Through Flogging...
 

Last weekend my rider's club organized a group ride/ weekend trip to Helen, GA (20 miles away from Deals Gap)

Wanting to spend time with the wife & kids, but wanting to go along on te ride as well, I opted out from taking my sportbike, but took my girls with me on the RX-8.

We did not ride the actual dragon, (too much traffic/ police partolling there lately)but rode almost evry other mountain pass in the area.

I gotta say I was super satisfied with Shinka's performance chasing down some very experienced riders, on some of the best mountain passes in the east coast.

It was mostly 2/3/4th gear corners on all sorts of up & downhill sections maintaining the engine simmering at 5-9K RPMs.

I gotta say the Renesis's character is very close to my CBR 600RR. (little torque down low, but will rev to infinity, getting stronger as the revs climb without a hint of slowing down, with the smoothest power delivery this side of a jet turbine)
The analog tach and digital speedo are also very close to the way my sportbike displays the info.

Heel & toe downshifting as I got ready for the next set of corners I noticed how freely the engine reved, and how effortless it was to rev-match the gear changes to maintain the engine in its "happy place"

I am not the "end all be all" of driving, and the stability control stepped in on a couple of times to control a little understeer brought on by too aggressive trail braking, but after a couple of corners I realized that braking heavier before corner entry, and accelerating through the corner (like you would when riding a motorcycle) kept the stability control in check.

I did not push extremely hard though, (I had my daughters in the car with me afterall) but gave Shinka a through workout, having a grand ole time while doing so.
The only thing I missed was the bike's ability to bank & lean into the corners, but it is a very nice prblem to have, when you go into your garage evry morning and are torn between which vehicle you want to take to work that day, because they both exite you so!

I had a wonderful weekend, with great friends, and am a very blessed man!

Thanks for sharing, I love this post. I have 2 sport bikes, but now have a family with 3 little girls, so the bikes are now neglected. I'm in search of an 8, so this post was a nice read.