motorthings

i was talking to my dad about the exact same issue last weekend. i have been encouraging him to take the school, but sensed some reluctance on his part. the name of the school, and the assumption that many (if not all) of our students are racers, or at least extremely fast, and that the "mortal" street rider who doesn't normally push the limits too much will be a hindrance on the track, has not been my eperience. our students range from extremely fast riders and racers to much slower street riders, and our methods for teaching, drills, and very well executed course control, keep everyone happy together on the track. as an ex-racer, i had wondered how well it would work (before i took the school as a student), and was happily suprised with my ability to ride at my pace without spooking any slower riders (as long as i followed the rules and course control guidelines). the students i have had that were more sedate street riders at heart have all had a great time on the track, and have been able to co-exist with others of other speeds and skills on the track. many many riders (if not the majority) seem to show up with the same goals as you, to become better riders, and not necessarily just go "faster", so you should fit right in!

where were you looking as you entered and continued through the turn?

i run pirelli diablo corsas on my 99 r6 for trackdays and they work extemely well. i can get 3 or 4 trackdays on a set without a problem.

it is probably something you are doing with your body position that keeps you from locking in on your "bad side". if you take a close look at your body position on both sides, i'm amost positive you'll see that you are doing something different.

if you can't use your legs as part of the suspension, the key thing is to stay relaxed as much as possible. i'd try to explain the use of your legs in more detail, but it's so much easier in person. just ask your instructor about it when you are doing the lean bike drill at the school.

the steering bike is also the "no BS" bike, and as we use it for the steering drill, there is nothing special about it...it is just the bike we use for that drill.

switching to gp shift on my R6 definitely helped. the tranny on the early R6's is pretty notchy, and the gp shift works much better. it did take a little while for it to become natural, but now i barely notice.

It is something that is adressed in a 2-day camp. We will definitely have the steering bike ready for you, which will help sort out some body position issues, and depending on the track (and its availalability of off-track paddock space) we will use the lean bike to focus more on your hang-off position. Which camp are you taking?

sounds like you did everything right, 'cept the "entire body stiff" part. if you relax and let your body move in phase with the bike, or even use your legs as part of the suspension of the bike, it will help keep things more stable.

Level 1 students get to do the steering drill, but not the lean bike. You'll need to stick around for the next level to get a chance on the lean bike, but the skills you leanr in level 1 will definitely help you be more comfortable and confident leaning the bike. Look forward to seeing you at Barber!

by the time you get the bike upright, you should be WFO on the gas, so it's not a matter of quickly opening it up at any point along the way. part of your pain may be from how far the throttle has to travel in order to get to WFO. if your throttle was anything like the stock one on my 99 R6, you ended up with your wrist tiwsted way under from the excess rotation needed to open the throttle all the way. i replaced it with an R1 throttle tube that gave a shorter turn length, and that has made all the difference.

were you losing and regaining traction or was the suspension just cycling up and down? what were you doing with the throttle? what were you doing with the brakes? were you moving around on the bike? not that i can give you a perfect answer even with that info, but it would help point you in the right direction,

you best bet is to have your suspension reasonably well set up before you come to the school. there are a lot of other things you will be working on, and suspension concerns (at least as far as twiddling knobs and dials) will only distract you from the learning. there are many good articles on the net that can help you get a baseline on your settings before the school date. just do a search for "motorcycle suspension settings" and you should find a few different articles that tell you how to set the static sag and explain all the other settings. if you have a common motorcycle, you can often find other riders on a (kaw 636) messageboard and get some feedback from others with suspension like yours who weigh about the same, and are at your level on the track, who can give you a good start. set your sag front and rear (get a couple of friends to help), and set your front and rear at the baseline settings, and you should be good to go. if you are even close on the suspension, you shouldn't have to worry about it during the school, and can spend your $10 on the drills, rather than thinking about preload and rebound.

if you are "crossed up" on the bike (i.e. not parallel), it causes a number of stability issues. so, yes, it is very important. if you ride at a level like bayliss or doohan, you can probably compensate pretty well for those issues (but there are very few riders at the top level that use a body position like those two). if you aren't quite that good, it is much easier just to use the correct body position. if you are that good, there is a very good chance using a non-crossed up position will help you go even faster. level 2, and esp. level 3 will answer all of your body position questions and more...look forward to seeing you in class!

