It’s still the ‘off-season’ with our first race scheduled for mid March, so we’ve been spending time on maintenance – both on the bike and the rider! The 2 SV racebikes will be the main bikes for the 2010 CMRA Race Season and so far, we’ve done the following:
Superstock SV650
- Motor replaced with a fresher 2006 motor. In addition, hoses and thermostat were cleaned out. The new motor was also safety-wired to meet CMRA tech inspection.
- New battery: the old battery was starting to struggle so a new battery should keep it firing up with a push of a button.
The new motor and transmission works much better than the previous 2004 motor and the bike is almost ready to go with just a few ergonomic adjustments to the shifter.
Superbike SV650
- Rebuilt motor: The motor is in the process of getting refreshed/rebuilt. Nothing too fancy since we still have a lot of room to grow with respect to skills so the priority is reliability. All work will still conform to Superstock rules so that we have the option to move this motor to the superstock bike in the future
- Suspension refresh: This bike’s suspension was never set-up for our rider so Jim Cambora from Raceworx has worked his magic and it now sports .925 springs in the stock forks, along with Traxxion Dynamics emulators and damping rod. The two-way Ohlin shock in the rear has also been refreshed and the weak spring replaced with a 500# spring that suits Carlo’s weight better.
- Adding quick turn throttle
- Replacing Air Filter with BMC filter
Nothing too crazy right now but we may go for a more aggressive build next year when we have more expeirience under our belt!
As for rider maintenance – it’s similar to a lot of people – offseason and holiday weight gain! Race weight is targeted to be 175lbs and coming back from vacation, it was 184lbs. Carlo is working pretty hard between now and March to get back to 175lbs using a combination of cardio and resistance training. For cardio, he’s been alternating between the treadmill and the stationary bike though he’s preparing to do a 5K race to help him get motivated (it’s easier for a racer to get motivated when he’s preparing for a race!). As an endurance stint will probalby be about an hour at the most, he’ll be training up to 10K distances for running, and also will be including cycling in the mix. When the weather starts cooperating, swimming will also be included in the cross-training rotation. Who knows, maybe even something like a duathlon or triathlon to go for next offseason? The goal is to get leaner so he can retain his strength on the bike.
Finally, some exciting news – M2TX has a new sponsor for the 2010 season – SaferMoto.com! We’ll be doing a feature write-up when we finally get to go on the track with their MV-2 vest – it has an airbag built into it! Stay tuned!
