On Sunday I took my 2015 R1 out to Thill for some track time. I've yet to get an actual good day at the track on the bike and despite it being my own personal bike, plenty of other people have ridden her during testing of some fork combinations and had a great time. Finally, I got time to run her myself.
The bike's setup was spot on with the GP Suspension cartridge front end and Penske rear. No problems with that, nor the flash tune and Yosh exhaust. However, a few laps into the session and the reasons for never putting ABS on a track bike appeared quite visibly and with puckering results. On the R1 there is no "off" switch for the system and that creates a worse situation for heavy breakers.
Going into T14 at Thill about 4-5 laps into the session, going under and around a few people, the ABS kicked off. When the ABS is active, the front brake lever "kicks" a the lever away from the bar and the bike loses breaking performance. The first time this happened, I stood the bike up and ran into the runoff, then re-entered the track. It was very disruptive to what I needed to have happen (more breaking, not less). No, the tire was not in danger of locking. Instead, I believe the ABS controller wasn't able to handle the heat of the brake fluid. Each time I went out on the track after this, I'd get the same thing a few laps in, in the heavy braking areas. To add more fun to the equation, Yamaha likes to help you out with a linked braking system and has the rear brake take slack in braking force which in heavy braking corners, encourages the rear end to back around the front end. "Fun".
After getting used to the ABS kicking on in the most inopportune of times, I was able to pull the lever harder and get a bit more breaking, but I was still losing full breaking force.
It strikes me as odd that the EU standards would require ABS and the manufacturers don't include an "off" switch for track bikes. A heads up: careful on these systems when running hard. They're excellent machines, but the ABS is far from "safety", IMO.
The bike's setup was spot on with the GP Suspension cartridge front end and Penske rear. No problems with that, nor the flash tune and Yosh exhaust. However, a few laps into the session and the reasons for never putting ABS on a track bike appeared quite visibly and with puckering results. On the R1 there is no "off" switch for the system and that creates a worse situation for heavy breakers.
Going into T14 at Thill about 4-5 laps into the session, going under and around a few people, the ABS kicked off. When the ABS is active, the front brake lever "kicks" a the lever away from the bar and the bike loses breaking performance. The first time this happened, I stood the bike up and ran into the runoff, then re-entered the track. It was very disruptive to what I needed to have happen (more breaking, not less). No, the tire was not in danger of locking. Instead, I believe the ABS controller wasn't able to handle the heat of the brake fluid. Each time I went out on the track after this, I'd get the same thing a few laps in, in the heavy braking areas. To add more fun to the equation, Yamaha likes to help you out with a linked braking system and has the rear brake take slack in braking force which in heavy braking corners, encourages the rear end to back around the front end. "Fun".
After getting used to the ABS kicking on in the most inopportune of times, I was able to pull the lever harder and get a bit more breaking, but I was still losing full breaking force.
It strikes me as odd that the EU standards would require ABS and the manufacturers don't include an "off" switch for track bikes. A heads up: careful on these systems when running hard. They're excellent machines, but the ABS is far from "safety", IMO.
Looks like I'll have to find some way to disable that ABS nonsense before I track the '16 this year. 
