The Bike

Part 2: The Bike

With the Ducati totalled, I had to get a new bike. Initially I started out with an older SV650 that I purchased from one of my friends. After a bunch of reading online, it seemed that the SV was a pretty good choice for a track starter. Then, I went to a local shop and got a better perspective from a few actual racers. Basically, the SV650 is a good bike to race, if you're looking for a challenge. It has a wide following including many very talented racers, but can be a difficult bike for a beginner.

As it turns out, setting up a race bike is work. It's within reach of your basic shade tree mechanic, but you can go way down the rabbit hole. If you start with a street bike, you will have to perform quite a number of modifications if you want to have a bike to race. Track days with your street bike are still possible with a minimum number of modifications including taping over any glass, changing out the coolant with water, removing the mirrors and possibly the turn signals. Setting up a race bike requires additionally changing out the engine covers, replacing all the body work (and painting it, too!), removing the instruments, replacing the exhaust, dyno-ing and remapping the ignition, installing a quick shifting system, tuning/upgrading the suspension, getting race tires, removing the side stand, buying front and rear stands, buying a trailer to get the bike to the track, performing engine mods, and safety wiring. That's just for starters. Safety wiring will be the topic of a later post. It basically requires that many of the fasteners have holes drilled in them so that wire can be passed through the holes and then attached to fixed portions on the bike to prevent the fasteners from coming loose. This is for safety purposes to prevent parts from falling off onto the track or having fluid such as oil spill out from open fill or drain ports.

The other option is to get on the racer forum for your local racing association, hit the bikes for sale page, and I guarantee you will find several track ready bikes with bunches of modifications and gear ready to go. This is a very economical and practical way to get into the sport. I, however, have that voice in my head that gets in the way of common sense and said "where's the fun in that?" As a result, I decided to buy a street bike and set it up myself.

The timing worked out and I found an unusual deal. A local shop had a 2010 Triumph Daytona 675 that had exactly 90 miles on it and had been wrecked during a track demo day. The damage was mostly cosmetic. One screaming good deal later and it was in my garage. I also purchased a set of race body work, K&N filter, engine covers, new clutch lever and clip on, tank, fairing sub-frame and a few other miscellaneous parts needed to get to minimal track worthiness.

One item I negelected to check upon receipt was the coolant in the engine. This turned out to be a possible problem as the engine may have contained a small amount of water. The technicians at the shop didn't check the coolant level, or if it had been changed out following the track day. Since the bike's last use was on the track, the coolant may have been swapped out with water or "wetter", neither which prevents freezing. When a bike is used on the track, the antifreeze coolant must be replaced with water since any antifreeze spilled on the track will create an extremely slippery surface and has caused fatal crashes during races. Pretty much as soon as the bike made it to my garage, the temperature dropped to -18 for a couple days. As part of the teardown, I drained the coolant, which contained only a cup or two of greenish fluid. It may have been antifreeze, or it may have been wetter. Tomorrow I will be bringing the bike to the shop to get the engine checked out and make sure nothing was damaged by the freeze.

Anyway, the initial teardown went well. I removed the bodywork, instrument cluster, tank, busted sub fairing, headlights, drained and replaced the coolant(antifreeze for sure, this time), removed the passenger pegs and the side stand. More will follow. Stay tuned.