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found this gem on another forum, the entire thread is hilarious and full of people both agreeing with him and calling him a blithering idiot. (this was a completely serious post). I think the guy just got into racing.
So, I've been doing a lot of reflecting about racing recently, this being the beginning of my third season. And I thought I would share with you guys the top thing or two I've learned.
Just one man's opinion:
1) Buy a brand new bike. This might seem stupid, but the truth is that they're problem free. If you can avoid fucking with too much of them, you'll never have mechanicals like everyone else. I'm not going to justify it, just an observation. Also, finance it, might seem counter intuitive but I think it's good to have a bike bill over your head, it always gives you incentives to quit. You want to have tons of incentives to quit so that you know if you race, you really want to. Also, you can sell the stock plastics for nearly the price of race plastics.
2) It's all about suspension and setup, this is more important than everything. Go out and buy the best suspension you can, forget about all the other stuff (including gearing, PCIII, pipe, clipons, brakes, case covers etc....). Once you've got it, find a suspension expert that you can work with ALL DAY at the track, pay for 2 days a month or two apart. Then go out there and get a perfect setup, then do a few trackdays and go meet with him again.
Virtually all novice crashes, IMHO, result from bad setup. It's true, almost any bike on brand new tires will lean mind-bending distances, so low sides don't come from too much lean as much as you think. Same with high sides, almost every high side at our level comes from bad shock settings. Good shock settings let you feel spin and try and get it back. Bad settings leave you looking at the bike upside down. I truly believe at the end of the day it's all about settings.
3) Get the best paint job you can buy, if you paint it pretty you'll take a few less chances.
4) Always get the best tires you can buy and put less laps on them. Go straight to dunlop slicks if you can. Here's the reason, you know the tires can outperform you, thus you can completely stop thinking about it and focus on your riding. And since you got a perfect setup in step 2, you should be fine.