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BikeSpeedman

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Everything posted by BikeSpeedman

  1. Ramonius - I doubt you're still looking for feedback on this but I'm trying desperately to avoid work right now so I'm going to chime in. CSS teaches that you slide over while on the gas and before you start braking. To the point where they also say stay slid over the entire way down the straight if you have 2 corners in a row the same direction. YCRS says the same thing. That's how I prefer to do it. One instructor says that when racing she can't get enough lock for the really hard braking zones so she slides over after the initial braking period is done. This is what YellowDuck seems to do too but I just wanted to throw out there that she says "this is not how we teach it" It's also not how the pros appear to do it. And it's not how Troy Corser teaches it. Check out his vids on youtube. They helped me. I do this: 1) slide over before braking but keep body over bike (butt moves, upper body stays still) 2) brake and downshift 3) with a little brake pressure still remaining, I simultaneously move my body to the inside and I pull the inside bar to turn. * * I don't mean pull the bar toward me. It's technically a push. But my elbow is very bent and to the inside of the bars it's sort of a pull. I promise we agree on the directly the bar should move (inside bar moves forward) but I'm just highlighting the fact you want to accomplish that by getting yourself inside with bent elbow and your body position will be better than if you're on top of the bars pushing away/down. Personally I wouldn't get too hung up on quick turn. If you're on the racing line, you're probably doing a quick turn. If you turn in slowly, you'll either have to turn in early and/or miss the apex. If you can hit the turn-in point and still make the apex, you turned in quickly enough. Think about where you want to be on the track and using the vision skills you picked up in class (2 step, 3 step, etc) then simply ride the correctly line. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like the quick turn was simply to give us the fundamental skills to do the subsequent drills. I never consciously think "this is how fast I need to drop the bike into a corner". I just think "this is where I want to be before I turn and I have to get back to that apex" and by looking at the correct spots on the track it just intuitively happens.
  2. It's driving me nuts. If feels like my stomp grips are greased. I had it down where I could get locked on and in a good position at any speed. Now I just feel wrong all the time. I have spent a few weeks away from the gym - too many other obligations getting in the way - and maybe it's a physical thing. I keep looking for that feeling I had and I'm sure I'll get there eventually. Maybe after I get my fitness back.
  3. Definitely joking. I'm trying to save my crashes for the school bikes when I come back.
  4. I just tried to do it your way and crashed. Send a check or money order promptly. Thanks for the run down. And I'm def coming back for L4 early 2017. Just to be clear tho, you say you're also on the balls of your feet during braking so how do you downshift? I started playing my position a couple of days ago and I feel like I'm making a little progress. My inside knee, after shifting over, can get a lot of force on the tank if push longitudinally rather than laterally. So with the inside knee, I'm making contact more with the front rather than the side. Then my leg is much stronger driving my thigh/knee forward into the side of the tank. BTW, I also have Stompgrip. Not a fan of the looks so never thought I would but after trying them in CSS I realized they're a must have.
  5. My local cable provider doesn't provide Bein Sports HD so I started with a season pass from motogp.com. The price didn't bother me but the picture isn't great and you have to watch it on a computer or stream it from your computer/phone to the TV. Recently, I dropped Comcast and signed up with Playstation Vue. The overall experience is better with Comcast/Tivo but at least I get the channels I want now. In case you're interested, the downsides of Vue (compared to cable/Tivo) are: no 30-sec skip - takes much longer to get past commercials. can't fast forward, rewind, or even pause for more than a few seconds when watching anything live. you can still save favorites which are held in the cloud and updated when a new one airs, but there's no ability to mark one watched or to delete it from your list when you're done with it. "Did I watch that yet?" Also when you finish playing back a show, instead of going back to a menu to pick the next one, it immediately starts playing the oldest one of that show. Why would I want to watch episode 1 immediately after finishing episode 7? How is this a good thing? I just want it to shut up while I look for something else. ordered 2 Fire Sticks from Amazon and both arrived defective. They'd overheat and stop working 30 minutes after signing up. Amazon Fire TV support is awful. I'm now using a PS4. Would be okay if I liked video games but I don't.
