Not that i'm trying to make excuses but Twitter has made my life so much easier in terms of updating you all with little bits and pieces that i'm up to and i hope you enjoy reading my Tweets on the home page of shakey.com!!
I'm not even going to bother trying to do a full update with everything that's gone on since last November when i last posted as A i've probably forgotten half the stuff already and B i'd probably be sat here for about three weeks typing which i don't really fancy!!!
I guess then the place to start is the beginning, ie the beginning of my 2011 season, as you will definitely already know i signed this year for the current British Superbike Champions HM Plant Honda to ride a 2011 spec Fireblade, to be honest with you the whole thing really excites me for a number of reasons, 1 because obviously the team is the top team in BSB, 2, i loved my old privateer Stobart Honda back in 2007so the chance to ride the Official bike is mega, 3, there's so many people out there that think i can onlypossibly ride a Ducati and this is a great chance for me to prove them wrong, there will be no team pecking order with Kiyo and i getting identical bikes, to be honest the list of reasons goes on and on but the bottom line is that my 1st run out on the bike was last week, we had a 3 day open track test at Calafat, a day off then 2 days at Cartagena although the latter was to be run in sessions.
Starting with Calafat then and 1st impressions, SSSSSSSSSS********************TTTTTTTTT the bike felt fast, to be fair 5 months off or whatever it was since Magny Cours and the only thing with two wheels i'd ridden was a bicycle so the bike was going to feel quick but the fact that when we got on track there were really strong crosswinds blowing us practically off the start finish straight didn't help at all, obviously being a 4 cylinder the Honda makes it's power in a totally different way to what i've been used to for the last three years, the power feels real strong and gets stronger the higher the rpm soi'd exit each of the hairpins get on the gas the power would get stronger and stronger, lift the front wheel and quite literally the front would get practically blown from underneath me by the wind, i came in after my first 6 or 7 lap exit absolutely knackered, i've never had to fight so hard just to try to keep a bike pointing in the right direction, it wasn't anything to do with fitness i was just so so tense trying to keep the thing upright, it made the guys chuckle when i came backand commented on it anyway!!! :-)
My crew chief Chris taking notes, as soon as i do this it wheelies!!!! ;-)
The first couple of exits were spent riding the bike with no electronic aids whatsoever so the thing was pretty raw and aggressive but a combination of me figuring out how to hustle the thing round better and starting to use a clutch again on corner entry got things going better before we started to turn on the electronics.
Once on we actually had a lot of work to do with the electronics, the team have changed a couple of bits and pieces over the winter which meant everything needed resetting and calibrating, this would end up being something that we simply couldn't get to the bottom of whilst over in Spain, the guys realised fairly earlyon that we had some electrical dramas and a few calls back to the UK couldn't really do a great deal to fix our problems, being an open pitlane format we had plenty of time to come in and out and make changes at our leisure however i was keen to not try to change the bike too much if at all as last year it was obvious the team knew how to get one of these bikes going round the track well so me trying to turn it into what i've been used to wasn't the way forward. It became apparent from both myself and Kiyo early on that we were having big problems corner entry wise and also with the throttle connection, the difficult thing for me was not knowing how good or bad the bike was when it was working so i just kept my head down and rode as well as i could around the problems we were having, that said, the fact i felt stuck at about 80% effort because anymore caused bigproblems, after just one day i went something likea second and a bit quicker than i'd been after 3 days there in 2008 so things weren't all bad!!!
Early on in my 1st days riding!!!
On the 2nd day we made a few changes to the bike chassis wise, we found some good information and made some progress from apex to corner exit but it had a detrimental effect on corner entry which due to the dramas we were already having in that department meant we ended up reverting back. I knocked at least another half a second or so off of the day before's lap time and was really looking forward to getting out on the third and final day to see how much quicker we could go, i felt confident that despite our problems i'd end up at least 2 seconds a lap quicker than '08 but crap weather 1st thing which eventually turned to rain meant we had to abandon the 3rd day which was a real shame, nevertheless i couldn't wait to get back on the bike at Cartagena, we knew we couldn't fix our problems but it would give me a good chance to see how the bike worked from one track to another!!
I think this is a pretty cool shot, nearly got my knee down too!!! ;-)
The good thing about the Cartagena test was that a few of the teams had been there 2 days before we got on track so it should give us a good indication lap times wise where we'd need to be, there was as always plenty of talk about who'd done what after how many laps etc but we were up to speed pretty much immediately, after 9 or 10 laps i'd already matched the teams best lap from the year before, then to make things even better despite the kind of 80% effort problem we were still experiencing i went from the 1.35.1 the team managed in 2010 to a 1.33.5 on a new pair of race tyres.
One of my first exits at Cartagena, didn't take long to get up to speed there!!!
For the second day we stuck with the tyres from the day before for the first 2 or 3 sessions and tried pretty much in vein to help our electrical problems, i tested a couple of different front fork settings too but once again everything we were trying to do and achieve was basically a different way of fixing the basic problem which we couldn't really do anything with which was pretty frustrating, we never even bothered running the soft rear tyre that all the other boys used at the end of the final day as i didn't see the point unless i could give 100%, however, at the same time whilst it was frustrating it kind of bodes pretty well for the upcoming season, the team are as good as 99% certain they can fix the electrics once they get the bikes back to Louth and we have a couple of UK test's lined up before the season starts so all should be good!!!
We're back home now for a few days before heading up to the UK, it will give me some time to get some training in and sort out a few bits and pieces, we've also got a scan and some blood tests to get done before we leave to see how baby number 2's doing, i'm well excited about another child, i see it as a win win situation for me, i've got my little boy which i always dreamed of, now, if i have a girl fantastic but if we have another boy then it's all good too, double the amount of toys that dad will HAVE to assist playing with :-)!!!!!!
Right, i think that's about enough for now, i've been typing this for god knows how long already!!, Thanks for reading and i promise to update thisa bit more often from here on in, take it easy everyone, Shakey #67
4th gear here on the HM plant Honda Fireblade!!
