Bpez
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Posts posted by Bpez
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What are the best track tires? I have 2008 ZX-6R that is my track only bike
Everybody has an opinion on this. CSS uses the Dunlop Qualifiers on their bikes. Most guys I ride with swear by the Pirelli Corsa III's. I'm almost due for tires and have been thinking about the Corsa III. Students of CSS get pretty good deals on Dunlops shipped free directly to your house. There's also Bridgestone bt-003 and Michelin power's. Sometimes it just comes down to easy access to tires. Find out who your track organization is sponsored by. In my case, I get the best deals on Pirelli's.
Air pressure is really important. Anything you decide to run will give you problems if they're not set to the right pressure for the track conditions.
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Good reminder video posted by a friend at Team Promotion
This is why you should always hook up the kill switch on a kickstand...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VkVLdTrk4w
I was out at the Buell Inside Pass day with Sportbike Track Time at NJMP Lightning on Sunday, THOROUGHLY enjoying my day, when the fourth session was red flagged because someone crashed on the front straight. At some point during the time waiting on the grid for the restart, I put my kickstand down to stretch out and just took off without thinking when they let us back out. When I turned into the first left hander, the kickstand dug into the pavement and (I guess) highsided me, flicking me over the bike, with me landing on my left shoulder before rolling off track. Thankfully, it was the warmup lap and we weren't up to speed, and I came away with just a fractured clavicle. I was pleasantly surprised that the Velocity Gear leathers and my helmet came away unscathed.
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I suggest taking the school before doing a track day if you can wait.
+1
Take the school before you pick up any bad habits. Track days with friends are fun, but are usually deemed successful if you get a knee down. Not really what you should be focusing on. I did 3 track days before CSS and was very surprised that I hadn't went down based on everything that I learned I was doing wrong.
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Thanks for putting that up, you other forum lurkers, please add what you think too!
Best,
Cobie
ps--we had a great school this last weekend, temperature was a a bit cooler, but not too cold, clear and not that much wind either.
I think you should get the word out about this forum during the school sessions to be used as a tool for continued learning.
The weather really cooperated later in the day. 29 degrees is a rough way to start out...
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(Double post from introduction section)
I signed up for L1 on Sat and was on standby for L2 Sunday. After Sat I really wanted Sun to happen. Trevor waited to the last possible minute to put me in. There were a lot of stragglers coming in late. Looking back over the weekend, I would have to say that doing L1 and 2 back to back is the way to go.
The weekend could not have went better for me. My brief bio....40yrs old...rode dirt as a kid through my teens...first street bike in my early 20's for a few years...stopped riding....married/house, etc. Just got back into street riding 2 yrs ago...into track days this past summer. First track VIR north and twice at NJMP Thunderbolt. Problems...Entry speed, lean angle, mid turn adjustments, confidence, etc. Wanted to learn the right way before all these problem turned into bad habits. Perfect timing for CSS.
I already knew Cobie and Misti from the forums. Introduced myself to both first thing in the morning. I was fortunate enough to get Cobie as a coach plus he was training a new coach so I really ended up having 2 coaches. We were fortunate to have Keith Code teach all of our class room theory himself. The structure is pretty straight forward: Class room theory, go out and put it to practice on the track with your track coach, and then debrief with your coach after you get off the bike. Then it is back to the class room for the next lesson. Each Level has five lessons and five track sessions. Each session was about 20 minutes. Then you do the ground school (turn bike) while you're waiting to go out.
The first thing we worked on was Throttle Control. In the class, Keith explained how the suspension works, why loading the suspension properly is key, and all the ways your throttle hand is going to try and screw all this up. Mid corner throttle application was covered, and before I knew it I was back on the track with my coach with him showing me where to get off the throttle, and more importantly how soon you can get back on it. Cobie pulled me off the track to tell me to stop adjusting lean angle while getting on the gas...unless I wanted to crash. Didn't realize I was doing it. They had us in 4th gear only and no brakes. I was intrigued in this as soon as I heard about this drill weeks ago. It really worked well for me to steadlily increase my entry speeds.
Second lesson was turn points. This helped me establish the correct lines which stopped my mid turn correction that Cobie pulled me off for. They use an X on the track. I do track days with Team Promotion. They use small cones on the side of the track for turn and apex points. I favor the cones since you can spot them from far away. 2 gears- no brakes still doing wonders for me.
Third lesson was quick turns. Get it turned over fast and ease on the throttle sooner. Worked wonders for my smoothness in the turn. Combined with the next lesson of relaxing and then on to looking ahead by two step turning....and I have the perfect recipe I've been looking for. Every lesson built on the other and blended well. My lap times went down by 20 seconds at the end of the day. Averaged under 2.00 I liked following the exact line of the coach. You can really see what's going right and what still needs some work. The thumbs up from the coach is a great feeling.
