The hardest ride on my SH was 1550km (a bit over 960 mi) of backroads in one day, though all in daylight hours. Not a motorway in any of it, plenty of variety in elevation and bends, a bit of gravel....brilliant.

On the racetrack a hard ride is one where you are on the limit the whole time, drifting or sliding tires in every corner for the whole race. I haven't done that for years, having learned over 38 consecutive road racing seasons that there are still dumbclucks on the track, just as there are on the road, and you have to leave room to evade them.

 

PS it's over a million miles since I last fell off on the road (I was 17).

I refuse to ride hard, by my standards, on road, but I still get from A to B as fast as anyone and have yet to have been passed in a corner .

 

It seems that I define "Hard riding" differently that the rest of you.
I can pust the Super Hawk pretty far. I have confidence in my riding ability, and I never push past what I think I can handle. My chicken strips were gone 15 minutes after I picked up my brand new 05 VTR.

How I guage how hard I'm riding is by how far I'm reving the engine.
I also want to be as smooth as possible and as easy on my equipment as I can. But still riding hard means that I must red line it a few more times that I like.
I don't mind red lining it once in a while. But when I look down and see the needle 1,500 past red, I feel bad about my riding.

And I feel like I rode the bike too hard.

If my heart skips a beat because I've entered a corner too fast or the front wheel starts to slide, I just tone it back a bit. But not much.
Some rear wheel slide is acceptable in my world. If under power in a corner the rear slide a bit, that's ok, as long as it predictable.
Backing her into the corner gets me high, and I aim to do that many times.

If you cross the centre line, you should just park the bike or go home.

 

Presumably you have not been riding very long.

And you won't continue, too, either, if this is how you ride on the street.

So, have you red-lined it in top gear?

PS you can get rid of chicken strips really fast by taking incorrect cornering lines. Just a tip.

 

take it to the track ...



can you get it over farther ?



not much ...



the left mid pipe takes a beating before the peg



this is a great shot that shows my puck on the deck ... if your consistent in your body position you get a good sense of when hard parts are going to touch down.



the only problem comes when taking a different line and you try & flick it in quick and bounce off the pipes - but when you have as many miles as i have you get a good 'feel' for where the bike is.


she'll take a lot & is very forgiving but there is a point you don't want to cross and her shortcoming will bite you in the a$$.

tim

 

Everybody seems to have their own definition of "hard". I ride rather fast on public roads, sometimes faster than rather fast. I don't think of it as "hard', I think of it as challenging and fun when I'm up in the mountains, but I never ride racetrack "hard".

I once rode a Yamaha 500 twin from Ft. Lauderdale to College Park, Maryland straight through (about 1100 miles I think) in January. Didn't have the money for a cheap motel. Just stopped for food and fuel. Couldn't stop for more than about 30 minutes 'cause the battery was near dead, the electric start wouldn't turn the engine and I feared the kick starter wouldn't fire it if it wasn't still somewhat warm. It was cold and raining from north Georgia to Rocky Mount, N.C. No big deal 'cause I had a Hefty Bag on each leg and one on my torso, secured against wind rip with a half roll of duct tape.

By Rocky Mount it dropped below freezing and started to snow. When I hit the first traffic light off of the D.C. beltway, I had to guide my left foot to the pavement visually
'cause it was too damn cold to have any feeling left in it. I arrived at my destination on reserve with a grand total of 26 cents on my person. That was indeed a hard ride. Kinda fun too.

 

I've been riding for 36 years. Is that long enough?

I took the chicken strips off in the first 15 minutes to get rid of the slippery covering on the tire. Not because I was riding fast around corners.

I don't think the bike will hit red in 6th gear.

I would love to have you out on one of my rides.

I'm very safe. You would be surprised how safely I ride.

 

it will. i bounce it off the rev limiter ( or course i'm running -1/+2 ).

tim

 

Stock it won't hit the limiter though...

 

I just want to ride again.

I don't care about winning a pissing contest...

 

I can fully understand that... I ride for the fun... that's it...
I don't bother about anybody else...

 

FWIW;

6th gear and rev limiter.

I'm probably a little better at math than hard riding. Redline in 6th with original sprockets would be about 169 mph if it could pull it, but with 15/43 sprockets it's about 150 mph.

I've read that the rev limiter is either 10,100 or 10,300. That would be 160-162 mph.

My guess is a well running VTR so geared will pull that.

 

I can say from experience that a bone stock VTR will have a hard time reaching it atleast... I tried on a dragstrip... flat, no wind... I ran out of road about the time I got a hairswidth above the redline (smooth start, not gunning it from the line...)... But by then it had a hard time going further anyways... it was barely creeping up on the speedo...

And the limiter on my 97 atleast is 10,300... I have unintentionally confirmed that a couple of times as I'm not running stock gearing anymore...

 

Assuming "bone stock" includes stock sprockets, there's no way a VTR will pull redline (169 mph) in 6th let alone hit the rev limiter at 10,300 (183 mph!).

Well, maybe going down a VERY steep VERY long straight with hurricane strength tailwind!

 

What do you consider hard riding?

um...300 miles and a bottle of viagra?

 

[QUOTE=fuzzuki;193322]I've been riding for 36 years. Is that long enough?

I took the chicken strips off in the first 15 minutes to get rid of the slippery covering on the tire. Not because I was riding fast around corners.

I don't think the bike will hit red in 6th gear.

I would love to have you out on one of my rides.

QUOTE]

Yeah, me, too.

 

bone stock engine and I think 16/43 at the time... Very, very long straight... No wind, perfect conditions and 4 tries I managed redline in 6th just barely (if memory serves it's around 160)... Nothing left for going to the limiter... So hence my point... No way a stock vtr will ever hit the limiter in 6th...

 

I didn't think the bike had a limiter on it.
I've been close to 2,000rpm past red line and it still wanted to keep going.

I always have to look down to cut the throttle near red line.

Are you all sure the VTR has a rev limiter?

Oh. I'm running bone stock as well. I have never tried to hit red in 6th......Yet.

 

Mine hits the limiter hard around 10,000 or slightly before. It's not subtle.

 

all hawks have limiters, I have never heard of anyone disabling one either, nor would that be a good idea. And like above post its not subtle.

 

One more thing. A stock one will not come close to pulling redline or hitting the limiter in 6th gear.

 

Nope... it took me 5km of runway and a gear change to reach redline... And that was just barely... So forget the limiter...

 

 

When she stops breathing... but that's just me.

 

A video of my son and I doing Deals Gap,

http://www.gotcanyons.net/empiregp.htm


Making a mistake on the street and paying the price

http://www.gotcanyons.net/egp06.htm

I am almost 50 34 years of riding some where between 36 and 40 crashes between stunting, racing and riding on the street, while some are always quick to say take it to the track the only place my son an I have gotten injured is at the track.

Russ and I at Summit Point this summer




What was left of Russ's R6 after he passed his old man in turn 4 at Summit in the rain