  6. One reason is that maybe you don't want to have to replace or upgrade after you've had some training. I have a 675R and I love it. In most ways, I prefer it to the S1000RR. However, at track days I like to ride the novice group because I like to see what's coming and in the novice group, I do a lot more passing than being passed. I really hate not having mirrors. Anyway, the novice groups are full of guys on liter bikes who practically pull over and park in the corners and if you're 60 bhp down it doesn't matter how much better your exit is than there's, you'll be behind them all the way down the straight. On the plus side, it's fun find different places on the track where you can get them. But I bet it would be more fun to just fly by them immediately rather than having to wait for it. That said, when I save up enough for my 2nd bike (likely an R1) I will make that my dedicated commuter and keep tracking the Daytona. The extra low end grunt will make double-yellow passes easier and I don't want to risk wadding up an expensive new bike on the track (where it's uninsured). Still, I can see why going straight to a liter bike would be a good thing. My first bike was a Monster 696 and when I went to CSS I couldn't believe how much easier the BMW was to ride. Not just to ride fast but to ride safely - in control. I do not like the advice commonly given out that your first bike should be an upright and low capacity bike. Sport bikes are easier to ride than nakeds with high bars. And with rider modes, liter bikes are very ridable.
  7. You sure? Think about the silidromes and wall of death. With enough speed, you can ride a completely vertical wall with zero risk of losing traction. All of the force from the tires goes directly into the surface so there's no force trying to slide the tire across the surface.
  8. It's killing me that I can't get the mechanics right. I practice on the road where braking forces are much lower and where there's no drama about making a turn. I seem to have hit a roadblock in my development. If I stay dead center, I can just about grip the tank hard enough to keep weight off the bars. But by gripping the tank, I'm on the ball of my foot so I can't shift. I'd feel stable in braking but then unable to shift and still not in the right position for the turn. If I move over before braking, I tend to false neutral shifts on every left turn. I'm a little better on right turns. I've tried the Troy Corser method and it works for keeping weight off the bars. But I'm sure I'm doing something wrong because using a thigh to hold myself back while hanging off causes an imbalance. I'm not getting my support directly fore/aft. There's a little side pressure too. Plus, there's always the other issue of missing shifts when I'm hanging off. @Hotshoe, can you walk me through the exact steps you do from full tuck all the way to releasing brakes and leaning in? eg, 1) both knees on tank 2) slide over (keeping both knees on tank maybe?) etc
  9. I think I went through this same ordeal doing car track days and I think the fix might be similar. Back then (~2002) I decided to keep it simple and just forget about shifting for a few sessions. Don't worry about shifting and don't worry about even hitting the apex. Forget about lap times and just set a modest goal of staying on the track. With things simplified as much as possible, just get up the nerve (mind over matter) knowing that I have plenty of time to finish braking so stop chickening out. Then go through the corner in the wrong gear. At least I'll be building up experience being WOT in the scary part of the track (end of the straight) until it's not scary anymore. Once it's not scary, I can then go back and try shift properly. Also, I think another thing that's coming back to me is that part of my hang up going into turn 1 (Thunderhill) is that it's not a heavy braking zone. Turn 1 is so fast you just need to scrub off a little speed before turning in. So it will also help to trust the brakes if I remind myself how little braking you actually need to do there.
  10. I'm actually not doing a great job keeping the weight off the bars in heaving braking and that's another thing I need help with. But it's tangential here. What I'm having a hard time with is the mental aspect of keeping WOT as I approach a braking marker. As a result, I brake early and too much and I end up over braking and coasting up to the the turn-in point. It's not that I'm struggling with fear during the braking process. It's before braking where the speed is highest and the longer you wait the greater the risk of starting it too late. About getting a good lock... I don't understand it. In a straight line, I can lock the tank hard enough to keep the weight off the bars. But when preparing for a corner, you want to slide over before braking right? So my guess is that you want the inside of your outside leg on the back of the tank to keep the weight off the bars. This would jive with what you see the pros do where often times one of their legs is dangling - they're certainly not sitting dead center with knees squeezing the tank. So I try this and I'm not having great results. I have a litany of issues. 1) When I'm hanging off to prep for a left hand turn, I'm a little less reliable when downshifting bc my leg isn't coming at the shifter from the usual angle. I find myself missing shift and upsetting the bike when I blip but let the clutch out only to find out I'm still in the same gear. 2) When I'm hanging off to prep for a right turn, it's even worse. My left leg is being used to push against the tank and when I try to shift, I cause instability / wobbles. As I write all this out I start to think maybe I would have more bravery charging full speed ahead to a brake point if I wasn't planning on screwing up my downshifts and worrying about wobbles and having to leave some extra time to spot my mistakes and clean up after myself in time to start my turn. Like if I could count on being shifted and steady X feet after starting to brake, it might be easier to get within a few feet of a desired brake point.
