Pata Honda's Jonathan Rea is in a positive frame of mind heading into the winter and a brace of tests in Spain before the World Superbike winter test ban comes into force on December 1.

Although the Irishman missed out on the final set of races at Jerez, he was able to get out on the following Tuesday to carry out some useful work on electronics setup.

"I could have ridden much earlier than that actually, but being physically able to ride and being safe to ride are two very different things. Before the Jerez test I had a Biodex scan and we were able to see that I was 30 per cent weaker on my left leg and the bone had not fully re-grown," said Rea.

"In motorcycle racing there are so many pressures to return too fast from a serious injury before you’re at 100%; but I am a professional athlete, and any further accident to my leg at this point would have had major consequences for my preparation for 2014."

At Jerez, Rea worked on some geometry ideas but found they weren't for him and the team will go to Motorland Aragon early next month and then back to Jerez before the test ban comes in. Rea says there is a lot to do and that every dry lap counts.

I started with my base setting from Nurburgring and my base electronic set up that we arrived at in the middle of the season because that was familiar to me. During the test we tried some geometry changes that Chris [Pike – crew chief] had planned after feedback from Michel Fabrizio but, for me, they weren’t positive. But my guys gave me a much better feeling with my throttle on acceleration and deceleration, so we can continue to work on this at the next test.

"We have quite a big list to get through this winter but this time it is more achievable. I just pray for dry days because, with the test ban in place and overseas testing banned, every lap is going to count for us!"