The track days are open events where you choose the riding group based on your skill and experience.

BHPian Mr.Ogre recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I attended my first track day at Sydney Motorsports Park in Sydney and I am very excited to share my experience. While I am eager to straight away start sharing my pictures, however I think I should write a little about myself and my riding history.

Please bear with me and I will try and make it concise. Even though I had been riding motorbikes since 2005 it was not until 2011-12 when I got my Duke 200 followed that by a R15 when I actually started focusing on technicalities of riding. Before that I had been riding Pulsars 150-220 and Karizma and it was just clutch, throttle, brake and gear and surprisingly I survived.

Anyways long story short, riding the Duke 200, R15, Ninja 300, Yamaha R3, 650 made me realize how much I wanted to enjoy riding fast but in a controlled environment. Thus began my interest in riding on the tracks. I have been following MotoGP and WorldSBK for more over a decade and always wanted to be able to ride like those riders.

As much as I wanted to go to the tracks in India, it was tough to find time to ride to South India. Hence I tried a couple of track days organised by Vortex racing in Kolhapur on my Yamaha R3. It is a small go karting track, but is good enough to get your techniques right. The sessions with Vortex racing turned out to be addictive and I wanted to do more of it. But life happened and I moved here, and ever since I had deep rooted desire to hit the track in Sydney.

The Sydney Motor Sports Park is barely 30 minutes from where I stay, however it took me 6 whole years to finally be able to ride a superbike on a track. Never had I ever imagined in my wildest dreams that I would live to experience this moment. Even though I am 40+ it was hard to behave my age when I was at the track. Grinning ear to ear like an idiot and trying to soak up the environment.

To summarize the track, it is a venue that is visited very often by motorsports lovers (cars and bikes). The facility is spread across and has very good amenities and facilities (toilets, garages, cafeteria etc.)

Also, the track days are open events where you choose the riding group based on your skill and experience. If you select a group faster than your skill level you are automatically demoted. Having said that I chose the slowest group - white.

This is not a riding program like CSS. It is an open event where the organizers are more than happy to coach riders and help them come up to speed by working on the technicalities.

Before the on-track session you are made to attend a briefing session where they explain to you about various flags and do's and don'ts. And for first timers like me there is an additional 15 minutes session on the track to make you aware of the track layout.

Overall for $355 a day I think it is totally worth it, as it gives you a safe and controlled environment to ride your heart out. Since this was my first time there, my main objective was to come back home with my bike in one piece. I was not in a mood to try and break lap records. Having said that I did pretty good times. I started with 2:17 and by the time I ended the day, I was doing 2:00:00. Regular racers clock 1:40 at this track, and as you can see from the pictures I am still very stiff so clearly there is lot of room to grow.

I went there with my R1 which I had brought a few months ago when I realized I was ready to start doing track session.

I will be visiting the track again this Sunday, however I plan to take my Ninja 1000.

Enough of the boring stuff, I hope you enjoy the pictures.

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Yamaha could bring back the superbike at a later stage, albeit as a track-only version.

According to news reports, Yamaha is likely to end the production of its iconic litre-class superbikes, the YZF-R1 and R1 M, in Europe. Reports suggest that the reason for discontinuing the R1 and R1M is the stringent Euro5+ emission regulations.

As per a statement by Yamaha UK, the bikemaker has decided not to develop a Euro5+ version of the R1 & R1 M and instead "focus on mid-term business and product strategies that will provide future opportunities."

Having said that, the cut-off for the sale of non-Euro5+ vehicles in Europe is in 2025. This means that the superbike could continue to remain on sale at least for a little while longer.

Reports suggest that while the R1 & R1 M will be discontinued, Yamaha could bring back the superbike at a later stage, albeit as a track-only version. However, there is no official confirmation at this time.

Source: VisorDown

I didn't feel scared riding the Panigale, but the R1 still scares me to date. 4 years in and still that feeling? I'm glad.

BHPian krishnaprasadgg recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

A few days back marked the 4th anniversary of making the R1 my own. While the feeling of owning my dream big has mostly sunk in. There are still fleeting moments where I wonder how, a couple of years back all this felt unachievable.

So considered marking the 4th year of ownership with a solo short ride. I Rode until Thrissur and coincidentally ran into a couple of friends who were also about on their Sunday rides.

As luck would have it got the chance to experience the Panigale V4 for the first time. This is my first outing with a V4 configuration engine and if my love for cross-plane engines is to go by on paper (and through countless YouTube videos) I was sure I would love it and of course, I loved it.

The most obvious part for me was how light and tiny these new bikes have become. Maneuverability once on the move is just you think and the bike will react level of responsibility. Loved it!

The bike just masks speed on a level that was alien to me to date, don't get me wrong, the R1 is blisteringly fast but after getting used to riding litre-class vehicles you come to learn that the R1 provides a sense of drama throughout the rpm range, while the newer bikes hide speed very very well, by taking you to unmentionable speeds like its cruising at 100kmph on the highway without the rider even realizing this, the thrill of being on a fire breathing dragon makes you forget some basic survival instincts I tell ya, that's what I felt different in the newer gen 10R how amazingly well they masked the speed, the V4 was on a different league with this, rock-solid stability maybe that's the wing in action(?), I'm not sure I am skilled enough to accurately chalk it to that, but sure did feel like it.

The next part was brakes, Oh man how I love some aggressive and super responsive brakes on the bikes I ride and this has been the best so far! Now I realize my hunt for a similar braking performance on the R1 will continue for years to come.

Now, about the drama part I mentioned about the R1, I think I can explain it a bit further, the R1 is as raw as it can be with only a rudimentary TCS system to call for electronic assists, while the Panigale gets anything and everything under the sun that you could imagine, maybe that's why the bike makes you feel like a riding God when you are on the bike in motion.

