With the pictures now out, a brief summary of my trackday at Circuit Dijon Prenois last monday.
Dijon is one of the fastest circuits in the country, with mostly wide, high speed corners and just a couple corners with elevation change. The front straight is long, with a litre bike you're easily pushing 300 km/h and even on the YZF-R6 I rented, I saw 250+. Weather conditions were hot, just at the front end of the canicule (heatwave) in the mid 30s.
Spent the morning learning the track, learning the bike, then finally after lunch things began to come together and I found a good rhythm. Indeed the experience showed I really need to get a move on and buy a R6 because compared to my little R3, the supersports require legitimate effort and technique to corner rapidly. The private coaching I had last month clicked....."ah I see now ". Fortunately with the more aggressive riding position and more space to move around, it was easier to apply what I'd learned. I was finally getting on pace by mid afternoon, gaining the pace of the faster riders in the group.
Unfortunately as I mentioned earlier, I crashed. A flubbed downshift from 3-2 caught between gears mid-corner at full lean, and then in the process of trying to recover, it slipped into gear suddenly, locking up the rear wheel, causing the high-side. I was happy I walked away from it all. Bruised my right heel and a few other pressure points, but all is healing now.
Crashes happen. It's a risk that I accept when I get into this stuff. But it doesn't turn me off; rather it encourages me to learn and improve. I'll take a short pause in August to let my pocketbook recover, and later this season, I'll hop back on a bike, and ride faster against the chrono. Luckily in France, there is no shortage of opportunity to ride on the circuit, and the season stretches even longer in Espagne
As for the bike, I'd given the R6 another chance and it proved itself. When going over the pictures, I feel terrible about binning that track-prepped R6 from Activbike
So why now the desire to have one instead of the Ducati 959 ? My fear is that the Duc 959 would be physically much more involving- at 205kg it is a whopping 12kg heaver than the R6 and thus harder to turn in. I wish Yamaha would refresh the motor, but the revised suspension and shifter (up only) were very agreeable during my stint and the throttle calibration was much improved over the 2012 I rode last year at Alès. I have work to do as a pilote, but the R6 makes more sense to me now. Its added agility and reduced weight are big plus points, and availability on the 2nd hand market is 2nd to none in its class. So i'll be trying to sell the R3 and find a track-ready or near track ready R6.
