acebobby

I have tried alot of different fitness styles over the years, but struggled to stick with any sports I took up, until I took up cycling, I aim to cycle 100 - 150 miles per week now, my fitness is through the roof and I have lost a few pounds too! This all came about when I read an article about Casey Stoner and Leon Camier cycling for training!

Hi Jason Quick turning or the quick flick is something I am personally always working on improving, If I dont work at it I seem to get lazy with it so I always focus alot of attention on it during the first session of the day. My level 3 coach even had me do the level 1 off track drill to help me with it! The thing is I fully understand how counter steering works, having my forearms in line for maximum movement on the bars, weighing the outside peg etc. In perfect hot dry conditions I have no problems, infact I think I could probably quick turn faster than I do! The release of the TOTW 2 dvd threw some confusion my way as the section that covers quick turning Keith asks the kids in the classroom when would you be unable to quick flick the bike, a few obvious answers such as, cold tyres, new unscrubbed tyres, overly worn tyres, but the one that threw me was he says you cant do it on a wet or slippery surface, but that was the conditions I learned the quick turn drill, confused! Anyway I will be on track this Sat so will put some attention on it and see how I get on! Bobby

Hi Jason, I'm not sure what your suggesting the op tries here and am slightly confused. Are you suggesting that he coasts off the throttle around the corner? If so I dont think that would be good practice and I think that throttle control rule #1 should never be compromised! I have that little jerk from off - on throttle but its not enough that it would cause the bike to lose traction so I would suggest learning to live with it, (I look at it as, well thats the throttle cracked open)! Anyway you have a lot of answers from the forum regulars but I would suggest going back to basics a little bit and concentrate on 1/ entry speed 2/ turn point then target point (usually apex), 2 step sets the exact amount of lean angle required, DO NOT try to lean further than you have to! 3/ TC rule #1 combined with looking at your target point then moving the eyes on to the exit point as you roll on! This may be over simplified but 1/ will determine the required lean angle and blends flawlessley into 2/ this is where your skill at steering comes into play, where you set your lean angle then immediately onto 3 (But only when you are finished 2)! basically you know what your supposed to do, you have read the books and are wondering why these drills dont seem to be working for you! I would say make sure you have set your lean angle before you crack the throttle open, that will give you more control, and always work on the visual's! Bobby

Jason thanks for reminding us of Throttle Control rule number 2? "In high speed turns, calculate your roll-off just as carefully as you would the roll on". It can be easy to get overly focused on other drills that it can be easy to let the basics slip your mind, I think I will be re reading twist 2 this week before my trackday on monday! Bobby

If you drop a gear or two and let out the clutch have you ever noticed how much the revs rise, in most cases you should be looking at the corner and not the rev counter, but it will rise significantly. I f you are running near the red line and drop a gear expecting enginee braking to slow you you will cause your engine damage as rev limiters dont work that way, I would suggest using brakes to slow down!

If running a new bike in all manufacturer's recomend not to use engine braking to much during running in! Also on a race track, you should be doing either one of two things, braking or accelerating, at what point on any vehicle does engine braking take priority over the bikes brakes?

Something else maybe worth mentioning, I did this trackday on my own, normally I would do trackdays with at least one of my mates but this time it was just me, my bike and my notes! I wonder about the psychology of being there with mates vs being there yourself because I felt no pressure and was very relaxed, just did my thing and really enjoyed it, I will definitely be doing more days on my own in the future, where previously I would miss trackdays if none of my mates could make it! Bobby

OK guys I had a 4 hour open session at my local track yesterday, the weather was ace, the bike was running perfect, and I felt good and fit mentally and physically. At the beginning of the day I made the classic mistake of trying to keep up with the faster riders resulting in me charging corners and ending up on all sorts of interesting lines, I came into the pits and settled down then went back out with a plan, I was focusing purely on 2 corners, one of which I crashed at a few years ago that has a blind crest, this corner needs good RPs so thats where I began. working on throttle control, trying a few different lines and even trying it in a higher and lower gear than normal just to see the bikes reaction, and also increasing my entry speed gradually! My confidence is on its way back and I feel alot happier on my bike again, the funny thing I noticed was that the rest of the track that I was not focusing on, I was riding smooth and fast without thinking about it just in anticipation of getting back round to my focused corner! Thanks for the advice guys, I thought I'd lost it but now I'm getting it back! Bobby Roll on Oulton!