  11. I remember doing the vision drill and how it helps you carry more corner speed because it makes the track look wider and safer. Is there some voodoo you guys can impart to help me get over the fear of charging right up to the ideal braking point? I'm giving up a lot of time there and this is what I'd like to work on for my L4 class.
  12. Sometime next year probably. I finally took the plunge and rode my own bike on my home track. I know the track very well but never on a bike and until this point, I'd never put my personal bike in harm's way before. I rode Thunderhill East and I rode my little heart out. I used the edge of the tire and I popped my knee-cherry but I came home and looked at the data and I was sloooooooooow. I don't know if they make a little blue pill for testes size but apparently mine are pretty small. My funds are exhausted and I can't make the CSS Thunderhill trip this year but the next time you guys are in town, I plan on doing level 4 with you on my own bike and trimming some fiscal years off my lap time. [Edit] Also, if you guys can make a hot lap video of Thunderhill East while you're there I'd be ever so grateful.
  13. when I was riding super slow just working on finding a new way to grip the tank, I focused on this exclusively. I found that when hanging off prior to braking, making sure that my outside leg was angled sufficiently so that even before turning and even when applying some brake, I was entirely supported by my feet and the outside leg. Before leaning over, it's the pressure of the leg against the back of the tank. As you lean in, the pressure from the outside plays a bigger role. There's no transition from back to side of tank. Your leg is angled so it's already prepared to serve both roles. Then just day after day of hanging off at 20-30 mph with maybe 10 degrees of lean just enjoying the way the bars feel in your hands. It's different than it feels when you're hustling. It's missing a physicality that allows you to really just observe small details without focusing on making the corner. RE braking: Yeah, I think in this case it's mostly just reducing the bar pressure and being ready to transition to totally soft hands earlier than before. I remember a friend of mine telling me a long time ago that you should pinch the tank with your knees when braking. That didn't make sense to me bc if it was important, the pros would do it and you can tell they're not pinching the tank with both legs. Some are letting a leg dangle. Others have their inside knee out far before they stop braking. So I convinced myself they must just be using the bars. In fact, they do talk about the intense pressure it puts on the shoulders when braking. But this new way of locking on allows me to keep most of the weight off the bars even when stopping hard. If I'm hustling, I'll be hung off enough so that I can hold myself up with the outside leg on the back/side corner of the tank. If I'm tooling around, I'll just have my crotch/stomach up against the tank. A long time ago, I was passing and I had one car to my left and another to my right and an errant 3rd driver pulled out in front and when he saw me he just panicked and shut down. He ended up blocking the entire road and I had no room left or right. I braked as hard as I could and it was unclear if I'd get stopped in time. The 3 cars all did their best to open up a little room for me to move through but I was pushing on both bars so hard, I couldn't turn. I was very lucid about not being target fixated. I just couldn't get the bike to change direction. It was only after my speed was scrubbed enough that I released the brakes (and therefore the bar pressure) I could squirt through the hole. So sometimes even intentional bar pressure is bad and even when you aren't planning on needing to turn. Plus when there's a line of 15 cars doing 28mph and your options are: 1) go nuts and pass like a felon 2) be bored as hell 3) make games with yourself that you can work on without being anti-social.