For Level 2 I had Paul as a coach. The day before I was ease dropping on some of his Level 3 coaching and was pretty impressed by him so I was glad to have him as my coach. At different times the coaches will sit on the side of the track and watch you come through the corner. They see everything from braking, body position, turn point, throttle on, relaxation, looking through corner then they follow without you knowing they're there. Everything gets critiqued which is exactly what I wanted. Paul gave me great feedback and the level 2 lessons were all about the visual aspects of riding. This combined with everything from L1 dropped my lap times another 10 seconds. I was averaging upper 1.40's by the end of the day which I was really happy with. Felt fast to me but still completely controllable. Basically, I moved my comfort zone to a whole new level. Would have been faster if it wasn't for traffic. I could tell the guys out with me weren't used to getting passed by how erratic they got as you went by, so I tried not to pass too much. The one thing I will say about passing is that the only rules they have are to keep a 6 foot distance. I saw some dangerous passes just because people didn't know any better. I would think everyone would benefit from a no inside passing rule from the turn point to the apex.
I'm flying back to PA this weekend and doing a track day Monday 10/20 at NJMP Thunderbolt. I'm really looking forward to using all this new found knowledge on another track that I know fairly well. Just need to remember to keep myself grounded and centered with all this and not do anything stupid. We all know what over confidence can do in this sport.
My thanks to Cobie and everyone at CSS. Well run operation by a lot of people who clearly love what they do! Looking forward to the 09 schedule for L3 & 4
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Yea, I signed up for L1 on Sat and was on standby for L2 Sunday. After Sat I really wanted Sun to happen. Trevor waited to the last possible minute to put me in. There were a lot of stragglers coming in late. Looking back over the weekend, I would have to say that doing L1 and 2 back to back is the way to go.
The weekend could not have went better for me. My brief bio....40yrs old...rode dirt as a kid through my teens...first street bike in my early 20's for a few years...stopped riding....married/house, etc. Just got back into street riding 2 yrs ago...into track days this past summer. First track VIR north and twice at NJMP Thunderbolt. Problems...Entry speed, lean angle, mid turn adjustments, confidence, etc. Wanted to learn the right way before all these problem turned into bad habits. Perfect timing for CSS.
I already knew Cobie and Misti from the forums. Introduced myself to both first thing in the morning. I was fortunate enough to get Cobie as a coach plus he was training a new coach so I really ended up having 2 coaches. We were fortunate to have Keith Code teach all of our class room theory himself. The structure is pretty straight forward: Class room theory, go out and put it to practice on the track with your track coach, and then debrief with your coach after you get off the bike. Then it is back to the class room for the next lesson. Each Level has five lessons and five track sessions. Each session was about 20 minutes. Then you do the ground school (turn bike) while you're waiting to go out.
The first thing we worked on was Throttle Control. In the class, Keith explained how the suspension works, why loading the suspension properly is key, and all the ways your throttle hand is going to try and screw all this up. Mid corner throttle application was covered, and before I knew it I was back on the track with my coach with him showing me where to get off the throttle, and more importantly how soon you can get back on it. Cobie pulled me off the track to tell me to stop adjusting lean angle while getting on the gas...unless I wanted to crash. Didn't realize I was doing it. They had us in 4th gear only and no brakes. I was intrigued in this as soon as I heard about this drill weeks ago. It really worked well for me to steadlily increase my entry speeds.
Second lesson was turn points. This helped me establish the correct lines which stopped my mid turn correction that Cobie pulled me off for. They use an X on the track. I do track days with Team Promotion. They use small cones on the side of the track for turn and apex points. I favor the cones since you can spot them from far away. 2 gears- no brakes still doing wonders for me.
Third lesson was quick turns. Get it turned over fast and ease on the throttle sooner. Worked wonders for my smoothness in the turn. Combined with the next lesson of relaxing and then on to looking ahead by two step turning....and I have the perfect recipe I've been looking for. Every lesson built on the other and blended well. My lap times went down by 20 seconds at the end of the day. Averaged under 2.00 I liked following the exact line of the coach. You can really see what's going right and what still needs some work. The thumbs up from the coach is a great feeling.
For Level 2 I had Paul as a coach. The day before I was ease dropping on some of his Level 3 coaching and was pretty impressed by him so I was glad to have him as my coach. At different times the coaches will sit on the side of the track and watch you come through the corner. They see everything from braking, body position, turn point, throttle on, relaxation, looking through corner then they follow without you knowing they're there. Everything gets critiqued which is exactly what I wanted. Paul gave me great feedback and the level 2 lessons were all about the visual aspects of riding. This combined with everything from L1 dropped my lap times another 10 seconds. I was averaging upper 1.40's by the end of the day which I was really happy with. Felt fast to me but still completely controllable. Basically, I moved my comfort zone to a whole new level. Would have been faster if it wasn't for traffic. I could tell the guys out with me weren't used to getting passed by how erratic they got as you went by, so I tried not to pass too much. The one thing I will say about passing is that the only rules they have are to keep a 6 foot distance. I saw some dangerous passes just because people didn't know any better. I would think everyone would benefit from a no inside passing rule from the turn point to the apex.
I'm flying back to PA this weekend and doing a track day Monday 10/20 at NJMP Thunderbolt. I'm really looking forward to using all this new found knowledge on another track that I know fairly well. Just need to remember to keep myself grounded and centered with all this and not do anything stupid. We all know what over confidence can do in this sport.
