Jump to content

Hotfoot

Admin
  • Posts

    1,993
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    178

Hotfoot last won the day on January 2

Hotfoot had the most liked content!

5 Followers

Previous Fields

  • Have you attended a California Superbike School school?
    Yes! Lots of them. :)

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Female

Recent Profile Visitors

25,175 profile views

Hotfoot's Achievements

Cornering Master

Cornering Master (5/5)

  • Reacting Well Rare
  • First Post
  • Collaborator
  • Posting Machine Rare
  • Conversation Starter

Recent Badges

307

Reputation

  1. Your post above about the crash almost sounds like a description of the crash sequence shown in A Twist of the Wrist II DVD (which is an example of a fairly typical sort of rider-error crash), where the narrator points out and describes each Survival Reaction that happens leading to the crash. Might be worth reviewing the DVD and watching how that crash evolves as it sounds VERY similar to what you saw.
  2. Another solution would be to get on a small HP bike and ride that for a while, or on a dirt bike in mud, to develop your own sense of traction limits, and that is loads of fun. The school bikes are set to normal ride modes for the S1000rr, not turned up artificially for school. Students start out in Road mode and have an option to move up to Dynamic after riding a few sessions. If it is raining or traction is unusually low (like first ride on a cold windy morning on cold tires) we put the bikes in Rain mode. We do leave ABS turned on. With the S1000rrs, the ABS and traction control are not intrusive, so you might not be triggering them at all, however if you are wondering if you are triggering them, there is some feedback from the bike - you can feel ABS kick in (mostly the feeling of it letting off a bit) and if you are triggering traction control there is a yellow indicator that flashes on the dash screen. I think ABS flashes a light when it triggers, also, but you have to snatch the brake pretty roughly to get into that so I haven't personally seen it come on during my own riding (although I do have it turned off completely when racing). In regards to getting and riding your own bike, you have enormous flexibility on these bikes to adjust settings, plus you can consider buying the data kit and then you can see every detail of when/if traction control or ABS intervenes, including the exact amount of slip rate of your rear tire everywhere on the track, lap by lap, it is amazing. If you are riding well and with good technique, it's very possible that you are not relying on the traction control and the bike is not really helping you much - except maybe for wheelie control. It is pretty easy to wheelie a 1000cc bike if you are sitting upright and roll on the gas hard in a low gear. As you go 'up' the ride modes the bike allows larger wheelies. BTW the traction control on the S1000rr just keeps getting better and better, they keep fine tuning it and it works really well without feeling like it is interfering with your riding in any perceivable way, and of course you have many options on how to set it.
  3. Social media is great for immediate short communications, but forums are still great for looking up conversations from others, to research questions, etc. This forum is an incredible resource, with loads of articles and a massive variety of student questions about school and riding. Who knows, with AI taking over so many areas and the glut of advertising on social media, forums might make a comeback. It sure is nice to be able to come here and have a real exchange of information with a real human without having to be bombarded with ads and other traffic.
  4. Hi James, Yes we get quite a mix of riders and regularly get riders who have never been on a racetrack before. Fitness-wise, I have a few suggestions: Do some quad work, like squats, to strengthen your quadriceps muscles and some exercises to strengthen your inner thighs, the muscles you use to squeeze your knees together (think horseback riding or Suzanne Sommers ThighMaster machine), as you will be using your legs to lock on to the motorcycle. If you hang off and/or sit with your upper body low to the motorcycle, you might want to do some exercises to strengthen your neck; one I do is this: bend over (back parallel to the floor) with your head/eyes looking down at the ground, then use your neck muscles to lift your head to look straight ahead (towards a wall, for example). I also do the same thing but raise my head and look left, then again to the right. This will exercise the muscles that you will be using to hold your head as you ride and the helmet adds a bit of weight so having some strength in those muscles helps. The exercise bikes that have the arm bars that move forward and back are good, they exercise quad and calf muscles and help get the tricep muscles which get some use while steering the motorcycle. Of course core workouts are terrific as well, as a strong core will support you while you ride. I also agree completely with what Cobie said about riding at your own comfortable pace, that makes a world of difference. Come say hi to me, too - look for a female coach with long brown hair, that will be me, and if you have ridden at Auto Club you may have seen me out there too. Looking forward to Vegas!
  5. There are loads of drills available in Level 4. Just tell your coach and consultant on your school day that you want to work on your braking, and they will incorporate that into your day. There is also an off-track bike that can be used to explore threshold braking, learn how much brake pressure it takes to lock up the front wheel, etc. There is certainly no shortage of drills for improving braking technique, and timing, and the visual skills that are needed to support effective braking.