  14. Like anyone who spends his time and money on CSS, I was enthusiastically gathering as much knowledge and practical application of that knowledge as I could. I scoured youtube, books, articles, etc. So by the time I went to the class, I had some pieces of the puzzle already. I'd have good days and bad days. I'd arrive at work and talk to my fellow biker buddy about how well or how poorly I rode on the way in. Some days I'd do okay on certain types of corners and make a mess of other corners. Or I'd do okay at speed but feel less confident when stuck behind slower traffic. I went to the class with some assumptions and even more questions. The coaches helped me separate the wheat from the chaff, answered all of my questions, used videos, photos, and data to help show me what I was doing right and what I was doing wrong. I left the class way better than I arrived to be sure. While I returned home to twisty mountain commute far better than I had been, one thing that means even more is the bar set by the relentless critical eye of top notch coaches. I came home knowing that even after 2 very long days in the saddle, I still made a ton of mistakes. I still wasn't getting my weight off the bars properly. I was only light on the bars mid corner at a decent pace. But I knew it must be possible to be light on the bars in braking, at tip in, high speed or low, all the time. I would take a decent line around most corners but still made a hash of sharp corners and often let my eyes drift to the apex way after I should be looking at the exit. As primarily a road rider, it's often not necessary to roll off the throttle to turn. Most of the time, I'm riding a good pace but a steady pace. So in the class, I had a habit carrying some throttle past turn-in. So when I got home I made it a priority to continue riding as if my coaches were right behind me. I spent nearly 2 months riding much slower than before I went to the class. The first thing I focused on was getting my weight off the bars. Not just mid corner but always. I found a way to get my leg locked on that helped. It's about 80% side of the tank and 20% back of the tank. Before I knew it, I could ride super slow with the same light hands that I had at higher speed. Then I started focusing on the 3 step drills. Even on a new road where you don't have specific reference points, just ball parking the 3 steps makes a huge difference in line consistency. Now the bike is going where I expect it to go without exception and without mid corner corrections. Next I focused on fixing the bad position you see in my avatar. I don't know how many times James told me to keep my elbow bent but on the bike, I'd immediately stiff arm the inside bar when it was time to turn in. One day it just clicked that I should see if I could get the same force on the bar with a bent elbow. Yes! This is what they wanted me to do the whole time. And guess what, now the rest of my body is where it's supposed to be. Finally, I started working on rolling the throttle off and on through the turns. Obviously I'm not full throttle to a braking point on the road but instead I just worked on getting enough speed before the corner so that I can roll off the completely without running off the road on the inside. There's no lap time to worry about but it allows me to practice timing the roll off, the lean in, and the roll on. This is something that can even be fun at very slow speeds. A way to give yourself a challenge when circumstances simply don't permit speed or a decent amount of lean. Before I knew it, I found that I was getting it right, every corner, every time. Don't get me wrong. I know I'm still ~20 seconds a lap slower than ideal on a timed track lap. I still have a ton to learn and a then to put all that new knowledge to practice. But though my speed is lower than the experts, I've come away from the class (and subsequent homework) with the confidence and skill set to significantly, if not completely, eliminate close calls. I like to think every close call is a sign that I got lucky. The longer you go between close calls (especially the ones that were in your control) the safer you'll be. The more you'll enjoy riding. The more the entire process feels like fun and less like a mixture of fun and anxiety or frustration. So anyway, thanks to you guys (and gals) at CSS. You've made a huge impact on my life.
  15. That reminds of something my coach said that made me laugh. I was complimenting him on how I'm working my butt off and he's nonchalantly riding with me without even leaning much less hanging off. Just pointing out to him that I see how easy it is for him compared to me. He told me about some previous students who made fun of him for not hanging off. He replied, "Hanging off is hard work and when I'm going fast you won't even see me so why bother."