Hi Dazza, To add to what Kevin has already stated. How relaxed are you on the bike and are you getting locked on good enough with your knee? Does this sensation of the front sliding happen in both left and right hand turns? Does it happen in both low and high speed turns? and think of this one, does it happen in your favourite corners? The thing is as you know excessive rider input can affect the bike in alot of different ways, and as no 2 turns are the same it is possible that you can cruise through some turns yet others will fire up that tight on the bars SR! I do it in low speed corners of all things, but being aware of it means I can tackle it! When you go back to basics and work on your throttle control add this into the mix, hold on to the bike with your legs, and eliminate all tension from your upper body, conrol the bike with the bars but dont hold on to them! And one other thing, remember to breath! Im not a coach or aything but just mentioning this as a problem from my own experience! Bobby

Hi Jason, I think for the top guys, the guys that can handle these bikes at there limits the 1000s are always going to be faster, so they should hold the lap records! But I think that an average rider would be able to lap a 600 faster than they could 1000! I think! Bobby

fossilfuel, thank you Your veiws and opinions are more than welcome, as you say we all benifit from some great coaches on this forum and for them to give up their own time to help me is an amazing thing. To top that though the veiws and opinions of other students is the life blood of the forum, that is where we are all so similar, from the UK to the USA, around the world to OZ and loads of places in between all the members have the similar goals, we all read the same books and all believe in the techniques we learn from the CSS! Thats why the discussions on here are so important to me, If I can learn something from another students experiences then, well thats just a great thing! Anyway back on topic, I managed to get myself some tracktime booked for next friday at my local track (Knockhill), I am glad about this as I am desperate to get back on track, so I have a 4hr open session to get myself and my mind back into the groove and have given some thought about what you said about mentally preparing myself! I will also use your advice regarding tyre warmers and keeping the front warm. I have one question and am interested in the forums opinion on this. If I were to pick one corner to focus on in a hope to regain confidence, would it be wise to use the corner I crashed at? or should I use a different one? Thanks guys Bobby

Thanks for all the feedback on this subject guys, Bullet, I did honestly expect that as soon as I got a good, dry, warm track I could go out there and push as hard as I did and within a couple of sessions be back to where I was in my riding ability! How wrong I was there.. I did blame the tyres being cold for my crash and have since put a plan together to get over that which includes using tyre warmers, and very track focused tyres, so that area should be covered! Another thing you mentioned was running around with wide vision, that is exactly true, I managed to put together some RPs through the faster sections of cadwell but really struggled with the slow stuff, the chicane, hairpin etc, but note the faster sections were nowhere near what I know Im capable of! Going to your last point, how much attention did I have on crashing, now that is the question, one thing I noticed and this sounds weird is as I was cornering I noticed how long I had to fall before I hit the ground, compared to when Im riding well, dragging my knee, there is no distance to fall to the ground as im already down there. Ironic it would seem that the only cure to this fear is to corner faster and lean further. I like the idea of picking a corner and focusing everything on it, its something Kevin recomended to me the first time I learned this a few years ago and I cant believe I forgot the value of that exercise! I have a corner in mind at Oulton park that I am going to use for this! Fossilfuel my bike is perfectly maintained, As it happens I am probably better at building a good bike than I am at riding it, I have 100% confidence that the bike wont let me down, I have a very strict routine when it comes to preparing it for a trackday. I see what you are saying, that I should prepare myself as I have the bike! Your words of motivation are greatly appreciated and make me eager to get back on track and sort out this little problem! Thanks for all the responses to this subject guys, it means more to me than you could all imagine! Bobby

This is a tough thing to post about myself but I feel that I have lost my riding style! Before my lowside in April I was full of confidence, I could happily drag my knee, I could spin the tyre on the exit as I did the pickup drill, I just felt so in control of my bike and every time I went on track I was getting faster! I felt like I was improving at a good rate then boom, I lowsided, I posted a you tube video of the crash on here and concluded in my own head that a cold tyre was to blame! As it happens since then every trackday I have done has been wet so I think in my mind I haven't really had the conditions to push it. That was until yesterday, I was at Cadwell Park, the sun was out and the track was dry, I had a brand new pair of supercorsa's on the bike so had no excuses! I just could not get good entry speed into the turns, I had the fear that I was going to crash, I know Keith talks alot about this in twist 1, but I couldn't get it out of my head, it was like i thought if I lean to far I will crash. I tried relaxing, worked on drills to try and get faster but the fear of leaning and crashing was to much. I would have given anything to get the feeling of my knee slider scraping the tarmac again! Can I fix this problem? I have a trackday at Oulton Park next month and I really just want to get back to where I was and back on my learning curve again! Thanks Bobby

