street riding sketchy turns
#21
01-21-2011, 06:16 PM
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I uploaded some pics in my profile of my bike. It was done with cans. Take your time and cans work just fine. Let me know if you need help when you start with the project.
#22
01-22-2011, 02:32 PM
#23
01-22-2011, 03:30 PM
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#24
01-23-2011, 11:02 AM
I'm probably one of the outwardly grumpier sorts that most people don't like to listen to, but I just wanted to chime in and offer my unrequested two cents 
First off, you have mentioned a few problems with the bike that could either be major or minor (depending on how much oil has leaked, and how worn the brakes are). These are potentially life threatening types of problems. You need brakes, and a improperly functioning front suspension leaking oil onto the rotors is not good. I think it is fairly obvious what could happen there. So, I strongly recommend you fix both. If you can't afford to fix both now, consider your safety seriously.
Secondly, how many miles have you ridden on the street, and have you taken a riders education course? You're asking questions about lean angle and body position, and from my interprettation of your current STREET riding skill, I think you should be focused on other things.
I'll briefly talk about my experience at the track; in order to ride fast you have to ride slow first. The people who hit the track the first day and TRIED to go fast either crashed that day, crashed shortly after, or never got to be fast. On the track there are fundamentals; braking points, the line, brake control, throttle control, then body position. When you try to go fast everything is happening so fast you can not consistently hit your brake points, you panic and brake early your bravado and brake late (skidding off the track spectacularily). The guys who started slow are hitting those brake points at low speed. Then they go faster and hit those points. They hit the line within an couple of inches EVERY time. This consistency allows them to move that brake point deeper, to adjust the line... and when they start doing it faster they are no longer thinking about, they are just doing it -- all of a sudden what was fast suddenly feel slow.
And it is the last point I want to bring to your attention. Right now as a new street rider there is a lot going on. You're focusing on the details that, while they do matter, they're not the best thing to worry about right now. Right now you need to slow down. You need to work on looking into the corner. Work on being ultra smooth with the throttle, and learning to ride less on the brakes and more on the throttle -- start backing off the throttle before the corner, and smooth your ride out. Your suspension will thank you, and years down the road when you're carving amazing lines through a track, you'll thank yourself for working on the real important things.
Right now I'd recommend sitting upright on the bike. Don't hang off. Don't stick a knee out. Get the ***** of your feet on the pegs, look into the corner. Focus on the line, and work on being ultra smooth. For you and your bike (the bad throttle and the suspension in particular!) this will turn it from a fear of running wide, wobbling, and otherwise pucker inducing moments into what feels like a blade carving the road. THIS is what twist of the wrist is about -- The Pace has NOTHING to do with going fast and everything to do with efficiency, safety, and skill.
Seriously -- even a web snip of The Pace is a fantastic read, and I highly recommend EVERYONE considers the principles. The street is no place to test ones limits, there are far too many dangers and unknowns.
My advice in two lines?
- Fix the bike
- Change your learning priorities.
Woot.
First off, you have mentioned a few problems with the bike that could either be major or minor (depending on how much oil has leaked, and how worn the brakes are). These are potentially life threatening types of problems. You need brakes, and a improperly functioning front suspension leaking oil onto the rotors is not good. I think it is fairly obvious what could happen there. So, I strongly recommend you fix both. If you can't afford to fix both now, consider your safety seriously.
Secondly, how many miles have you ridden on the street, and have you taken a riders education course? You're asking questions about lean angle and body position, and from my interprettation of your current STREET riding skill, I think you should be focused on other things.
I'll briefly talk about my experience at the track; in order to ride fast you have to ride slow first. The people who hit the track the first day and TRIED to go fast either crashed that day, crashed shortly after, or never got to be fast. On the track there are fundamentals; braking points, the line, brake control, throttle control, then body position. When you try to go fast everything is happening so fast you can not consistently hit your brake points, you panic and brake early your bravado and brake late (skidding off the track spectacularily). The guys who started slow are hitting those brake points at low speed. Then they go faster and hit those points. They hit the line within an couple of inches EVERY time. This consistency allows them to move that brake point deeper, to adjust the line... and when they start doing it faster they are no longer thinking about, they are just doing it -- all of a sudden what was fast suddenly feel slow.
