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squirrels

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  1. One of the most important things to do your first time on any track is to find a "good line" through the corners. You have to know where you want to be on the track before you can put yourself there, and knowing a good line is essential for being able to brake late, carry good speed, and get back on the gas early. Some trackday groups mark the "ideal" entries and apexes with cones. Others have programs where they'll take new riders around the track at a slower pace and show them the lines. Others operate more like what you said...where if you lose sight of the control-rider ahead of you, you could be left to fend for yourself. However, usually if you find a CR and ask him to show you around the track, they'll be more than happy to get you up to speed. I know how you feel...I did VIR South last weekend and the pack I was following got out ahead early, leaving me lost and bewildered on a track full of off-camber hairpins and blind switchbacks. But I found a CR and he showed me around the track, which helped me figure out good lines. Once I knew where I wanted to be, I started finding "reference points" and did a little bit better. When I got to North, having ridden it before with CSS, I already knew most of the track, so as soon as I got out there, everything came back and I got "flying" early. Don't expect to jump on to ANY track you've never ridden before and just be able to "go".
  2. From what I've seen, the "chicken strips" on the rear are a good indication of not necessarily skill, but how comfortable the rider is in leaning the bike. If you see a good 2" of un-touched sheen, it's pretty reasonable to think that the bike is functioning more as a "show-horse" than a "work-horse". But once you get down past maybe a half-inch or so, a lot of things can determine how much rear strip comes off, from the riding style (hanging off more stands the bike up more and gets you more turn with less lean) to the profile of the tire. (I have a 190 rear on my R1 and I still have trouble getting the last little bit of the tire) The FRONT is a different story entirely. Unlike the rear, which is fixed in relation to the frame of the bike, the front is on a steering pivot. My theory is that the physics of the motorcycle are a big part of why the "front strips" don't get worn down, especially in street-riding. The front tire is constantly tracking into the corner in most lower-speed turns. When you're countersteering, the tire only stays steered away for an initial split-second...then even as you're applying pressure to the bars increasing lean, the trail of the front-end has the wheel settling and steering into the turn, castering onto a more central part of the tire rather than the edge. Most "street turns" are relatively quick...you get in a little deeper to get more of a look through blind corners and you flick in and back out pretty quick, so your front tire really has no time to work toward the edge. The kinds of corners that I've seen put wear on the front "strips" are long, sweeping turns, especially with decreasing radius. Being on the steering through more of the wheel's travel seems to give the edges more of a scrub. Carrying some more speed and trailing the brakes a little into the turn (reducing the trail) also seems to get at them a little more. Bottom line is that front strips really don't tell you much about "rider skill". They're largely dependent on what kind of cornering you're doing, and I wouldn't expect you to really start seeing them wear from riding on public roads. My 0.02. Your mileage may vary.
  3. If you don't look before you turn, how will you know where you're going?
  4. This was posted on Triumph675.net and has been making its rounds around the Internet. http://www.triumph675.net/forum/showthread.php?p=533235 The photographer did an excellent job of capturing this crash in motion. The reason I'm posting it here is because I noticed something interesting when someone made this animated GIF of it...it wasn't as easy to see in the stills, but when the shots are lined up, it becomes obvious. The bike begins to pitch in earnest in frame 5 of the animation. Can you spot the "survival reaction" in frame 4? Rider was OK, by the way.
  5. For what it's worth, you can't practice "hanging off" from a standstill. The G-forces on the bike in motion are different. Because the bike is leaned over, gravity is not "straight down", and the centrifugal force of cornering also factors in. In other words, you'll never feel comfortable hanging off a stationary bike. I've practiced "hanging off" on bikes in dealerships, but only while putting a hand out to brace myself against the bike next to me. BTW...it freaks them out when you do that. Don't think of it as "hanging off". Work up to it...start by just leaning a shoulder off the side of the bike. Then let your butt slide some, and get off it a little more aech time out until you're comfortable. But everyone else is correct. As long as you're not sitting "up on top" the bike, there are other things that can be causing you to use a lot of lean angle. Where and how you turn in makes the biggest difference. Not gonna go into too much more detail, but Keith's books and CSS Lvl1 cover it.
  6. I have a question...if more speed causes the bike to run a wider radius at a given lean-angle, why is that when you get on the gas after flicking the bike over, the bike doesn't start drifting wide? If I remember right, CSS teaches that chopping the throttle and/or grabbing the brakes will make the bike run wide and that more gas will make it hold its line. If you say that more speed increases turning radius, then why would the bike run WIDE when slowing DOWN and keep a CONSTANT RADIUS when accelerating? There have to be other forces at work, right? Maybe I'm just confused, but no one's ever really explained the physics of it to my satisfaction...rake, trail, precession, torque-steer, gravity vs. centrifugal force...it seems like everyone has their theories and the "solution" is somewhere in the middle, or a combination of all of these.
  7. Maybe it's a bad riding habit...I'm a street rider and haven't done a lot of track time, so maybe it's only taught through experience. But I DO want to get some track time soon, took CSS Level 1 a little while ago, just recently had a get-off, and kinda want to sort out everything I've been learning before I take another crack at it. Is there a quick-turn line for every corner? One example...a long sweeper. My tendency for these is to dial the lean in slowly to get a long, arcing line through it. Is this incorrect? If so, what's the correct way to do it? I feel like if I "snap it over", even with a late entry, I'll be off the inside of the road before the corner ends and have to correct. What's the correct solution, technically? Snap it over but not as far? Carry more speed in so a similar line REQUIRES a quicker turn-in? Another example...a decreasing radius or "hairpin" corner. I try to "run in deep" and take a later turning point on these so I can get a quick turn, but I don't always feel like I have enough road to "hook" the bike...plus I feel like getting that deep into the corner is going to send me on a wide line. Sometimes I'll come into the corner a little slower dial in the lean more gradually. I guess this is just slowing me down? Should I always be looking for a "quick-turn" line, to "square off" the corner? Or is there ANY place for a smoother bank-in to apex and then bank-out? Does the quick-turn only seem "abrupt" in certain corners because I'm not doing it right? Or because of natural fear/"survival reflexes"? Honestly...one of the reasons I'm asking is because I feel as though it plays into the "trail-braking" argument...my "get-off", at least from what I can remember had to do with trail-braking a corner pretty hard, losing my place in the corner, and trying to "quick-turn" the bike while completely forgetting to release the front brake. I've never felt a bike just "fall over" like that...I'm guessing the front-end tucked on me. Anyway...it seems to me from what I've read/experienced that trail-braking (not trying to start that argument here, but...) has little place in a "quick-turn" style of riding. If you're going to reach max-lean quickly, you want to be on the gas as soon as you know you're not going to lean the bike any further for the corner, and a "quick turn" will put you as that max-lean almost immediately. You could still "trail-brake", but it would only be brief, since turning quickly would require an equally quick trail-off of the brake to give traction back to cornering. If you lean more gradually, though, you wouldn't be at max-lean quickly like you would with a quick-turn...you'd only reach max-lean at about or just before the apex of the corner. So in theory you could trail the brakes, releasing pressure gradually all the way to max-lean (where you'd be off brakes and getting back on the gas). Am I making sense, or is all this getting jumbled in my mind? Anyway, the main thrust of my question is whether I should always be looking for a quick-turn line for EVERY corner?
  8. Sounds bizarre, doesn't it? I'm looking at the owner's manual right now and they recommend 36F/42R for all loads, all types of riding. I figured that was ridiculously high, so I started running 33F/39R as a compromise, and have been slowly creeping down.
  9. The factory recommendation is like 36 front, 42 rear. What I run is more like 32-33 front, 38 or so rear. (not very precise with it) I've got a dial gauge, not one of the little spring-pen POS gauges. Is GP Suspension anywhere remotely near the east coast? I'm in Baltimore, MD, so if it's a shop in California, there's no way I'm gonna get my bike all the way down there. I've been meaning to set the sag...it's just a matter of finding the time and working up the guts to tinker with it. That and it's hard to find someone to hold the bike up while I measure. The forks I can do with a zip-tie like Racer suggested, but the rear shock I need to think of something a little more creative.
  10. I check my tire pressure just about every time I ride. I think it's rider error. I was riding today and got leaned over past my "comfort threshold". The bike felt stable at first, even at that lean, but as soon as I started getting "scared", I felt the wobble. I think it's a combination of things...part of it is the feeling that I'm too close to the ground...I may be crawling back up on the bike a little, which has the opposite effect of hanging off in that the bike leans further. That and I may be stopping my throttle roll-on. As far as sag goes, I "guesstimated" it as best I could by myself, on the front anyway, and it looks like maybe 1 1/2 - 2 " in the front. Rear, I can't really tell without help. And it still has more adjustment. I might be OK. Once I can get some REAL numbers, I'll see if I can dial it in. I don't want to adjust one side unless I can adjust the other, since it could alter the overall geometry.
