acebobby

I cant believe that you could lap a borrowed 600 at nearly the same times as your 1000, Imagine how much faster you could go if it was your own bike!

In TOTW2, chapter 15 talks about the steering rate 1 being the slowest, 10 being the fastest. Eddie Lawson, Wayne Rainey and Doug Chandler are at 10, My question to everyone is where do you rate yourself in this? For me, before I started practicing the CSS techniques at the beginning of this year I would have rated myself about 4-5 but I think now that should have been 2-3, I now rate myself after loads of practice at what I believe to be a true 6 and to me that feels lightning fast! To acheave this I use a late turn point combined with the 2 step drill, So guys be honest and let us know where in the chart you rate yourself, include hints and tips to getting it up to 10!

Early turn ins: some turns it can work, but what is the common problem that it brings about (what rule is can suffer if the bike is turned in really early?) I would say the rule that can suffer is, to avoid running wide at the exit you may need to make steering chages near the end of the turn (add lean angle at a point where you want to be hard on the gas),

Yes, it was Doohan and DuHamel followed suit when he broke his leg, too. DuHamel liked it so much he kept the thumb lever after his leg healed. I don't recall if Doohan's leg ever healed enough to effectively use the pedal again. Nicolo Canepa, Ducati's motogp rookie is having to ride with a thumb brake on his GP9 as his size 10 feet are too big to effectively operate the rear brrake with his foot at max lean angle!

Hi race factory, welcome to the forum! What country do you live in as the CSS operates all over the world! Riding in the wet is something I do alot since it rains loads here, first of all though think tyres, are you running full wets or road tyres! Michelin advertises their pilot power 2CT road tyre as capable of 51.2 degree's in the dry and 43 degree's in the wet! there is alot more to wet riding than going round in circles in a carpark though, Braking, when and how hard do you apply the brakes compared to in the dry? Quick turn, how quickly can it be done in the wet? Roll on the throttle, how hard do you roll it on in torrential rain before the tyre lets go? Riding in the wet is good for practicing skills and techniques smoothly.

Yes...and you are now armed with critical new information that will allow you to get back on the throttle - you know where the limit of traction is for that corner/angle/speed/ etc. From my experience, having the "book knowledge" of not chopping the throttle has allowed me to regain traction quickly and on to the next corner. It was so ingrained in my Level I course and from reading the Twist that it was almost second nature to hold the thottle steady until grip returned. Now I don't even think about it. Kevin Thanks Kevin I will work on holding a steady throttle in future, over the last year I have retrained myself to obey TC rule #1 which in turn has made the idea of chopping the throttle a big no no for me too!

OK so I went over page 15 in TOTW2 Stop rolling on, I guess that wherever you are in the throttle position, you hold it there until the rear wheel regains traction, at which point you would continue your roll on throughout the remainder of the turn! Is this correct? I can see that SR #1 would be hard to overcome in this situation and as you felt the rear come round more it could become very tempting to chop the throttle, the way I have gotten around SR #1 is by continually practicing TC rule #1 so this would be new to me! Also worth checking page 9 of TOTW2!

After giving it some thought maybe this post should be named differently, avoiding highsides, avoiding crashing all together is easy, quit riding bikes and take up a nice safe hobby. Everyone on this forum has one thing in common, although none of us want to crash, something inside us all likes the buzz, the danger of doing what we do! The fact that every one of us will drive at over 100 mph with 18 litres of highly flammable liquid an inch away from our groin basically makes you a bit of a risk taker. Getting educated on the main cause of highsides is key,getting greedy with the throttle on exit causing the rear to spin, panic, chop the throttle = highside, TC #1 is the best option! In pro racing they will pin the gas, point the bike down the track, regain traction usually resulting in a bit of a wheelie! I believe that if the rear breks away at full lean the rules still apply!

This is very interesting information, I should probably try to lower my pressures a few psi at a time to see and feel the difference. When you have a tyre at optimal temperature, 180 to 200 degrees, is this surface temperature we are talking about, sometimes when I stop I feel my tyres to see if there is much heat in them, if they were at optimal temp would they be unable to touch without burning my hand? I like to understand how things work and why things happen and your descriptions have been really helpful to me in educating myself in how tyres perform,

What about practicing the pick up drill, would this not help regain traction smoothly? Afew of you are saying to lightly back off the throttle but doing that goes against throttle rule no 1 so to me thats not an option, if the tyre never regained traction you would end up going down in a lowside which would be better than a highside.