Funnily enough, I didn't feel scared riding the Panigale, but the R1 still scares me to date. 4 years in and still that feeling? I'm glad, I would credit that feeling of being responsible for me still being around kicking, because if not these machines are so easy to make you feel you can do no wrong and all that power on your right wrist can corrupt your mind very easily. And for that, I'm grateful to the R1 for being my guardian angel of sorts by keeping me in line. Hoping for many many more years of good times with the R1.

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This is a first, I have never seen this happen ever in my bike.

BHPian krishnaprasadgg recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

The total ODO reading for the trip was around 342 km or so. Decided to take some rest as I had to ride back to Palakkad the very next day. The total ODO meter reading was around 39,920kms so I was beyond excited to start the ride back so the bike would have run 40,000kms by the time I hit Krishnagiri, but that's where things took a turn for the worse. Worse? Why did I say worse? What was wrong in the first place? Well, let me take you back to the ride I took the week before, the ride to Kerala. While the ride from Bangalore to Walayar took me 4 hours flat to cover 400 km, the last 40 km was pure traffic and bad roads, but this is not new, it's always been like that, but this time, when I finally rolled up to my house and switch the bike off, what do I see when I get off? Coolant is gushing out and spilling all over the engine cover and the origin of the leak from what I can only make out is behind the coolant overflow tank/reservoir, I quickly get my toolkit and open up the cover to get a better look and by that time the gushing has reduced to a slight drip and by the time I get enough clearance the leak/overflow has stopped.

This was weird, I have never had this happen before apart from once when I had a few drops of coolant drop through the overflow hose when the bike was just warmed up and switched off from a cold start, it never happened again though. Anyways, this was unusual and once the bike cooled down I realized the top rubber cap that seals the reservoir was not sealed and was loose, I know that the last time coolant was topped up the cap was sealed on properly, so something was causing the rubber cap to unseal itself and it's pretty obvious it's because of the pressure. Had a chat with Kartick and I just topped up the coolant after deciding that it was probably a clogged overflow drain that caused a lot of built-up pressure in the overflow container and finally it popped. I had decided that I'll do a simple DIY fix at some point when I get time, but then Friday rolled over and plans were made for the ride, so I thought that I'd just ride back to Bangalore and take the bike to Kartick and we can just inspect to see if it's a clogged drain hose or something else is the matter.

So this time I removed the overflow container plastic cover so that I could inspect the coolant level while riding safely rather than having to stop and check every time, the location of the container was very convenient for this being just above the shifter where your knee rests. So I start my ride to Bangalore early morning Saturday and have a quick break at Coimbatore bypass and the same thing happens, the rubber cap has been slightly raised and the container is physically full of coolant to the brim(this was such a big indicator of what was wrong, but I overlooked this that day, amateur hour).

I pressed the cap in place and carried on with my journey and had no other issues for the rest of the journey, then I reached the E-city flyover toll and I am waiting in line and the guy beside me pointed out that I was leaking coolant, I look down and sure enough the coolant is just flowing out of the reservoir, by this I was sure that I had lost quite a bit of coolant from the radiator as well because the reservoir only holds only a limited amount and over the 2 times I stopped where it was leaking I have lost more than that. So I quickly called Karthick and told him to be ready and outside the shop in 15 minutes as I would be reaching there so that he could see what was exactly happening irl. And sure enough, I pull up to Highlander after a few minutes of riding in traffic, and this time we see it happen in front of us the rubber cap pops up and a coolant is flowing out in a few glugs.

We discussed possible reasons and first and foremost is a clogged drain hose that was causing a build-up of pressure, other possibilities are huge air in the system or a thermostat or radiator cap issue.

Left the bike there for a couple of hours for it to cool down and let Kartick do his magic while I went to rest up for a few hours before the early morning ride tomorrow around evening time I got a call from Karthick and sure enough, it was a clogged overflow hose and now whenever the bike reached higher temps the coolant is being let out through the drain hose as intended and also do not now its just a few drops of coolant.

Now fast forward to the next day I am enjoying the ride to the core, we had quite a few breaks along the way and no leaks no drips everything was going well and then we reached our destination which after a couple of hairpins which were all taken in 1st and 2nd gear and the temps were above 108 degrees when I stopped at the top, this time too I just glance over at the reservoir to be sure what I saw had me stressed almost immediately, I can see again that the reservoir is filled up to the brim again but at the same time I can see the level dropping and this time the rubber cap is staying put and hasn't popped but there is a steady flow of coolant being dumped to the ground through the overflow hose.

So clearly that means the issue has not been fixed, the clogged overflow hose was a separate issue that presented itself only because this other issue was happening, anyways I waited for the leak to die out and after about a minute it settled down and now the coolant level in the reservoir is well below the low level.

And I did not keep some spare coolant with me even when I had it ready because I thought that the issue was sorted. Anyway, there was no need to panic yet, I had ridden with an even lesser amount of coolant and the engine temps were very well within operating temps the radiator fans worked perfectly fine and the Samco hoses could withstand pressures well above what the stock rubber hoses can so now I just had to get the bike back home and I'd have time to check it out.

So we started the journey back and this time I was on the Blade, the ride to city limits went uneventful we stopped 2 times and noticed no coolant leak at all, but then while we were stuck in traffic moving at crawling speeds I could see that a few drops of coolant is falling out from the drain hose, this made me a bit worried because I did not want to lose anymore coolant and cause any damage to the engine, talked to Xaos636 as he was riding the R1, the temps were good and fans were working and no change in how the bike was behaving was noted so we pushed on.

But then towards the end of the ride is when I started to notice something new, I just made a quick stop to glance at the reservoir and I saw there were no leaks but the coolant was boiling over inside the container, this is a first, I have never seen this happen ever in my bike, all the previous episodes of coolant leaking was just simple plain overflow, there was no bubbling or boiling over happening, the only difference was this was when the ambient temp was also hot and coolant temp as showed in the guage was b/w 108-112 (the fan was running so it kept dropping).

