Abhi Buys a Krämer HKR Evo2 S, Part 7 – Catching Up

Like everything else on Bike-urious right now, I’m a bit behind on some of the longer term stories. So if you’ll humor me, I’m going to speedrun things a bit to get us caught up to the present…ish.

I last left you with a post about the signatures I’ve been accumulating, but before that I had just done a track day at Circuit of the Americas where the Kramer excelled in the corners but was a bit underwhelming on the two LONG straightaways. At that point I had two other major track days in mind for the year – Aprilia Racers Days at Laguna Seca and Nate Kern’s DoubleRFest at Barber.

Part 7a: Aprilia Racers Days at Laguna Seca

My day at Laguna was simply about getting used to the bike on a track I was already familiar with. I was definitely getting more comfortable with it but there was one thing I did not expect – how LOUD it is! Aprlia paid extra for a 105dB day and even then I was unpleasantly surprised to find myself getting hit with the “meatball” flag after the first lap because I blew the sound check going into Turn 6. Per the rules, I had to come in for the rest of the session.

I went out the next session with the plan of being at about half-throttle instead and…I got the meatball flag again! Before this day, I had never blown sound at Laguna. Then I managed to do it twice in two laps.

There’s a three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy so I ended up just pulling in the clutch and basically coasting through the sound check area for the rest of the day, but I made a mental note that I had to do something about this for future Laguna days. I was later referred to a gentleman named Jay Murray who builds silencers specifically for Laguna, he’s able to knock out about 10 dBs by installing a dB killer and he’s also been known to install tips to deflect sound to the left (away from the sound booth).

Everything else with the bike went great, though the speedometer/odometer wasn’t really working. Turns out the speed sensor was out of alignment and just a little too far, which is something I’d have to get fixed later:

Overall, I was in love with the Kramer. I would obviously adore the additional power of a 890 GP2 but the price is prohibitive for me right now.

Here’s some additional highlights from the event:

Our riding group got in the day before to stay in a rental home together. We did a little grocery shopping for snacks/waters for the track day but every time I’m in the area, I have to grab some Pepper Plant hot sauce so I snagged a couple of bottles of those as well:

Our neighbors in the pits were from California Speed-Sports and they brought out a beautiful RS250 in the Loris Reggiani Replica livery to spin some laps.

My buddy and overall badass Steve Rapp is blown away by how little (285 pounds) the Kramer weighs.

Max Biaggi kindly added to my growing signature collection.

Olly, Ted, myself, Max, and Adam:

I got back home afterwards and my General Manager at the time (Kent Kunitsugu, previously of Sport Rider fame) asked what I thought of the Kramer. While I harped on about what I loved about my super single, he asked a bit about the exact specs and we realized that it was the closest someone could get to a modern “production” Ducati Supermono. Obviously the Ducati will always be more legendary and the components used were more exotic/exquisite, but it has the price tag to match.

It made 75 horsepower and weighed 277 pounds dry, while the Kramer (with the benefit of 3 decades of progress) makes 85 hp and weighs 285 pounds wet. They’re both purpose-built single-cylinder race bikes but the Kramer cost me about 1/10th of what a Supermono would run nowadays. Anyway, I’m not trying to equate the two bikes, it’s just interesting how similar they are in many ways. This discussion happened before Ducati released the Hypermotard 698 Mono and I hope they’ll make a sport/race bike with that Superquadro Mono soon…

Part 7b: DoubleRFest at Barber

This is the event that inspired me to try racing.

It’s all due to my buddy Ted – a couple of weeks before this trip he generously gifted me an AiM Solo2 lap timer. So this was the first time I actually saw what lap times I was doing – more on that later.

The Iconic crew went out to Barber for the Vintage Festival and we stayed an extra day to ride the track with Nate Kern through his DoubleRFest track day. The Vintage Festival is an incredible event – I was never able to make it in the past as my last company always had a conference the same weekend but now I hope to be there all the time, even though it frequently overlaps with my birthday and that bums my girlfriend Vy out a bit.

