This Blog is Just-Us Racing's path to building a Supertwin race bike for Adam Bauer to race everywhere from the MRA and the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb to the Mountain Course on the Isle of Man!
I met a couple of guys from the UK up on Pikes Peak this year, Gary from Sideburn Magazine and a photographer that came along with Gary to document the event and Guy Martin's attempt to conquer the mountain.
That photographer is Sam Christmas. Sam has an eye for casual settings to take photos at... PPIHC is NOT casual... But in his eyes he was able to take the event and make it seem like a casual ride up a mountain with some buddies, even when our buddies don't make it to the top...
This post below from Sam is a look into how others handle losing a competitor, friend, and fellow racer... Every photo is a story of the moments after Bobby Goodin took the checkered flag, lost control of his bike, and is now racing in the heavens on a most perfect racetrack where tires and race fuel are free and there are no entry fees.
Today Sam sent me a few pics I would like to share of my time up on Pikes Peak. I will let you enjoy them below and please go take a look at his website and blogs here:
PPIHC is truly an international event, #50 is Takahiro Itami from Japan on an MV Agusta F3.
When Cal Collins could get his bike started in the cold this kid RIPPED! One of the many waits to come back down the mountain resulted in lots of Great conversations!
Yes, that is Guy Martin. Yes, he is good peoples and a character. I am very happy to have met and actually help him out while they were on their adventure over here. I think we were talking about mapping issues with his bike here...
Here I am rolling through a corner during qualifying, look at all those rocks on the road! YIKES!
Last left hander of the qualifying section from Friday's session.
Good times with these two Scottish guys! On the left is Joe Toner and on the bike next to me my buddy Alan Cunningham. We were listening to Joe talking about roadracing back in the day against the likes of Joey Dunlop! Joe RIPS!
Newbold... That is the bearded lady to my left... Err, handsome bearded man I mean! ;) Travis told Gary, Sam, Carl, and myself we have to go stand at the guardrail to the last hairpin named Olympic and watch the cars... Great decision!!!
Newbold ready to roll up the mountain in style chatting with my buddy Carl Sorenson and myself with my sister in-law Erica Bibeau in the background. Did I mention it wasn't freaking warm at all? ;)
This shot is one of my all time favorites, it really encapsulates the entire feeling of this race. We made it to the top, we parked our bikes against some random rocks, and we spent the next 8 hours above 14,000 feet feeling loopy and enjoying everyone's stories about the quick ride up!
With that I am still set back by the enormity of the event, from start to finish the race just kept us guessing and we never knew exactly how it was gonna end up.
HUGE Thanks to everyone that made this event a possibility for me, I can't wait to go back next year and give her a go again!
Last week we decided to sign up for some racing out at High Plains Raceway with the MRA our roadracing organization here in Colorado. The Supertwin was pretty much ready to rock and roll so prep was minimal and we got everything loaded up after work on Friday. We arrived to the track Friday evening and got unloaded to find out they had karaoke going on and oh my do some of these guys and gals get going! Hahaha, Great times were had and the morning came WAY too early and my first practice session on track I might have needed at least an hour or two more sleep I think!
Practice went well and we got the bike ready for the first race of the day, LWGP. Since I was so late in registering I was the very last bike on the grid... I loaded up the first lap to show you what it's like starting from back there:
Lets just say it was a blast, that was my first real race back since I quit racing back in 2004. I ended up 5th and was pretty happy with that!
Next up was Lightweight Endurance, I unfortunately had the GoPro on photo so I got no video footage from this race but man it was an interesting race to say the least!
I got another great start and ended up 3rd into turn 1, I ended up getting passed by my buddy Chris Weed on his TZ250 framed XR650 contraption and was not able to reel him back in. On the second lap a novice rider cut across the track and almost blew me off the track and then jammed on the brakes for no reason causing all sorts of chaos and I lost all my drive onto the back straight so I lost a few more positions... Got my head back into it and focused on getting back up to the two guys in front of me and made a solid pass a couple of laps later on one of them and then reeled in a quick guy on an SV650 that I had a Great battle with for the rest of the race! Had a little off track excusion at the top of the corkscrew when I was just getting ready to turn in and a green fairing piled into me on the left side and we both went off into the gravel. His bike hooked me and I was able to kick it away and unfortunately he went down but was alright. I looked back and the SV rider and another had also went off so I high tailed it back on track and kept it lit! A quick check of the fairings on the straight and the bike seemed alright so we kept pushing hard. So much fun! Unfortunately on the last lap the SV guy attempted to go around on the outside a few turns to the finish and he lowsided out of the race and I secured a 3rd place podium finish!