There's a recent article in Sport Rider mag about scrubbing tires. Seems credible to me. What does the article recomend doing? I normally scrub in the way will said by gradually increasing lean angle untill the shiny surface is worn off! The problem I have at the moment is that the weather here is now below freezing and the roads are all dirty and covered in salt! IIRC That's basically it. It recommended against weaving too. You should read it. unfortunately we dont get that mag here in the UK!

There's a recent article in Sport Rider mag about scrubbing tires. Seems credible to me. What does the article recomend doing? I normally scrub in the way will said by gradually increasing lean angle untill the shiny surface is worn off! The problem I have at the moment is that the weather here is now below freezing and the roads are all dirty and covered in salt!

I am not sure about pressures, from what I can gather it seems to be a personal thing, I know that honda recomends that for my bike 42 psi rear whatever type of riding you do, but my friends GSX600R recomends 42 psi rear with a pillion and 38 psi solo, that seems more realistic to me, but then I read what will says about the tyre cooling quicker than it can heat up!

ha ha thats funny, I have actually known of people that rough up the tyre with sandpaper! I will be doing all my riding on the steet as cant get winter track time here, its just finding a comfortable angle, as I had bags of confidence in the pilot power 2CTs and do not have the same confidence in the qualifiers. (came off at low speed), I should definately know better than too mix new tyres, lean angle, and cold slippery surface, there can only really be one outcome!

That Colin Edwards save was spectacular! Going back on topic, there is a section in TOTW where Keith suggests using a tyre and rim combination that will allow you too slide the bike around at your level of riding!

I thought I would pull this old post up since winter is here! I have just stuck a pair of dunlop qualifiers on my bike, and if its not wet its freezing here, need to get them scrubbed in!

No I agree that it probably isn't the fastest way around the track, was just pointing out that some riders still do it for whatever reason, would be interesting to see if the same riders do it in qualifying!

I believe as racer says due to the lack of feel with the rear brake alot of guys started using thumb brakes! but as I say alot of the top guys in the BSB championship still do it probably due to the tight tracks here, Here is a vid of kionari in the wet at donington in wsbk this year, watch him back it into the hairpins http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KycZk1M7g24

He should get the save of the decade award. good save but look at this! http://videos.streetfire.net/video/BEST-RE...EVER_201595.htm

Hi Bill, Didn't add the photo myself, but I'll find out. Regarding the quotes: normally just hit the "reply" button, and it will include the quote. To include it as a quote, needs a bracket and the word quote [quot] then another braket with a backslash and the word quote to end it [/quot]. I deleted the "e" in quote, so it would show you, and not be a quote. Hope that makes sense. Another aid is the BB Code help, bottom right. Best, Cobie ok, thanks, got the qoute pert . Now if I could only get my personal photo up. Go to my controls, top right hand of the screen, into avitar settings and upload your picture there!

IIRC, John Hopkins plays Playstation to familiarize himself with tracks he's never been to before. Maybe it's the same concept, eh? Hopper states that playing playstation only gives him an idea of the direction the track goes, and that is all. I played playstation for hours before the first time I went to the nurburgring and when I did my first real lap I was like forget it, what I realised was video games and even real onboard video cameras do not give you any real idea of elevation changes, I have seen 100s of races and done 100s of playstation laps of laguna seca but I know that if (when) I ever ride that track I will be blown away by the elevation changes!

In Rossi and Andy Ibbots 10 riding techniques or whatever its called they go over backing it in and Rossi makes it look cool on a new R6! Like racer said its purely done with the rear brake, dont confuse this technique with locking and hopping the rear on a downshift as that is not the same and is not even a technique, we used to learn to blip the the throttle to stop that from happening. Backing it in is used alot here in the UK in the BSB to get round some of the tight little tracks especially usefull approaching a tight hairpin turn.

Why dont you want to spin up the rear like those guys? If you could, would you? In motor bike riding all areas are free exploration, no one can tell you where the edge of the limits are, otherwise we would all be racers!

1) Yes see bellow 2) I assume it is fun as hell. Okay, someone break it down for me: why is his wheel turned outside the corner? Imagine driving a car, you would steer into a skid or it would spin off the road, on a bike the bike will automatically steer into the skid, this is why I said in my previous post that you must relax, thats very important as if you tense up on the bars while skidding you will be off because the bike needs to steer into the skid. Working on level one drills will prepare you for a slide, which is possibly whe the school says (slide bike if you are ready) Throttle control and relaxing is the key!

I cant wait to get on the slide bike at the school next year, I think everyone who is into motorcycle racing would like to be able to spin up the rear end with the control of the top guys in the world, I always like to watch riders like Gary Mcoy, when he raced 500cc no one could believe how much he slid his bike, you can see him in the motogp movie faster, that is an example of precise trottle control but he also had his fair share of crashes and they always seemed to be big ones.