"Wing Zero" has landed (G's 2008 1000RR Thread)

[G.Irish]

Don't think I'll do a fender eliminator, I've never really cared enough to do that mod. Besides I wanna say the whole fender and rear tail lights come off with four bolts for when you wanna go to the track.

One thing that kind of surprised me this morning when I was rolling the 600 out was that there was a stripe of mud on the undertail of the 1000 from where the spray from yesterday's wet roads got kicked up. I guess the rear fender isn't big enough.

[Kaan]

well fender eliminators are generally the first "mod" people will do to a bike. which becomes the first part that they dont read laws on... and end up getting tickets for... at least in this state.

[Evan]

silver turn signal bulbs in the mirrors?

[Mike]

that giant [looking] fender is the first thing i noticed when i looked at the bike. really out of place looking...

[G.Irish]

silver turn signal bulbs in the mirrors?

The turn signal bulb is yellow but it has little running lights on the tips that are clear.

[.paul]

trackin?

[G.Irish]

I'm gonna do a couple of more track days with the 600 before I take the 1000 out. It'll probably be with Cali SBK School or Cornerspeed. But honestly it isn't as scary as I thought it'd be so maybe I'll take it out sooner than later.

[G.Irish]

Whew, just got back from NJMP Thunderbolt with Wing Zero.

Now normally I would try as much as possible not to do a weekday trackday so I didn't have to take time off work. But this was a special exception...

So back to the Indy GP. When I showed up at 7 am on Friday to do some demo rides I was bitterly disappointed. All of the demo rides had been canceled due to the rain. Well, since it was raining and there weren't going to be any bikes on track for awhile, I decided to stick around the KTM tent and chit chat a little bit. While I was talking to one of the reps he told me that they were probably going to be doing a demo day at New Jersey Motorsports Park with Ducati/KTM/Triumph of NYC. Imagine the shit-eating grin I had after hearing that...

So he told me to contact the general manager of the dealership. I got in touch with the dealership and they told me they were indeed having a track day at NJMP on the 22nd, but they weren't sure whether there'd be KTM's to demo ride on track. I decided to take the risk and go anyway, since at worst, I'd get some track time with the Fireblade at a nice new track.

So I packed up the 1000RR and headed on out at about 4:45 am today, not sure what to expect. I started out in beginner group as I didn't want bump myself up to the next group but after the first session I realized that beginner group was waayyyy too slow, so I went ahead and got bumped anyway.

Riding the 1000 on track wasn't such a big deal in the corners. It feels almost as light as the 600RR did, and with such friendly power delivery there was no drama coming off the turns. Like the Lightning course at NJMP, Thunderbolt is deceptively fast and it took me awhile to start taking advantage of it.

The straight at Thunderbolt is maybe about 2/3 or 3/4 the length of SP Main. It took me a few laps to get bold enough to really unleash the hounds for the full length of the straight but when I did 160 mph was coming up on the dash. I'm still being a relative pussy on the brakes because I'm not trying to fly off at turn 1.

It almost felt like cheating, having so much power. I was pulling up on the other bikes in my group in the turns as the day went on but I could really pass just about everyone on the straights. There was only one bike I couldn't do that with. And that was...a Desmosedici hocked: I got him on the turns though.

The RC8
When I first sat on the bike I was amazed. It has a seat that is much harder than the one on my 1000RR. The edges of it are really hard and they cut into your thighs. Right off the bat this bike won't cut it for even one hour rides.

When I got it out on track it took a little bit to get used to the power delivery. As a v-twin with more torque than my 1000RR I thought it would feel stronger in the midrange but it really didn't (it does give up 20 hp to the 'Blade though). But I wouldn't call that a huge strike against this engine. There was something that was awful though...

In all of the magazine articles I'd read about the RC8 there was one complaint or another about too much vibration from the engine. I didn't think anything of it, but holy shit, it is AWFUL. From about 8k rpm on up it feels like you're holding on to a chainsaw or weedwhacker or something. This thing vibrates so bad it's almost like it's broken.

That said, the bike can really get through the corners almost as well as my bike. It turns slower, but it also feels more stable at full lean. But for a twin I'd have to say it's pretty sharp, it seems like KTM gave it fairly aggressive geometry to get it to turn in well.

The brakes have great feel, but I wasn't really hammering on them because I only had one session with it. The clutch was a bit stiff and the engagement was kind of weird. Journalists have complained about the shifter but it was no problem on track. At low speed though I had trouble getting it into neutral. It took me a good minute to get it to do what I wanted.

Overall I thought the RC8 was cool, but not worth $19,400. I haven't ridden a 1098 which would be a more direct competitor but I certainly wouldn't buy this over the Fireblade. It's a solid first try at a superbike from KTM but it needs to go back in the oven for a little refinement. And it could use a healthy scoop of more power. Supposedly KTM is working up a RC8R so maybe they'll get that handled soon. Of course, if the regular RC8 is $20,000...

Anyway today was a MFN blasst. The best track day I've ever done.

[BLINGMW]

superbadass

[G.Irish]

Oh yeah, I didn't even talk about Thunderbolt.

So, like Lightning it's a fairly fast course with a good number of sweepers. It's a little bit slower though, with a 90 degree+ turn in the middle of the course and a long carousel/hairpin complex at the end of the lap.

That last part is really tricky to get right because the turn is long that there are a bunch of lines that "look" right. By the end of the day I was getting through there fairly quick but I know I could go a lot faster there.

The oh shit part of the track was a big rise approaching a fast 3rd gear right hander. You're approaching this rise in 2nd or 3rd gear which is well over 100 mph and if you're hard on the throttle you'll wheelie over it...on a 600.

On the 1000 coming through there once I honestly think the back wheel came off the ground. The braking zone is right after 'the jump' so I didn't really come charging up there like that for the rest of the day. I have no doubt that a 1000 cc race bike would catch air.

Other than that rise, the only thing I didn't like about Thunderbolt is that the Grand Am cars tore up the pavement in 2 or 3 spots. Riding over those spots at speed made the bike slide and wiggle. Not enough to be scary, but enough that if you were hauling you could go down. Hopefully they'll fix that for next year.

All said, NJMP is well worth the trip for either course. I'll pretty much never go to Summit if I can go to NJMP.

[G.Irish]

A few pics. I apologize, I forgot to charge my camera before I left, had to take these with my jesusphone =/

Not a huge bike but a good bit bigger than the CBR. The tank also bulged a bit making it harder to get a good tuck going.


The RC8 dash is multifunction and you can bring up a bunch of cool stuff like a built in lap timer with a logging function. The tach was kind of small but I had no problem reading it at speed.


Note the height adjustment shims. I was hoping there'd be a bit more range of adjustment though.


The lap button there is used to start the lap timer. On the opposite of that button facing the front is another button that you can use to flip through the dash's functions so you don't have to take your hands off the bars (something a guy on the Desmosedici that day could've used, he went off while fooling with the lap timer...). There's also a high beam flasher button there (wish I had one).