I rode it straight to Highlander and we discussed options as I had to ride back to Kerala the next day no matter what. Karthick said not to worry just keep some spare coolant in hand and since my ride will be an early morning for the majority of the parts the ambient temps will be in check and at highway speeds the coolant temps will also be well within 70-80 degrees and only at the home stretch I'll face higher temps and for that, I have enough spare coolant with me, and I can diagnose the issue from Cochin with Sanju or bring it back to Karthick when both of us have free time and find the actual issue. By now we had narrowed it down to a faulty thermostat or the radiator cap not sealing right.

So necessary preps were made and I fueled up the bike and was ready to make the trip back to Kerala, kept my spirits high as I was excited to hit the 40k milestone with the R1. And around 3.15 AM I started my ride back. There I am on the E-city flyover with ambient temps around 17 degrees and at cruising speeds in 6th gear I look at the console and I see something that just doesn't feel right, the coolant temp is at 98 degrees, I immediately realized that this is not good, because, from all the years of riding the R1 in all possible conditions, I know that the temp given the current condition should not be more than 75 degrees, so I thought let me just glace at the reservoir and sure enough the coolant is bubbling/boiling over inside. This was frustrating because the 2 times I took the bike to Highlander and we did bench testing by making the bike temps go up it never boiled over it only dripped a few drops of coolant, and only the last couple of times on the road this had happened, and that too once when the outside conditions were too hot, but right now in the current condition there was no way this should have happened, so as I approached the end of the e-city flyover and pay the toll the boiling is still going on, right then and there I took the decision to cancel my ride home and took a U-turn and headed back to my flat, during this short ride back I experimented to see the severity of the problem, I get it to cruising speed in 6th gear and let go of the throttle and shift down and the temp starts to rise till 104 and stays put then I speed up a bit and it drops below 100 but it's still high 90s when it should not be anything over 80. So I pulled back into my apartment parking and the coolant was still boiling over but no leaks.

I sent a voice note to Karthick about what happened and told him I am going to leave the bike with him and he can take his time and find the issue and sort it out because I am not willing to risk any internal damage to the engine, even though the bike never ran hot or had any power loss or even overheated once during all this, it was just the coolant pressure build up in the reservoir and then the bubbling over thing started, but I had enough and wanted to find and fix the issue.

Meanwhile, I had to be in Kerala the same day and Karthick was super busy as he was planning on taking a few days off and he had a huge number of bikes he had to finish so that his customers wouldn't be affected (I have huge respect for his work ethics, part of why he is so famous in the South Indian biking community), so I did not pressure him to look into my bike rather I just decided to leave it with him and let him check it at his convenience because I was not planning on riding the bike anyways until the issue is sorted and next couple of weeks I would be super busy anyways.

But wait the bad day had just started, so now that I had a plan in place for what needed to be done with the R1 I still had to be in Kerala the same day anyway, while I was weighing my options I had pinged a few friends abt what happened and one of my friend offered me his spare bike to made the ride home, for some added context, my car was in Kerala so I did not have that option with me. After pondering about it for a while I took him up on the offer and went to pick up the bike, but by then I was already late, its a weekday, Monday for that matter and I was stuck in traffic to go get the bike, I finally reach and get the bike and start my journey around 9 am and as expected traffic is at its peak, somehow took me over an hour and 30 mins to cover 20 kms and I reach Silk board, my left hand is killing me after operating the clutch so much and I get a call from home saying not to come because it's by the time I will reach it will be raining with heavy tunderstorms, I still wanted to go but realistically by the time I reach I would not be able to make it to the meeting that I had to have anyways, and I was already dead tired so considering eveything I called it quits, and had to reschedule my meeting to the next day which I didn't want to do, but it had to be done. I reach back home and park the bike thinking I'll just relax for a while and that's when I realize I forgot to take my apartment keys while I stepped out to pick up my friend's bike so now I am locked out of my apartment too, perfect! Back I go into traffic to my brother's office to pick up his key and another hour and a half later I am finally inside my flat and just collapsed onto my bed and slept off for a good few hours.

But wait the silver lining is finally here, Fast forward 2 days and I get a call from Karthick that the issue has been found, and it was as we had discussed the radiator cap that caused all this drama, post the bubbling incident the radiator cap was so close to the brink of failure Karthick was able to replicate the issue easily on the bike lift itself which helped a lot in diagnosis. He managed to arrange a used spare radiator cap which is slightly off spec but in good condition and tested it on the bench and there was no coolant overflow or boiling over anymore. But we did not stop it at that time, Xaos636 came to the rescue again and he took on the task of doing actual road/traffic tests in both peak traffic hours and regular conditions and the bike passed with flying colors. There was no drop in coolant even after all the stress test and neither was there any boiling over of the coolant.

Now all I need to do is place an order for a brand new radiator cap and I can be at peace, but above all else I am just thankful that Karthick made time to work on my bike in between all his busy schedule with pre-Diwali rush (lots of bikes in for health check and ride preparedness works) and that the bike did not give up on me in any of these rides, I strongly bielieve that changing the radiator hoses in time was also a huge factor as to why I was not stranded on the road with a busted hose/radiator cap because if you consider the amount of pressure that was in the coolant system that got dumped into the reservoir the 9 year old hoses would have ruptured for sure, the Samco hoses are rated for much much higher pressure so it saved the bike so it speak. Anyway, I'll have another post in the future in detail on what the repair work done was and what the stop-gap arrangement is. Since I am in Kerala now and the R1 is still in Bangalore, I don't have enough photos or full info to give a proper explanation. Till then enjoy the next post where I show what my interim bike was for the ride back home.

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A few close friends have been able to enjoy the R1 as well.

BHPian krishnaprasadgg recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

And just like that the R1 hits 40,000 km on the ODO.

