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hubbard_28

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Everything posted by hubbard_28

  1. I know a couple people at the track who started using the Power 1's, and swear by them. I don't know the pressures they run, but I do know that they're lower than what you were riding. I've only ridden the Pilot Powers on the track, because the level I'm at, I don't want to have to worry so much about that.
  2. You have to do some forward thinking (perhaps the lap previous?) to find what gear you should be in for the turn that will yield the best drive off the corner. You should be in this gear when you are done with your braking and timed so that braking and shifting are done precisely at your selected Turn Point. IIRC, Kevin had done a detail of his progress in this area and described how he's now comfortable with his timing and matching his brake markers. SAY WHAT?!?!?!??? To the Original Poster: the sole purpose of downshifting is to put you into the powerband as you begin your drive OFF the corner. Nothing else. If you're thinking of using it to modulate your speed, it will hinder your times, smoothness and may also be a safety issue. . Learning point for me, I guess. When I'm going in to a corner, I'm coming off the brake and don't have any power going to the rear. Did I explain it wrong, or am I incorrect? I start giving power to the tire when I'm in the corner. I'm only concerned about what gear I'm in for the release, not my RPM's. I keep going back to our "maintenance throttle" discussion so many months ago when I read Freedys question. I'd been stuck on the maintenance throttle thing for awhile also. I think it invites too much room for interpretation, especially in this context. When the clutch is pulled in, there is no power to the rear wheel (ie freewheeling). A free wheeling motorcycle is not stable as it is the transfer of power that creates the stability. Nick Ieanatch is a proponent of Maintenance Throttle (MT) and the concept is easily confused with saying neutral throttle. I'm not sure if CSS's methodology is compatible conceptually. CSS uses neutral throttle for decreasing radius or off-cambered turns. To make things even more confusing, IIRC Kevin Schwantz uses off-throttle concepts. I think you and I were of the pro maintenance throttle, but after we had that discussion with Cobie so involved, I paid attention, and learned that I don't use it. I'm coming off the brakes in most corners, and am not back on the throttle until I'm in the apex range. I'm teaching my wife the same thing, but it's real hard on her EX 650 because she doesn't have a slipper clutch, and her bike is harsh coming off the corner. Luckily she has enough torque that she can be up a gear and have some pull. If Freedy is asking about how to know what gear to be in, what I do is find the gear that will put me in the lowest end of the powerband I can be in. It gets fairly easy to figure out after a few different tracks. The last one I did was spot on. I draw a map of the corners on the track, learned it from TOTW and it works GREAT, and include what gear I'm going to be in going in, and include how much to downshift. That way I can just know "up 3, down 2, down 1, up 3," whatever. There is a tricky track that I'm doing pretty well on, but I'm continuously working on gearing. I'm dying to try yet another setup, but know on a short straight I'm going to be hitting redline every time. It'll be redline, dip, so it won't be exactly feasible to shift at all. If you are in a gear that is iffy, try it a gear up or dow. It can't hurt anything except your laptimes for a few laps or a session. You should be able to figure it out pretty quickly And maybe I'm alone in this, perhaps an instructor could chime in, but being on the gas going into a corner is going to mess with your stability.
  3. SAY WHAT?!?!?!??? To the Original Poster: the sole purpose of downshifting is to put you into the powerband as you begin your drive OFF the corner. Nothing else. If you're thinking of using it to modulate your speed, it will hinder your times, smoothness and may also be a safety issue. . Learning point for me, I guess. When I'm going in to a corner, I'm coming off the brake and don't have any power going to the rear. Did I explain it wrong, or am I incorrect? I start giving power to the tire when I'm in the corner. I'm only concerned about what gear I'm in for the release, not my RPM's. I keep going back to our "maintenance throttle" discussion so many months ago when I read Freedys question.
  4. I would assume not. I'm sure it would affect steering, but when you see them lowside in racing (Simoncelli did it this weekend) it's because they are going in too hot. I've been off track a couple times for this same reason (accelerating too hard IN a corner), but have never lost the front directly by accelerating too hard out of a corner. I've never heard anyone at the track losing the front by hitting the gas coming out of a corner. You should be getting on the gas at apex, and the pressure on the front tire should be decreasing anyways.
  5. If you're on the clutch, I'm not sure being at a particular rev going into a corner would have any effect. When coming off the brakes you should be going into the corner with the clutch pulled in. Remember suspension compression. When braking your front compresses. When turning your front compresses as it decelerates the bike. The trick is to find out how to come off the brakes and work into a corner so that you don't have brake, compression, release brake, expansion, corner, compression, accelerate, expansion. Going into a corner you shouldn't be on the gas. Working it so that you're coming off the brakes, keeping compressed while going into a corner, cornering and keeping that compression, and skipping the expansion altogether between doesn't occur, or at least not much, takes some work. But if you have experience, even on street, this should be pretty simple to get the hang of because of your familiarity with clutch/gas. Sorry, I read my initial post and realized it wasn't answering your question. Hopefully this is a little more clear.
  6. You can only load the front so much until it gives. When you're in the corner you should start throttling gently. Goosing it in a corner will cause the back end to slide out or, worse yet, highside. You want a 40/60% ratio front/rear tire in the corner. What you're told is "maintenance throttle" will give you the 40/60 ratio. If you have a nice long 180 degree turn or long fast corner, you'll be able to notice it more because you have to throttle to make it through..... gently. Keeping the front loaded through a corner increases your chance of low siding.
  7. Where to be during cornering is my problem, but one thing I do is get into my braking and then downshift before cornering. To find my brake marker, when I'm taking my initial laps, I go by the cones, find solid RP's from there, then adjust accordingly.
