that i'll be able to see there

In closing, had another fun day here, learning new stuff every time I take the bike out and loving it better and better each track day !!
One thing I am probably going to try is Im running 200 tires on back and am on the balls of my feet / tip toes with the bike.  I am probably going to try a 190 which I am thinking is going to put me flatfooted like on the Ribelle with 190s and hopefully it won't kill my feet / ankles so bad when im standing still waiting to be let loose on the track.  I don't anticipate the handling to be HUGELY different, except maybe a bit tighter on the turns maybe?  Im at the edge of my tires now so hope i won't slide out taking the same turns the same way with a smaller tire.  May need to adjust my turn in spots a bit with a tighter turning tire but we'll see!

What I need to do next is work on my body positioning more. I know that is a major issue currently is getting slid over / my ass OFF the bike and hanging over in the turns.  My creaky old ass with the half stainless steel spine don't move as fast as I wish I could ...especially after a full morning of  humping a 600 lb bike back and forth, it tends to get a bit sore 

Take care everyone.

Aaron

[Pard]

^^^  Bravo!  Thanks for sharing!  Add some video when able.

[Specter]

Pard, I think I am going to go with the 360 camera you mentioned in another thread somewhere.
This ram mount X mount I am NOT impressed with.  2 times now that sob let my phone fly when hitting a pothole, and coupled with what I am hearing are issues with the Hero camera's I think that might be a better way to go.
Now to figure out exactly where I want to mount it at.  Behind the windshield maybe and with what kind of mount that will HOLD it there, and my phone too on the Ribelle.

Aaron