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Don't we all have that fear? That's part of why I ride on the track - to challenge that fear in a safe and fun environment. I think of - and explain it - in this way: Basically, we are all working with two sets of limits: the physical (hard) limits of the bike & the road, and the mental (soft) limits in our mind. To most of us, the mental limit comes much before the physical limit. If you're at your own mental limit of, say, lean-angle, pushing that handlebar more to lean over the bike more will take quite an effort, since you're convinced that you're going to crash. Unfortunately, pushing violently through this "fear barrier" will often make you end up on the road, rubber side up, since the Survival Reactions from your Reptilian Brain makes you do the wrong actions. But you can challenge and move your mental limits by experiencing that your mental limit is bogus - and while that experience is usually learned first hand, it can also coming from watching other people ride: About 8 years ago, I was regularly doing trackdays at the same track with a couple of friends. Generally our pace were very similar, but in a particular 270 degree (the Carousel of Anderstorp) I could ride a bit faster than them and I got held up by them in that turn. In the paddock I mentioned to them that they could go quicker than the current pace, one of them immediately shot back "well why don't you just pass us then". Sure enough, I passed them both on consecutive laps on the outside in that particular turn in the next session. That had an immediate effect: next session they had increased their speed in the very same turn! Basically, I was moving their mental frame or limit for them: since we could all go at the same speed everywhere else, they surely could ride just as fast in that turn as I did .... and I had just proven to them that we could safely move our mental limit closer to the the physical limit. Now, I would argue that the "if he can ride that fast, then I can do that too" approach should be applied very judiciously, but then again, maybe that's why I'm not riding in MotoGP Now, off to bed and up in the morning for a 4 x 20min practice session at Sturup Raceway. Kai

I think it's an excellent idea! for many tracks, it will force you to learn dealing with decreasing-radius turns. I take that the road-worthiness test of the A* outfit was done at a different venue, since Miller was a Crash-Free Zone? Kai

Amid, In short, what Level 1 does is to tear down the most fundamental of your "riding habits" (however ill-gotten) and replace them the technology that makes you stable and safe: good throttle control, how and where to pick your turn points, how and why to do a quick turn, reducing or avoiding unwanted steering input, and finally putting it all together into the Two Step technique. I may not sound as much, but properly executed it can make a huge difference over your the feel of being in control of the bike and the turns. The coaches would probably emphasize or word it different, I'm sure Cheers, Kai (did L1-4 last year, looking forward to 2 days of L4 coming up in 2 weeks time)

Like hotfoot, I have hesitated to reply because I couldn't narrow it precisely so far. The best label I can put on it is "Quality of Life" - I don't ride for the adrenaline rush: last time I got a major adrenaline rush on a bike, it cost be a nearly totaled bike and 30% of my vision on my left eye, so I make a darn good point out of not repeating this. I continue to ride, for my perceived Quality of Life from biking much outweighs the Risk of Major Injury (most non-bikers clearly don't get this part). I ride because ... it's fun, it makes me feel alive, the experience of the beauty of the scenery around me (especially while touring the three-digit "Riksveier" in Norway) and smells, the feeling of being aggression and control on the track (as well as the smug smile of achievement I get from passing someone, even though it's not a race). It's my personal time-out where I don't have to think of anything else than the road ahead and the control of the bike. Big thumbs up to that! Even though I have neither kids nor wife, I know the importance of taking out time to rejuvenate myself: by being and doing more for myself, I can be more for the people around me. Cheers, Kai

Alex Schacht, an up-and-coming 16-year danish rider, as set a new lap record for the 600cc class at the Scandinavian Raceway Anderstorp track, in the beginning of May. Schacht set the new class record - 1:35.60 - on course to winning the second race of the Swedish Championship Round held at Anderstorp, despite visiting the track for the first time that weekend. It is an improvement of approximately 1 second over the old record. Even more stupifying was Schacht's win in the first race - a wet race: he was lapping aproximately 8 seconds faster than the local Swedes, and by the end of the 11-lap race, he was a staggering 1m02s ahead of number two! As a comparison, the ultimate laprecord for motorcycles was set by Wayne Rainey in the final GP500 race held at Anderstorp in 1990, which reads 1:31.107. I saw Schacht race in the end of May at Anderstorp (as part of my own 3-day session there) against other danish riders, and while he was "only" doing 1:36 laps, he was lapping a full second quicker than number two, and three seconds quicker than the winner of the German Yamaha R6-Cup in 2007, Thomas Rebien. If he keeps up like this, we should bee him compete at the world championship level in a couple of years. Report in danish: http://www.mctc.dk/?...5550&pagetype=1