I hit it almost immediately during my ride back home from Bangalore. Even though this should have rolled on a few weeks ago had the R1 not decided to turn into a drama queen for a couple of weeks.

It's been a wonderful few years, and the 40k feels special. Of this, almost half of it has been piled up by me over almost 4 years. Well, mostly, a few close friends have been able to enjoy the R1 as well. The first owner did manage to put on 20k in the first 6 years.

Hope to hit 50k within 2024 itself. Fingers crossed.

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I have never ridden any hyper tourers before (Busa/14r), and I got the chance to get behind the bars of this beast.

BHPian krishnaprasadgg recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

It has been a bit over a month since I rode my R1 since parked it after a Bangalore ride.

The bike had its PUC expired so I just took it out to get it updated 2 weeks back, which is barely a 5 km ride for me.

And today took it out for a ride and this time too decided to ride the R1 to Bangalore even though my brother was also coming to Bangalore in his VRS. The itch to ride is real. Anyways, today's ride was just perfect in every way. Less traffic, good roads, and good weather. Didn't take many pics.

The highlight of today's ride was that the ODO hits 34k:

This means it's up for a spark plug change, will get that done this week, along with a few other odd jobs here and there, will try to document as much as possible as this time it won't be a DIY job.

In other news, got the opportunity to ride a brand new Gen 3 Hayabusa yesterday. And boy what a bike it is. I have never ridden any hyper tourers before (Busa/14r), and I got the chance to get behind the bars of this beast. Enjoyed it to the core. I have been a long-time Hayabusa fan and the ride actually made me want one now. I mean I guess any bike I ride I feel like I want but yeah.

Anyways, the bike belongs to a very close friend who after years and years of hard work and working towards his goals finally made his dream bike wishes come true. Getting an allocation was far from easy and I was lucky enough to be part of this journey of his and wanted to share that here. And the best part is it a lot of this happened smoothly because of a lot of genuine selfless effort from a few fellow BHPians who did not hesitate a sec to help in any way possible. Special thanks to neil.jericho, kozhissery & TRR from my friend's behalf and mine too!

Even though I got to ride for a good 20ish kms, it was primarily in the single-lane Kerala pothole-ridden roads.

Right now off the cuff, all I can say is the bike even though is a spaceship for size, once you get on it the size just disappears, my friend has also swapped the OEM seat with the bricks lowered seat which drops the seat height by 1 inch. Which is a lifesaver for people who can't exactly flat foot. Now with riding boots, I can flat foot easily.

Now once you sit on the bike the weight of the bike disappears, it's crazy and feels like some black magic trick or something, and once the bike gets moving which is effortless btw, it's such a peach to ride. That said at slow speeds if you have to break suddenly I can assure you the weight comes back and comes back quickly, yeah, unfortunately, got a taste for that thanks to people who don't look before they turn, luckily being able to flatfoot saved the day.

I rode it in Mode B and it was pretty manageable for me, I guess the brutal throttle response on the R1 has mellowed me down a lot to other bikes, but it pulls like a freight train, that's for sure and I did not even exceed the 6k rpm marker.

I'll stop here for now. Will post a direct comparison once i get to spend more time with the beast.

Leaving you guys with a few pics of the beauty.

All shiny and ready to start its journey on the road:

The deed has been done:

And the drinking session begins too, first of many many more XP95 shots to come:

Xaos636 trying on the Busa for size. He still maintains he is not a fan of the Busa, his face clearly showing us otherwise:

Lucky to have been able to ride the beast for a decent amount of kms:

Look at the cockpit! Damn!

They say visualize your dreams, now I guess I don't have an excuse:

Cheers,

Krishna.

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Took the R1 out for a quick ride around my usual loop. Somehow I managed to enjoy the ride today a bit more.

BHPian krishnaprasadgg recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Tiger & R1 update.

The Tiger hadn't been ridden in quite a while now. I guess it was at least 2 months since it was last taken out. The tiger was also up for an air filter change and I also wanted to change out the brake pads as it was getting towards the end of its life with barely 1000-1500 km left on the pads.

After what seemed like ages

Now for the Tiger 800 series changing the air filter is a pain. Because the tank needs to come off for proper access to the air box and removing the tank means removing the front beak, and a few other front panels before you get adequate access to the tank. Now since I had not done this job before and I had some business in Cochin, I decided to ride to cochin and get the help of my friend Sanju as he has done the air filter swap on a few tigers before. He wasn't too amused too that I showed up because of the air filter swap on the tiger because of said amount of work.

Anyways, replaced the OE filter with the BMC stock replacement filter.

Out with the old

In with the new

Anyways we got cracking, got the air filter swapped, and then went on with the brake pad swap and I realized the EBC pads that I bought for the Tiger were the wrong ones. So that did not happen. Decided to do it at a later point as I needed a few days to get the correct part number sorted.

All done ready to roll

Just in case it'll be useful for someone else in the future. The Tiger 800 XRX gen from 2018-20 has the Brembo brake calipers which need the EBC FA181HH but I had bought the EBC FA226HH(Bought this based on compatibility checks on a few websites which were clearly wrong) instead. Thankfully I did not break the packing of the pads so I saved myself the hassle of having problems with returning it for the right part. I'll re-confirm this again once I get the new part in hand and make sure it fits properly.

All of this was a few days back. Took the R1 out for a quick ride around my usual loop. Somehow I managed to enjoy the ride today a bit more, I think it was because of the perfect riding climate and that the roads were especially empty even for an early Sunday morning. The sound from the Akra pipes is getting more and more intoxicating with each ride. Took a few pics along the way.

Took a few pics along the way. Here you go.

That's about it for today.

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The bike really isn't that loud at all from a 3rd person's perspective. But for the rider, you really do feel quite a bit of difference in the sound you get to hear and feel.