So Saturday was done, a 5th in LWGP from the absolute back of the grid and a 3rd in LW Endurance, not a bad days riding! Another crazy late night with less sleep than I should have had and we were ready to go again...
I skipped practice hoping to run the rest of the 3 races I had left on my rear tire, first race up was Supertwins GTO... Oh man is it interesting racing against the BIG bikes! Holy crap! Needless to say I ended up in the back with a 12th place finish in an uneventful race. Looking at my rear tire we figured I was gonna have to replace it at lunch time after one more race, Thunderbikes. As I was lining up in pre-grid I rolled over to my Michelin Tire guy and had him look at the tire and he looked at me and said to be careful... Always good words to hear right before you go out on track right? Took off at the start with a good start again, all the big bikes were out there again so it was just a go out there and have fun race and we ended up finishing it off in 10th. Then off to the pits to get the rear wheel off and put some new rubber on... As you can see this rear was totally shot on the right side:
Half hour later and we were set:
I do have to say I am really impressed with how well these Michelin Power Cup race tires stick, I have always been a Dunlop guy before and these tires have changed my way of thinking entirely! Really good stuff, both in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb on cold mountain roads and really amazing amounts of grip on a super hot track surface last weekend with good predictability and I never felt uncomfortable on them even sliding the bike around a little coming into corners.
Next up the final race of the day, Supertwins GTU. My previous best lap time was a 1:25.4 and my whole goal going into this race was to try and break into the 1:24's and try to focus on getting a better drive out of turn 3 and work on holding the throttle on longer going down the hill in the back.
Got the green flag and took off to end up about 5th going into turn 1 behind a guy on a TZ250 (Did I mention I LOVE the smell of 2-strokes?) I rode around the outside of him in turn 2 and moved up to 4th place. Focused on a good drive out of turn 3 and hoped to stay ahead of the TZ... Not going to happen, he buzzed by me about 3/4 of the way down the straight and then held me up in turn 4 so I lost some drive. On the front straight going into turn 1 the TZ guy flipped his foot off the peg and I went up the inside of him and moved towards the SV in 3rd place. Caught up to him not knowing what had happened to the TZ and a couple of laps later the TZ goes buzzing by both of us on the back straight again! I was holding off on passing the SV as I knew I could get him towards the end of the race but then the game changed and I put my head down and passed the SV on the front straight and chased the TZ down as fast as I could. A couple of laps later and he was not too far off when he ran wide in turn 4 and went off in the dirt! I didn't know where the SV guy was so I put my head down and freaking went as hard as I could for the next few laps waiting for the TZ to come up on me but I got to the checkered flag and I was still in front.
This was pretty much a win for me honestly. I got back to the pits and couldn't believe this bike has worked as well as it has! I was and still am over the moon with this build. It is an absolute blast to ride, easy to maintain, and I built it from pieces.
So I got all loaded up and headed off to say bye to all my MRA friends and drove home. Got unloaded and am still amazed at everything in general with this build. All in all a Very successful weekend after being out of it for 9 years I had no idea I would be on pace this quickly.
A HUGE shout out to all my friends and family who have supported my crazy lifestyle over the past year getting this bike up and running and to all my sponsors that have helped make all this happen. I couldn't have done it without you guys and gals!
Wow, what an event, a few weeks on and I am still finding pictures popping up and am amazed at where they are coming from! Just found a couple from a person in Japan, Shinji Miyakubo:
Then we found a site linked to the Hill Climb site that had these photos of Adam, some truly Awesome shots here by Rob Miskowitch:
Another one from the linked site by Scott Paine:
This spread of photos is probably my favorite, the first one shows just how small we are on the mountain by Travis Tollett Designs:
These few are from the red flag on Sundays race with us waiting to get sent back down from eGarage:
One last one, this one is pretty special, Adam was the first one back on track after Bobby's off and Andrew Bohan of Life Blasters caught this pic of Adam starting his run under the Start banner with Pikes Peak in the background. Great shot! See the article here on My Life At Speed: Pikes Peak Through a Newbies Lens
Adam will be offline for a few weeks here, planning on racing with the MRA the end of August and the beginning of September here. We will post up some updates between now and then but the bike is ready and Adam is ready so not much going on!
