Been a while since I've posted, but I'm deployed to Iraq, so riding's been kinda sparse... Today is my last day of mid-tour leave, and it's been a good two weeks. I posted a bunch of stuff about my trip to VT and riding around there (blog link later in the post)

However, yesterday I took the bike over to Kil Kare raceway here in Xenia OH to see what I / she could do. With the hydraulic clutch and my preference for trying to keep the front end on the ground on throttle instead of the clutch...


It was needless to say a difficult task. I did get better: (see blog for video)

Best run of the day:


This is at least a respectable time for a stock-motor 'hawk, with -1 on the front and +1 on the rear sprocket. I am no drag racer, as was apparent from the SV650 I ran against a couple times which leaped off the line and which I had to drive past every single time. If I could launch like that, I would have dropped to the low instead of the mid 11's. The hydraulic clutch is a bear to slip smoothly, so it'd take me much more practice to get this right. Still, I'm happy.

As an aside, on the way home from the strip I managed to get a knee down for the first time (minus my unscheduled get-offs). On a set of left-right 15mph corners near the house, I dropped it to 1st gear since I was stuck behind a couple of cars, backed way off, then rolled hard on the right hander as they cleared ahead of me. Yeah baby: