khp

The UK branch has released the schedule for 2016, along with discounts for early bookings happening until December 31st. http://www.superbikeschool.co.uk/schedule.php Kai (not affiliated with the schools)

+1 Even the 2Hz update rate of some Contour cameras isn't enough to give a decent resolution. It also seems that some of the older phones have a rather poor spacial accuracy. My GPS laptimer has 5Hz resolution, which seems to good enough although maybe at the low end. You can get commercial GPS'es with 50Hz update rate these days (which is probably way overkill)

I agree, a "too fast" turn-in will make your bike point towards the inside curbing and potentially to the inside of it too. - If that happens, what can you do to compensate? - If you can safely, consistently and comfortably increase your turn rate by some amount, what does that mean to your choice of line? - If you have a quicker turn-in, what does that imply to your needed lean angle and TP? Your turn-in rate and the visual feeling of being "lost" are separate issues. You can choose to work on them as you like, but my preference would be on the visual side first. (I need to work on both as well as carrying more lean and speed in the corners). You answered your own question back up a few posts. Reference Points are references - for "something" in time and space/place. They tell you where you are supposed to be on the track and what you (potentially) should be doing there. If you go into a very long turn like the one on AMP, and you don't have any RPs between your TP and the apex, how would you know if you made the right line? Suppose you have just nailed that T13-T14-T15 turn on AMP. You know exactly where to turn, which line to take, etc. What would that do to your confidence? - Now what would it require you to nail that turn? A TP for sure. An Apex for sure. But the track layout and distance between the TP and the Apex makes it hard or impossible to see the Apex from the approach to the TP. But suppose you had an RP between the TP and Apex that is easy for you to see from the approach to the TP, which is directly on the line to the Apex. What would that do to your confidence in turning and getting back on the gas? Suppose you need two or three RPs between the TP and the Apex. Would that be a problem? Take a look at Twist-I, Chapter Four: What You See. It's all about reference points.

Find a corner (or several) that you are very comfortable with and practice there. Say you use a "too-high quick turn rate" in a corner. - What would be the outcome of this? - Would you be able to do something immediately that 'fixes' this in that corner? - Which things wouldn't you be able to 'fix'? Here's something for you to consider: When I rode my YZF600R (back 15 years ago), I would - on a warm track with warmed up road tires (sport tires of the day) - flick the bike so hard that I used my knee and muscles in my thigh to act as a spring to stop the flick*. I never ever lost traction from this. I never dropped the bike from this. *) Saner people than me advised me politely that this was probably not the best approach and I should take it a little bit more easy

Thanks. Here's a direct link for those of you with Android phones: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=it.pirelli.diablosuperbiker You can get laptimer/loggers which take analog channels. Starlane and GPX Pro from XTracing.com comes to mind. I'm toying with the idea of making my own logger (including IMU and analog channels), but the main hurdle is to make the visualization software.

I guess the most exciting thing about this race was Rossi' charge up through the field the first 12 laps. From then on, he maintained his position as 4th, but went backwards compared to Pedrosa, Marquez, and Lorenzo. Lorenzo did what he had to do - win the race and rode a great race. So did Marc and Dani. Rossi's comments after the race was just downright disgraceful; that Dani & Marc was "protecting" Jorge so he could win the championship. This is the Dark ("Moon") Side of Rossi showing: when he's close to winning but quite can't win, he gets pissed off and sees conspiracies against him winning. Rossi didn't like Lorenzo winning over him last time they rode in the Yamaha Factory team, and he doesn't like it now. Unfortunately, (IMHO), he's acting like a spoiled brat who is entitled to win the championships. The hard data says that Rossi just isn't fast enough to beat Marc & Jorge (and likely Dani too). Rossi did very consistent 1:32.1-.2 laps for most of the race, with two laps under the 1:32 mark: Laps 3 & 4 where he did 1:31.997 and 1:31:820. Lorenzo? He did 1:31.7-31.8 laps until lap 20, when he dropped "down" to 1:32.0-3. Lorenzo's slowest lap (not counting the opening lap) was the final lap of 1.32:331. The spectator's booing of the podium was also a disgrace - motorcycling gone footballing. Im my opinion, we got the right champion this year: the fastest guy. Jorge Lorenzo. Congrats to you Jorge.

