Free Practice on a Race Track

[Django]

Hi CB Lovers,

last Thursday I took my CB for a day to the race track. It was a whole day free practice event at Anneau du Rhin, France. I were there with a group of my Beemer friends. Our group and participation was organized by myself.

The CB1100 is definitely not the first motorcycle, which comes to your mind, when you want to go to a race track. But then, I was really curious about how the CB1100 performs, especially compared to my old BMW K1100RS (R.I.P.), which I took to the track once a year the last 4 years.

However, goal was not, to compete, but to become acquainted to this motorcycle at the limits.


CB1100 in race dress (not shiny, I had to ride 300 km in the rain the day before)

Result:

Because of bad ground clearance you can't lean very much in curves. Speed of my K in curves was higher, more room to lean. I put the suspension to the hardest point front and rear. However, it's not for sport, but for comfort.

I removed the feelers from the pegs already some time ago. Then I figured out, that the alu pegs would get eaten up from the road really fast and I mounted very short feelers from another Honda model. I brought them easily to the ground. The heads of the feelers were already gone after that one day on the track.

However, the chassis of the CB was very stable in the curves, felt better than my K. The chassis says 'give me more', while the pegs say 'no more please'.

Every round at the back straight I reached the speed limit. Then braking down heavily before the next curve made the fork instable. I guess, a fork stabilizer could help. However, I think, it's not necessary for usage outside the track.

The breaks are better than those of my (20 year old) K. Compared to my friends on the older Ks, I could brake later and harder before the curves and temporize some time. However, in competition to my friends I couldn't keep up in curve speed and acceleration, driven only by 90 hp. Also I couldn't compensate this handicap by better riding capabilities.

Anyway, that day with a CB1100 on a race track was really fun! Now I know some more, what I can expect of my motorcycle and I got some training and confidence for extreme situations, if they should happen there out in the wild traffic. I did this training not, to be able to race in traffic, but to figure out the limits, to have some buffer, when I was in hot water at the road.

Here are some pictures from my camera: [url=http://www.1a-software.de/~rsz/bilder/150830_Anneau_du_Rhin/]http://www.1a-software.de/~rsz/bilder/150830_Anneau_du_Rhin/