And it is the last point I want to bring to your attention. Right now as a new street rider there is a lot going on. You're focusing on the details that, while they do matter, they're not the best thing to worry about right now. Right now you need to slow down. You need to work on looking into the corner. Work on being ultra smooth with the throttle, and learning to ride less on the brakes and more on the throttle -- start backing off the throttle before the corner, and smooth your ride out. Your suspension will thank you, and years down the road when you're carving amazing lines through a track, you'll thank yourself for working on the real important things.
Right now I'd recommend sitting upright on the bike. Don't hang off. Don't stick a knee out. Get the ***** of your feet on the pegs, look into the corner. Focus on the line, and work on being ultra smooth. For you and your bike (the bad throttle and the suspension in particular!) this will turn it from a fear of running wide, wobbling, and otherwise pucker inducing moments into what feels like a blade carving the road. THIS is what twist of the wrist is about -- The Pace has NOTHING to do with going fast and everything to do with efficiency, safety, and skill.
Seriously -- even a web snip of The Pace is a fantastic read, and I highly recommend EVERYONE considers the principles. The street is no place to test ones limits, there are far too many dangers and unknowns.
My advice in two lines?
- Fix the bike
- Change your learning priorities.
Woot.
#25
01-23-2011, 12:23 PM
Join Date: Sep 2010
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Woot we meet again. You are always welcome in my threads you give great advice. I ride with a buddy and since I posted this thread I have done about 3,000 miles. I plan on fixing the bike this tax return but I have been riding with a friend who is helping me a lot with the basics before he takes me in to the real tight twisties but. Still learning everytime I get on.
#26
01-23-2011, 12:26 PM
I'm probably one of the outwardly grumpier sorts that most people don't like to listen to, but I just wanted to chime in and offer my unrequested two cents
First off, you have mentioned a few problems with the bike that could either be major or minor (depending on how much oil has leaked, and how worn the brakes are). These are potentially life threatening types of problems. You need brakes, and a improperly functioning front suspension leaking oil onto the rotors is not good. I think it is fairly obvious what could happen there. So, I strongly recommend you fix both. If you can't afford to fix both now, consider your safety seriously.
Secondly, how many miles have you ridden on the street, and have you taken a riders education course? You're asking questions about lean angle and body position, and from my interprettation of your current STREET riding skill, I think you should be focused on other things.
I'll briefly talk about my experience at the track; in order to ride fast you have to ride slow first. The people who hit the track the first day and TRIED to go fast either crashed that day, crashed shortly after, or never got to be fast. On the track there are fundamentals; braking points, the line, brake control, throttle control, then body position. When you try to go fast everything is happening so fast you can not consistently hit your brake points, you panic and brake early your bravado and brake late (skidding off the track spectacularily). The guys who started slow are hitting those brake points at low speed. Then they go faster and hit those points. They hit the line within an couple of inches EVERY time. This consistency allows them to move that brake point deeper, to adjust the line... and when they start doing it faster they are no longer thinking about, they are just doing it -- all of a sudden what was fast suddenly feel slow.
And it is the last point I want to bring to your attention. Right now as a new street rider there is a lot going on. You're focusing on the details that, while they do matter, they're not the best thing to worry about right now. Right now you need to slow down. You need to work on looking into the corner. Work on being ultra smooth with the throttle, and learning to ride less on the brakes and more on the throttle -- start backing off the throttle before the corner, and smooth your ride out. Your suspension will thank you, and years down the road when you're carving amazing lines through a track, you'll thank yourself for working on the real important things.
Right now I'd recommend sitting upright on the bike. Don't hang off. Don't stick a knee out. Get the ***** of your feet on the pegs, look into the corner. Focus on the line, and work on being ultra smooth. For you and your bike (the bad throttle and the suspension in particular!) this will turn it from a fear of running wide, wobbling, and otherwise pucker inducing moments into what feels like a blade carving the road. THIS is what twist of the wrist is about -- The Pace has NOTHING to do with going fast and everything to do with efficiency, safety, and skill.
Seriously -- even a web snip of The Pace is a fantastic read, and I highly recommend EVERYONE considers the principles. The street is no place to test ones limits, there are far too many dangers and unknowns.
My advice in two lines?
- Fix the bike
- Change your learning priorities.
Woot.
