Session by session on the first day does not have to be this particular protocol that I provide below. This protocol is honed from decades of testing for myself and with riders, so you can use it as a baseline.  You can build your test day any way that you choose so adapt the test plan to your needs that day for time, resources and weather.

When you throw your leg over for the first time and center your mind and body to the task at hand, ride the track at 85% pace and familiarize yourself with all the notes from the track walk the night before. This pace allows you to “see” all the changes and confirm or question your thoughts and notes when you get on track. Your goals for this first ride are:

  1. Get your brain and eyes to experience speed again and enhance your level of awareness.
  2. Start at a pace that facilitates stress free timing for inputs over a greater timespan/distance.
  3. Assess the track surface at this pace to assess where Winter moved the bumps and cracks and how they transfer into the forks and shock for braking areas, mid corner lines and exits.
  4. Reinforce timing for brake on and off points, turn in and apex, throttle initiation and roil on. Get all of that correct and your exit line and exit apex are defined.

If you need to ride another session at the same pace to get more information for markers, lines, surface bumps and reference points, do it. Do not hesitate to build your foundation of knowledge over a couple or three initial sorties on track. This foundation is key to the success of your first day.

During the first debrief after you are fully comfortable on track, what did you learn about yourself, how you moved on the bike (with ease or with difficulty) and what did you learn about the track? You need to sit and make notes for yourself even if you are in a team environment. These ergonomic and track notes are fundamental to success on the test day as your inconsistency and lack of attention will be a significant negative factor creating diminishing returns per hour.

Next on track session:

The first three laps have to be focused on ergonomic changes and an evaluation of them. If the changes are all positive, continue on with riding goals for that session. If not, make the changes needed and retest at the same pace.

The pace percentage must be raised to a minimum 85% to get applicable date. You must leverage the brain and eyes reaction to increased speed, input timing and how the motorcycle handles. These skills need to be anchored in reference points to create more consistency.

–              do you have 2 or 3 goals for this session?

–              do these goals incorporate you as a rider and some aspect of the motorcycle?

–              are you reducing the amount of time on the track to focus on precision or do you need more seat time as the motorcycle is too new to you?

NOTE:

–              suspension oil temperature determines flow rate, so if you have a cold morning and hot afternoon, you may have different settings for compression and rebound.

–              a significant number of rear shocks sit right behind the engine so they warm up fast.

–              forks are out in the air and fork oil takes more time to warm up.

–              be diligent on corner entry for the first 3-4 laps on a cold day.

When you are 2 seconds off your best lap time from last season based on the facility you are testing at, always accept that you might be changing geometry, springs, damping settings, gearing (geometry reset), tire sizes and compounds during testing. This would especially be true of a new to you motorcycle or the same motorcycle with a superbike build for engine and suspension, especially if you are using swing arm pivot and steering head offsets. This may not happen on your first day, but it will be required.

First session at 90% pace:

–              You as a rider need to be focused, present and relaxed at this pace so you can multitask. You must know all the nuances of the track surface and have lines consistent along with precise skill execution/timing.

Task #1 is assessment of braking stability for threshold braking only:

–              are you cognizant of and leveraging the friction coefficient between pad and rotor?

–              are you extremely consistent with pressure and duration?

–              are your brake on and off points accurate?

–              how much fork travel is left after your test laps?

–              where are you in total range for compression and preload settings?

In the debrief after your threshold braking session, what did you learn about fork action when the brakes are applied and the track surface in heavy threshold braking areas? Are you writing all these thoughts down?

–              did you experience dive or were you clumsy with your initial brake application?

–              were you consistent or inconsistent with the brake on and off points and therefore brake pressure data shows a dramatic variance with multiple spikes?

–              did you experience the forks bottoming out in certain corners and does the o-ring or cable tie validate your thought?

–              did you lift the rear wheel off the ground with 70% brake pressure and could not brake harder?

–              where are you with your settings and are you in the middle third of the total range or way outside it?

–              what changes are you going to make to the forks (if any) and why?

–              what changes are you going to make with your skill execution timing and why?

Instability will elongate braking zones and also reduce brake pressure for lever pull range and duration. Diminished pressure and duration will add significantly to lap times, decrease confidence and demand significantly higher energy outputs in each corner to manage chassis instability. Lap by lap, mental and physical fatigue can increase, consistency in timing decreases, therefore performance overall will degrade.