BHPian krishnaprasadgg recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Bags packed and ready to roll:

Finally, after 2-3 weeks of no riding, I'm back to riding the R1 and this time it was special because it was the first time I was taking the bike out, post the installation of the Akrapovic exhaust and let me just tell you what an epic experience it is riding the bike now, don't get me wrong riding the R1 is always an epic adventure but throw in the sound from the Akra and it is just something else altogether.

The bike really isn't that loud at all from a 3rd person's perspective. But for the rider, you really do feel quite a bit of difference in the sound you get to hear and feel. I was a bit apprehensive about running the bike without the DB killer installed but post some 600 plus covered in total with the Akra I have changed my mind. Rode through numerous police checkpoints and routine checks and passed through without being stopped once, even when the cops did notice me approaching, now apart from the non-obnoxious sound that the Akra produces under 6k rpm it also helps if you are riding decently without creating a ruckus/ doing any sort of attention-grabbing stunts in general. I mean for sure this goes without saying but still thought I'd mention it.

Now above 6k rpm it's a different story, that's when the actual audio experience starts, the bike just screams and oh what a beautiful symphony it is to take in. Words are not enough, I'll try to include an audio clip soon to try and communicate what I get to experience with the current exhaust setup. The next best part is the burbles or as I like to call it "the growls and grumble" the bike creates when decelerating, this is not something new that has started post the Akra addition, it has always been there in the bike, it is part of the AIS system that's there in most modern bikes and it's mainly present to control emissions, simply put what it does is that it injects air into the exhaust system to help burn unburnt fuel vapors in the exhaust pipe and this causes burbles or cracks which is also referred to as backfiring. It happens on the stock system too when the bike gets to temp and is more pronounced with an aftermarket exhaust system. A lot of people get Block off plates that delete the AIS system which usually makes the burbles go away. For me I like it, adds some extra drama to the experience of riding the bike.

Ok, so now that we have that out of the way let's get into the meaty part of the update. about 2 weeks back I received a bunch of parts that I had ordered over a year back. It has been a long wait but finally, the day is here. After the Exhaust system, this is probably the biggest mod I have been looking forward to which is upgrading the braking system of the R1. The Brembo RCS19 Corsa Corta has finally reached my hands and in this post, we are going to cover the installation and initial review after about approximately 500kms of riding post the mod. Along with this I also got the Lightech chain adjusters and the ASV clutch lever installed and also got did some suspension tuning and an oil change done too.

The goodies waiting to go in:

Brembo RCS 19 Corsa Corta upgrade:

Well, it's no secret that I feel the stock braking prowess of the R1 is something I am not happy about. The bike does on most occasions and as inevitable as it is on our roads there have been plenty of occasions where I have been left wanting with more bite and at many times more stability from the braking system. In short, I wanted to change the behavior of the bike's braking to something that's more communicative of what the system is doing while being stable and stopping at a dime with a more aggressive bite!

Obviously, the first step anyone would think of will be steel braided brake lines, alas the bike already comes with a very good quality Spiegler steel braided brake lines, so yeah, I wanted more, the next step would be better brake fluids, I tried a variety of fluid from Liqui Moly Dot 5.1 to Maxima race fluids and with progressive and positive results but nothing that was a change I would say substantial.

So what next, logic dictates, get better brake pads, yes, so I go and get the EBC double sintered pads for the bike, I made the purchase and have been sitting on these for over a year, why haven't I changed it yet you may ask, well, the OEM brake pads still have a ton of life to it, I did not want to waste the OEM pads by just swapping it out for the EBC right away.

The next step in the braking system upgrade would be better master cylinders and I did that too, did a lot of research, and decided to pull the plug on the best Brembo had to offer, the RCS 19 Corsa Corta, last year on my birthday I was feeling generous and decided to splurge and gift myself the Corsa Corta and I had also ordered the EBC pads on the same day thinking it would be a good mod to combine in one go.

Anyways, here we are over a year later, I finally got the MC in my hand but I decided not to go for the EBC pad swap just yet, there are 2 reasons for this, firstly, again the OEM pads still have plenty of life in them. Secondly and more importantly I want to be able to experience what just an MC upgrade would do for the brake upgrade plan and then later see how much of a difference a better set of pads can add to the system, you know, step by step upgrade and experimentation.

Ok, that was a lot of ranting, now let's get to the brass tacks, all the stuff had been laid out and we were ready to get started with the MC upgrade and we hit an unexpected roadblock!

The problematic Banjo:

The current kit came with the banjo bolt that accepts 2 banjo bolts directly to the MC, but the current brake lines have only 1 banjo bolt that comes and feeds into the MC. The reason is that the Spiegler lines are a bit different as opposed to the independent lines that you find with many other brand solutions where there are independent brake lines that run from the mc directly to each caliper. For the Spiegler, it's a single unit that has 1 line that feeds the fluid from the MC, and about halfway it splits into 2 lines via a T junction and makes its way into the 2 calipers.

The T junction that is the root cause of the issue:

So immediately we had a red flag, I guess my research wasn't as thorough as I thought. But then I thought not to worry, I'll just use the banjo bolt off of the current system and that should be fine, right? But no, If history shows us anything it's that in my case it can't be something that simple, the current Spiegler banjo bolt does not fit into the Corsa Corta because the pitch of the thread on the Banjo bolts is different. The Brembo MC accepts a 1mm pitch while the OE MC (which is also made by Brembo back in 2013) accepts only a 1.25mm pitch. So yet again we had to find a solution to this problem, so I set about looking at RevZilla and sportbiketrackgear, and many other websites to see how fast I can ship out a banjo bolt that would solve my problem. But then suddenly we realized that maybe just maybe there are some bikes sold here that might be using a 1mm pitch Banjo bolt in their braking systems, most of the bike here run on bybre systems which is a sister company of Brembo anyways and a banjo bolt at the end of the day is, well, a banjo bolt. It serves the same purpose no matter what MC it goes into.

