T-minus 8 Days and Counting…..Until Putnam

To the first track day of the year. It’s been an extremely busy start to the year here at EXAIR and an even busier one at home for me. With my daughter learning how to walk and figuring out just how much baby proofing our house lacks I’ve been quite busy. On top of all that my friends and I are preparing for yet another year at the track on our motorcycles. You know me, I never pass up a chance to blog about bikes.

While my two good friends and I have been preparing our new-to-us trailer for the long excursions to the track, our other friends have been seeing how much we love riding and started getting into it themselves. Just this week I had to help a friend go and pick up his first bike. While it wasn’t in my eyes a great bike, I could see the way he had it planned out in his. We snagged a pic before he was able to throw his leg over it just in case the unthinkable happened and he wrecked during the riding lessons.

The bike is a 2000 Ninja ZX6R . The previous owner was clearly a “stunter” who loved to do burnouts according to the back tire. Not to mention lots of hard set down wheelies according to the geyser of fork oil coming out of the left fork. It also has a truly “custom” paint job and no plastics or proper headlight. It does have a few key features though. It starts, runs good, and has two wheels (One is bent). After we loaded the bike onto my trailer and left the sellers house I start getting bombarded with questions.

You see our friend that bought the bike has ridden dirt bikes when he was younger but never a street bike. So, I started going through what he needs to immediately fix and also the proper gear he is going to need. We got the bike to our garage and immediately he wanted to take it for a ride. I test rode it for him to ensure nothing catastrophic was going to happen and then went over the basics with him. Since he has a background with dirt bikes he did know the essentials, gas and brakes. I tried to find some protective gear in my car but since I had not planned on anyone riding I came up with nothing. So in true squid fashion he threw one leg over and started down the alley.

First walking the bike without the clutch all the way out. Then eventually, even shifting up into second. The entire time he was looking everything over and learning to ride, I could see in his face how eager he was to get this bike, and himself ready for the street.

Before we loaded it up again and took it home for him we did what all friends would do. We started taking stuff apart and fixing the parts that had been completely installed wrong, and of course making fun of little things. His bike is going to have to wait a little while though because I have to prepare my bike yet again for another track day. Which in case you forgot looks something like this.

The first track day of the year is at Putnam Park of course.