Hotfoot

That reminds me, you were debating before the last CodeRace which bike you wanted to take and what you wanted to race. What did you end up doing and what was your final take on one versus the other?

That's a great looking bike!

I'll pass on that feedback, it might make sense to resurrect that forum section. From participating in some other forums I DO understand the questions/concerns that arise when you don't know the sources of the information you get. This particular thread covered a whole lot of ground in a short amount of time, and got confusing, but from what I saw most of what was said was correct in one way or another, just incomplete or stated in a way that was not absolutely clear. Perfect example is the question of what happens when you roll off the throttle in a turn - one person said the bike stands up and runs wide and another said that the arc tightens. And BOTH of those things can, and do, happen! With an abrupt roll off the effect of the bike standing up and running wide is much more dramatic and noticeable, and a rider who chops the throttle or grabs the front brake will experience that, and might be mystified as to why it happened, when he (theoretically) expected the arc to just tighten. However a more seasoned rider who backs off the gas very gradually would feel something quite different - the effect still occurs but the weight shift is so much less and the drag on the rear tire nowhere near as intense so THAT rider may not notice the 'standing up/running wide' effect at all unless they are very attuned to it, it will come and go very quickly and then the bike will begin to tighten its arc as it slows down. Anyway, the point is: as long as we keep our manners in we can learn a lot from all the questions and viewpoints that arise here, and sometimes something that seems simple or obvious turns out to have some ins and outs that are fascinating when explored from different angles.

If the speed was high and the line was bad, and you had pavement left to use, could you stand the bike up, brake hard, then steer the bike again? Could you, at that new, significantly reduced speed (because you had applied brakes hard) now turn the bike in a sharper arc than you could have achieved at the higher speed, where you might have run out of traction or ground clearance? Clearly I am talking about a relatively extreme example, but could you, if needed, handle the problem that way? As far as "maintenance throttle" as a term, I just wanted to clarify your interpretation. It is not a term we use at the school; that phrase can generate confusion because some people use it to mean "enough throttle to maintain speed (through the corner)" and others use it to mean "hold the throttle where it is" i.e. not rolling on and also not decreasing it, and those are two different things. (There may be more definitions than just those two, but I hear those two fairly often.)

Good answer. What if just "maintaining throttle" (by which I assume you mean you stop rolling on, but don't roll off) wouldn't be enough to handle it? If your line was REALLY a disaster and your speed was too high to make just a small steering correction (i.e., at the given speed you might not have enough traction or ground clearance to lean it over far enough to make the corner), how else could you handle it, if you still had some room before the edge of the pavement?

At one time (not too long ago) we had a section that was a "questions for coaches" area, where a user could ask a question to be answered only by coaches, not necessarily open to general discussions from others. If we had a section like that again, would that resolve your concerns about the board being "cliquey" or "too green"? Our intention is to be a friendly forum that is open to riders of all levels, where riders of all types can feel comfortable asking questions in a positive, helpful, and ad-free environment.

Correct, given a constant lean angle, speed and radius are related so as the speed comes up the radius of the turn gets wider. And yes, to maintain the SAME arc at a higher speed you would have to have a greater lean angle. This can be a source of crashes for novice riders, if a rider turns in early, ends up running wide, and has to lean it over farther to stay on line, they can end up adding throttle and lean angle simultaneously which can overload the rear tire and potentially cause a crash. If a rider ends up running wide at the end of a corner and has to steer the bike again to stay on the track, what SHOULD the rider do with the throttle during that steering correction?

I think we need to clarify whether we are talking about "weighting" the outside peg or talking about PRESSING on the peg. Pressing down on the peg with your muscles to force you knee up into/against the tank can improve your lock on and that is a nice benefit. Using the outside lower leg as a strength base for pivot steering is not weighting the peg, it is using the peg as the most stable pivot point. (Just standing on the peg doesn't work for pivot steering because that is not the same as locking your lower leg to the bike.) If a rider senses an improvement in the bike's handling from peg pressure/weight, it is most likely because they are in reality locked on better OR have changed their body position to being lighter in the seat over bumps OR have changed the location of their Center Of Mass (I.e., hanging off more to the inside) but these are secondary effects and NOT produced by just putting more weight on a peg. For chicanes and fast transitions, pivot steering is an excellent technique to be able to steer more decisively and strongly and get the bike over faster. Putting weight on the pegs during a transition will lighten your weight in the seat which allows you to slide your hips over more easily and quickly and that ALSO can quicken the transition. This can be used in conjunction with other body position techniques that we teach in Level 3.