The solution:

The saviour:

And that's how we find out that the Bajaj 200NS MC uses a 1mm pitch Banjo bolt for its front brake MC, and as you'd imagine we immediately jumped on the bike and went to the nearest Bajaj dealership and bought the Banjo bolt in question.

Quick drop in at Bajaj:

We made sure to carry the MC along with us to do a test fit and make sure that the bolt fits correctly and as expected fits like a glove.

Notice the difference in pitch in the Banjos. The red bolt being the Spiegler Banjo:

And the best part, how much did it cost us to solve this problem? A huge sum of Rs.21/- including taxes and there I was trying to buy a Banjo bolt from the US for 15 dollars . Sometimes buying local is the best solution.

While we were out we also went ahead and bought 4L of Motul 7100 10W40 and also HiFlo filter that I usually use for the oil change I also decided to try out the Brembo Brake fluid to go along with the MC upgrade.

Once all the required items for the change were collected we got cracking, we were tackling the MC change and the Oil change together as the oil change is pretty much a low maintenance job that just takes time and our attention from time to time.

Anyways, we began by making sure we did have all the parts that were required to complete the installation of the new MC and did a test fit, the reservoir and the feed line were plumbed onto the MC and were made ready so that we can attach it as a single unit onto the handlebars which makes it so much easy to work with. Then we started by disconnecting the banjo from underneath the OE MC and freeing the brake line from it and then we removed the cover off of the old fluid reservoir and drained as much fluid as we could before removing the whole unit as one piece from the handlebars.

And we then immediately mounted the new kit onto the handlebars and connected the brake line onto the new MC using the new Banjobolt we purchased from Bajaj and voila we were ready to bleed the system. Yeah, it's as simple as that if you do the prep work just right. Because of the way we removed the line from the OE MC we did not introduce a lot of air into the system from the brake lines to the calipers. So the bleeding process we did was only required to drain any air out of the system that's in the new MC, which was not a lot and we were done within 15 mins, but we went ahead and bled the braking system at all 3 spots, first at the MC bleeder, then at the left and right calipers also. All in all the most time-consuming part of this exercise was the bleeding and that took about 30 minutes in itself(we wanted to be thorough).

Now the next step was to figure out how to mount the reservoir, as the OE mounting points are now unusable.

I had also purchased a reservoir with the mounting kit along with the MC as I knew that using the OE Reservoir was not an option, and the kit came in handy, it had a bracket that attaches the reservoir to the top bolt of the MC mounting clamp to the handlebars, the clamp is flexible enough to allow you micro-adjustment as needed for different bikes and we spent barely 2 minutes before we got a position which was good enough to clear the fairings from coming in contact with the reservoir in full handle lock left to right.

Now since that was done let's talk about the difference now shall we, if I have to use 1 word to describe it it would be "Stability". Oh boy what a difference this change has made, I am not exaggerating or messing around when I say this has made a night and day difference in the way the bike stops. The lever feel has 0 sponginess to it, it's very very direct and precise! There are 3 different modes in which you can set the feedback and that's labeled as S, N, and R. I am currently in N which I think stands for Neutral (Not sure need to check) with S being the most aggressive I am yet to try. The pedal feel is just something else, it's very direct and communicative, you get to feel exactly how much pressure is being applied onto the pistons in the calipers and all it takes is 1 finger to bring the bike to a halt no matter what speeds you are doing and it does this with no drama at all, you don't need to guess at what point the wheels are going to lock up(No ABS on this bike!) because they feel from the levers is just enough you know where the limit is! In the 500 plus km I rode with this I have covered it in multiple scenarios, I rode it in the dry, in the wet, during an active heavy rainfall, and tried it at different speeds varying from city crawling speed to highway cruising and WOT to standstill drills as well and I am just blown away from what the product has to offer.

I cannot express how happy I am for what I have got out of this one single upgrade. Worth every single penny I spent on it and worth every single day I waited for it too. No regrets whatsoever. I will be covering the range of adjustability the Corsa Corta has to offer (which is huge) in another post once I have put a few thousand km of riding behind with all the different settings and will post my finding here, until then what I have already typed up should serve as an initial experience/review.

Current setup:

Final look post install:

Cheers,

Krishna.

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Post the service, gave the bike a 12 km shakedown to find everything up to spec.

BHPian krishnaprasadgg recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

It's been a while. Lots to share in this post. I finally got around to fixing a few problems on the bike which I had been too lazy about for the longest time.

But first, let's get started with the ODO shot! Yup, finally the ODO hit 30k km.

Now since that is out of the way let's get to the crux of the post. Finally decided to clear a few items from my to-do list of jobs on the R1 that have been on the backburner for way too long. I had very limited time on hand and not all tools handy, so as usual rode to cochin to work along with my friend Sanjay to tag-team it and get the work done quickly as I had to return home the same day, so the list was again shortened and took care of some of the most delayed stuff.

Job done were as follows:

• Fitting the radiator guard
• Swapping the Gear position sensor
• Changing out the frame sliders
• Airbox and under tank application of heat reflective tape
• Some general routine stuff like Airfilter clean & Chain slack adjustment

Now while getting started on my trip to cochin I noticed something, the hot idle issue that I had about 1 year back make a re-appearance. That meant only 1 thing, TB needs to be cleaned again. So added that onto the list too, the airbox was going to come off anyway so it was a no-brainer to get this also done and out of the way. So I just carried on and rode to Cochin without taking any breaks.

As soon as I reached we got started working on the bike.

Step 1: Lift the bike on the paddock

Dissembled the bike to the point where both of us could take ownership of a job and complete it fast without getting in each other's way. So the bike went onto the paddock and the tank was lifted, airbox opened, filters removed and airbox also removed, took off the fairings too and planned the work among us.

So let's get started.