On closer inspection, it seems that both Stoner and Lenz have their "wedding tangle" right up against the tank. Also, they're not hanging very much off the bike.

haha, love it. OK, that was SO internal! Any clues for the uninitiated? Kai

neow's on a 400 (VFR400 as I recall from his first post), so closer to 12K rpm perhaps. I've never raced, but I read that you want to be at max torque, when letting the clutch out. Regards, Kai EDIT: yup, a VFR400.

Ordered! Went to see the trailer on the slednecks site, and found the link in the first posting is no longer valid. I *think* it's suposed to link to this: http://slednecks.mobilerider.com/tv/1613/iframe.php?mid=24990&cid=10614 Regards, Kai

5 wins out of 6 races, that's pretty amazing! Kai

Well, make that one half-day at Sturup on May 23rd, and 3 days at Scandinavian Raceway, Anderstorp on May 28/29/30th. If the weather had played nice this past Friday, I would have nicked a day at Ring Knutstorp, too. Next up is probably ½ day June 4th at Sturup, just to polish up the form before 2 days of CSS and a day of photo-frenzy Next point should be July 30/31+August 1st on Knutstorp - what a perfect way to spend your last three days of vacation :D The Frand Finale is likely to be Augsut 24th .... on Knutstorp, as well. Kai

In my experience, it has to be a fairly steep hill, just to keep the speed up. On my commute I have a road that goes downhill for about 1km, but even if I start out at 60kph and pull in the clutch, the speed will drop to around 50-55kph. I guess this is why you're having the engine in neutral, as it gives less drag from the gearbox. Regards, Kai

After almost 2 months of track-hiatus (since Easter), I was scheduled for three days at the Scandinavian Raceway Anderstorp, in Sweden. It's a big (4020meters), fast track with long sweeping turns, which hosted Formula 1 Grand Prix's in the 1970'ies and GP500 was running there up until 1990. Since the Danish organizers were using local (ie Swedish) hands to handle the marshalling, not all things worked perfectly. Also, it was a rather large trackday, with up to 50 riders in each of four groups - with trackday novices led around the track in the D (slowest) group, and National and International level racers in the A (fastest) group and running Round I & II of a Cup series during the weekend. I participated in the B (second fastest) group, together with two friends. With that many novices, spills were abundant (yellow and red flags being waved quite a bit) and "rather alternative" lines were used. This was truly the havoc that several others have experienced at trackdays around the globe (but quite unlike CSS). In particular, I had a few incidents going from Turn 3 ("Hansen", a left-hander) into Turn 4 ("The Carousel" a 270 degree right-hander) where novices would take then as two independent turns, instead of cutting it short as an S-combination. At a particular incident, I had to slam the brakes so hard I did a sizeable stoppie, in order to avoid getting hit by another driver changing his line from far to right. After that I waited until I could determine what you were going to do and then go around them the on the outside. Last time I was at Anderstorp was in 2008, where I recorded a fastest laptime of 1:54:99. By the end of the first day, I had cut out 2 seconds of that, and continued to cut away another two seconds across the next two days, yielding a 1:50.707 lap in the final session - and I know that there's more to be found there. I had plenty of exercise in using the Pickup Drill and Hook-Turns, as well as working on flushing out old body positioning errors. Pictures taken my one of my friends' GF showed an visible difference in body positioning from the first to the last day! I'm still struggling with selecting good RP and TP's for the big sweepers (Turns 1, 2, 4 and 6) and leaning far enough, but TC and applying enough gas is better much better - so good that I was glad that I used the Pickup Drill, due to the rear tires starting to slide from time to time. The slides weren't very big, but enough for me to notice them and yet not getting into panic mode. I've brought back around 1150 pics and 4.8GB of video, so it'll take some time to sort through the silt for the gold nuggets. The ContourHD camera fell off the bike in the final session and took some damage, but the kind folks at VholdR has promised to send be some spare parts - free of charge! How's that for service? Videos and pictures to follow! Kai

(Ominous silence) Nothing happening in the world of CSS? Kai

Aww that sucks! It's really fun to start passing other riders when you can do that safely, instead of getting passed. And keeping the 1000cc's behind you because you get the better drive out of the turns than then is .... well, ego-boosting:D If you think you've really gotten the track-riding-bug, I'd suggest you start looking for a used racebike with fiberglass fairings etc. Basically any 2000+ model 600cc sportsbike will work fine. Get back in the saddle soon! Kai

Hi Albert, Yes, confusing indeed! I'll try to explain it to the best of my limited understanding and ability: I think we can intuitively understand that OVER-weighting the front tire can make you crash: the weight + cornering forces are simply bigger that the friction available - poof, and you're down the road. Now, the observation here is that Force(used) must always be lower than the Force(friction, available). For the sake of the discussion, let's assume we the available friction is 100%. In the case of over-weighting/braking/leaning/turning, the used forces is larger than 100%. But the available friction is dependent on how much weight you apply from the tire to the tarmac. If you lift the front wheel (ie: do a wheelie), you have 0% friction available on the front tire. A less drastic situation is that you're riding over a crest or accelerating hard - here less than 100% friction is available, so applying the front brake may lock up the wheel and a very fast turn-in could require more friction than available, and thus causing a crash. I have seen at least two people crash from failing to letting the front tire settle before applying the front brake One of the turns on Ring Knutstorp is located on a crest (and is blind). Going over that one at high speed is ... entertaining ... and has definitely had it's share of crashes over the years! Hope this helps understanding why too little weight can also be a bad thing! Kai

The only reason I don't have Chicken Strips on the rear tire of my streetbike is that I had to use it for CSS Level 1 & 2 in Sweden last year (the Swedes require that you have an insurance on your bike for courses, and you can't get that on a racebike in Denmark) Trying to get rid of Chicken strips or getting your knee down on public roads is just an accident waiting to happen. And potentially a very big accident too - don't go there please. Kai

Hi Redshift, Welcome a-board! If the BMW boots are designed for motorcycling, they should be just fine. I would be rather wary of bringing a set of mesh-type summer gloves to the track, so I'd suggest that you rent gloves from the School. I'm not familiar with "armored shorts", but they should cover all the way down to your boots and zip together (all the way around) with your jacket/upper body clothing. If they don't zip together, there is a risk of the pants and jacket exposes a strip of flesh in case of a spill - don't do that, and I believe that the school insists on jackets & pants zip together for that particular reason. All that being said, I'm not an employee of CSS, just a student. Hope this helps, Kai

ABS systems surely have their benefits, but I fear you are putting far too much trust into the 1st and 2nd generation ABS systems. The first couple of ABS generations would not be able to save you from crashing, if you locked up the front wheel while leaning. Trust me on this one, I have seen too many beemers with these systems doing braking exercises, and their owners will readily agree to the 1st/2nd generation shortcomings. Regards, Kai

The "Big Four" (Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha) all offer ABS on some of their models - at least here in Europe. While most of the bikes offered with ABS are in either the street/basic-bike or the super-tourer segments, Honda offers the CBR600RR and the CBR1000RR in both ABS and non-ABS versions. Off the top of my head, I can only remember Triumph, along the other brands, as delivering ABS-shod models. So yes, ABS is slowly being delivered on more and more bikes. As to reasons: there are multiple, in my opinion. * I read that BMW is now on their 7th generation of ABS. Up until the 2009 generation (or so), a good human operator could easily beat the ABS system on stopping distance, on dry pavement & good conditions. That applies for all the ABS systems more than two or three years old, actually (I've seen most of them as instructor at the DMC safety courses here in Denmark). With the latest generation, the ABS beats the human even on dry pavement (in the wet, ABS wins hands down). *What we have also seen, is a reduction in weight: BMW's system on the S1000RR weighs in at 2.5kg (5.5lbs), whereas older systems would add up to 10-15kgs (22-33lbs). * Conservatism within the rider community, and possibly a bit of unneeded heroism among the sports bike riders: "I don't want something between me and the bike", or even "I don't want X pounds of dead-weight added to my bike". What I expect to see over the coming few years is that all the bigger brands will figure out how to deliver low-weight, "super-human" ABS systems, which will proliferate to most/all models. That being said, I still believe that we, as riders, need to learn how to brake optimally, both with and without engaging the ABS system, since the ABS system CAN fail to provide the anti-locking effect - and that's where you really want to brake correctly. Now, enough of my ramblings... Kai

