Well, if i remember rightly the last time i dropped a Blog on you guys was precisely 1 week ago, how's that for progress, usually it's about 3 months between Blogs lol. I have to admit last week was pretty manic, as you know i've been rushing about all over the place trying to get myself healthy as this years championship is rapidly approaching, i got the Eurosport punditry done last sunday then spent 3 days on the run up to the Donington park official BSB test either training or in physio trying to sort my hand out, i was fairly confident on the run up to the test that my ankles would be fine on the bike, sure, they'd ache a bit as even without any physical exercise by the evening they swell up a bit so after riding a BSB bike with the stresses and strains that puts through your body well, i wasn't expecting to feel brand new on the way back home but as i said i knew they'd be ok whilst riding, the hand though, that was a whole different ball game. Unfortunately sunday evening the hand started swelling a bit and got a bit red and angry, Monday the skin broke a bit and Monday afternoon it started leaking a bit, great i thought, an infection, that's all i bloody need!!!! I went to the doctors and got it dressed in some special dressing to draw the infection out and got put on a course of antibiotics then had literally 2 days for that lot to get to work.
If i'm perfectly honest i was absolutely desperate to ride my bike at Donington, as you can probably imagine, my preseason testing had consisted of about 50 odd laps of Almeria in Spain ending upside down in the gravel trap before i even got to try a single one of 2015 components, far from an ideal build up, however i confess that i really wasn't to sure at all how the hand would be, i rode a road bike about a week before just to see how the hand felt and thought hmmm this is gonna be tricky on a Superbike but in the grand scheme of things a week is a long time for healing, my thoughts and feelings weren't helped much during all the media stuff we had to do at Donington, obviously we have to do lots of photos with and on the bike and doing the latter and trying to shift about on the bike whilst stationary i got a few little tweeks that felt like mini electric shocks, i kept them to myself obviously but it didn't exactly fill me with confidence and a big part of me kind of hoped that the weather might take a bit of a turn for the worse as we'd already agreed as a team that if the track was damp, wet or basically anything other than dry i'd sit this test out and wait till round 1.
Something kind of strange happened though, once all my media stuff was finished, unbeknown to me the 2nd Superbike session was on, i walked in to the garage and Paul (Bird) the team owner said, "Shakey, there's 10-15 minutes left, why don't you get your helmet on and do the last 2 or 3 laps to loosen yourself up a bit" now if i'm honest i thought hmmm, not so sure but nonetheless i got my helmet on, a larger pair of gloves on and walked out to my bike in pit lane with my crew chiefs words echoing in my head, "just 2 or 3 steady laps mate, see how your hand is", with that headed out.
As you'll know if you were at Donington it was bloody freezing and really windy, i got going down Craner curves and thought to myself i daren't cruise or the tyres will get cold and i'll get flicked off the thing so i semi got going, the hand wasn't feeling too bad but as i crossed the start finish line i noticed my lap timer on my bike wasn't working so i had no idea how fast i was going, to be honest i had a steady ride around and immediately noticed i was catching people very quickly but i wasn't pushing at all, just riding and trying to blow the cobwebs out, i ended up getting just three flying laps which was perfect, the hand didn't seem to give me too much grief so that was positive but when i pulled in the box and one of my boys was shaking his head and clapping i thought bless them, they're happy i'm back, however, it wasn't that at all, in those 2-3 steady laps i was meant to do i went P1 lol!!!!
The final session of the day was an hour and a half long, almost immediately despite the real strong winds i went lots faster than i had in the first session, we done a few exits all on the same tyres to get up to speed more and tried a small things setting wise then a bit later on we tried the first of our new 2015 parts, to say that the bike was different is a bit of an understatement but at the same time you never just bolt something on a race bike an automatically go faster, it's always a small compromise of something or another, we chipped away trying to improve and got better and better but by that point the tyres were well and truly passed their best and way over race distance so for the last 15 minutes or so we put a new pair in but stayed with the harder rear rather than firing in a zero like the majority of the field in order to get a lap time in, i did improve though and improved enough to end the session P1, with the new components we need some time to get the best out of the bike but that session was definitely a good starting point!!
After being in leathers and boots pretty much all day due to media and riding the best part of the day was taking my boots off, the ankles were a bit sore but at the same time it would appear they're fine on the bike and that's all that matters, i can't wait now for round 1, blow off some more cobwebs and get back to work, hope to see some of you guys there, take it easy, Shakey #67
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