1. Air filter maintenance, Airbox and under tank application of heat reflective tape

I was hoping that the air filter would be relatively clean since the filter was cleaned not too long ago. But to my horror the filter was pretty badly covered in dust, and so was the pre-filter part of the airbox. Goes to show how dusty the roads in Kerala are getting, mind you this is with minimal city riding since the last clean.

The amount of dust in the pre-filter part of the airbox

I had carried the K&N recharger kit anyways so quickly took care of cleaning the filter and put it up to dry and carried on with removing the airbox. I have already covered the steps for it in an earlier post so not going through it again. The airbox was removed and I quickly got onto covering it up with the DEI Reflect-A-Gold heat reflective sheets I had procured a few months back. DEI claims that their gold tapes can handle continuous temperatures of up to 800 degrees F, and it is used in all sorts of automotive applications for both cars and bikes.

Can you tell I wasn't great at arts and crafts at school?

My aim to use this is not for performance upgrades or to extract more power out of the bike or anything, rather this is just an attempt of mine to try and reduce the ambient air temp within the air box, as it is the bike runs super hot and with it being a bike the airbox and tank are very susceptible to heat soaking as its located right above the engine anyways.

So all I am expecting to gain out of this was a bit smoother running engine as the airbox stays cooler than before and the tank also to an extent that I do not have vapour lock problems(had this happen during peak summer once before), I used the CV4 silver thermal film for the under-tank area.

Now I have to say, the job took a good 1.5 hours as it was not easy to cover the full surface area of the airbox and I am not that great with scissors anyway, so there was a bit of overlap and some areas that were not covered the best way they could have been done. But it's a part that is not visible outside anyways so I did not pay much heed to that. But around 97-98% of the surface area was covered successfully. The sheet was pretty easy to work with and had great adhesion too. So it wasn't too bad.

Airbox before

After

The R1 undertank already comes with a bit of heat reflective patches from the factory, all I did was extend it a bit more than what was already there. Again, not a clean install by any means, but gets the job done and since it's out of sight, I'm ok with it.

While we were at this point with the Airbox out and since I had the hot idle issue again, we quickly just sprayed a decent amount of injector & TB cleaner into the TB and wiped off the butterfly valves with a clean towel.

Not a thorough/detailed job by any means, but just a quick once over, enough to carry me forward for a few thousand km by when I will be doing a proper TB overhaul by deep cleaning it by removing it off the bike.

Observations: I got a bit more than what I bargained for. Oh boy, was this a relief, the bike actually felt a lot smoother as a result of this change. The R1 always felt that it complained a lot while in traffic and in the 1-5k rpm range (You stay in this range usually when puttering around town or riding in traffic) and the bike always felt like it ran rough, but post this change the bike actually ran considerably smoother, the bike now is much more tamer in these RPMs in the city limits and doesn't complain as much. Now I can't show how much the film reduces my airbox temp but have a look at this video, this might help give you a sense as to why I went ahead with this job.

Just to make sure it was not a placebo I asked my friend to also ride it as he wasn't really sold on the idea of applying the film at all. And he came back pretty surprised and felt the shame I felt about the improvements. Now before you feel that we did the TB clean(we didn't do a super detailed job of it too as we were low on time) so that might be the reason for the change, hold your horses, the last time we cleaned the TB(Super through) and injectors(Both primary and secondary) and even did the TB sync and yet the bike never felt this smooth or complain free in the lower rpm range, so no, it was not the difference of the TB clean that we did.

2. Swapping out the Gear position sensor

Now, this has been an annoying 'kabab me haddi' type issue since day 1. Whenever the bike got up to temp the Neutral indicator would not work and would start working again once the bike cools down, this in no way affects the rideability of the bike, has no bearing on how it runs but the only annoying part of this was that you cannot put the bike on the side stand without it tripping the engine kill switch because the ECU thinks that the bike is in gear and cuts off the engine immediately.

Location of the GPS

So stopping on the side of the road to quickly check your map or just to stretch your back or neck and the bike gets shut off, now this is a problem because with the R1 the temps instantly shoot up and cranking the bike immediately is very taxing on the starter motor and takes some effort, not to mention its annoying too, even to take a quick pic during a ride, it turns to be a wait of 5 mins because I let the temp falls a bit so that the starter motor is not getting overloaded.

Connectors that come from the GPS to the wiring loom

I had ordered the part from the US a long time back since Yamaha India had no intention of sourcing it for me anyways(waited on it for close to 6 months before I took matters into my own hands) and have been sitting on it for the longest time, and its literally just a 5 min job.

Out with the old

To get this job done, you need to remove the shifter rod and the front sprocket cover, takes about 2 mins and you have access to the Gear position sensor (GPS), the sensor has 2 connectors that go up and connects to the wiring loom, the location of which is right under the fuel tank, takes about 20 secs to disconnect and fish out the sensor, another 20 seconds to replace it with the new one, luckily you don't need to wrestle with the cables or anything, routing is simple and easy and no fouling against any other part of the bike or clearance issues.

In with the new

Now we couldn't test the sensor right away, we waited till all the work was done and took the bike for a test ride in traffic and got the temperature up to 110 degrees and rode like that for a good 10-15 minutes and came back and slotted the bike to neutral and voila! The neutral light comes on.

Post the shake-down run. It works!

So initial tests were successful and later the same day I put it to test in a very excruciating 150kms ride back home in heavy bumper-to-bumper traffic for over 50% of the ride and the neutral light worked perfectly in all temperature ranges. So that one very long-standing irritating issue was taken care of for good.

Frame Sliders

Well, this was required as unfortunately the frame sliders on the bike were put to use already, twice actually, both instances on the right side of the bike. Once quite a few years ago when the bike was with the original owner and once by me about 2 years back, both were while the bike was standing still and was a simple seemingly harmless drop. So almost 9-10months back I had placed an order for an LSL frame slider for the R1 via moto-usher and finally decided to get it changed this time.