Special thanks to the folks over at Kramer Motorcycles – AHRMA was racing at Barber before DoubleRFest so they were in town, I went by their pit to say hi and I mentioned that my shock was feeling a little soft now that I was getting faster so they grabbed a stiffer spring off one of their race bikes and swapped it onto mine so I couldget a bit more support in the back. It helped tremendously and I was so impressed that a company offers that level of service for customers on the fly!

I actually missed the first session due to a minor coolant leak (a hose clamp was loose) and I spent the second session re-learning the track layout (a coach kindly showed me some lines). In the third session, I knocked out a 1:39, which I was pretty stoked about as the folks at Kramer USA said I should be shooting for something between 1:40-1:45 as a “good” time. I have plenty more to learn but I felt like I was really clicking with the bike. I also felt that any speed gains that could come would have to be due to the advancement of my own skills, though there’s also a ton of adjustability in the ergonomics/chassis that I haven’t really touched but I still don’t know enough to confidently make changes. I still have a ton to learn about suspension setup and reading tire wear.

I was getting comfortable with the bike and I was happy with my one-off lap time but this was my first visit to Barber so I spent my first few sessions learning the track and then I switched to following some clients that had joined so I spent most of my time getting video footage of them. I also followed our technician Olly around Barber for a lap on his Honda NSF250. Remember how in the last event I mentioned that my speed sensor wasn’t working? I tried a fix but it was still reading slow, as you can see below. You can also hear just how damn loud his little 250 is with the SC Project exhaust.

It was a wonderful track day and I hope you join us for the next one coming up later this year! Speaking of looking to the future – this is about time to talk about my AIM timer. I’ve always known that I wasn’t slow but I never thought of myself as particularly fast. Having a lap timer on my bike was a bit of a wake up call, as it gave me data to compare to the people who were racing in the class appropriate for my bike the previous weekend. I didn’t think about the timing while at the track but my birthday was the night of the track day so the group of us all went out for dinner to a restaurant named…Abhi Eatery and Bar. What are the chances?!

It was a good group!

And after the alcohol was flowing and a generous trip was given, the restaurant may have given me one of chef’s jackets as a birthday present. It hangs on the wall of my office now…

With all of that said, there was a point during dinner when I thought about the lap times that Olly and I were turning during the track day. Obviously things are different between a public track day and a race situation but when I looked into what the top race guys were running in our respective classes versus what we were doing that day, it looked like we definitely wouldn’t be bringing up the rear (and Olly looked like he had a real solid chance of making the podium). That night, thanks to a little bit of data and a little bit of alcohol, I decided to go racing the next year.

Here’s a bonus if you’ve made it this far: one of our investors at Iconic owns a Honda RC213V-S (that we sourced for him and installed the Sports Kit on). He asked us to bring it to Barber so that he could fly in and take it out for a few laps, which he did. He also asked Olly to take it out for a bit so I had to follow for that – so here’s some footage of a rare event: a 213 on the track!

I now regret buying the S model (built for trackdays) instead of the R model (built for racing), but back when I bought this bike I never thought I’d compete with it. Such is life.

Part 7c: AHRMA Laguna Seca

Well, fast forward a few months and I went racing (with Olly). I’ve written about this about this previously – here’s a story and video from my first ever “proper” race weekend!

Part 7d: AHRMA Barber

Same thing here – I wrote about this separately but it should also be considered part of my Kramer ownership story. So here’s my second ever race weekend, which was at Barber in October. I ended up with my first podium finish!

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OK, that basically catches me up to early 2025 – I have plans of racing three events with AHRMA this year: Willow Springs, Inde Motorsports Ranch, and Barber. Sadly, AHRMA won’t be going to Laguna Seca this year as it’s just too expensive (they bumped up rates after the repave). I wanted to get all this written up so I can be current before I share two more posts about the Kramer this week.

I also know I owe you more about the CB175, though that story arc definitely did not go as well as the Kramer one did. Expect updates on that very soon, and thanks for your patience!