Its a little expensive at $30, but educational and something you don't see everyday. 

For any bike guys who care:

Its a 2003 Aprilia SL-1000R

Performance bits:
RSV Swingarm
RSV 2-to-1 header feeding a Tigcraft 80mm titanium exhaust
Renegade air intake and +2 ECU chip
Penske rear sport shock
AF1 Racing top clamp
Evoluzione Billet Aluminum Clutch Slave
Stainless braided brake + hydraulic clutch lines

Comfort and style bits:
Puid smoke windscreen
Carbon fiber front fender and rear hugger
Heli clip on risers
Fender eliminator and flush mount LED front signals
Motovation frame sliders (not in the pics but I put em on last night)

    When I picked him up, he felt like he was under pressure so my first thought was kidney stone.  When I opened the cat carrier he climbed right in....he knew he needed a vet visit too. 

    Dropped him off and they immediately knew he was obstructed.  Catheter time  :P

    Anyway they flushed him out and put him on an IV for a couple days.  Now he is on muscle relaxers and kitty morphine.  You can tell by looking at him:

http://home.comcast.net/~ssteffy/boxer54.jpg

    Right now he's camped out on my legs sleeping.  Vet says he should be good as new in a few days. 

      So last Wednesday I took a floating holiday and took my bike to the racetrack for performance riding school.  The bike technical inspections were at 7am, and the track was about an hour from my house, so I had to get up at about 5:30 in the damn morning.  bleh.

      The school structure is here:  http://2-fast.org/school-structure.html  and its the most fun I've had in years.  I'm pretty much a speed hound, but its usually in things that won't kill me like go karts and such.  I've been riding less than a year, so I'm still not feeling totally at home on a bike yet, but I'm pretty confident in my reaction time and my ability to keep track of everything going on around me, so I've been able to get out of some situations that would have spooked other people.  I even bought some leather pants (leather pants aren't gay if you are buying them for motorcycle racing).

      Here's me trying to look cool.  (Ignore the double chin...its not cool)

http://home.comcast.net/~ssteffy/gonnadie.jpg

      I learned a lot of stuff about how to take corners, how my form was wrong when leaning off the bike, and just how much you can push these bikes before they reach their limits.  I did get up to about 130-135mph on the straightaway, even on my 15 year old bike, but the bigger ones get up to 180 in no time.  The good thing about bikes is that even though the sense of speed is a lot stronger, the bike becomes more stable the faster you go because of the gyroscopic effect of the spinning wheels.

There was a track photographer, but there wasn't a lot of variety in the pictures taken....there wasn't even anything showing me putting a knee down.  :P

here's what he got of me:

http://keepsakephotoonline.exposuremanager.com/g/56

The top row 2nd pic isn't me though, he just mixed up the numbers.

I also took some video from my helmet mounted camera, here's a sped up one lap run from my point of view:

http://home.comcast.net/~ssteffy/2-fast.wmv

Anyway it was a great day, and I can't wait to go back, but I don't think I can afford to do it more than a couple times a year.

dirty garage:



cutting carpet:


Whats that I put under the carpet?


Glue drying overnight:


He approves:


Progress:

and the finished product:

Took a few hours each day, and Boxer hasn't got off it since I finished it.