Looking at the weather reports on the day before I was due to depart for Pembrey, it was looking very likely that the Saturday would be very wet, so I belatedly sprang into action to try and hunt down some decent wet-weather tyres .
Moto3 size race wets or Michelin PR 4 or 5 would have been ideal for the little 390 , and my thinking was that if I could find some to replace the Dunlop equivalent of Supercorsas that it was wearing then I’d be covered for maximum track-fun whatever the weather did, with the luxury of effectively a “wet bike”, leaving the 890 for dry sessions.
Due mainly to my tardiness it wasn’t possible to find either race wets or PR4/5s in the timescales I needed, but I did track down a (bargain priced, it has to be said- on the face of it at least
) old stock pair of Metz Roadtec 01s in sort of almost the right sizes at M&P in Swansea, and Alan very kindly offered to collect them on his way past on Thursday afternoon and bring them to the circuit, so perfect- I was sorted, or so I thought…
Got to the circuit on Friday morning and it was a bit moist, so wobbled around the first session on the 390 as it was to get my eye in then as soon as I came in got the wheels out and over to Phil to get my new bargain priced “wet” tyres on. As mentioned above, they weren’t quite the ideal sizes , with what I thought at that time the only real thing I might have to work around being the height of the front tyre as it was a 110/80 (I needed d a 110/70 or 65 ) , which meant it would be approx. 22mm bigger diameter, but my thinking was that pulling the forks another 11mm or so up through the yokes would sort that and ensure that the nice fast turn-in is retained.
When fitted though they looked, err, shall we say, slightly less than sporty....
- Maybe the (140/70) rear was intended for a narrower rim than 4”, or maybe its just how its built as they really are Deauville/GS500 type fitments I think, but whatever, the rear particularly didn’t sit too well on the KTM's rim, with the fully inflated profile reminding me of an early Avon Roadrunner / Ford Anglia crossply , which did concern me a bit as the 390s stregth is how far over it goes and but I rationalised it that it hopefully wouldn’t matter too much as I wouldn’t have it so far over in the wet.
And looking on the bright side, it had about a billion more grooves in it than the tyres they’d replaced, so I set pressures, and as the next session was dry, thought it would be an excellent opportunity to give it a bit of a shake-down, check how much (if any) they’d fecked up the sweet handling of the 390, make any relevant adjustments and just get them nicely scrubbed in , in the dry, where I could push a little bit.
It, however, didn’t unfortunately quite turn out like that as we never even made a lap- yes, I was indeed one of those complete dickhead nobbers that crashes on the warm-up lap. In my defence (if there is one) I thought that I was taking it dead steady, feeling my way as I’ve done hundreds of times with brand-new tyres and it had been OK for the first few corners, but well, I guess it wasn’t steady enough as I hadn’t got that far round Dibeni (the long left-hander) when bang, no warning, it was instant, we were on the floor-Arse!!
When I stopped rolling I jumped up wheezing and got the bike to the armco in the hope that they wouldn’t have to stop the session but they did.
I think a bit of me may have got stuck under the bike for a bit or hit by it as I was really winded and struggling to breathe with a sore shoulder blade / chest and most of the thumb and a finger was pretty much missing from my LH glove. My little finger was a bit mushed and my hand was both numb and hurt like fuck- the gloves have just torn like paper, really disappointing and not what I expected of Furygan or that price-point so will be taking that up with them.
Anyhow, thankfully they got my fellow riders back out on their session pretty quickly but not until had the walk of shame past them to the medical centre to take my blood pressure etc before they’d let me go
As soon as we got the bike back we got the wheels out again and I got Phil to put the tyres he’d just taken off back on as this little incident decided me that Dunlop Alphas were massively preferable over Roadtecs as my wet tyres, in the sizes I have on these rims at least.
Damage to the bike was nothing too serious and pretty much superficial so 10 minutes with the spanners and hammer had it right, or right enough to continue for the rest of the weekend so all the crash protection stuff I’ve got on it had earned it’s keep, which is more than can be said for my brand-spanking new Furygan gloves…
So the 390 was effectively the “wet bike” for the weekend, it performed faultlessly again and is such fun as far as it goes, I just wish it had more power, 40bhp just isn’t enough- the chassis and amount of grip it has is just crying out for more so as I’ve mentioned in the Pembrey thread, I’m going to get the measuring tape out over the winter and see if we can’t give it some form of engine upgrade
Oh and a set of decent wet weather tyres are on the list too
I didn't take any pics, and it's still in the van as I type, but I did have the camera on it for a couple of sessions ( sods law not the session we crashed in though) so will download the vids later and if it looks worth watching, post some up here
)
) sticker I was given for the bike on that day - she wasn't happy at all when I stuck it on and told me to get it changed to another number, but no, I thought that I knew best, and look where that got me