First session at 95% pace:

–              focus on corners that require trail braking. I consider this to be any time that you are leaning, even if that is 1 degree of lean.

–              is your brake pressure consistent during trail braking?

–              are you releasing the brake very consistently per corner?

–              when you are using light pressure as a speed correction during lean, is the bike hard or easy to position at the apex?

–              in slower corners, does the bike get to apex effortlessly, but in faster corners you need to put it there?

–              do you experience understeer or oversteer when trail braking?

During the debrief from this session, you should be making notes on where the bike steers very well and where it doesn’t. You should also be making notes on stability and what brake pressure creates instability, oversteer or understeer in the chassis. Check fork and shock travel used visually for confirmation.

If the bike does not get to apex as the speed increases, how much fork travel are you using? Do you have too much preload and/or compression damping? Should you reduce one or both and retest?

If you get oversteer or understeer, how is fork and shock rebound contributing to this?

For your second session at 95% pace, focus on corners that have a long radius and require neutral or maintenance throttle.

–              does brake pressure reduction or release cause the motorcycle to stand up?

–              is constant inside bar pressure required to keep the bike online?

–              are you modifying your body position to keep the bike stable mid corner?

–              in longer and faster corners, can you relax and stay in a constant position on the motorcycle?

During the debrief from this session, you should be making notes on what corners and what part of each corner requires you to manage the line via brakes, body position or throttle.  If you find that the chassis is not stable, you need to look at weight transfer between the forks and shock and specifically focus on getting rebound balance correct to ensure chassis stability. The smaller the bike the more critical chassis balance is. For those that “point and shoot” where time on the side of the tire is minimal, this may not be so important.

For your third session at 95% pace, focus on your throttle roll on timing and exit line.

–              does a quick throttle roll on cause the motorcycle to stand up?

–              if you roll on aggressively, does the motorcycle choose a wider exit line?

–              do you have to delay throttle roll on to avoid running wide?

–              are you modifying your body position to keep the bike online at exit?

–              in exit corners, can you roll on at will and hold the correct line?

During the debrief from this session, you should be making notes on what corners and what part of each corner requires you to manage throttle roll on, no matter where in the percentage you are.  If you find that the motorcycle runs wide easily, this might be due to camber, a geometry issue of weight balance or the rear shock is too soft via spring rate/preload or compression settings. Shock rebound set too slow can also cause this issue.

You must at this point, evaluate weight transfer between the forks and shock and specifically on travel used. Is the shock at 95% and the forks at 80%? If the transfer is uneven, time needs to be taken to correct it unless the rider needs this geometry to feel comfortable.

Your final test for the day should be a defined number of laps as a race simulation:-  6 – 12  laps for the regional club level to 16-24 laps at National level. You as a rider will determine what pace to use, but there are no excuses for not being within 2 seconds of your PB at this location by this stage of the day unless there are very serious issues to resolve with the motorcycle.

Testing is simple at this point:

–              where is the motorcycle confidence inspiring on the track?

–              where is the motorcycle requiring you to deliberately think and act to make it comply?

–              how does the suspension evolve over the laps ridden (suspension is smoother as laps go by, or suspension become more harsh as laps go by)?

–              are you experiencing fatigue and if so, after how many laps?

–              If there is a handling problem in any given part of the track, is it repeatable?

During this debrief, your input is now very focused and the notes and/or conversation immediately shift to items of concern. There will be a list of priorities to resolve and those should generally be in the order below.

Note that whatever issue is not repeatable while you ride, it is on you, the rider. Own it.

  1. Threshold braking stability.
  2. Trail braking inconsistency with line.
  3. Excessive physical management of the bike at turn in.
  4. Chassis instability mid corner.
  5. Exit line is inconsistent based on throttle application.
  6. Gearing is incorrect based on rpm and your dyno chart.

At the end of the day, you and/or your team will have a clear direction to move in. You will have concrete data to leverage that is 100% trustworthy and you as a rider will have your head back in the game. That will create a series of tasks to complete and if you have the following day for testing, improvements will be significant and arrive much faster as you are leveraging day one. If you cannot get this second day to continue, you will have to warm up again and get to pace so you might lose a morning.

Wherever possible, make sure you have the first test be back to back days and then the second test be back to back days. The amount you can accomplish is astonishing with this format.