Whew, this thread has gone all over creation and back since the original posted question, and the OP seems to have checked out. So, I'm going to jump in here. I am a CSS coach. First let me note that Yakaru is a very competent rider, fast, has come to many schools, and is very knowledgeable on the material. Now, on to some of the info that is in question. 1) When a rider is in a corner, if the throttle is APRUPTLY shut off, the bike will INITIALLY stand up a bit and run wide. Sudden loading of the front tire creates drag on the inside of the contact patch which tries to turn the wheel into the turn which makes the bike stand up. This is the same phenomena that occurs when you pull the front brake in the middle of a corner, that makes the bike stand up and run wide. THEN, once the bike recovers from the initial weight shift and begins to slow down, the arc will tighten due to the bike slowing down. There is a GREAT CG animation of this in A Twist of the Wrist II DVD. 2) Rolling on the gas does not, BY ITSELF, cause the bike change lean angle. You must countersteer to stand the bike up. However, as the bike speeds up, the radius of the arc changes (widens), which can give people the impression the bike is standing up - especially if they unconsciously STEER it up! It's a rare rider that knows and understands that it is ONLY the handlebars that steer the bike up (not the throttle), most riders have been doing unconsciously since the first day they rode. I hope this helps clarify these points.

Interesting to hear that; in local racing it seems like the trend has been headed towards stiffer and stiffer tire carcasses (with lower air pressure, especially in the rear tire) instead of towards a softer carcass. It's too bad we don't have that same sort of super slo-mo footage from 20 years ago to see the difference in tire deformation compared to back then.

Personally, I prefer a softer carcass and a more rounded profile for the tire. That's partly because I am a smaller rider and most bike's suspensions are too stiff for me anyway so the softer tire helps absorb some of that, but it is also because I like to feel the tire react - I like to feel the tire "set" in the corner, and feel it compress under acceleration. I do not like to feel rigidity or vibrations, or feel like the tire isn't reacting or won't compress, that sort of feedback tends to make me feel like the tire is cold or has too much air pressure and won't have adequate grip, so I am more tentative and don't load it enough for it to really work well. If I am SURE it is OK - like on warmed up Dunlop GPA tires, which have amazing grip, then I can push through that mental barrier and can appreciate the stability of the stiffer carcass under very hard braking and acceleration. But I prefer to ride with a smoother style so I don't miss it if the stiffness/stability is not there, I rarely brake/accelerate with that extreme force unless I am following someone who DOES ride with that sort of style and get (sort of) forced into it. What is it that makes you say "how soft MotoGP tires are"? Are you saying that because Michelins have a reputation for being softer than some others, or is that something that was said or written or published somewhere, that current MotoGP tire carcasses are softer right now than in the past?

I'll be there so make sure you say hello to me and tell me who you are on the forum, it is always great to put faces to the names. I'm female, a coach, and I have long brown hair, you can't miss me - or if you do, just ask Cobie and he'll point me out to you.

I will be really interested to hear if anyone hassles you about crossing the state line.

When you say 'how soft MotoGP tires are', are you talking about the stiffness/flexibility of the carcass, or the softness/stickiness of the rubber compound? (I have not yet watched the videos you posted so excuse me if the question was somehow answered by those.)

Working on the messaging issue for Cobie's account, thanks for notifying us of that. In the meantime you can message me, if you like, and I will get the info to him (include your email address please, so he can respond that way). Otherwise, his email has not changed so if you emailed him on that superbikeschool address that should get to him. He is out of the office today so he won't be able to respond until tomorrow, I'm sure.

I'm a big fan of small, lightweight bikes. To me it seems pretty hard to explore many of the capabilities of a 1000cc (or even a 600cc) sport bike on public roads. You can barely get to third gear. I picked up a Kawasaki Z125 recently and I am having a blast with it. Street legal, but in ten minutes I can have the headlight, taillight and blinkers off it and it's ready for the go-kart track. Is the handling amazing? No, but it isn't bad and it IS fun to ride. It is NOT a highway bike and has a low top speed but if you ride it at 30-40 mph you feel like you are really riding, on the S1000rr it feels like you are barely idling. One difficulty is that it is hard to find a low HP, lightweight bike that ALSO has good suspension and brakes. I used to have a Ninja 250 and thought it was great on the street until I rode a good 600cc sportbike - after that, the suspension and brakes on the 250 felt really mediocre... which they were. It's tough to find a bike in the 250-400cc range that has high end components on it... well, there are some cool supermoto builds out there that might still be street legal, that could be fun.

