johnnyrod

You're talking about different riding styles for different bikes i.e. fast ones and slow ones. As a generalism, using the optimum line carries the highest corner speed, and at some point on the exit you have to add power so using up some grip, so you need to widen the radius of the exit to compensate (lean less). Now we're getting away from the ideal line. This is faster than just going around the corner at a fixed speed then gettign on the gas afterwards. The point and shoot style is an extension of this, the cornering bit is made shorter, the bike gets upright sooner after the bend, and you get on the gas sooner. As a product (hello Keith) this gives you a faster lap time on a powerful bike, sacrifciing ideal corner speed for brute force. Which you use on one bike in various bends depends what will be quickest for you. Yes a twin can romp out of a bend compared to a four (so more like a big bike) but you'll probably be losing out on striaght-line speed on longer straights so would probably want to carry a bit more corner speed. In a slow bend, cornering fast or slow is only a few mph difference, better to get back on the gas asap, on more or less any bike. As you'll find, in complexes, your line through a bend depends a bit on what will happen in the next bend, that's what makes it fun!

yes this is the countersteering to produce the lean angle. Once the lean angle is set, the front wheel has to point into the turn to stablise the lean angle and cornering combo. If you have to apply pressure all the way round the corner, then you're partly straightening the front wheel up, but not turnign it outwards i.e. reducing the stabilisation so the bike tries to lean in a bit more - counteracting its desire to get back up again. No idea who Davies is TBH but what he's saying is that the gemotry and tyres of a bike won't give you neutral steeering in every turn and speed. Not really news but I disagree that it's a rare situation on a modern sports bike.

As Spidey says it's not a school for racing, but when you're more in control then you can go faster. Before this I'd tried a few trackday instructors to help me out, and really they were just trying to show me some good lines round the circuit. Good lines are a waste of time if you don't properly understand stuff like controlling the front tyre with the throttle, and you can't follow someone into a bend at the same speed if you can't control the rate at which you turn in. To be honest you haven't described the 2-step quite right, but this is part of Level 1 anyway. You go from the classroom to the track and back quite a lot, and aside from a few breaks it's a busy day. If you don't have an assistant then you might want to just put a good set of road tyres on your bike for the day. One of the principles is that you can't ride at 100% and learn anything, your concentration is all used up going fast. So things are slowed down a bit for you to learn new techniques, making space in your brain to take in the new stuff. That's why you can do it on any bike, the aim is to do it right, when you do the speed comes back by itself. There are lots of places to stay cheap near the circuit, up to 30mins drive e.g. Travel Inn or Premier Inn are typically 40-50 Euros a night, if you prefer.

I'm doing L3 at Silverstone on 14th July, which is a rare Saturday. Not sure about camping, I've got a B&B the night before. Where are you travelling from? Don't waste your time with tyre warmers unless you're on slicks, you won't be riding anywhere near the edge of you or your bike's abilities, save for the 100% use of your concentration. I've seen people riding tourers and even a BMW GS on L1 - it's all about upgrading your software not your hardware. Obivously I'd advocate the school, I wouldn't be going back again otherwise. Re. your corner entry speed, there are 2-3 of the techniques which together will have a good impact on this.

Anyone else going on the day? I want to get a track day in before and after (to get me up to speed and to practice what I've learned), not sure where yet.

Very interesting, so which way give smore squat?

It's worth trying, as you may prefer it. I found it utterly awkward, but I suppose when hanging off around a right hand corner it could feel more natural. Body position and how low one gets on the bike is a factor. The guys that get really low on the bike and to the inside, it really helps. But might not have to go to a full screwdriver grip, just adjust. CF It's usable on the road but is a little fiddly, I haven't really got the hang of going from screwdriver-grip to braking and back. I think it suits the angle ofclip-ons better than bars or flatter clip-ons. PS 2 fingers mostly, 4 for real stopping, both for feel and for power.

Yep no brakes = no fingers on brakes. Sounds like an SR or something like it, which basically translates as potential bad habit. There's a thread here somewhere about "screwing it on", holding the throttle like a screwdriver rather than a ladder rung. Might be one of Jason's. Anyway look it up and have a read, I found this gives more feel for throttle control.

pbrown I agree with Jason, I'd take the racer's advice with a pinch of salt. Lean angle comes fom a number of things but not really from when you get on the gas. If you're carrying lots of mid-corner lean angle then it sounds like either you're turning in slower than the other guys. Maybe you're line isn't very forgiving so you're turning tighter than some, I don't know, you could be turning in too early which makes a mess of everything and makes exits tough, a late apex is easier to handle if a little slower. TBH if Bullet says you're rushing/charging the turns then I'd be surprised if you weren't. The classic problem there is you're trying to go so fast on the straight and brake so late that you screw up your turn-in marker/speed. Back it off a touch and concentrate on corner entry, as this is going to give you the speed all the way down the next straight (I have similar experiences to Jason in terms of hanging onto the big boys). As for timing, I'd say you'd want to be on some throttle before the apex or you're not controlling the bike, and around the apex isn't really where you want to be going from off to on, but as long as you're not making a horse's backside of it, it's whatever suits your style.

