Ready for action!

Its just about here, the 2011 race season kicks off a week tomorrow for me, the 20th of March 2011. Its been a hectic few months getting the bike and rider sorted out and ready for action. The main job being the new paint job, both working out the design and removing the plastics and tank and helping with the spray job, when I say helping that means making the brew’s, running to McDonalds and generally getting in the way.

I took my inspiration from the Barry Sheene 1975 Suzuki RG500 XR-14 machine seen here from a recent classic show.Its a bit of a tribute to Suzuki and the great Bazza, ok on modern fairings it was going to prove a challenge but I think we did a good job and the bike looks brilliant now!

The process went a bit like this, the bike stripped down looking a bit sorry for itself.

First job was to prepare the fairings de-grease and spray a base coat of solid white, once the white had dried we could start masking out the areas we want to stay white, it took 3 hours just to do the nose cone alone.

After a fair bit of tea drinking and some head scratching pouring over the many shades of blue, I finally decided on one that I liked, its not supposed to be the exact shade of the Sheene bike, I liked it so thats good enough!

So it was time to let Quilly work His magic with His paint gun and make myself scarce, while He hit the fairings with the blue, about 3 coates from memory, some more pictures…

Once the paint had dried and we’d removed the masking tape the final process was to hit the fairings with a clear coat of  lacquer, for the shine, and leave to bake for about an hour. The finished article..

The finish of the fairings looked amazing straight from the oven. It was time to take the bodywork home and prepare them for fitting back onto the bike. I needed a hand to re-fit the tank (cheers Kev) but managed everything else ok myself, She’s starting to take shape nicely!

Once the fairings were fitted it was time to start thinking about race numbers and the number boards, its black on yellow numbers this year for the new 650cc class, and I could fit the seat pad now too.

And the decals can start going on, Ive got a mixture of old ones left over from the old bike and new ones that I’ve ordered up.

The number board on the front is sprayed on, once the correct ACU spec color paint can was ordered up.

And here’s the finished article with sponsor’s stickers and new race numbers after realising I had used non ACU spec numbers originally.

So thats the bike ready to go, I had a visit from Jo Rowe today who’s a scrutineer for the Manx, just to give the bike a once over everything’s ok for next weekend’ s meeting, and Jo kindly ran a noise test and the SV’s putting out 103db.

Ive got a new set of leathers for 2011, the old ones wouldnt of made another season. Ive had Christine in Peel sort the arm out so it keeps my knackered arm secure, She’s done a great job and after having some stronger velcro fitted they are now perfect, I had to imrovise with some bungee strap on last weeks pre-season test session as the arm was loose.

And Ive built up a spare pair of wheels for my wets over the winter too, thanks to good old ebay!

Ive got one more test session next week with a trip over to Cadwell Park for a trackday on the 18th of March, then racing proper at the first Meeting of the year up at Jurby, cant wait!!

Im off to the fund raiser for Tim Venables now up at the Ginger Hall, fingers crossed its a good turn out!!

Good Luck all

Mitch!