Streets of Willow is definitely easier/better from a coaching standpoint, the logistics of the track give us more time with students (pit area is close, track has a lot of turnouts and cutoffs, etc.). It's also a great technical track with a lot of different types of challenges. Laguna Seca is fun to ride because it has some big sweeping corners and the iconic Corkscrew which is a unique experience in itself. But, track management is tighter with start and stop times and the track is larger with no places to cut across it so it isn't as easy to spend as much time with students as at Streets of Willow. Also weather at Laguna can be chilly and damp at times. As far as new track versus repeat-track, I guess that depends on your goals. If you want to hone your skills without the distraction of learning a new track, a repeat track might be better, but if you are looking for experiencing a different track a new track is fun, too! I have been a student lots of times and have made the new track/old track choice based on that - for example recently I had a problem with my body position that I REALLY wanted to get sorted out and chose to come to Streets as a student to work on that. In that situation it was nice not to have to spend attention on learning a new track.

I usually roll on, roll off, roll on again, but if I am going as fast as I can go and traction is good, I come in faster, and I'm slowing down all the way to mid-corner, and I don't open the throttle at all until I am pointed at the second apex. I can carry in a lot more speed that way, but it is hard to stay relaxed on the bars, I only ride it that way when I know I can be relaxed and confident and I really trust the traction. Overall I feel safer using roll on/roll off/roll on in that corner, especially if my tires are not fully warmed up or traction is not good (when the track is wet, for example).

What do you mean by this? Do you mean you enter at mid-track? Or farther to the inside than that? I find that if enter that turn on the inside I either have to slow way down, or I end up wide on the exit and that messes up the entry to 5.

I can't play the video, it says it is blocked.

It definitely can be done (sliding an S1000rr in a controlled fashion) and you can watch high level racing and see it happen. The school also has an off-track tool called the Slide Bike that can be used by more advanced riders to find our what it feels like to slide the rear tire. (And, for that matter, there is the Brake Bike that can be used to find out how it feels to slide and recover the front, in a straight line on the brakes.) One thing to consider is that the tires are ALWAYS sliding, to some degree, it is a built in part of how they work. In any corner the tires are always scrubbing off some rubber. Yes Q3s will slide and it can be controlled, but technique must be good. What is tough to recover is a very sudden, abrupt slide, where the tires move sideways fast and then when they regain grip the slide is halted abruptly - such as a situation where there is a patch of oil on the road (in a corner) and the tires slide fast and then catch abruptly on good pavement on the other side. Another example would be a rider that leans the bike way over into a corner, then whacks the throttle on abruptly, delivering way too much power to the rear tire and initiating a slide at a steep lean angle, THEN gets scared and shuts the throttle off abruptly. The rear tire suddenly regains traction which stops the slide and the sideways momentum can make the bike rotate over into a highside. (Traction control on newer bikes helps prevent some of those too-much-throttle situations, delivering less power to the rear wheel at steep lean angles.) Those types of highsides are probably what the "slip, grip, and flip" comments are referring to, but those can be prevented with good throttle control and knowledge of how to manage rear tire grip, and we have a variety of classroom sessions and drills at the school that cover those topics.

Yes for me, I have done a few of the schools that are done on small dirt bikes that aim to increase comfort level with sliding around. Those schools did a lot of improve my dirt riding skills, and probably would help me a lot of I ever had to do an "off-track excursion" on a sportbike. It did help me a little in getting comfortable with rear tire sliding on a sportbike but I am still not very brave in that area, I much prefer for the bike to feel planted under me. I'd like to do more dirt bike riding and sliding, I am sure it helps to gain more understanding of how to handle a bike overall. For SURE it would help with condition, it is quite a workout!!

There were two parts to "when" to start your roll-on. One part is getting the bike to the desired lean, and the other is getting pointed towards the exit of the turn. If you think of a longer turn that hooks around, or decreasing radius turn, you can probably picture that you can get to your desired lean very quickly, but might have to wait a bit longer for the bike to come around before you are pointed the direction you want to go. Turns with a fast entry that tighten up at the end are well suited for trailing the brakes in, and for most of those you would have to wait to get pointed to a late apex before rolling on to stabilize the line. Contrast this to a turn like Turn 10 at Streets, where it is VERY advantageous to get the bike turned quickly and get right back to the gas to minimize the effects of the bumps.

A double apex corner typically does require either going flat on the throttle or some roll off. How MUCH you'd have to roll off would depend on the shape of the corner (how much it tightens up) but ALSO on your entry speed and how much you rolled ON in the first part of the corner. If your roll-on in the first part of the corner was very gentle or your entry speed was low, you might not need to roll off in the middle to make it to the second apex. If you entered a double apex corner, rolled on the throttle continuously throughout the corner but ended up running wide later in the corner and unable to make the second apex, what would you want to do with the throttle in the middle of the corner (on the next lap) to correct that line?

I can't answer all of this (local counties and states and cities are changing things every day) but I CAN tell you the gear is disinfected every day, and that the disinfectant used does kill viruses.