Alexey's Log
Monday, July 10, 2006
 
Things are coming together

... albeit slowly. Last week I spoke to the wheel straightener on the west coast who informed me he got my rims and they were getting repaired just fine. At this point they should be on their way back to me and I'll probably get them late this week. I actually had to send in 3 rims instead of just 2 rears. The front was also damaged in the crash. First time I hear of anyone crashing a bike and bending both wheels without the bike cartwheeling.

My ribs are still sore on the left side and I still have some swelling, but nothing like what I started with. Still haven't gotten full sensation in my hip. And it still hurts to do certain movements, but I do have full range of motion, so I'll be okay to ride.

Last week I got together with this guy Damon, who works with Alix. He taught me and helped me put on a bunch of carbon fiber patches on the bodywork. We had to make a brand new piece that includes one of the mounting holes. Since then, I've been slowly touching up the stuff we've done with fiber glass filler. We'll see how it all comes out after I give it a good college try at painting. I'm not looking forward to it. I hope I don't mess it up too bad.

Oh, one interesting bit of news is that I took this downtime to put on an aftermarket alternator cover from NRC. The stock piece on F4i's sticks out quite far and I didn't think there was anything to be done about it short of using a different or milled flywheel. But it turns out the NRC part is actually narrower (by a good half inch) without requiring any internal modifications to the flywheel or stator. Good stuff. Maybe I won't touch it down now in turn 6 at Loudon. That said, I was actually quite impressed with the stock piece's strength. Aside from a big scratch mark, nothing happened to it when I did touch it down during riding and furthermore it withstood the high speed lowside just fine. That's why CCS doesn't require aftermarket alternator covers on F4i's, unlike many other inline 4's. Nevertheless, I went with NRC -- better safe than sorry.
 
I'd like to thank:

Who says artists don't know anything about tire warmers? Visit my crew chief Alexandra Deitz-Zinger's Art page.

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