In the meantime Adam uploaded a video from riding a dirty bike yesterday, was nice to go play in the dirt for a day!
The day is finally here, a week of waking up at 2:30am and riding my racebike in temps that were so cold and on roads that were below 30 degrees F was done and I have an idea of where the road goes. Project Supertwin has performed flawlessly and made learning the course relatively easy with myself not having to worry about the bike and just riding it!
At this point I need to throw out a HUGE THANK YOU to my team that flew in from around the country to help with this whole race process:
Craig, you sir kick ass, thank you so much for being there every step of the way!
Erica, lady, you ROCK! Was fun to have you around even though not your type of event!
Joey, my brother from another mother! Glad you were able to make it out!
Sue, the best wife a racer could ever have for letting me do these crazy events! Love Ya!
And of course to my dad for helping make all this happen and for sticking behind me even when I shouldn't have been doing what I was doing!
After all the prep and getting the bike up to the pit area we had everything pretty much setup so I went and took a nap for a couple of hours! We then had the riders meeting @ 7am and went over the way the day was going to run and who was where in the start list.
So back to the pits and wait for them to say they want the middleweight bikes to start gridding. The grid area is interesting for this race, we have to keep the bikes mobile with the tire warmers on the bike so we have to roll the bike on the stands and have the generator on wheels to pull along with the bike. Adds a new complication to the race for sure! Some people come up with some crazy ways of getting their bikes to the start line!
Then we were ready, time to get the warmers off and give this whole course a go for the first time!
And we were off... Unfortunately about 10 minutes later about a mile from the top I was red flagged due to an incident at the finish line... After about a 20 minute wait we were released to go back down the mountain to the start line again...
After some time figuring out when they were going to let us start again we got moved back to in front of the Open class and I was the first to go once the helicopter got back into position. Having to re-do the course was good and bad, we were on pace for a sub 12 minute run the first time up but the wind had kicked up for the second run and we ended up with a 12:16 run that put me into 7th place in the Middleweight Division. Not too shabby for my first go at the hill and on a bike with half the HP of almost every other bike in my class!
Here is a video of my run:
Once on top it was an amazing feeling to get up there, lots of hugs and high fives from everyone!
Then the news came in a bit later while we were waiting up top, the red flag incident was fellow racer and friend Bobby Goodin on bike # 86 who started 2 bikes ahead of me. He went off after the finish line and we were notified that he didn't make it...
That morning
I was getting ready to race in the middleweight race at Pikes Peak and
made the rounds saying hi to everyone, giving handshakes and hugs and
high fives... I will never forget saying to Bobby "Let's have some fun, have a
safe one, and I will see you at the top"... Godspeed Sir, Race In Paradise Forever Buddy. Keep her LIT!
Bobby's Last Ride:
That is it, the race is done, I made it to the top and am making preparations for next years event on the mountain. Real Road Racing is something really pure, really fun, & really challenging. Off camber, paint lines, bumps, guardrails, trees, cliffs, and boulders are all things that you buzz by at speeds that you don't think are possible... Was a really good event to give me a taste of what I am gonna come up against on the Isle of Man at the Manx GP. I am looking forward to it to say the least!
Keep her LIT my Friends, Live for Today, and Have No Regrets!
Thursday morning was up above Devils Playground again, was nice to get a second day up top and learn where we can keep the throttle lit and where lit is a bad idea! Very little room for error up there, at my speeds not too big of a deal, add in 15% and that is a big problem.
Not too much to report for up there as we had been there before, got some good runs in and felt a lot more comfortable with the bumpy sections!
After practice we headed back to camp and got the bike torn down for new rubber and some new graphics for qualifying in and race day:
So we got the bike torn down and then we headed off to Mad-Moto to swap out some rubber and to meet up with Hammer and Hollywood to get the new graphics stuck!
Another Big Thanks to Hammer and Hollywood for getting my graphics up to tech standards too!
On to Friday morning... Qualifying! This took place on the lower section of the course and man was it fun, a lot smoother and flowing than the middle section and it is like hauling ass through the woods up at my cabin at machaloony speeds! So much FUN!
The bad part was we only got a few runs, the good part was I qualified 8th and was ready to go. Here's a couple of pics of the craziness that started to set in by Friday:
Will do another update on race day shortly, working on doing a photo album with all the pics I have of the event as well... Stay Tuned!
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