My thanks to Cobie and everyone at CSS. Well run operation by a lot of people who clearly love what they do!
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Hi Bob,
Glad to have you on the board, and that you'll be at the school this weekend. The weather looks like it's taken a nice turn to the cooler side, so that's good.
Come and say hello to me in the morning after you get signed up!
Decent chance you can get it, and sometimes just showing up we can take walk ons, seems like it's pretty often someone no-shows (no guarnatees though, we don't over book).
See you on Saturday!
Best,
Cobie
I'll have to wait and see about Sunday. Maybe the cold, windy weather will keep someone at home.
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I've been all over the internet searching for anything CSS related. Just about every forum I keep up with has posts relating to CSS. Mostly good, some bad. Can't please everyone all the time. I do notice how you guys are right on top of any complaints to make good on whatever happened. Like I said though, mostly everything is positive. It's good seeing both sides and hearing about everyone's experiences. As far as this forum goes, personally I'm still trying to catch up on everything that has been posted. Haven't had a question yet that I haven't found the answer to so far. These forums are a great resource to have at your finger tips.
Right now I'm at the Marriott in Palmdale pshyched for tomorrow!
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I just want to say that I'm getting ready to attend my next session with you guys in December at Infineon, so I just filled out my questionaire a few weeks ago. Sometimes it's a little challenging to answer the questions with any precision...but this article on The Bands of Traction - has crystalized my thoughts and what I will be communicating to my coaches when I arrive. It was the perfect thing for me to read at the perfect time!
I can never thank you all enough for the learning!
dp
Questionaire? Is that just for L4? Thanks in advance.
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Hi Guy's! I'm out in CA on business for the next few months and wanted to check out some of the tracks in CA. Since my bike is in PA I started looking at track bike rentals. Before I knew it, I found CSS. Answers my problems. I get out on the track with a bike plus instruction. Can't lose. I signed up for L1 this weekend 10/11 at Streets of Willow. I'm on the waitlist for L2 on 10/12. Hopefully someone drops out and I can get in. Looking forward to the 09 schedule. I would love to get out on Laguna and Infineon in the near future. Otherwise I'll wait for VIR or NJMP back east. A lot of people I know are waiting to hear what I think about L1. They're all thinking about signing up next year when you guys come out to the east coast.
Anyway, really looking forward to meeting everyone from CSS this weekend!
Bob
Track Tires?
in School Questions/General Discussion
Posted
There's a lot of info out about tire pressure. Here's a cut and paste to get you started to understand. You should follow the manufacture's instructions as a starting point.
More flex / with lower pressure = more heat developed.
Too much pressure = less heat developed. (yes, if you spin the tire more, you will create some heat, too)
Tires are manufactured with a rubber compound that delivers maximum traction at a small temperature band. Some rubber compounds have wider ranges than others. We need to be there, in that temp. range during the race.
The starting temperature is measured after the bike has been used and the tire has been sitting in the shade for 15 to 20 minutes. Hot temperature is as the bike was exiting the track.
Different tracks required different starting temps. A track with a lot of tire "spinning" and flex requires a higher cold temp and a track with good, constant traction allows the use of lower pressures, which let the tire reach the desired operating temp during the race. Lower tire pressures also allow the tire to flex and conform to track surface irregularities for better traction.
If cold rear tire pressure is too high and the tire doesn't reach best temp during your race or perhaps even never during your race - you lost the advantage of traction. If you run too low a cold pressure, the tire will flex too much and reach too high of a temperature during the race and get "greasy" - requiring that you back off for a lap to let the tire cool down a bit.
At Sears Point Raceway, on a rear tire, with 8 lap races, if you were too low of a pressure by 1 psi, you would get a +7 psi rise and the tire would get greasy" on the 6th lap. If your tire pressure was too high by 1 psi, you'd get a +4 psi rise and the tire wouldn't "come in" to best traction for 2 laps (instead of 1.3 laps) and never reach best traction during the race unless you "spun" the heck out of the rear tire when exiting corners and still the traction would have been better with lower pressure.
Different riders with different riding styles used different cold tire temps, but we all settled on the same pressure rise as optimum - even on different tires. So, pressure rise from cold to hot was a good constant setup concept.
There is NO blanket, perfect cold tire pressure.
Tire guys, by giving you one, are trying to make it easy for non technical people to deal with tire pressure.
There IS a best temperature. There is no doubt.
You still need to, for best traction, need to practice "Pressure Rise" to get to best tire temperature during a race weekend.
The lower limit, for us, is when there was not enough rigidity in the tire carcass to allow stability.
We ran (and I don't suggest anybody try these low pressures!!!!) from 25psi on some extremely short, 1/16th mile roadrace tracks (Bakersfield) to 32 psi (high speed tracks) on a front tire and 26psi to 33psi on the rear tire.
If we had to lower the pressure to the extremes, we tried to get a softer tire - but, we ran what we had available and did the best we could at that time.
Privateers (aka: test dummies) used to be able to get 2-3 different compounds and several different tire cross sectional profiles - but there wasn't any trackside support during the Ice Age.