Hi All,
Not sure if this is the correct thread, but it certainly involves my (lack of) sense of traction....
I have done Level 1 at Silverstone Stowe - and going to Jerez in a couple of weeks time.
Since my course, I have been working on three things mainly, throttle control, picking a turn point and the two step.
I have also been trying to pick as deep a turn in point as possible.
I have found that in some corners - the nice wide ones with lots of room for error, strangely enough, I have no problems and can apply pretty good throttle control, in fact it is almost automatic to role the wrist when the bike isn't upright, am very relaxed on the bike and it goes just where I want it to - it all feels great.
I am talking about the roads here, so I am not exactly pushing it.
However, when the road is narrow (I live out in the countryside with very twisty, bumpy and narrow roads), with a wall next to it and I can't easily see the line I want to take all the way through the corner, everything goes to ######. It is also worse on right hand bends (in the UK, so riding on the left).
Having thought about it, a lot, I think that it is because I am basically not confident in my ability to get the bike turned, on the line I want and be confident that I will get traction. If I am going deep into the corner, then I am necessarily turning close to either the edge of the road (a stone wall), or the other lane. I have never had a loss of traction of the back wheel and have no idea what it feels like. So in a situation where I have to be very accurate with my turn input and confident that I will get traction, I find that I tense on the bars and my throttle control is... well, I have no throttle control, coasting. This compounds the whole situation, but I can't seem to do what I know will make it better.
The way I see it, the deeper I go into the corner, the less space I have before hitting another car or running off the road in which to make my correct turn input that will 1) keep me upright and 2) put me on the correct line and not run wide. So I end up going into corners waaaaaay too slow, making multiple turn inputs and then basically breaking every rule that I have been taught, caused by the uncertainty.
So, can anybody help me to overcome this problem? I have a sneaky feeling that in these situations, the issue may well be to do with where I am looking, but I also know that I have no real sense of traction, don't know where it will not grip anymore, what to do if this happens and am not confident in my ability to accurately turn the bike.
Danny
