ElectricMotorcycleForum.com

So for today, we are running in the rain.
I decided to run the track in the rain, because. well, wtf not?  I paid for the day, why piss away 180 bucks?
Actually, it's good to KNOW how to do something, the more you know, the more you are able to perform when it is demanded from you, rather than you volunteering to do it.

id rather learn how to run in the rain, on my own, by MY choice, and know how to work the bike, and stay safe, so that if I find myself getting CAUGHT in the rain unwanted (cough cough, I live in florida, what do you think THOSE odds are? ) I can continue to run safe.

It wasn't that bad really, seriously.  For those who are skittish, give it a shot, it's really NOT that bad.
Do I need to do 128 mph on the back side, umm no, probably 105 is plenty, back your pace down, go easier into the turns, but otherwise, run your race the way you normally do, you'll know if you are getting close to edges of boundries.

The bike weighs 600 Lbs, it's going to get decent traction, I am sure the weight helps there a bit.
Is it going to slide and fling and hydroplane all over the place,. well.   not unless you are running slicks.
Who's going to run slicks in the rain?  NOBODY is that much of an idiot... I hope.

Just regular DOT tires,  the Continental Attack 2's I want to say ///they are front and back, did the trick nicely.  I hit some corners under speed, YES you CAN hear the tires gripping in the rain!!  you can hear the water, .. for lack of a better word,  tearing when you are running a wet track and tire shear is going on.

The take away here is, the bike performed superbly in the rain, in fact, I was slammin it!!!  The adrenaline rush was on, and I was hammering it and the bike was my faithful partner.....

then the lightning started hitting everywhere and they called the rest of the day off.   $#^%&^%^%

Ok, back to the point, if you have decent tires on your bike and it's raining out, don't be afraid,  the Energica's are designed to perform extremely well in adverse conditions.  If you are on a street bike, you have Traction Control which will be working overtime to save your ass.  My race bike does not have TC so that's on ME, and even though I was hitting it a bit hot every now and then, it's not like the bike just jumped and went crazily out of control, it was VERY well mannered in less than nice road conditions.

There were some standing puddles.  One of the instructors made a comment, don't worry about puddles, I hit them all the time, it's no big deal.

Now I don't swerve out of the way of puddles, doing that on a track is a HUGE no no !!! but I generally do alter my track line slightly to avoid them, I mean, why purposely go thru  an area you know is less than ideal?  SAFETY!!  However after hearing the instructor say no big deal, Ok, I want to try it now,  ramp it up, see how much of a 'no big deal' it really is.

If the puddle is 3 inches deep, NO you probably do NOT want to go thru that, especially at 80 MPH, that's an accident waiting to happen, especially if there is any lean in there.  But if it's just a bit of standing water,  guess what... it's no big deal... your 600 LB bike will slug right thru that like it was nothing.  I hit the patch of standing water several times at increasing aggressiveness to see what my limits were on water sports 

The bike really didn't seem to notice much.  This is a well designed bike, and if your tires are not bald, it'll bring you thru nice and safe.

Don't be afraid of rain, it's amazing how many people ARE afraid of it !!!  We DO have an advantage though, our regen is stupid good awesome, engine braking, it'll stop you very nicely in rain / on wet roads.  you got the EB  use it, it will make life a LOT easier for you.  You will be amazed how quick a high setting EB can stop you on wet pavement along with a gentle braking and do so safely and sanely.

in a way it's kind of sad, how badly, Regen is Under - Understood on Electric bikes on how valuable a tool it really is and can be.  Everyone focus' on the power saving aspect of it, which in reality is kind of bullshit, and totally ignores the  handling capabilities it now gives you.  I wonder why the manu's don't go down this route as a selling item?



Well, tomorrow will be the last day for a while at Jennings, so ill be working on the trailer, getting it all spiffied up, and the possibly hitting other tracks and continuing to report how the bike is running.  Let's hope it don't rain too much, however. I almost wish I had a set of rain tires, Id be really interested to see how well the bike performs on those .vs. just the regular dot's.  I don't think there will be a lot of diff for most people unless you are just really in a swamp.

Aaron

Curt that is the big thing is cracking down on where they can bring their stuff.
In florida they make it very difficult to recycle restricted materials.
on one hand it makes it a major pain in the ass for legit recyclers such as myself, especially when the piggy poo detective who gets assigned to follow that, wants to be a gaping asshole, just because he can.  But on the other hand, it makes the thieves work a lot harder for their money.  They can just take their stuff up the road to georgia who doesn't give a rats ass BUT they do watch the road and god help you get caught going across state lines with stolen goods, especially with the intent of selling them.

ENFORCING the law will stop most the theft.  Ca is an area typically where theft is ignored, hence the out of control problems.
Get caught in Florida sawing on someone's car and you'll be shot on sight.   Just saying.
Aaron

I hit the track again today,  been fairly often here and doing a 3 day'er since this will be the last for the season here at Jennings, they close until about september for the heat. 

Today was a private day, the guy rents out the track and lets 15 of us in on it, it's an open track, we come and go as we please.
Basic rules are
1. BE CIVIL to each other, it's a track day not thunderdome
2. Have a goal, work on something, you want to work on better times on turn 1 work it, etc  even if your goal is just to have fun, have fun.
3. MIND your track time, don't overdo it, don't get hazy brain and end up in the grass because you ran for 40 minutes straight.

So I put the EGO to max power level to play.  Yah, I need to be careful.  Im working on my suspension, getting everything tweaked in and running the bike since I am getting quite a bit better with it,with all the riding Ive been doing.  My lap times are occasionally in the 1.30's now and my speeds are up in the 130's too occasionally on the back end.

