RC 390 & Ninja 300 track comparison

[Burning1]

True, but the funny thing is, this myth of riders on small bikes shaming riders of big bikes on tracks nationwide seems to be more forum legend than reality in my experience.

[youtube]gNlTtDLHIyY[/youtube]

The racers can usually pull it off. Here's my video from the A group, against SVs, 600s, and literbikes.

I'm on a GS500. Even when modded out, it isn't the worlds most capable bike. Most of it comes down to rider experience and setup.

Keep in mind that race pace is easily a grade faster than track pace. Many of the mid-pack AFM guys belong in the A+ or A++ group. You can see at 2:06 what a fast guy can do on a 600.

 

[ontherearwheel]

True, but the funny thing is, this myth of riders on small bikes shaming riders of big bikes on tracks nationwide seems to be more forum legend than reality in my experience. I've done close to 50 track days on 600s, 750s and 1000s in the B, B+ and A groups, and in all that time I've had one small bike pass me on the track - a race 250 two smoke ridden by a racer. And I've been on track with plenty of smaller, lighter bikes and I'm not a super skilled rider.

And in that video neither of those riders seemed to be carrying amazing corner speed. I think most of these stories arise from situations where the smaller bike rider would have passed the large displacement rider on anything, and the bike size had nothing to do with it.

The thing about going fast on big bikes is knowing how and when to brake. Its one thing to carry alot of speed into a turn and then just have to roll off the gas versus carrying so much speed that you have to brake down to the turn in speed.

I went from a 55 hp bike to a 04 r1, 160hp. The two things that got me most was the acceleration and having to brake hard for corners because of the speed I was able to carry. Its amazing how much shorter the front straight at Thill is on the R1 versus the 55 hp bike.

On the little bike, I could open the throttle full anywhere, not so on the R1.

It seems the faster I accelerated on the R1 the smaller my balls got. I went so fast once that it took a few days for them to reappear.

 

[Go2Trackdays]

nice, Burning1 I wonder how you would do on the 390, or the Kawi....

 

[vaibhavdesai137]

I've done close to 50 track days......I'm not a super skilled rider.

Yeah right .

 

[Z3n]

[youtube]gNlTtDLHIyY[/youtube]

The racers can usually pull it off. Here's my video from the A group, against SVs, 600s, and literbikes.

I'm on a GS500. Even when modded out, it isn't the worlds most capable bike. Most of it comes down to rider experience and setup.

Keep in mind that race pace is easily a grade faster than track pace. Many of the mid-pack AFM guys belong in the A+ or A++ group. You can see at 2:06 what a fast guy can do on a 600.

I still love your compulsive turn signal canceling. Makes me smile every time.

True, but the funny thing is, this myth of riders on small bikes shaming riders of big bikes on tracks nationwide seems to be more forum legend than reality in my experience. I've done close to 50 track days on 600s, 750s and 1000s in the B, B+ and A groups, and in all that time I've had one small bike pass me on the track - a race 250 two smoke ridden by a racer. And I've been on track with plenty of smaller, lighter bikes and I'm not a super skilled rider.

And in that video neither of those riders seemed to be carrying amazing corner speed. I think most of these stories arise from situations where the smaller bike rider would have passed the large displacement rider on anything, and the bike size had nothing to do with it.

I'd agree with this. My fast times are all around 2 flat at Thill, regardless of bike. That's fast enough that I'll never be passed by a Ninja 250 or RC390, although quite a few AFM SV riders would probably be able to put the screws to me.

I'm building a ducati 999 as a trackbike, and I hope that'll be the bike I drop sub 2 minutes on, with ~130rwhp, 80 foot pounds of torque, and getting it as light as possible. If I can't succeed with that thing, I'm buying a 1198 and putting that engine in the 999 chassis and building a cheater.

It's easy enough to look at the breakdown of lap times though and see where the barriers are. 2:06 is the lap record for 250 superbike/ninja 250 type bikes, 1:54 is the record for SVs, the 600 record at Thill is 1:50ish (IIRC), and 1:47 is the record for literbikes. I figure it takes roughly the same amount of skill (although different skillsets) to get within 5 seconds of those times, but the difference isn't huge. Once you get within 10 seconds of those paces on the same bike class, you should be well out of the realm of "I'm afraid of the throttle" and well into the realm of "Fucking hell I feel flat out just about everywhere all the goddamn time and where the hell do they find another 10 seconds".

 

[stangmx13]

in the vid, i liked the guys point about being able to focus so much on cornerspeed on a little bike. i used to (incorrectly) ride my 600 w/ that focus and i kinda miss it.

"Fucking hell I feel flat out just about everywhere all the goddamn time and where the hell do they find another 10 seconds".

seriously

 

[Burning1]

Once you get within 10 seconds of those paces on the same bike class, you should be well out of the realm of "I'm afraid of the throttle" and well into the realm of "Fucking hell I feel flat out just about everywhere all the goddamn time and where the hell do they find another 10 seconds".

On a small bike "More throttle, less brake" can be simplified to "less brake."

 

[KazMan]

True, but the funny thing is, this myth of riders on small bikes shaming riders of big bikes on tracks nationwide seems to be more forum legend than reality in my experience. I've done close to 50 track days on 600s, 750s and 1000s in the B, B+ and A groups, and in all that time I've had one small bike pass me on the track - a race 250 two smoke ridden by a racer. And I've been on track with plenty of smaller, lighter bikes and I'm not a super skilled rider.

And in that video neither of those riders seemed to be carrying amazing corner speed. I think most of these stories arise from situations where the smaller bike rider would have passed the large displacement rider on anything, and the bike size had nothing to do with it.

Back in the 80's I raced TZ250's against the 1025/1100 superbikes and the only way to beat them was through the corners.

Today, I race a Ninja 250 (and an R6 but for this thread ) and at Thill, going into T1 you pretty much just hit your turn in and go. That roughly 100mph +/-. And although your assessment on rider level may be correct, for me on the 250, it's still a thrill.

Not like a TZ thrill, but something fun and kind of your reward for laying on the tank for such a long time getting strafed by displacement. So when you go back by 1, 2, 3, of those riders, it's fun. Even more so when you do it from the outside Regardless, I'm still only going to do a 2:08-9 laptime when all is said and done.

 

[Burning1]

Cycle world has some nice RC390 track video as well.

http://www.cycleworld.com/2014/09/1...-track-action-point-of-view-first-ride-video/