Negative impact on a street tyre from a tyre warmer? Honest, I don't know. They are mostly done with the same technology, but with different rubber compounds obviously. My gut feeling is that using tyre warmers probably wont damage a street tyre (very much). Probably not more than blitzing around the track will Of course, all tyres are affected by heat cycling - the question only remains "how much?". Speaking of tyres being affected: water has a large impact, as it functions as a lubricant for the stones and tarmac you're riding on. That is supposedly why you will see larger tyre wear when riding in the wet, even when you're going slower (street or track). I agree with Eirik on discussing tyres - it is very much a matter of 'taste', and a topic that can almost get you into a fist fight/take religious proportions. Speaking of Metzeler vs Pirellis tyres: Pirelli owns the Metzeler brand. I keep forgetting the other 'pair' in motorcycle tyres, but I *think* it's Dunlop and Bridgestone. Regards, Kai

All the best to you, and hopefully see you soon. Kai

Here's a video taken yesterday at Sturup Raceway. It's tight, twisty, bumpy in places, has weird tarmac changes in a couple of turns ... but, hey, it's the track closest to me and it's possible to ride there almost every Sunday Let's see if I can figure out how to embed the video... whee - it worked! (if you want the higher BW modes) Shot using the "ActionHD" mode (720p@60fps). Kai

Jaybird, One of the errors that my coach Paul spotted on Level two was that I tend to sit rotated around the tank (a big no-no today, but I was told it was the Right Way in '98 and took to it as a fish to water). Now, if I rotate around the tank, I tend to push the inner handlebar (which will stiffen the steering and will give you less feedback from the front tyre - not good). It sounds to me that you're doing either exactly the same, or something else that causes you to push the inside bar. I would suggest that you take a look at how you sit when in the hang-in position. If possible, try to move a little back on the seat and make sure that your shoulders are square to the driving direction (much like if you do alpine skiing) - that might help you to stop pushing the inside bar. Since I've been doing this for 10+ years, it's taking me quite some time to un-learn this and relearn the proper way. Hope this helps, Kai

+ 1 on that Bullet Here is something I have been thinking about for those that dont use warmers, warming tyres can sometimes be frustrating, especially when your getting passed by dudes that you know you are faster than but you need to rise above that! The thing is if you look through your CSS books you have 15 drills to work on, can you remember what they all are? I'm not going to list them all here but as Keith said, not a good idea to quick turn on cold tyres, so were down to 14 drills! You see every time I go on track I pick a drill to concentrate on but I'm tweaking that plan a little so now I will concentrate on a drill that will work with cold tyres for the first 5 or 6 laps, going through my books, the majority of drills will work with cold tyres e.g. all the level 1 stuff except the quick turn, all the level 2 stuff, and pretty much all the level 3 stuff, OK when I began writing this I thought I could eliminate more than 1 drill from the list, thats a testiment to how good the drills actually are so for me anyway my first 5 or 6 laps will be focused on throttle control rule #1 staying relaxed and all the visual drills! Bobby, you're correct on your observations - but I still disagree on using tirewarmers. My point of view is that a typical session 15-20minutes long, and with a laptime of 1-2minutes (depending on track & skill level), you usually don't get much more than 10 laps per session. So spending 5-6 laps to warm up the tires means that you're spending more than half your laps all day long, just to make sure your tires are warm. And that is a waste in my opinion. Besides, big heat cycles tend to wear out tires quicker, than the tires staying warm all day. Regards, Kai