First day on the track.....

Here's a few pictures and short video of my 1190RX at Chuckwalla last week.....Im back there next week and hope to have a few new parts to test out....

Will write up some impressions later today or tomorrow...

Edit - Review posted -

I rode the 1190RX last week at Chuckwalla and am also riding it there next week, hopefully with a few new parts to play with. Chuckwalla is a very flowing track with no real stop and go and horribly bumpy...

First morning was working with students and I was able to ride ride at a easyish pace, getting a few miles/heatcycles on it as well as bedding in the rotor. I rode it 100% out of the box with the stock tires.

After lunch I picked the pace up and was able to run a few quicker laps....First thing to notice was the rear shock setting was too soft. I added some preload and took out some rebound....much better....fork was very good. By the end of the day I was having a blast on it and could tell there is a serious bike in there as it seems a bit held back by the shock/gearing/exhaust.

The 2nd day I put sticky tires on it (GPAs) and picked the pace up..I had to stiffen the shock up even more as the extra grip had my feet on the ground. I only rode the bike for the first morning.

The 3rd day was all good and I was able to ride it pretty much all day. I got to the limits of the rear shock, setup wise and was able to put in a few good laps....the video is from the very last few laps I did of the day and were a few seconds slower that I did earlier when the tires were fresh.....

Motor - The engine is very good and has a definite hit...below 7k, there isn't much there....above 7k all hell breaks loose and it blows through the tach to redline. Unfortunately the gearing is super tall and I was stuck in 2nd coming off the corners (too short) or 3rd (too tall) I chose 3rd and it lugged a bit until it got into power band. When in the power band it's a ripper, I came off a corner with Shane Turpin on a S1000RR and I actually pulled him about halfway down the back straight...I think it will have to be geared fairly short to keep it the sweet spot...It pulled to redline very easily and though the exhaust is very heavy, I don't think it is a big restriction. Mapping is excellent except for a slight hesitation between 6-7k as you open the throttle past 30-50%..

Chassis - Ergo are very good even though the bike feels really small. I had to add tank pads as the tank has a great lip on it to support yourself, but the tank was very slick. The chassis is seems to be very very stiff. Feedback front and rear was excellent. It feels like a proper race bike. I did end up raising the front to get some trail back as I had quite a bit of preload in the rear shock to try to get some ride height out of it. (wrong thing to do, but there is no ride height adjuster)

Suspension - The BPF fork is excellent...The only thing I did was to take out some compression in the front, otherwise i didn't touch it..very impressed. The rear shock worked really well...until it didn't. For 98% of the people the shock will work great. With some grip and lean angle the spring is too soft. The shock worked fine and has a very good adjustment range, but the spring is a bit too soft for me. When adjusted properly, the shock provided excellent grip..I had it set more for geometry and turning and I lost quite a bit of side grip..(You can hear it spin against the TC coming out go the first left hand turn off the front straight) My gut tells me the bike is going to like a stiffer shock spring with not a ton of preload based on the motor and chassis characteristics...

Brakes - I was very nice to bed the rotor in and I had zero issues with it the whole 3 days...Pads could use more bite and they do make a race pad that does that, but I had zero issue with the brake. OH! I take that back.....the lever did get a bit soft at the end of day 1, but when I changed the front tire, I back bleed the brake and the lever was rock solid the rest of the time.

Overall, I think it's going to be very very good. A shock, gearing and a QS should all it needs to turn some serious lap times. I hope to have a shock and gearing to test next week....

All in all...I'm stoked with my purchase and can't wait for the new pieces to arrive to try out. Lap timewise, I got about 4-5 seconds off winning Formula CWalla race pace. The shock and gearing will be worth a bunch along with grippier tires.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RusYQfXmlfc

Ken