Women riders can be competitive! There have been a couple this year in WSS. Reason you don't see a lot of women in racing is purely down to the number of women riding bikes in the first place. If you look at the ratio of male to female riders in the world, then I would say it is largely male dominated. I hate to guess, but for arguments sake let's say 90% male, 10% female. Of the entire motorcycle population, how many club race? Maybe 5% if that? Of that number, what % race nationally? Maybe 10% And of the national racers what % make it to world level? 5% again - probably less!? So given the small % of female riders (in comparsion to male) you start with, on a purely maths point of view, the chance of female riders reaching world level is incredibly small. Nothing to do with ability or competitiveness. If 90% of bike riders were females, then I would imagine we would have grids largely dominated by the fairer sex and the guys would be holding the umbrellas! EDIT: - Woah, blast from the past thread! LOL This is a blast from the past thread, at the time Hubbard and myself argued this one out to no avail! I still think women could be competitive under the correct circumstances! Hubbard is now jasonzilla and still a top guy and regular poster on here!

Its quite a question, and quite a dilemma to be in, Knowing the smart money is really in the BMW, 15 grand and you have a bike capable of winning races, but as you say everyone is on one, even rutter rides one in superstock, but his superbike is the 1198R, the blade, now there is potential to get alot of bike for your money and as you say spares are easy to get a hold of! Out of your 3 bikes I would pick the 1198R, but I just bought an 848 for the road and its the most involving, fun bike I have ever owned so im a little biased, and the 1198R is to me the dream bike, well between that and the desmo but Im not sure how competitive that wold be! One thing though, all of these bikes have the traction control and electronics packages that your not so keen on, even a superstock blade will have some sort of elictronics! Another option would be the RC8R, I think Jerry Mcwilliams did well on one in the German superbikes! But as I said 1198R for me! Bobby

Hi Bullet, For 15 years before I discovered the CSS I always thought I was quite a competent road rider, and in reality I was, but I never knew, nor understood what the bike needed me to do to get the best from it. I got to a point when started trackdays II was picking up the pace certain things were happening such as tank slappers, stay on the bike highsides, then my complete confidence crushing lowside that led me to discovering the CSS, Basically what I had was a foundation of skills that at road speeds I got away with it, but the problem was, and its a problem I see all the time now, is that by adding pace to that skills set the crash is almost inevitable! I found this forum, and through discussions with Cobie I bought the books, and had myself booked on level 1, this was the beginning of a never ending learning curve for me, you will never believe the feeling of control I had over my bike on the way home from CSS the day following my level 1 class, thats what made me want to learn, I wanted more. I that point I did open my mind to learning the techniques, and as you say my part as a student is required, as you coaches would be unable to teach someone too stuck in their own ways to try anything different! Iwill be back for L4 most likely next year! Bobby

Oh - Are you sure that is the UK? There is a big bright round thing in the sky which comes into frame every now and again! That big bright round thing is right above Scotland this morning, time for a bike run I think lol!

## What level are you taking. Sorry Razor Bit of a misunderstanding there, I'm only posting trackdays I'm doing, so that if anyone from the forum fancies a track day and wants to hook up, they know I will be there! It can be cool to get chatting with likeminded students in the paddock about what they get out of the drills etc! I have done levels 1-3! Bobby

