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I'm looking to gear my 1199 for Loudon, and I was looking for any guidance...it might be slightly uncharted waters, but I'm hoping setups for other big v-twins can serve as a baseline.
Unfortunately, the higher redline for the 1199 vs. most other twins might be a substantial curveball.
But where I'm at right now, I got a good drive out of 12, stayed on it, didn't short-shift, and looked down at the gear selector - I didn't make it out of 4th!
I'm going into T1 and T3 in 3rd gear, which means I'm only using 3&4 on the whole track, except for 12, where I use 2nd....is it normal to only use 2-3 gears on a big v-twin?
I remember Eric Wood saying that most people like to set their bikes to top out in 5th on the straightaway (which I've heard as a general rule of thumb for tracks in general)
I'm also guessing all else being equal I'd be better off using higher gears with closer ratios (i.e. 3-4-5 vs. 2-3-4), but I bet it's not that simple.
If I use a tool like gearingcommander, it looks like going to a 14/42 f/r vs. the stock 15/39 will give me the same speed at redline in 5th gear as I'm currently experiencing in 4th gear...but I'm wondering if that will move some shift points to some funky places or put me between gears in corners where I'm not currently between gears. ...and on a cursory search that's also the lowest gearing ratio that I see for sale for this bike....
PS - I'm having no problem with launches...even at the current gearing, lofting the front wheel is the limiting factor.