HCMC Round 5 Collie

Well I finally got to another round of racing as this year I just seem to have been a ball of injuries, both AC joints, fractures, left knee and most recently a fracture of the T12 Vertebrae!
It was good to just relax and try to be smooth on the bike. I'm running a similar setup to GoGo and to be honest, it has been a real stuggle to make the geometry work.
One of the things he did was run the wheel as far back as possible to stop the wheelies, I tried the same but the bike never felt comfortabe.
After chatting with Viking, I thought I'd give the shorter wheelbase idea a go... Another benifit being that it lowered rear ride height without changing the swingarm angle.

To be plain... Awesome! I'm not quite as short as Viking as I don't want to make massive changes and our bikes are totally different as our riding styles.
I was leading a few laps against Cbr1000s and a GSXR1000 that turned out to be Shaun Giles' ex Aussie Superbike... 190hp!!!
They got past me in the second race and I had two false neutrals on the back straight, I'm kicking myself. I've already made a phonecall to get the bike looked at to try and develop a type of cam for the shift mechanism to shorten the throw.
My tyre warmer crapped itself and I was able to get on from the Suzuki rider, in the last race of the day, I was able to do consistant 49s with one 48 only 1 second off the lap record!
Our tracks are that small that a second is still a long way, but I felt like I could go even faster, but I had not got used to running a higher pace.

In summary, two 2nd's and a 3rd aint too bad at all

I only made 3 rounds and came second in the championship, but I'm really trying to race the I4s as the other guys in TB are not as fast, I race at the faster track in two weeks and I've had no saddle or setup time there, but there will be another 3 SD's so I hope to be able to keep up with them.

Here are the vids, and any comments or feedback on lines, style or such is always appreciated.

Love that Big Sky....... The guy on that CBR carries a lot of corner speed

I'll need to crack open the laptop to get a good look at the vids. Too jerky on my phone.

Glad it working out. , Some good solid results there especially for a 7ft orangutan with only 1 operational limb.

There's a few other things you can use to help things if your looking down this kinda route. Like you can more rear sag to get the swingarm moving better. Now the axle is further up the arm it makes it harder for it to push the shock up when you hit a bump. Taking a wee bit preload off will bring you even more side grip! And I had to change rebound on shock a fair bit to stop it lifting the rear off the ground so much in the braking zones.

If any guys are reading this with standard bike, don't just go out and lop a link off the chain..... especially on an 05/06.
The 07> geo combined with the Nichols moves the front wheel further from the bike which allows this stuff to work. Shortening the wheelbase on a base bike will turn it into a minimoto. These bikes are race bikes only and i dunno about lingas but mine feels terrible until your on pace with it.

The wheelbase is actually as near as dammit standard. By doing this stuff It's the weight distribution that's alot different.

Cheers matie, I'll give the rebound a go as I was lifting the rear on hard breaking.
Mine's even more nose down being SDR with 190/69's on, even with the forks all the way through I'm 14mm higher than stock in the rear!
I run a lot of comp and pre load at the moment to stop it diving as much and not using all the fork travel to stop the front tucking... It wants to do this all the time, but so far has been controlable which I put down to the quality of the michelins.
Just fried the clutch in my car as well so big bill before next week!

That's not right mate. There's no way it should be tucking the front. It sounds like you've maybe got a band aid there to try and mask a handling issue. If you think about it the point in the 190 rear is to give you more side grip and exit drive. But it's costing you in entry coz you can't get it in hard , then coz apex speed will be lower you having to drive it harder from a lower speed which loads the tyres.

I'll give you a shout when I get time and we can bounce ideas about.

Linga's bike is an SDR so it has the steeper head angle like the 05/06 SD,but from the frame head angle not the yokes as with the 05/06SD,
thats going to need a different set up to cure the front tucking problem, I suspect the 190 rear is not helping at all,
You can check the head angle the bike is running as it is set up with an inclinometer, they are not expensive and will tell you straight away if you have gone too far, I have a Digi-pas one cost about 40 quid

great going linga, looks to me like you are tipping into the corner a little early sometimes and like I said to you the other weak about mine it looks like your bike is also runing wide out of the chicane, looks like your still getting headshake I can see from the shadow you are running some sort of screen, I have the tall touring one on my road headlight mask it will shake its head when hard on the power but not with the race mask on and no screen, wish I could be as smooth

Cheers TLSRuss, I have meant to do that but life keeps getting in the way!
I know the bike is nose down and am slowly adjusting things to lessen the fact, I had to buy a few tyres to get a good deal, so this year is a michelin year.
I'm basically spending every last bit of cash on it... Drags to improve the starts which increases oil consumption. Modifying whatever I can to make it lighter and Dynos here are $400 a pop. At this rate it would work out cheaper to buy my own Dyno!

You're right on the tipping in too early Cheesie, I get excited sometimes and don't wait and this, more than anything, is contributing to the front wheel issue. When I get it right, this bike turns frighteningly fast and to be honest I'm still getting used to it as I haven't had any saddle time.
That chicane is a funny one, as I'm down on power, this is the spot I get passed, so instead of the best line I break almost straight at it and don't get of them till the change of direction. This isn't the fastest way but it is the most defensive and because the bike is so loud I'm doing it every lap!

The head shakes are now gone thanks to Silverback's damper, I ran it for the first time 8 clicks from hard and will soften it up more I think. Collie is a very bumpy track so the bike wobbles a to anyway.

The screen is a new addition and is mainly for the faster track we have here. But I ran it to test it out and really like it. Even on Collie, it helped to get out of the wind a little. Not sure if it helps the bike but it calms me down and gives me time to relax and refocus. It is really good at the drags.

out of interest what sag front and rear what length is the back shock at or threads showing and what tyre presures, I am curently running the nichols with 5mm of fork leg above the top yolk thye shock standard length, static at the rear is 5-6mm and 33 loaded and have no problems with front end tuck but believe I need a little more rear ride height or damping as it has a tendency to run wide out of chicanes

Relaxing and not putting pressure on the bars will help too. So will locking on to the bike so your not hanging on with your hands on exit.

Cheese that bike will turn like a cat on those settings.

Mind there are some basic rules too. Adding rebound will dial out handling traits but will also bring the limit closer to you. It holds the bike down and shortens the geometry. It also holds the loading on the tyre.

Lingas. Go man, humour me. It's worth a try. Even for a session. We're the same weight.

Forks on 3-5mm showing through.
Rear clevis wound down to compensate for 14mm in 190 tyre. Can you do that with the clevis?
Front static sag of 28-30mm.
Rear static sag of 13-16mm
Short wheelbase.
Damping of comp and rebound as soft as you can get it so it controls the strokes nicely and no more.
I've took account for your longer forks in that too.

This is pretty vague as it all depends on what your fork air gap and shock pressures are.

Just from looking at it posted your bike looks steeper than an 05 but massively higher. Even before you posted saying there is a handling prob I'd look at those numbers and wouldn't ride the thing down the pit lane without falling off.

There's some things that really matter and some things not so much. Don't get too hung up on certain areas. I bet you a wager I could put the bike into negative swingarm angle and nobody would notice the slightest difference. But on the net its a major taboo. Trail is like that too. You won't notice bugger all from 2deg trail. You will notice a huge difference in weight distribution. Which one is giving the gain?


I'm not gonna a get into a big setup debacle. KTM tell me all chassis are the same. You guys would need to measure them to check that though.