Took the T out for its first of hopefully many track excursions, and had quite a good time with it.
The weather was gorgeous: clear, with temps in the low-mid 80s F.
The bike was a bit harsh-riding in the first session, so I backed off a few clicks on the rear shock, and every session thereafter, my lap times were about 12 seconds/lap faster than the first session!
The bike is far more capable than I am, so circulating on the thing was quite fun.
I saw 153 indicated on the big (banked) straight at the track, which was a new experience for me.
I'm just an intermediate level track day n00b, and was happy to be able to catch up with some bikes on the corners, and actually get around 'em on the straights.
The only thing that was worrisome the whole day was the occasional problem with clutchless upshifting. Twice, coming on to the big straight and wicking it up, I caught a false neutral from 4th to 5th (with quite the screaming engine at that point). In another part of the track, a small straight where I was going from about 50 to 80 or 90, I couldn't speed shift at all, instead had to fan the clutch a bit.
I searched these fora for similar problems, and it looks like boot size (!) might even be a factor. I knew about this beforehand, but even trying to focus on the correct foot pressure, I had those problems...
Has anyone experienced this? I had no problems using the same technique on my Futura or my previous track toy (SV650), they shifted very smoothly. I'm thinking that perhaps there's so much more torque under full power that I need to back off the throttle a bit more than I'm used to.
Oh, and the only other annoyance was blisters on my right index finger and thumb, apparently from having a death grip trying to hold on during full acceleration.
I'm looking forward to many sessions of improving my riding skills to match the capabilities of the Tuono.
I loves my aprilias!
Thanks for any words of wisdom.
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Originally Posted by kzmille