The process is fairly easy and straight forward and LSL does a great job with proper instructions and pictures on what goes were and how to do it too. We got started with the side that needed changing, that's the right side of the bike, we started getting the engine mount bolt loose and we noticed something, the bolt while coming off is moving in a weird way, and that's when we realized that the frame slider while it did its thing, also bent the engine mounting bolt by a fair margin.

Bent engine mount bolt

I had a small panic attack moment that what if the threads on the engine block were also damaged and did I open a can of worms by removing the slider as the slider apart from some cosmetic damage was not a risk or didn't warrant a change at all.

But anyways we were past the point of no return and decided to try our luck with the new kit from LSL, they come with new extended bolts to fit their kit precisely anyways, and breathed a sigh of relief when the bolt went it with no bent or no drama when we did the dry fit, so we took everything apart again and fit it properly in place, this time we used Loctite just to make sure it doesn't come undone.

Shiny new Frame slider for the right sideThat's the right side of the bike done and now we move to the left side, but wait, did you think the bent bolt was a scare, now comes the best part, we removed the left side slider and immediately found an issue, for the left side of the bike there is a spacer b/w the frame and the engine block. Now the slider kit that already was on the bike replaces the OEM spacer and has its own form of spacer + backing plate for it to fit flush and when we put up the LSL kit which was designed to go with the OEM spacer there was a 1-inch gap between the frame and the engine block onto which engine bolt bolts onto and I do not have the OEM spacer with me either, never knew I would need it as I didn't know the existence of such a spacer in the first place. We tried to jugaad it with using the older kits spacer and backing plate(reversed) and tried to mount the LSL sliders, it kind of worked but not really, the bolt goes in about 3/4 the way in but does not seat in fully properly. Now we were stuck, our options were to get the backing place to a lathe and cut out the protruding bits that were causing the clearance problem or find/make an OEM spacer.

Both of these options were not possible and I took the executive decision and used the "It's not a bug it's a feature" card from my IT work experience arsenal and fit back the slider kit that was already on the bike for the left side. It's not just BMW who can do asymmetry design, I can do it too. So now the bike has the LSL frame slider on the right and the older slider on the left.

In all its asymmetric glory

Jokes aside, I do not intend to leave it like that. I need to order an OEM spacer and once I have it I will replace the left side slider with the LSL kit. Till then I'll rock the bike like this and pretend I meant to do it like this all along. I know it should be illegal to have my level of smartness, but alas it's not so deal with it!

Lunch break and Beyond!

Once that was done took a short break for lunch and "accidentally" had too much, so was super sleepy I had to get going back home in less than 1 hour so we had to rush through the rest of the job and fit in a shakedown run before I got started. So I could not take photos or document the rest of the jobs.

But in all fairness, there was nothing worth taking pics of even, it was just fitting the R&G radiator guard install, lubing the clutch and throttle cables, and adjusting chain slack.

Got all that done as quickly as we could, buttoned the bike back up (The guy who invented the quarter lock fasteners needs to be declared a legend, take notes Honda & Ducati) and did a 10-12 km shakedown run, and everything as found to be up to spec.

Post which I started back home only to get stuck in heavy bumper-to-bumper Saturday afternoon traffic. The ride back home was hell but a more ridable lower rev range and a functional neutral light meant I could be a bit more relaxed than it would have been.

All in all, I would say it was a day well spent!

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I'd be lying if I said it's been all roses and rainbows all along, it hasn't, it's been a mixed bag

BHPian krishnaprasadgg recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

This week rolled out and it marked 2 years since I brought the R1 home. 4th Jan to be precise. Was not able to ride the bike on the 4th so waited till Sunday to take her out for a special ride, well there was nothing special about the ride, to be honest, it was the same usual route itself that I have at my disposal but what made it a bit more special was that the odometer rolled to 29,000 km. Pics from today's ride are scattered along with the post.

I took delivery of the bike with 20,759 km on the odometer. As of today, I am just shy of 9k km with her, wish I could have ridden more but we all know what a terrible 2 years it has been in general so let's not get into it again.

I'd be lying if I said it's been all roses and rainbows all along, it hasn't, it's been a mixed bag of ups and downs, the roller coaster kind nonetheless.

There have been days where I was super frustrated with the bike, even contemplated if I should sell the bike or not because of the lack of usage during all the lockdowns or not being to take the bike for a ride because of the bad road conditions here, but there have also been days where it still feels like a dream and feels surreal that I actually own this beauty and engineering marvel.

I have had a few niggles along the way too, regular readers will know as it has all been documented in detail here, but ended up loving the bike even more when I got the satisfaction of working on the bike and fixing it myself with the help of friends.

Met up with some riding buddies from Cochin at my destination point (Thrissur). Had some chit chat and I started back home.

Got to go on some epic rides and some not-so-pleasant ones too in the deadly heatwaves we have had here last two years, also in the opposite spectrum of being drenched to the bone. Many many instances of cursing at myself under the helmet at my decision-making skill or lack of rather while being stuck in terrible traffic but then redemption almost immediately as the traffic eases up.

Many instances of just plainly indulging strangers on the road be it while stopped along the road or stopping the bike for some truly enthusiastic (in all the right way) people so that they can have a lasting experience getting a touch and feel of the bike (this hits home at a different level because once I was in their position too, just that I never had the courage to ask any of the people I saw before, was just content staring at the bikes).

From being super impressed with the availability of the spare parts in the first year of ownership to being utterly pissed and disappointed at Yamaha India (still am) the second year and ongoing, ended up openly recommending getting a Yamaha big bike to others to recommending them never to do it now if they are not ready to deal with all the headache.

Lastly but not least, to be able to share this beautiful machine with some of my closest friends, it's been one big roller coaster ride, hoping to have many many more in the coming years. I've said it before and I'll say it again, she's a keeper and will stay with me for as long as it's possible.

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