Well, it turns out that most the people there, are no strangers to a track, and pretty much every one of them have not seen an electric bike before, so unknown to me, until about lunch, I had quite an audience and a 'following'.  Pretty much everyone there had something to say about how the bike performed, and given I am nowhere near being able to really put on a show with my limited experience.. that's majorly impressive for the bike!

About 120 ish MPH the front end was getting jittery, it was bouncing around a bit and I didn't like that so I talked to him, saying, what could this be,rebound or what?  Well immediately the guy who was following me (that I didn't know was following) says, there's nothing wrong with your suspension, it's the stupid torque that thing puts out.  I was trying to pass you, you held your own pretty good into the corners, so I said, ok Ill catch him on the straight away and pass him,  YOU started putting the throttle to the thing about halfway thru the turn and by the time you were straight you stomped on it,  I was full throttle, I could not keep up, the torque on that thing is just crazy, I seen your front end, you are starting to lift it when you romp the throttle, it's not the shocks bouncing, it's the front end getting light and coming up.

I did not believe it at first, I was like, dude, I was doing 116, I don't think that was a wheelie, and he said,yah and your bike wanted to go from 116 to 166 in a few seconds! you left me behind like I was on a mini bike, you are lifting your front end, I seen it Im telling you.

So now I get to work on throttle control, or more specifically, my riding position,  I need to try to keep hunched forward more and not sit up as much to try to keep the weight forward to keep the front end down if I want to hammer the throttle in straight aways.  It is fun though, I mean, it's pretty much twist and hold on, literally, hold on, the bike IS taking off!

Laying down on the bike, and sitting up, your perspective on the track changes SIGNIFICANTLY !!  You don't see nearly as much stuff laying down as sitting up,  you BETTER know that track if you are going to assume race position or you may find yourself running off real fast when a corner comes up that you misjudged because you were on an even plane of eyesight with it and misjudged how close it was.  I find that more and more I am running on muscle memory, and oddly, when I am pre occupied and running muscle mem thru the areas I am familiar with, I tend to do better laps when I am not actively focusing on them.  Cursing at the latest bug to explode on my visor is a good example of being pre occupied.  I swear these miserable huge locusts have a radar on them,  my nickname should be the Bug Magnet.

Another thing I find is that wow, it's a long reach from the seat to the handlebars of the EGO.  Then again it IS pretty much purely a racing bike, the goal it to get streamlined, not necessarily comfy.

I also finally put tank grips on the bike and wow what a world of difference they made, holy cow.  The head is big and slippery on that bike, I was finding myself sliding around a bit, and the legs were not really holding to steer as they should so I was using more arm / handlebar to do the job, and that was wearing me out, and of course putting input into the handlebars,  not always a good thing.  The bike steers much better now that I took  a few sessions to basically re learn how to DO it properly, and take the weight off my arms and more into the legs to maneuver.   With this I am finding the bike is VERY V E R Y, receptive to the slightest leg inputs to lean into a turn and really hold a line.  For the most part, I really don't need to swing my ass off the seat hugely and can just kind of lean or slip a butt cheek off and wham, im over and deep into the turn.  For as much as the bike weighs, it's pretty amazing on how little input you really need to get her to swing right over and do what you need.  Still though, wrasslin a 600 pound bike will wear your ass OUT at the end of the day !!

Im also liking the 190 / 55 tires on it too, over the 200 / 65s that were originally on it.  Slicks, ok I can see the big fatties maybe but dot's the smaller ones give me a much better turn radius.  Plus I am getting several days out of the tires instead of just a few.  My last set lasted 4 days on the connie attack 2's before I burnt them up finally.

Well dammit, now that I am finally getting sort of good, and really learning how to make the bike perform the season will be over for some months.  Well, this will give me some time to get the trailer fully put together and decked out so I can then travel wherever I need to with the bike.  Taledega, Carolina Motorsports, etc,  Here I come !

Aaron

everybody is somebody's slave.
go fix me a sammich

Ive always gotten parts right away when I ordered them.  Maybe a month wait on a brake level but I strongly believe the Dealer  was an idiot and had it the entire time, just didn't open the box and actually read the contents on it.

Ive ordered from the place in texas,  the new england place and from my dealer and the parts have come in pretty fast.
The center stand thing, not sure what is up with that, but the other stuff, always got what was needed.

Fork seals?  isn't another company the manu of the fork?  why not go directly to them?  Just like you'd goto okin for shock parts, or brembo for brake parts, unless you like markup from 3rd party?

Maybe they just don't like you ::shrug::

Aaron

Yah thats the thing Morgan,  Id have to actually look at it, but in it's simplest form, a SSR rated for 40 amp? or whatever you are throwing would be about the size of a larger pack of cigs or cigars.  Could possibly share the heat sink or one of it's own.  SInce there really is no converting needed in that voltages have to change, it's just a driven on / off to chop the incoming, and no inductive kick so to say to have to absorb on breaking, it might be fairly easy.  Maybe a PWM with the on and off to regulate it since in theory, the rectifier in the real charger, only half of it's gonna get hot now, and probably a bit hotter, .. it'd need a good look at but, just a concept to ponder on.  Itd fit in a bag like bringing your own cord would.  in theory... anyways.  Thank you for the inputs.

Aaron

Still, it's polite to introduce yourself first, not just dive in first post, shilling a product, no intro, background, nothing. 
Too many spammers do that. 
If he's a legit company, let people KNOW that, that you ARE a rep and a reliable / respectable source of info.
Hearing YOU talk about no hostility?  Oh that's rich!

Aaron

Police closing in?