Good job! Keep it up. Only way to get better is practice...more and more seat time! Glad the items on the list are helping. Just remember smooth throttle control (and smooth braking, too) ...abrupt can lead to bad things.

Using "push/pull" can effectively help you learn the right amounts of force and get the smoothness down, but remember to relax after setting the turn. Both arms relaxed. With a nice pointy front tire, minimal effort is needed to dive the front.

I use tank pads (Stomp Grip), they help with keeping your position where you want it.

It takes a heck of a lot more lean angle to scrub a front tire. The geometry on some tires just won't let it happen. So, don't worry about it. Chicken Strips or Wisdom Strips?

 

stomp grip pads work WONDERS, no more slipping and sliding, I can keep more so in one spot and have more control of moving my **** around. Also aftermarket seat helps too. 954rr seat is too slippery. Glad to hear your feeling better and more comfortable on the ole cbr.

 

I think its something us city boys are neglecting, to our own peril. I've noticed that city riding and commuting tends to make my riding... lazy for lack of a better word. Easing through turrns, gentle braking, lazy shifting. I can get away with it normally. Prolly a lot more than normally because of situational awareness.

But I feel that's a losing path. Eventually something will happen in the streets that demands a more aggressive approach. And if it hasn't been practiced, it'll be pure luck whether or not I ride away on my bike. Or in an ambulance.

 

Think I found a good place to practice... Inside the city


It's less than 10 min from my apartment. I went for a quick ride thru ealier. Came up Parkside Ave to 52nd and turned right off 52nd onto Avenue of the Republic. The circle there took me by surprise (never been thru the park in a vehicle before) so I bailed on it and stayed on Avenue of the Republic and came home to look up the map.

The road seems fairly well kept. Low traffic being a park with open sight lines. None of the curves seem major or at least I can avoid any of the hard ones easily. Figure I can hit here after work everyday for a quick ride thru to practice.

 

That looks like nice fun roads. We do a few passes on a park like that and then leave so as not to attract PoPo. Nothing crazy, just people staring. Then come back later...

 

Thanks for such interesting thread!

I'm going through the same exactly things myself. I've read the books, attended some seminars about proper body position and etc., but I'm really lacking the practice. In the city you pretty much only get 90 degree turns + all this oil right in the middle of any intersection.
The main key to proper learning is to take one thing at a time in my opinion. Looking for the exit point is the most important. Once you got this down, then you start thinking about proper body position and applied pressure.
The next step for me is to get the grip pads to be able support myself with just legs and try to loosen my arms completely while in a turn. This should definitely help.

 

Well I've been practicing as I've said and I've noticed its the sharp turns that give me trouble. Basically the 90 degree turns that's most city streets. Turning from a 1 lane onto a 2 lane one way I can do. With a tiny bit of trouble landing in the near lane. I know it's legal to use either lane when turning onto a bigger street. But my challenge to myself is to stick it in the near lane. Which I usually hit. I figure if I can take the harder track cleanly, I have what's leftover for buffer in case there's trouble.

But making the 90 degree turns are harder for me because of how much speed I think I need to scrub off. A lot of times I feel I'm in that transitory period between counter steering and normal steering. Thinking about it, I'm not snapping the bike over quickly or hard enough to make tighter turns at higher speed.

I'm guessing it'll come with practice, especially as I get the body movement down. Dropping the inside arm: no problem. But I'm either late or early with shifting my lower body, usually too early. Prolly because I'm thinking if I shift my weight at the wrong time, I'll unsettle the bike (true?). And if I'm gonna have my bike unsettled, it's better to be like that early when I'm not in the turn yet. Than late and have to deal with an unsettled bike and a lean,

 

Actually, early is no big deal. Imagine a road with a straight, then a nice left, a short straight, and then another left. I see students all the time on the straight, shift their body position, take the left, shift back up for the short straight, then shift again for the next left. There's actually no reason to shift body position back and forth like that. What does that translate to on the street? Shifting over a tad early won't hurt, less to think about setting up for the turn. With two turns, remaining over requires less energy, less shifting means less movement to the bike. Shifting body position during the turn will upset the bike, so late is bad.

 

When I have to take 90 degree turn to the left, late steering input is the best thing that works for me. So I end up staying on the very left lane without crossing the other. It also means a bit increased lean angle, which isn't a big problem.

 

Well, the practice is working. Can't find any pics of the tires originally. But this is my wear. The 'wisdom' strips were much wider when I got them. You can see a bit of the difference in shade from where they were originally. For street riding, I doubt I'll get them down much further. It'd be stupid to lean harder on regular streets. Too much speed required to keep the rubber side down.

I have discovered something about myself in the process: I LOVE LEANING! It's funny because my straight line riding is rather timid, speed limit and normal acceleration, compared to squids flying past. But when they're braking hard to make a turn, I slide right past them with barely a touch of the rear brake.

What I'm working on now is throttle control and throttle steering. In Nick Ienatsch's Sport Riding Techniques he describes using the throttle to assist in steering, reducing brake use. And making cleaner, more stable turns. I've felt it, but haven't quite been able to do it on command consistently. And I'm fairly sure I'm gonna have to invest in a track day sooner than later.

For me, this is about maximizing my control over my bike and being able to fully utilize its agility. Something I feel is needed on the street in order to stay safe. But the street is too chaotic and unpredictable to practice some of this. Someone needs to design a closed course track setup like the streets