This past weekend I got to spend both days up at the glorious Thunderhill, in a track excursion with a couple friends. As I was unloading the Empulse from the truck, who rolls in but the full battle-dressed Brammo race team with a small flotilla of bikes! They were doing some testing and happened to be there; I'm pretty sure at this point they're probably convinced that I am stalking them at trackdays.
Two days of throwing the Empulse and my housemate's Triumph around the track. The brutal northern California winter was about 65 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Absolutely awesome. I moved up to B group for this one, and while I was still hilariously ever so slow, I actually managed to pass a couple of people. I am getting a lot more comfortable on the bike, and can reliably move my body around in the correct directions now going into corners. Also, did not crash! The bike did super well -- even though it definitely gets its doors blown off on the straights by the bigger bikes, I'm definitely not good enough yet to take advantage of all its speed and handling in corners. It's a really good learning tool, as well. Riding gas bikes as a comparison is just hilarious because you have all these ridiculous explosions and vibration getting in the way of surface feedback. Although also fun, because explosions.
Also, watching mssrs. Bostrom and Turpin gracefully tear apart the field was very entertaining. There were a bunch of other fast guys (AFM racers, etc) there, and it made for an excellent show.
I don't have any video as the Gopro seems to have given up the ghost (time for a new Hero3 on holiday sale I suppose!), but there was a track photographer there and there are a bunch of fun shots that you can get the gist of through the watermark:
http://gotbluemilk.com/web131123/BRAMMO/index.htmlhttp://gotbluemilk.com/web131124/BRAMMO/index.htmlAlso haha a bunch of shots of Eric on a random Ninja, as he was also teaching a class that weekend. I am of course in the ever-lovely combination of yellow helmet and salmon/black/sparkly sparkly silver leathers.
Seriously, you guys should sign up for Refuel next year. It leads to all kinds of wonderfully terrible life decisions.
