Slower lap times with bigger bike?

[Awesome]

Ducati, nuff said.

[tsorfas]

looks like i should invest in an SV650

[butcher bergs]

I was nearly 3s slower on a smaller bike so what gives?

Went from a MW (600) to an ultralight (800 SS) for a weekend and hit a wall on my lap times.

To this day I never quite figured out why I wasn't able to get closer to my personal best at that time even with the amount of seat time I was able to get.

Granted it was a borrowed machine but I did not push thru the barrier as I'd hoped.

[Paul_E_D]

It doesn't work backwards! You have to learn how to use higher entry speed and a little more roll speed, followed by earlier and harder acceleration. If all you know is big bikes, that's gonna take some work.

[Woodcraft]

The last comment is spot on.....the idea is to spend some time on the little bike, learn to break through that wall and really generate some corner speed. After you've done that (which can take half a season for many), then you jump back on the bigger bike and try to replicate what you felt on the small bike.

With lower terminal straightaway speeds, you'll have more capacity to process higher entrance speeds. You'll also be more confident picking the throttle up sooner & maintaining the mid-corner roll through the exit. Once you go back to the big bike, the main things that change are that the brake markers move slightly back and the rate of roll on slows a bit (but the point at which you pick it up stays very close to the same).

[CBR929RE]

I spent over 4 years riding my 929 on the track. it was the first bike I had ridden on a track and of course it was all a learning process. I got the 600 last year and immediately went faster on it. This summer while I was at Grattan I swapped bikes with a friend (his is a 954). We've swapped bikes a couple times before when I was on the 929 and we were always turning similar lap times regardless of which bike we were on. This year after being on the 600 for almost a year I felt like his bike was an absolute pig and I couldn't get that thing to turn to save my life. He gets back in, gets off my bike and says he set a new PB over a second faster on my bike than he's ever gone on his. Said the 600 was just so much easier to ride.

I need to try an SV or an EX like I've always wanted to try.

[butcher bergs]

It doesn't work backwards! You have to learn how to use higher entry speed and a little more roll speed, followed by earlier and harder acceleration. If all you know is big bikes, that's gonna take some work.

I thought 600's were small bikes....


Back to the drawing board!!

[PainfullySlow]

I thought 600's were small bikes....


Back to the drawing board!!

smaller, but for Loudon, not small =)