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Caz wrote:

although you might wear yourself out and lose the will to live

which is why we no longer ride, and stuff both the bikes into a Grand Espace It's a little more bareable when you have someone to talk to

coincidentally one of the first places we went was to the ring - watching not lapping

When were you there? I've just gotten back... And werent you tempted to do a lap or two?

We passed through on Sat 12th. I did keep an eye out for Grand Espaces, K12Rs and "girl's bikes" in the car park. Shame we missed you by a week.

I would probably have cracked and done a lap or two if it had been good weather, but it was alternating between bright sunshine and pissing rain, to the extent you'd probably have encountered both on the same lap. We were three days and 500 miles into a two week holiday. Not worth it. We hung around the car park for a while checking out the bikes and cars and chatting to Brit bikers, then had lunch where the road to Quiddelbach goes under the track at Hocheichen - not the most interesting place to watch, but the first place we came to where we could easily get to the track from the road.

However we will go back. Oh yes.

Route wise, we took the E40 as far as Liege (bear in mind that around Brussels it's signed as 'Luik', not 'Liege'), then bimbled down to Spa. It's well worth stopping in if you have the time and you are interested in motorsport history. If you've got more time and better local maps than us you can probably ride around bits of the original public road circuit. As it was we wandered into the grandstands before Eau Rouge and sat and watched the qualifying for a 25 hour VW beetle endurance race. Wierd.

I have no idea why the E40 is so mind-numbing. It's less than 200 miles of motorway. But somehow it's worse than any other 200 miles of motorway.

From there we camped somewhere just short of the German border (we were going to cross into germany but we couldn't find it via backroads that weren't on our map ) Next morning we crossed into germany and picked up the B258.

Caz wrote:

thats mega mileage! .. i get about 2500 miles out of a rear tyre..

Ouch! what do you have fitted? My sportec M3s currently have 6500miles on them (and atleast 200 laps of the ring) and I wont be changing them for my next trip to the ring in August.... I do have more tread left in the centre than on the edges tho

/Caz

Ditto. I've done over 12,500 miles on my ZXR and got through two sets of tyres (D207's and the Avons). Either you've got some seriously soft rubber on there or you are a nutter

I can see a hayabusa going through a rear in a couple of thousand miles, but not a 400.

got 2,300 out of my current rear one on the TL but its going to need changing soon...

most of them miles were in winter, summer tyres are 2k normaly hamfist riding + quick action throtal brings smiles no matter what

crushedlizard wrote:Hey Deviant, how did your ZXR fair on the motorways with the 14/47? I've ordered the same gearing and was wondering if it makes motorways painfully high revving? I'm not intending to break any speed limits as I want a clean license/money by the time I get to the ring!
I think the max is 110kmh on some (dry) motorways isn't it? is that comfortably uner 10 000rpm?

How was the trip too? Did you find any nice roads?


EDIT: Good to see a Desmosedici out on the road. I expected them to all vanish into storage.

It's fine, 70mph/110kph is about 8krpm in top rather than 7k. Not exactly a huge difference. I've got good earplugs anyway.

Motorway speed limits you might encounter are:

France - 130kph in the dry, 110 in the wet.
Belgium - 120kph
Germany - As fast as you like. Turns out to be about 128mph on a ZXR with 14/47 gearing and two weeks worth of luggage.

These are the limits that apply when you see the 'national speed limit' sign (similar to ours in all those countries - white circle with black diagonal line). There are lower limits in places, but they will be signed. If you see a lower limit on the motorway look for a sign underneath it. If there's a little picture of a caravan or a lorry or whatever it doesn't apply to you - for example they often have lower limits for lorries on downhill sections or caravans where there are crosswinds.

Oh and use good lane discipline - ie ride in lane 1 unless you are overtaking. Otherwise you instantly mark yourself out as 'stupeed Eengleesh'.

Trip was ace, although not without drama. I'll post a thread up at some point.

Deviant wrote:We passed through on Sat 12th. I did keep an eye out for Grand Espaces, K12Rs and "girl's bikes" in the car park. Shame we missed you by a week.

That was the weekend we were there We stayed until Monday and came back Tuesday.

The espace was parked up at the hotel, and the KR and the girl's bike were parked down at Breidscheid most of the time.

pitty I didnt know you were there

Deviant wrote:but it was alternating between bright sunshine and pissing rain,to the extent you'd probably have encountered both on the same lap.

Sounds about right - we usually managed to get 2.5 laps in (we start at Breidscheid) and then going through the barrier for a third lap it would start pissing it down.... tip-toe back to breidscheid and pulled off into the car park.
When we were up in the carpark we were usually sitting around a bright orange van.

The track is like ice when its wet - theres considerably more grip off line than on the line.

If the track was dry, the chances are you probably saw us lapping. Around lunchtime we did a couple of gorgeous laps - there were 4 of us lapping together at a reasonably steady pace (ca 9min laps);
yellow KR, red CBR1000, me, and a blue k6 gixer thou

Deviant wrote:I have no idea why the E40 is so mind-numbing. It's less than 200 miles of motorway. But somehow it's worse than any other 200 miles of motorway.

its straight.... and i mean straight. The only reason you cant see 10 miles up the road is because it goes up and down, not round corners but up and down.

Deviant wrote:However we will go back. Oh yes.

excellent

Deviant wrote:Trip was ace, although not without drama. I'll post a thread up at some point.

looking forward to reading it!

Caz wrote:oh and there was some nice exotica there the other weekend too. We saw this and this

/caz

Ooh ooh ooh! There was a chap on one of those Desmo's at the pub last week. Holy f**k but that thing is loud. Sounds almost akin to an F1 car when the revs are rising through mid to top...
Is the arrangement pictured the stock exhaust setup?