  16. Thanks for the video. In retrospect, I'm not even sure the two methods are actually different. Just maybe me misunderstanding the nuances of the one taught to me at CSS. A part of the problem is that I "discovered" the push-the-knee-into-the-tank without any adult supervision. So I was doing it without knowing all the details and subtleties involved. I developed some habits before I actually knew what I was doing. Examples: 1) I was too focused on digging my knee into the tank rather than inner thigh. Like people talk about "dig your knee" but my guess is that's a broad term for knee and the surrounding part of your thigh. I was too focused on the actual front/side of my knee. So in addition to being confused by some pros, I was also unable to hang off without screwing up my form. Any time I got my crack close to the seat edge, I'd have bad form. Eventually all the coaches just said don't hang off as much. 2) not related to this thread but another mistake I was making was related to the weight on the inside foot. I discovered the knee-tank thing on the highway at not legal speeds. It was easy to lift my inside foot completely off the peg. I began thinking this might be why some riders hang their inside leg off while braking. And even a possibility the bent knee might have a secondary advantage of keeping the weight off the inside peg. I asked Dylan about this and he said "if you can do that that's amazing." I knew right then I wasn't doing it right. I've been trying to figure out why it seemed easy to me but impressive to Dylan. No way that's real. Eventually I figured out that the reason it was easy to me was that I was putting too much weight on the bars. Look at my avatar and you'll see my arms are too involved. Ever since, I've been focusing on helping support my body with my inside foot (still pushing on the outside peg but just supporting some weight with my inside foot). My arms are not really light and I've also found that my form is good on slow corners too. Previously, it only felt right when I was really on it. So while goofing around with my feet and taking a more relaxed interpretation of "knee on tank" I've been able to get a full cheek off the seat. Adding to that my improved use of the inside foot and my hands are lighter than ever. I'm feeling in control at any amount of lean and at high and low speeds. I think it's just a part of the natural progression of training. If you commit to working on it, the coaching you get in camp keeps on improving you long after you get back home. I've got another class coming up in a few months and that will give me a chance to make sure I'm not developing any more crazy habits. Plus at Level 4 they let you practice stand up wheelies.
  17. Hi Kevin, I think you hit it right on the head. I think the pix make it appear that the leg is strictly touching the back of the tank but it's actually at a bit of an angle and digs into the corner of the back of the tank. I played around and it felt pretty solid and my knee was pointed out rather than snug on the side of the tank. An unexpected side benefit of my experiment is that I ended up being looser than I achieved in the camp. Dylan told us you don't have to squeeze super hard but I wasn't able to give up that habit right away. I needed a couple of extra days of practice to turn it off. I definitely got way better in the camp and just replaying the lessons in my head and continuing to practice I keep benefiting from the lessons.
  18. Hey, Cobie. I should have chosen my subj line much better. This is a question I've had since before doing CSS. I've talked to a local AMA racer and scoured the internet looking for anyone who could explain it. Forgot to bring it up when I was at camp but figured it would be a good question for the forum.
  19. I do admit I like the aesthetics of it. That might be my mirror neurons getting the best of me. TBH, though, I see almost everyone doing it in WSBK and MotoGP. Google image search tended to only show SBK guys but everywhere I look, I see the pros doing some form of this. Heel in, toes out, outside leg seemingly not that tight against the tank. But mainly my question was academic. I'd like to understand the magic of it because it seems like it wouldn't be effective. It must be or the pros wouldn't do it but when I look at it, I don't see how it works. So mainly, just curiosity.
  20. Thanks for the reference. There's definitely some things in that thread that increased my understanding. eg, one question "Can someone teach me how to do this?" would be answered with "Maybe, maybe not." But take the 3rd pic (I think it's the clearest and most obvious example). Where exactly is that guy getting his stability? The knee actually IS pointed out into space. The only part of the leg touching the tank is perpendicular to the plane of resistance. eg, it seems like it would be like trying to carry a TV with your hands pressed against the screen rather than holding on to the bottom. Nothing but friction holding it up. The only other contact point I can see is the heel. Is he holding his body weight entirely on his heel and using his hamstrings to hold the leg in a fixed position?
  21. I recently did the level 3 class and we discussed locking on by putting the ball of your foot on the peg and driving the knee into the tank. This works and it feels pretty good. However, I've been noticing that the pros tend to have their toes pointed away from the bike, heel on the peg, and their outside knee isn't touching the tank at all. It appears they're holding on with their calf more than anything. The outside thigh is only touching center of the tank (where we normally use a tank protector, not a side of the tank). Does anyone here know the mechanics of doing the knee-out, thigh on back of tank method? I'm including include some pix to illustrate what I'm talking about.
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