  8. I don't know where in Texas you live, but I used to frequent Vegas (where they have 2 day camps) from Dallas, and the hotel and flight are cheap. A stay downtown, or even closer to the track and a rental car wouldn't cost much. The rental car would be cheaper than a taxi if you stayed downtown or on the strip. Or if you went and hooked up with someone on the site or got a friend to split the cost.
  9. One problem could be with the tires. Have you gotten new ones, especially for more aggressive riding? My wife still has the stock tires on her 650, and they like to slide a lot.
  10. Howdy Jeff. I'm in exactly the same boat you are, just with a little more track experience than you. I'm shooting for the two day in Vegas Oct/Nov. The books do help, but I'm in need of instruction and I can agree with Kevin's statement in that I've gotten some good, and some HORRIBLE information from fellow track riders, and even the track "pros." I have a friend who I met my first trackday, and have been pitting with ever since, and on our last outing, I found he had NO CLUE as to what a reference point is. He's picked up the books, and is going to study them during our summer break (it's like everyone elses winter break) and see if they don't make him a better rider.
  11. I just watched the Supersport race, and just can't think of a single thing to say that could be construed as anything but severely insulting to the announcers. It should be used in schools to teach how bad racing is called. I think they were doing something else while trying to call the race at the same time.
  12. Watching the track you're on, I'd guess that you're not as comfortable on the 1000 at speed. It looks like fast corners. If they are indeed as fast as they look, then you're the reason you're faster on the 636.
  13. Simoncelli got a $5,000 USD fine and a yellow card. I also thought they would at least swap places between him and Bautista, but it was just a stupid move, and hopefully he learned. And don't even get me started on the American announcers. Even that British guy and the "uh, uh, uh" announcer they brought in. The WSBK regular announcer is my favorite.
  14. There are a number of reasons they didn't have a flag, but it boils down to miscommunication. Even the story of bird vs. puck could be just some confusion to the story. I don't know how it makes a difference what was on the track. The point is that they didn't post a flag. We've had a number of incidences of something going out on the track or an accident and people not seeing it/paying attention. It's a sad story either way.
  15. This is the year of the Haga, so it wasn't a good weekend for me. During race #2 I also figured that Hacking destroyed his chances. I know he wanted to go all out, but he didn't need to cause an accident. I also don't think Zemke has a chance at going any further than AMA either. I don't know why they picked him up for a second time as a replacement rider after his other finishes. If you have TIVO, or can watch it on the internet, check out the MotoGP 250 in Mugello. Great race. The MotoGP race was fun also. They had to switch bikes from wet to dry tires during the race. Always makes it more interesting.
  16. Sounds like you were putting a lot of pressure on your inside foot while turning left. May be something to work on. Were you fighting the bike? putting that pressure on the inside foot can also make it harder to steer. I've had to get over something like this before.
  17. It came with it. I was at a trackday and that's the first video that I saw, and it got me interested. It is also the video that let me know if I'm going to dive into suspension and try to learn it that there is SO MUCH to it. I'm reading TOTW again, but when I'm done I'm going to start in on suspension. I have a bike with a fully adjustable suspension and one with nothing to adjust on the front to experiment with.
  18. It looks it. 2 low speed corners on the whole track, as far as I can tell.
  19. I start out simple. Rumble strips, cones, and feel. As I progress through the day, I find things that are in the area. Patches of cement, tar snakes, paint, chewed up pavement, and counts of rumble strips (I even use dirt on the track sometimes, but don't tell anyone). What I did last trackday that will I will carry on to all the other ones, is get off the bike and draw them on a track drawing I've made (not dirt or anything that isn't permanent), and it cements them in better, and before I ride the track, I will review it. Later in the day I wasn't hitting a turn thinking "oh, yeah, that's there," I knew where I was going. I drew out every corner individually, unless one set of RP's was lining me up directly with the next corner. Talk with other riders that you've seen blaze through the corner, and they'll probably have good RP's for you to at least be aware of. Some are real vague, and there are some riders who whip past me that can't even tell you what RP's they use, but most do.
  20. I'm currently watching an overwhelmingly informative video called An Introduction To Sportbike Suspension by OnTheThrottle.TV, and think my brain is going to pop. I almost blacked out watching it. Has anyone else watched it, and do you think it made you proficient enough in setting up your suspension? I'm going to watch it again before I start playing with my bike, because there is so much to learn before just knowing the basics of what this video has in it. I also have a book that is very informative, but I want to get what I can from the video first.
  21. Have you experimented, or just tried to make what you do work? I have seen people, I'm sure with shorter legs than yours, successfully be able to lock in. Maybe experimenting some would be helpful, and I'm sure at your level, spending half a trackday working on it would be very beneficial.
  22. I was pretty much going to say what Michael did. I read a lot about riding, and the things I've learned I try, or I correct whatever I've found I'm weak at. I focus on a couple things at a time. When I was on West (lefts) I figured out that while going through left hand corners that I have poor BP going that way, and put an excessive amount of weight on the front while braking into lefts and while cornering. Last trackday of the summer I worked on this. I've been working on corner entry speed, because this is something I'm very bad at, and will need lots of work. It comes together with BP real well. The last trackday I tried mapping out the track, and drawing my RP's, gear, and lines. It works wonderfully, and is something I'm going to start doing from now on, even on the tracks I am familiar with. I will start timing myself in certain sections, and work on one thing at a time. There is always a medium speed corner that takes a while to get through, and it's here that I work on BP. Just refining small things. If you aren't sure what you're doing, read more, and figure out what exactly what you're doing right and wrong. The problem I've come to find is that whatever it is I'm working on, I can't find anything in books that has effectively been able to get me past a certain point. I'm going to spend the summer working on it, and in the fall when the tracks open back up, I'm hopefully going to be better prepared. I'm still trying to get to the school so I can fix some major problems.
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