  6. Barber is a good place to practice, yes. What do you not trust about the brakes? What are you worried might happen? In what circumstances or situations are you tentative with the brakes?
  7. It seems more likely, to me, to be a difference in riding style than in the difference in tire pressure, although I suppose either is possible. It logically makes sense that if he brakes more with the front brake and you 'brake' more with engine braking, that he would have more front tire wear and you would have more wear on the rear, since he is using drag from the front tire to slow the bike and you are using drag from the rear. Either technique is workable, but consider that brake pads are cheaper to replace than engine parts - if you overuse engine braking (like using early, high-rev downshifts to slow the bike) you can create some extra wear and tear on the engine. I asked about throttle application because tire wear can be a very clear indication of how a rider uses the throttle. Late, hard acceleration creates more wear on the rear tire than an earlier, slower roll-on. A rider that accelerates hard with a lot of lean angle will wear out the edges of the tire quicker. A personal example - I race a lightweight, relatively low horsepower bike. The tires usually wear pretty evenly, since there isn't huge drive power at the rear. A few years ago, I noticed that some other riders were carrying more speed into corners, braking late and trail braking deep into the corner, for every corner. It isn't my usual riding style but I decided to really give it a try and see what happened to my laptimes. I matched what the other riders were doing, found that my corner entry speeds went up, but my midcorner and exit speeds went down. My laptimes did not improve (although I did get better at making passes into corners, by improving my trailbraking skills and bravery). The most noticeable effect of the riding style was that I wore out my front tire, long before the rear, a clear indication that I was putting a lot more load on the front entering the corners but actually get less drive OUT of the corners. That was the biggest education point of the whole exercise!
  8. Does your riding buddy trail brake harder and/or deeper into the corners than you do? When you ride with him, in mid-corner and corner exits, is there a difference between your acceleration and his? Does he pull away from you mid-corner or do you gain on him mid-corner? What about at the corner exit?
  9. Take a look at this article that Keith wrote, it covers this topic in detail and may answer your question:
  10. Hi and welcome to your new motorcycle addiction. Finding the limit on motorcycles is not so easy; as you implied, the consequences of going over the limit are daunting. There are quite a few pieces to riding on the limit so the best recommendation would be coming to school and getting some in-person coaching to make sure all the basics are in place and build from there. With good technique, it is possible to perceive feedback from the bike that tells you when you are approaching the limit; there are warnings from the bike and tires. However, if the rider's technique and understanding of riding is not strong, it is quite easy to overshoot the limit and not have a chance to perceive those warnings. Pushing too much too soon can trigger Survival Reactions, like tensing up on the bars, or grabbing the brake, that can precipitate a slide or crash at a speed or lean angle that a more accomplished rider could manage easily. That being said, a good place to start for getting answers to your question is with throttle control. You mentioned that getting on the gas too early makes you run wide; that is a good observation. What makes a rider tend to want to get on the gas too early in a corner? (If you have a copy of A Twist of the Wrist II, that's a good place to start looking for answers - or watch A Twist of the Wrist movie - it's available on Prime Video here: https://www.amazon.com/Twist-Wrist-II-Keith-Code/dp/B089ZNVBW9 , watching that should provide most of the answers you are looking for!)
  11. I'll jump in one this one - I do use pivot steering when riding fast, especially when I feel like I need more connection to the bike, like in a bumpy turn or when riding in windy conditions - Turn 8 at WSIR, for example. I sometimes get a little lazy on that technique when riding at a moderate pace but when I ride faster I start needing the leverage to turn the bike quickly and accurately. I normally steer with push only but if steering effort gets high, such as a fast chicane or some other sort of high speed quick turn (the kink at Streets of Willow comes to mind) then I incorporate push-pull.
  12. WOW, that is definitive, and extraordinary to watch! Thank you so much for finding this and posting it! That is a super cool video and I love the engineering perspective on it, too - especially watching their faces as they watch him do it in a race.
  13. Great way to get back into the groove of riding and will make the process of getting back up to speed much quicker and less frustrating. Prices have gone up, but not by much especially compared to how much expenses (gas, food, travel, etc.) have gone up; if you compare it to taking your own bike to the track and figure in tires, track prep, gas, etc. you realize it's a really good deal. And you can be confident CSS will provide a first class experience, and a fun one.
  14. Great way to experience motorcycle racing in a friendly and guided environment, it's a blast!
  15. That's great, we look forward to seeing you in New Jersey!
×
×
  • Create New...