Thanks, very interesting! 2D is used in MotoGP so it's in the very high end. They csn do just about anything, but come with a rather high entry cost.

The hook turn (ie moving your upper body forward and down) moves weight from the rear to the front wheel, and thereby affects the effective rake and turning radius. Moving your body weight to the inside of the turn moves the CoG to the inside of the turn, allowing you to keep the bike more upright.

Yes, I did change them and this was day 1 riding on the new setup. The front end is GREAT, perfect, so I am trying to adjust the rear without needing with the front. Hotfoot, If you added 1-2 mL (milli-liter, one thousands of a Liter) of oil, you will have a slightly more stiffer air-spring, which should mainly have an impact when the fork is most compressed. I tried adding ~10 mL of oil to my forks, in order to reduce the max travel of my forks, and I found that that gave me ~15mm less travel - more than I wanted. So if you're going to add oil to the forks, try adding a very small amount at a time and see how much difference it makes. Speaking of fork travel - how far are you from bottoming out the forks? I would still try to reach out to Dave Moss or someone similar, if I were you. Kai

Hotfoot, you're having a delicate balance here. Lowering the front will make the steering quicker, but will also move more weight over to the front and make the bike easier to make stoppies. Have you considered if you can raise the rear instead? either by shims or by extending the shock itself? Like you're saying, you really want the rear shock to extend quicker and further than it does right now. Since rebound affects the wear quite a lot, I would be reluctant to mess too much with that, but instead consider to either have less preload (so it sinks deeper) or maybe have a softer spring. If I remember the discussions on the forum right, you're not a particularly heavy rider, so it might be OK to remove a bit of preload without sacrificing too much in the other end. I'd try giving my local suspension guru a call - in your case that would be someone like Dave Moss, I presume.

Spray painting is fine as long as they don't catch you doing it You could choose to donate a bit of your rear rubber by stomping the rear brake here and there. There's always chalk, which will go away naturally.

Go find a can of spray paint and make some dots and marks here and there

Excellent read, Eirik. Thanks for posting. I think part of the reason that this happend is that both Marc and Valentino are really bad loosers - and in turn that's why they are such great winners.

Hello fellow man! I've got the same problem It was Cobie who pin-pointed my problem back on Big Willows in 2012: The lack of reference points ("dots") along the corner (Turn 8-9). I simply didn't have enough reference points to feel comfortable about how fast I should be driving and where I was supposed to be .... so I was hesitating on the throttle, had erratic lines through the turn, multiple steering inputs. If there was a possible problem outcome, I had it. Once Cobie made me realize that I was missing (enough) reference points to confirm myself that I was on the right line and I (again, with help from Cobie) got them knocked down, I went substantially faster through the corner. Entry speed was something like 15mph higher. Does this sound in any way familiar to you? (yes, sorry, it's not the normal official socratic CSS way of asking).

Absolutely. Just ask Dani Pedrosa last year in Aragon, when MM cut the cable of the Traction Control sensor in a pass. And MM wasn't even apologetic about it. For me, what was different this time was that Rossi deliberately sought out the contact (again, I should add: Sete & Stoner will be smiling now), whereas the incidents that I've seen from MM have not been deliberate. Rossi should know better to win on the track and not in the press conference. Even Dorna can't protect him from things like this.

I'm stumped by Rossi. Handing the championship to Lorenzo in the most unprofessional way. In Moto3, I wonder if Danny Kent is in the process of "doing a Redding" (in 2013: Redding had a nice lead into the last couple of races and then proceeded to throw the championship away). Why is Kent so much less dominant/competitive that before the summer break? Sure, his height and weight is a clear disadvantage over smaller riders, but that wasn't a problem in, say, Argentina.

Kai;His times in the first two practice rounds at Sepang are not good. He was tenth in FP2 and Lorenzo is first (again). Kevin, That's exactly my point (btw Rossi was 8th, not 10th, in FP2). Rossi got entangled in some kind of slow-down game with Marquez in FP3, which just shows how much such games can backfire. Rossi's the one who needs the close the gap, not Marquez. Interestingly, In Q2, Rossi managed to squeeze Lorenzo out by 11/1000ths of a second for the 3rd spot on the grid, sending Lorenzo to 2nd row.