First off, you have mentioned a few problems with the bike that could either be major or minor (depending on how much oil has leaked, and how worn the brakes are). These are potentially life threatening types of problems. You need brakes, and a improperly functioning front suspension leaking oil onto the rotors is not good. I think it is fairly obvious what could happen there. So, I strongly recommend you fix both. If you can't afford to fix both now, consider your safety seriously.
Secondly, how many miles have you ridden on the street, and have you taken a riders education course? You're asking questions about lean angle and body position, and from my interprettation of your current STREET riding skill, I think you should be focused on other things.
I'll briefly talk about my experience at the track; in order to ride fast you have to ride slow first. The people who hit the track the first day and TRIED to go fast either crashed that day, crashed shortly after, or never got to be fast. On the track there are fundamentals; braking points, the line, brake control, throttle control, then body position. When you try to go fast everything is happening so fast you can not consistently hit your brake points, you panic and brake early your bravado and brake late (skidding off the track spectacularily). The guys who started slow are hitting those brake points at low speed. Then they go faster and hit those points. They hit the line within an couple of inches EVERY time. This consistency allows them to move that brake point deeper, to adjust the line... and when they start doing it faster they are no longer thinking about, they are just doing it -- all of a sudden what was fast suddenly feel slow.
And it is the last point I want to bring to your attention. Right now as a new street rider there is a lot going on. You're focusing on the details that, while they do matter, they're not the best thing to worry about right now. Right now you need to slow down. You need to work on looking into the corner. Work on being ultra smooth with the throttle, and learning to ride less on the brakes and more on the throttle -- start backing off the throttle before the corner, and smooth your ride out. Your suspension will thank you, and years down the road when you're carving amazing lines through a track, you'll thank yourself for working on the real important things.
Right now I'd recommend sitting upright on the bike. Don't hang off. Don't stick a knee out. Get the ***** of your feet on the pegs, look into the corner. Focus on the line, and work on being ultra smooth. For you and your bike (the bad throttle and the suspension in particular!) this will turn it from a fear of running wide, wobbling, and otherwise pucker inducing moments into what feels like a blade carving the road. THIS is what twist of the wrist is about -- The Pace has NOTHING to do with going fast and everything to do with efficiency, safety, and skill.
Seriously -- even a web snip of The Pace is a fantastic read, and I highly recommend EVERYONE considers the principles. The street is no place to test ones limits, there are far too many dangers and unknowns.
My advice in two lines?
- Fix the bike
- Change your learning priorities.
Woot.
You all healed up woot?
#27
01-23-2011, 01:26 PM
Mostly -- I've got to get that finger looked at again. I was out last week doing a test and I really don't have much strength in it. Big problem for braking. :-/
I'm hoping the new Doc will be able to do something - at this point it still feels like it has bits floating in it. The big joint in the middle starts at the normal place, but stays wide until almost the tip the joint.
Not sure what will happen this season - might end up just touring about :-(
I'm hoping the new Doc will be able to do something - at this point it still feels like it has bits floating in it. The big joint in the middle starts at the normal place, but stays wide until almost the tip the joint.
Not sure what will happen this season - might end up just touring about :-(
#28
01-23-2011, 01:39 PM
#30
01-23-2011, 05:24 PM
The way any one person learns a track is different -- for me my first day was at the school. We had a class room session talking about the principles - we had a giant poster of the track - we had racers talking about it. Then we did the track walk.
The track walk was a chance for you to see each corner. The instructors pointed out features that they recognized and used as reference points. For example, coming down into corner 1 there is a rough patch in the middle of the track. Prior to that is the start/finish line and a broken strip across the track. In corner 2 there is a diamond shaped patch just inside the line. In corner 3 there is a little hump. In corner 4 there is a dead tree on the braking line, and a rough patch outside the line. Corner 5 has a patch at the apex. Corner 6 has a dip. Corner 7 has a set of turtles. Corner 8 has a bump on the inside of it's entrance. Corner 9 has a patch that if you sit on it's edge you see it open up and duck in. Corner 10 I make work from corner 9. Corner 11 has a part that is more steeply cambered. On top of that there are often cones marking set distances from the corner.