  11. I appreciate all your input. I want to get clarification on one more thing, though. Cranking up the preload may help me get close to the proper sag figure, but I'm concerned if I have to go all the way to the end of the preload adjustment, I'm going to take too much travel out of the suspension and compromise its ability to do its job. I don't know if I have money to upgrade the suspension right now. (Figures...you buy a 10-grand racebike and then they tell you that you need to spend 2-3 grand more to make it work with your weight) Assuming all I have to work with is the stock suspension, how far can I increase the preload before I start compromising the travel and functionality of the suspension? Should I leave 2-3 lines of adjustment regardless, or just crank it all the way down and suspension travel be damned? What's the proper compromise between suspension travel and proper sag setting? Thanks
  12. That, the incorrect spring rate, is a valid issue and concern. As is the possibility that you will lose a good deal of range of movement and degrade the progressive nature of the spring response as well in the process of cranking down and compressing the spring too short and tight beyond its operational range. However, at the end of the day, it is just as possible to bottom out a suspension that is too soft...eh? I agree that for spirited riding, the ultimate solution will be new springs. At 250 lbs plus gear I'm pretty sure you're going to be 20-30 lbs over the maximum rating of a typical stock shock spring range ...when new. So, I agree that really should be addressed. However, keep in mind that the manufacturer intends for a street bike to be able to operate safely with a passenger. It isn't like you are racing and need the last half a percent of performance for the ulitmate lap here. It might not be perfection, but, I have to believe that you will only increase safety and handling characteristic by at least approaching a happy medium. In my opinion, adding some pre-load to approach a happy medium with what you have HAS to be better than how it is must be set now (set for someone 80-90 lbs lighter than you). I am not familiar with your specific year/model, however, generally, there is a lock ring and an adjustment ring atop the shock spring which ideally you use a "spanner" style shock wrench to adjust. Often times a "spanner" style or "hook" type shock wrench should be supplied in your under seat emergency tool kit. It might be an attachment for a 3/8" ratchet or it could be something you assemble with the kit handle, but, in a pinch, a screwdriver and a claw hammer will work fine to tap the ring around, albeit carefully to not scratch the shock body or skin your knuckles...lol. Again, I think most all modern sport bikes come with threaded adjusters for the front fork pre-load that will be located on top of the fork cap above the triple tree and adjusted with a crescent wrench or large socket depending on the tools at hand. In a nutshell, you can wrap a zip tie around the fork leg, sit on the bike and measure how far the zip tie moves down the fork for your front sag. Some people say to "top out" the fork by pulling up on the hande bar to set the pre sag measurement (a famous team suzuki tuner told me that) some people just bounce the bike to find a static sag start point before you sit on the bike to move the zip tie. For you, for now, in this case, I wouldn't get too too concerned about which way is better or proper. I think you simply need to get something closer in the ball park because I have to guess that you might have something like two inches of sag going on. Ideally, for the street, something between 1 and 1.25 inches is a general rule of thumb recommended front and rear. For you, in my opinion, even getting toward one and a half (1.5) inches should help. Of course, I don't know, perhaps you have 1.5 now or 3 inches now....I can't really say. But anything has to better than where you are now IMO. I use a yard stick stood on end next to some fixed point on the rear subframe at a point located vertically above the axle. It helps to have a second person read the stick for that one or even use a pencil to mark it. I don't have time to go searching right now , but, I think Keith himself did a posting here about the best method for all of this. Gotta run. Lemme know how you go. BH Thanks for the heads-up. THere are a lot of posts drifting around about setting sag. I've heard, though, that compression damping should be increased as well whenever preload is added to help keep the suspension from bottoming out. Any truth to that? Or should I just leave the compression damping as-is? Also...can just the springs in the forks and the rear be replaced without spending thousands of dollars on aftermarket suspension parts?
  13. The reason I haven't monkeyed with the stock suspension settings is because 1) I have no idea what I'm doing, and 2), more importantly, from what I've read, the stock SPRINGS don't have the correct spring rate to support a rider of my weight. I posted a thread a little while back in the set-up forum about it...you responded. But I don't currently have the money to replace the stock springs. From what I've heard, the most I can do is crank up the preload, but that would take the travel out of the suspension, essentially eliminating its function. I'm worried about having to dial in so much preload that the suspension will end up bottoming/topping way too easily...but I cant' afford a new suspension.
  14. It could be the tire. A couple hundred miles ago, I picked up a nail in my stock Sportmax rear tire and replaced it with a Qualifier. I'm not sure if I first started noticing this after that...I had taken a trip to Deals Gap on the stock tires and lean always felt pretty progressive. So I've still got the stock Sportmax up front with about 3300 miles, but the rear is a Qualy with like 500. Most of my riding is back-roads, but it's not hard track-style cornering...it's rather mild. I've never really given it an opportunity to just settle into the lean...I don't want to lean TOO far and run off the INside.
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