will, thanks for handling that....i couldn't muster up the diplomacy to answer the question in a reasonable way.

stiffer, less unsprung weight....both pretty negligible differences unless racing at a pretty competitive level. oh, and then there is the "trick" factor, fwiw

most people i know use a setup like you can buy at www.helmetcamera.com First you need a camera that can accept an aux video input. Also, check out the discussion here: http://pub114.ezboard.com/fyamahar6message...cID=10284.topic

...and here i thought the topic was going to be about how to use your abdominal muscles in cornering -

none that i know of...it's a nice thought, though.

used to be, the only way to get ready for a race or trackday at a new (to me) track was to buy a video of a race there (if one existed) and study a track map if i could find one. i at least wanted to know the basic layout of the track so i would spend a few less laps totally lost and blowing every turn. now i am able to find good quality on bike videos for most every track i would go to, and i have found that watching on-bike laps over and over again makes it much easier for me to learn a track when i get there. the video quality is sometimes even high enough to pick out a few RP's that i recognize while i choose to use them or find my own. when i get to the track, i still do a no-brakes drill if i have never ridden the track before, and start adding in more gears and brakes as the laps progress and my speed and confidence increase. does anyone else have any techniques for learning a track either ahead of time or at the track that they have found work well?

what they may have meant was to say that sometimes you can get more ACCELERATION (not traction) with a spinning tire coming out of a turn than you could on a perfectly hooked up one... as far as cornering traction, though, i can't think of a way that less than total traction is more traction.

Just curious what the racing background is of the CSS Team...How many of you actively race, what classes you run in, and what your approach is to racing (hit a weekend race when you can, run a full season, etc). Myself, i raced with WERA for 4 years on an fzr 400, made expert my second year, but never had the time or $, (or dedication, i guess) to hit every weekend, chase points, and shoot for the champoinship. I took a couple of years off from racing, but after the level 1-3 classes this past summer, and coming on board as an instructor-in-training, i'm thinking i may get sucked back into a few races this year. As i told Cobie - if i knew then what i learned this past summer, i KNOW i would have been a lot faster and smoother.

just curious how fast you travel on public roads, and if there is any correllation between your public speeds and amount of time you spend on the track. i have done my share of wild, fast, and stupid things on the street, and that was one of my main reasons for wanting to ride on a track. once i got a taste of track riding and racing, my speeds on public streets dropped sharply, and i took far fewer chances than i used to. i also stopped riding on the street much, since it wasn't anywhere near as fun as riding on the track. most of my friends who had bikes, rode on the street, and had never been on a track were still insanely fast on the streets, and did a lot of dangerous stunts (unfortunately often trying even harder to "impress" me since they knew i was a "racer"). they would pretty quickly just roll on the throttle and run away from me at triple digit speeds, and i never even bothered to try to catch up. i have long belieived that getting guys to the track is a great way to get them to slow down on the streets (for the most part), but wonder if any of you have seen the same dynamic.

i have to put in my plug for the no brakes format. through levels 2 and 3 this summer i was running the fastest student times in my levels (including level 4 guys) and i was only using three gears and very light brakes at two points on the track. i know a couple of the level 4 guys were working on braking, and i was still able to run quicker times since i wasn't spending my attention on braking so much, and was better able to get higher corner speeds. i enjoyed the format where i was allowed to use increasing gears and brakes as i felt comfortable (and able to still focus on the drills). taking away distractions that prevent you from doing and learning from the drill is the best way to learn what it being taught.

i knew a guy when i started club racing that would go throw up behind the tech shed before his first race of the day (every single time)...then more often than not he would win! i never thought of trying it as a recipe for success, though. for me especially as i got faster, moved up in the expert ranks, and started running in the top 5, that i had to focus on my mental preparation. my big hurdle was finding the will to feel competitive at that level and not have the need to do well take away from the fun of it all. It really came down to a solitary pursuit of smoothness, grace, and speed (and it just so happened that there were others on the track with me at the time). my "race face" concentrated mostly on shutting out the mind chatter and thoughts of other racers and anything else that wasnt vital to to accomplishing my goals. earplugs, stretching, knowing when my race was going to start, and doing well in my last practice session were all key. i also chose to start my warm up lap as late as possible, which left me standing on the starting grid for as short a time as possible, and gave me a chance to run as close to speed as i could on my warm up to gain confidence and warm up my tires.