So -- on the track I have spots that I use for braking reference. As I come over the start finish line I'm watching for the break in the pavement -- sit up on the brakes, and looking for the rough spot. At the FIRST school I did probably 10 sessions of 15 minutes. The slowest lap we did was probably 2 minutes? so we saw that corner at least 75 times in that first weekend. Riding slow you practice braking at that exact same spot each and every time. You practice turning in at that exact same time. At the end of the weekend if you'd look at my lap times they'd have been at most a second different from each other -- why? Because each lap I was doing the same general thing. That's how I learn the track - practice. Learn to do something - make it work - then try changing things one corner at a time. A little deeper here. An extra gear there. Shift early to settle it down through the bump in 6, or early to avoid the wheelie between 3 and 4.
The difference between the track and the street is that the track in very very very controlled - the track doesn't really change (rain/accidents/traffic yes) but the street is never the same. On the track you can ride right into the corner before braking so long as you brake in at your brake marker it will work. On the street you can not do that -- which is why I recommend learning to rely more on throttle position than on braking. If you learn to ride smoothly and in control on throttle alone, you have a huge safety margin for that car that stops mid S-turn to take a photo, or that deer that wanted the grass on the other side of the road.
And I'm biased - I love the feel of using just one gear and swooping through a set of corners effortlessly. I'd rather do that than run the bike hard (on the street) and be fighting it the whole damn time. When one corner flows into the next, the bikes suspension is happily absorbing the slight flick to the other side... well that's the perfect moment.
Ramble mode off;
Brake point -- the place on the track that I start braking for a corner. At 120mph you can not guess, you have to know -- and the mind is absolutely amazing at recognizing a tiny dimple in the pavement and squeezing the brake lever at the right time. What it is not good at is looking at a corner and thinking - ummm... now? The time to process the information and the milliseconds it takes to actually transmit the message, brain to hand, squeeze the lever is TOO long at that speed.
Was that the question?
The track walk was a chance for you to see each corner. The instructors pointed out features that they recognized and used as reference points. For example, coming down into corner 1 there is a rough patch in the middle of the track. Prior to that is the start/finish line and a broken strip across the track. In corner 2 there is a diamond shaped patch just inside the line. In corner 3 there is a little hump. In corner 4 there is a dead tree on the braking line, and a rough patch outside the line. Corner 5 has a patch at the apex. Corner 6 has a dip. Corner 7 has a set of turtles. Corner 8 has a bump on the inside of it's entrance. Corner 9 has a patch that if you sit on it's edge you see it open up and duck in. Corner 10 I make work from corner 9. Corner 11 has a part that is more steeply cambered. On top of that there are often cones marking set distances from the corner.
So -- on the track I have spots that I use for braking reference. As I come over the start finish line I'm watching for the break in the pavement -- sit up on the brakes, and looking for the rough spot. At the FIRST school I did probably 10 sessions of 15 minutes. The slowest lap we did was probably 2 minutes? so we saw that corner at least 75 times in that first weekend. Riding slow you practice braking at that exact same spot each and every time. You practice turning in at that exact same time. At the end of the weekend if you'd look at my lap times they'd have been at most a second different from each other -- why? Because each lap I was doing the same general thing. That's how I learn the track - practice. Learn to do something - make it work - then try changing things one corner at a time. A little deeper here. An extra gear there. Shift early to settle it down through the bump in 6, or early to avoid the wheelie between 3 and 4.
The difference between the track and the street is that the track in very very very controlled - the track doesn't really change (rain/accidents/traffic yes) but the street is never the same. On the track you can ride right into the corner before braking so long as you brake in at your brake marker it will work. On the street you can not do that -- which is why I recommend learning to rely more on throttle position than on braking. If you learn to ride smoothly and in control on throttle alone, you have a huge safety margin for that car that stops mid S-turn to take a photo, or that deer that wanted the grass on the other side of the road.
And I'm biased - I love the feel of using just one gear and swooping through a set of corners effortlessly. I'd rather do that than run the bike hard (on the street) and be fighting it the whole damn time. When one corner flows into the next, the bikes suspension is happily absorbing the slight flick to the other side... well that's the perfect moment.
Ramble mode off;
Brake point -- the place on the track that I start braking for a corner. At 120mph you can not guess, you have to know -- and the mind is absolutely amazing at recognizing a tiny dimple in the pavement and squeezing the brake lever at the right time. What it is not good at is looking at a corner and thinking - ummm... now? The time to process the information and the milliseconds it takes to actually transmit the message, brain to hand, squeeze the lever is TOO long at that speed.
Was that the question?