##

Hi Colin At the end of last year I had a bit of a problem with one corner in particular, I felt I was running wide on the exit, I couldn't match the other guys exit speed and I was riding along the kerb. I tried alot of things from turning in later, slower entry, at this point I even self educated myself on suspension setup to try to dial the issue out with my suspension! In the end I was doing a trackday with Nial Mackenzie one day and spoke to him about it, he agreed to follow me round, he followed a couple of laps then signaled me into the pits, asked why I wasnt going right over to the apex for this particular turn, after some discussion it concluded that for one reason or another I was taking this turn so that my bike and body were within the confines of the track, so much so that it was possible to pass me at the apex of this turn, Anyway knowing this allowed me to focus on this, I use the 2 step to get my apex and make sure I'm so close to the kerb, I actually focus on how close to the apex I can get now and it gives an amazing amount of room at the exit! If you see my avitar, that is the corner in question, I like that picture as it shows me how much I have closed the gap between myself and the apex! This may not be the problem you are suffering but its just to point out that you may be doing something simply wrong that could easily be pointed out by a following rider! Bobby

Hay fossilfuel, do you write motivational speeches? That is one of the best things I have read! Bobby

I use dragon supercorsa pro's, an SC1 front and an SC2 compound on the rear, as far as I'm led to believe the SC1 is soft and SC2 is medium which would lead me to believe that a SC0 would be supersoft and a sc3 would be hard! Anyway thanks for bringing this question to the forum, discussions about suspension setup are rarely talked about and its good to hear peoples opinions on setup, what I would say is start taking notes of your settings and the feelings your experiencing, and change only one thing at a time, noting what you are feeling etc. When you see the suspension guys at the track, understand and know why their making certain changes, they can be helpfull but in alot of cases their charging the uneducated £xxx to set their sag and set the bike to settle in less than a second, a good base setting really, but you want to personalise it from there, this is where you need to educate yourself, no two guys are looking for the same thing! Another thing worth thinking about is you can end up chasing a setup issue, waste alot of track time on something that might not even gain you any time or even make the bike react in a different way in another corner!

OK this is a bit random but I was out on my bike the other day and having done levels 1-3 I was realising just how much control over my bike, and the amount of knowledge I have had educated into my brain about how a bike performs under different situations I have! I then thought how amazing is it that a mear mortal such as myself has access to such amazing training techniques, techniques that have won many championships! This training should be reserved for top factory teams and cost a fortune, but instead its available to people like myself for no more than the cost of a noisy exuast end can! This is basically a thank you to Keith, Andy, Cobie, Stuman, Bullet and all of the team of coaches worldwide that go out of their way so that people like myself can learn and use these techniques and improve their riding. Thanks Guys n Girls Bobby

So, observation no.1 what happens when you come of the brakes? does the tyre stay deformed? Does the suspension still load the tyre? Or does something else happen? Thinking about that then, and your inital thoughts Bobby, what difference does this make to your two scenarios now? No trail braking, you're off the brakes before the TP, and...? Bullet OK I guess looking at it this way, if your off the brakes before the turn pount the two scenarios are the same! Something I have been working on recently is reducing the coasting between off the brakes and my turn point, so the easiest way I found to do this was to make my turn point my off the brakes marker too and riding this way seems to make it feel like there's a little bit more weight over the front at my turn point, it could be psychological though! Bobby

Hay Bullet, you should know that we do have 1 or 2 days of sunshine per year up here, but the track in question was one quite local to you I believe, Oulton Park! Anyway the TDO should have been handing out sleeping bags and raincoats for this event as it was pouring all day (yesterday 20th), and typically for me I had banked on a dry day so was running on pirelli supercorsa pro's. I did enjoy my day though and I especially like that track and on realising that its only a 6hr drive from my house to the circuit I think I will be trying to do days there quite regularly! Anyway as I said I really like the track, I know while your riding on track you shouldn't be admiring the scenery but this place has so much to look at its unbelievable! I did work on a few drills throughout the day as I wasn't going to be discouraged by the weather, I was using the pickup drill on the exit to most of the turns, and getting a few slides, I also worked on my throttle control and combined it with a few different lines basically in an effort to learn the track, and of couse I worked a bit on reference points and visual drills, oh and my old nemisis RELAX. Mike3000 that corner you mentioned, I was using the start of a service road on the right hand side as my turn point but that may change in the dry and upping the pace a bit! All in all I had a good day, would have preferred a dry track of course but its not worth letting the weather spoiling your day, and as an added bonus I was able to pass quite a few bikes that were wearing full wets, thanks to all you guys for the pointers and advice (decided not to listen to you Cobie, sorry) and I cant wait to get back to that track and hopefully get it in the dry cause there's a very cool photo opportunity where your taking the last corner and there's a cool looking sandstone building in the background! Cheers guys Bobby