Solid Thinking

If you’re like me who prefers to run your Ducati with hard suspension, here’s the top 4 tips you can try on your next track day:

1. Run your tyres at higher pressure: hard suspension puts extra strain on your tyres as they get stuck “between a rock and a hard place” (literally). Lower tyre pressure may cause the sidewalls and rubber, or even the tyres themselves, to deform too much and become unstable especially during hard braking and corner entries. Running my Fireblade (with relatively soft suspension) on Bridgestone at much lower pressure than normal road-recommended pressure worked well. But on the Ducati, which is basically sprung for twice my actual weight (I am 65kg), I found running it at 34f/35r (cold) to be the most stable for fast-sweeper track.
2. Give at least 2 warm-up laps: this is for obvious reason, duh!
3. Pirelli Dragon Supercorsa Pro SC is more than capable on slightly damp surface after proper warm-up (see #2). No, I am not on Pirelli’s payroll. And yes I wouldn’t mind, thanks.
4. Stop writting tips and ride more.