Now, there's hard-earned wisdom right there

If Rossi can stay at most one place behind Lorenzo, the title is his. However, the last couple of races have shown a vunerable Rossi to me, because Marquez, Ianonne, and Pedrosa have all been able to beat him. I'd love Rossi to win his 10th title, but I have very serious doubts that he's going to make it. In the end, Rossi just isn't as fast as Lorenzo and Marquez this year (look at how Rossi struggles to keep the pace during practice and qualifying). He's just been more consistent during the races and that's what has put him on top of the points list, and that's often what wins championships (e.g. Rainey vs Schwantz). I take his press conference antics and statement to the Italian press (he's accusing Marquez of helping Lorenzo because Marc prefers Jorge to win a 3rd championship over Rossi winning his 10th) as trying to play mind games with them and at the same time start coming up with excuses of why he didn't win the championship this year. Rossi's always been good at mind games, but he shouldn't be coming with such allegations - they are just beneath him.

Say, what is that flashing orange light on the left side of the Odo - would it happen to be the traction control kicking in?

That was my thought exactly too. I was very surprised that neither Lorenzo nor Marquez were able to get away from the others, once they got out in front - they've done that again and again over the season, so why not this time? Maybe it's the high-speed corners that makes it different on Phillip Island? Yeah, Lorenzo was wearing very small shoes there. It's not like Iannone has been doing this all season; he just happened to end up behind Lorenzo because Lorenzo waited a bit to go out on the track.

Yes, tires can get old. Generally, the recommendation is to: * Not mount a new tire older than 3 years * Not ride on a tire that is older than 5 years The reason for this is that some of the tire components leak out over time, and when they do that, the tire becomes less soft and plyable. Some tires even carry a warning that they must be stored above ~5 degrees centigrade or without weight on them to avoid damage (cracking of the rubber).

I think this race was probably the most exciting race of the year (so far), because it was a four-way dogfight to the line. It was totallt insane that Marc Marquez was about to take 1 second out of Jorge Lorenzo on the final lap, to catch up to him, pass him, to be ahead by 0.25sec at the chequered flag. Just WOW! In some ways, it was a very unusual race, because neither of those that went (Marquez, Lorenzo) in front were able to up a decisive gap, but were caught up again. Lots of passes at the two hairpins (Turn 4 & 10) and great stuff like Iannone passing both Rossi and Marquez, when Rossi did a block-pass on Marquez but left the door open on the inside for Iannone. Oh, and Iannone taking out a seagull with his helmet and fairing - there was a mighty hole in the fairing just over the right handlebar! Marquez and Iannone demonstrated again and again the power advantage of the Honda and Ducati over the Yamahas, as they out-dragged Rossi several times out of Turn 12 and down the Gardner Straight to the finish line and Doohan Corner (Turn 1). I guess that Ol' Santa can start preparing a more powerful engine as a Christmas gift for Rossi & Lorenzo. With Rossi missing the podium for the second time this year, his advantage over Lorenzo is down to 11 points. Not terrible, but not exactly great for him either, as it seems that every race a new contender comes and pushes him backwards in the points. In Moto3, Danny Kent really just didn't have the luck, as he got clipped twice by other riders. First time he was lucky "just" to be pushed back 4 seconds and behind Bastianini at the 16th place. He fought himself back through the pack and Bastianini to around 5th when Antonelli's front wheel clipped Kent's rear wheel, sending the both off in a big way - and taking Bastianini with them.

+1 to what YellowDuck said and adding that your lower arms should be almost horizontal. This will make your steering input more effective.

Apextc, you should rather ask yourself that. My leading question will be: is there anything in that list that you provided that could be moved around? Right now your list says: 1) Brake 2) Downshift 3) Body position 4) Turn point (counter steering) 5) "Kiss the mirror" (not sure that you mean by this) Is this list complete? - anything missing or superfluous? Bonus point for point out which things are mandatory for all turns, and which are only needed for some turns.