The aftermath

Claviger said:

As I said, and now you all can see, this wasn't a hop and go simple thing like on a production 1000 or something. Riding the bike fast out there was work and required a lot of finesse to cope with the dancing it was doing, particularly on deceleration.

Steering head bearing is not loose, nor too tight, it's in the window of correct, no click on pull of fork legs while front is lifted, but the bars freely fall to the stop.
1st run, steering damper was in the middle position, shocks at 10.5", valving at softest. Tires at 36f/33r.
2nd run, steering damper was in the tightest position, shocks at 11", valving at notch 3 of 4. Tires at 37f/35r.

Understand these aren't street tires, they're typically run at 26-28 psi, hot temps (around 80c). WSBK SuperBike race tire front, SuperCorsa SC rear (not the street approved SuperCorsa, track only). They are built on the same carcass, but the SuperCorsa SC3 has an extended temperature range of functionality to cope with the relatively cool temps via compound and the voids which help heat them more quickly than a full slick.

The wobble was self-correcting, but only just, and low traction made it take a lot longer to self-correct than on pavement. I'm fairly certain the delayed correction of the wobble was due to shock length setting the swing arm angle too shallow, providing "barely adequate" anti-squat on the back of the bike.

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Claviger said:

Sharing the following information for others who go out there or who may consider it. I consider 11.5" shocks (aka stock -1") the minimum length when paired with stock front fork length and a short front tire (125/70 or 130/70).

As I said, and now you all can see, this wasn't a hop and go simple thing like on a production 1000 or something. Riding the bike fast out there was work and required a lot of finesse to cope with the dancing it was doing, particularly on deceleration.

Steering head bearing is not loose, nor too tight, it's in the window of correct, no click on pull of fork legs while front is lifted, but the bars freely fall to the stop.

1st run, steering damper was in the middle position, shocks at 10.5", valving at softest. Tires at 36f/33r.
2nd run, steering damper was in the tightest position, shocks at 11", valving at notch 3 of 4. Tires at 37f/35r.

Understand these aren't street tires, they're typically run at 26-28 psi, hot temps (around 80c). WSBK SuperBike race tire front, SuperCorsa SC rear (not the street approved SuperCorsa, track only). They are built on the same carcass, but the SuperCorsa SC3 has an extended temperature range of functionality to cope with the relatively cool temps via compound and the voids which help heat them more quickly than a full slick. The Indian factory team was running the same tires.

The wobble was self-correcting, but only just, and low traction made it take a lot longer to self-correct than on pavement. I'm fairly certain the delayed correction of the wobble was due to shock length setting the swing arm angle too shallow, providing "barely adequate" anti-squat on the back of the bike.

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Justdad said:

Here is the run where I crashed Rob's beautiful bike.

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Claviger said:

Justdad thanks for posting this, I love the editing and some of the pictures I'd not seen until now, hope you're doing better now. The videos will let Mufasa live forever in my memory and gives something to watch when feeling nostalgic in the future

**** I'm glad you weren't sliding a little faster, you two were in your own little race for the same piece of salt it seems and neither of you made it to convergence.

I didn't realize it flipped so many times, 4 full rotations. Considering that.... the damage is... actually fairly minor Four full flips on a sport bike would've been a much worse yardsale of parts strewn across the salt lol.

Look at the end frames in 3 minutes 2 seconds. The front tire spikes up, nearly all of it's travel and back down very quickly (the only bump the fender is lost in view behind the lower triple tree), just after that is when the rear breaks loose, about the time when the rear tire would have hit the same bump. There are a series of bumps, the course was really rough, but this one is distinctly larger than the rest and unfortunately, coincidental with 2nd gear shift; so like most accidents, it's a series of individually innocuous events occurring with the just the right timing, culminating in a major event In my opinion after looking at the logs and this video, it was triggered by terrain and exacerbated by loose bike setup on salt at high RPM.

Keep in mind, Mufasa had a pretty hard front fork setup Wilbers springs + 10w oil + reduced air gap, so for it to knock the tire that high, it wasn't an insignificant bump.

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stingray said:

I can't believe they had you all out at dawn before the salt dried to back up a record run from the afternoon. At least run it again in the afternoon. It didn't sound like you ever had any traction on that last run. A sliding tire will always go to the front.

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