5th March 2004 - Brands Hatch

One day I will actually be prepared for the start of the season before it arrives. Last year I was still fitting bodywork half way through the Lydden test day and this year I turned up at Brands Hatch with road tyres on the bike and no bodywork to speak of. Come to think of it I hadn't even sat on the bike since I'd had it and hadn't ridden anything since Cadwell last August. To top it all the weather was awful and despite managing to blag a garage I really wasn't looking forward to the weekend.

First of all I took the wheels out. Well I tried anyway. It turns out that the front mudguard catches on the wheel making it really hard to get out. As I still didn't have a spare rear wheel I opted to have Dunlop D207GP tyres fitted so at least they would be able to cope with a bit of rain. My cunning plan in case of rain was to, er, sit in the garage until it stopped! While Alan Russell sorted out the tyres I set about fitting the bodywork to the bike. The tail unit was a fantastic piece of engineering. It perfectly captured the angular shape from the Raptor and was made of delicious carbon fibre so it was very light also. It went on fairly easily, well, much easier than I expected and much, much easier than some of the other bits. The Raptor was going to be 'unfaired' so instead of a huge fairing I simply had to fit a seat unit, a belly pan and a small nose fairing.

If it had been dry I would have been most upset but I kept out of the rain and spent most of the morning fitting the bodywork. The belly pan was a pain as I wasn't sure of the best way to fit it. Most people have used small brackets to sit between the belly pan and some of the bolts on the engine casings. Knowing my luck the first crash would destroy the belly pan and take bits out of the engine casing as well. I ended up using some major brackets to fit it under the engine but it was a real pain to fit and took ages. The nose fairing was almost as difficult as I didn't have any kind of front subframe so it needed to be mounted to the handlebars. It was at this point that I remembered the motocross hand guards that I had purchased and set about fitting them to the bike. I was a bit worried about the nose fairing as although the brackets fitted okay I wasn't sure about how strong they would be.

Shortly after lunch I got the wheels back in the bike, all the bodywork was on and I was all ready to go. That should have been almost ready as I had to struggle in to my leathers for the first time in six months which took far too long so I missed another track session before I really was ready. It was still raining but fairly gently so I ventured out for a few tentative laps on track. It was probably the most uncomfortable ten minutes I've ever spent on a bike. My knee wouldn't bend very far so I was having trouble getting my foot on the foot peg and my ability to change gear was severely hampered by the position of the pedal relative to where my foot was. I think I managed about three laps before I had to come in. The pain in my knee was ridiculous so I made a few adjustments to the angle of the gear change lever and purchased another piece of seat foam to lift me up a bit.

The next session was a bit better albeit still very painful. I was very tense, not least because the tyres were brand new, but more because the thought of injuring my leg again was something that really worried me. I managed another couple of laps before I pulled in. Another piece of seat foam was required to help ease the strain on my knee. A final adjustment to lower the gear change pedal and I went out again for a few laps of the final session. The bike was now almost rideable without being too painful so I decided to leave things as they were and scrub in the tyres properly in morning practice which, with any luck, should be dry.

I had managed a grand total of eight laps on a new bike. Next year I will be better prepared. Yeah right!