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It sounds like you might not be finding good braking points, so you're slamming on too late. Find a reference point or two and stick to it, once you've tried it a few times then try moving it back or forth a bit if you find you're still going too fast, or letting off too soon before turning in.

thinking about another thread on GP riding and squaring off corners, how much can we take from watching the GP guys in this respect? They're riding bikes more powerful than we ever will (plus a bucketload of onboard electronics), and they're aiming for the fastest lap times by getting back on the power at the earliest possible point rather than the highest corner speed. The end product is a fast lap time, but is this the same product you could use on, say, a 600? I don't know if I'm explaining it very well, or maybe I'm just being dim!

I've found myself, on left handers, ending up holding the inner grip like a screwdriver. I've never tried on right handers because I'm still struggling to get a good feel on them. Anyway I ended up holding hte bar like this because I was hanging right off and scraping my toes and slider at the same time, just short of decking the peg out, and going pretty fast. It felt comfortable so I'll give it a go on the right side and see what it does for throttle control. Hand position is as Red17 describes above, rather than the usual fingers wrapped straight around the grip.

Interesting stuff lads, I've done Cadwell a few times and every time you learn a better way round. You must be pretty fast up the mountain to get some air, I can't tell you anything you don't already know on that one. For Hall bends, one thing I picked up from wathcing one of the BSB guys who was instructing on a TD, I was leaving my change-of-direction points too late e.g. he turned into the first right hander, then as soon as he'd reached the apex he started picking it up again to go over for the left hander. I was running a bit past the apex before making my next move. i think he did this on every bend in that complex. Okay, I'm not very fast, but just something you might want to know!

I guess about half the time I go to a track day I have a plan, the more I learn the more my riding seems to have gone backwards (I think this is just perception) so just riding around fast isn't quite enough. After I did level 1 I went to Rockginham a couple of weeks later and practised quick turns on right handers. After L2 I went to Oulton and tried to work on wide view and reference points. It can make for a rewarding day, I got my right knee down (a measure of confidence in this case) and made some progress on observation and even the pick-up, I went away as a little bit of a better rider. Other days the objective is just to have fun and try batter my friends or guys on faster bikes, or just work on post-crash confidence by building a bit of speed up again.

My best and worst rides have really come down to what's in my head. If I can relax and try not to get tunnel-visioned then I ride a lot better, if I don't then I'm too reactive and take ###### lines because I'm not looking enough (or perhaps seeing enough). Good physical shape certainly helps, and I graze all day rather than eat too much or too little (on track here). Goes without saying that the bike has to be fit as well, I try to ride it more so have a feel of how it is, as well as the usual spot checks.

I have the same problem, right handers feel a bit odd. I believe I'm in a different body position on lefts than rights, am still trying to figure out why, and how it feels to be in the right position, so I can get into it without the need for a big mirror a the end of each straight! The stand idea is a good one, and find an assistant, they'll probably point a few things out to you pretty quickly that you won't be able to figure out on your own.

Back when I was learning the basics, one of the bike mags was banging on about putting weight through the pegs to steer, so I experimeted for a while with weighting the inside peg. As said above, that doesn't steer the bike, but weighting the inside peg does give that feeling of better stability when leaned over, in a similar way to weighting the outside peg, instead of just sitting your ass on the seat and waggling the bars. However I learned soon enough that the outside peg was the way to go, as Keith says, and this only becomes more relevant when you ground out the peg or want to start hanging off. Sounds like Nick Ienatsch is a bit behind the times.

For my 2p... figuring out what the suspension is doing is a tricky job so don't be surprised if you have to work at it to amke some progress. As Pete says, alter only 1 thing at a time (once you have your basic setup correct - spring weights and sag for starters) and keep notes on how it feels. It can be confusing - softening the front will make the back feel hard, too much rebound damping feels harsh over the bumps, but so does too much compression (in a different way, though), etc. At some track dyas here in the UK we have suspension guys you can hire to help you turn your mumblings into adjustments, this is one way to go.

That's what i was trying and failing to say! I'd say it's more down to style by this point, you can watch MotoGP bar-cam and a lot of the guys are using the clutch, whatever works best for the individual.

Sounds like you're ready for the school, Luis. You've got track and bike experience to draw upon, and you already admit that you need to understand your riding betterm from the ground up. The school days aren't like a sticky plaster, they teach you things you then have to practice till you get them right (or just keep getting better over the years). The whole learning thing is a circular process, you have to get on somewhere and just go round and round with it!

It does take practice but it does make things smoother so it is worth getting right. To practise one at a time, you really need to practise the downshifitng on the road when you've got more time and you're slowing down less urgently. Then you can do it without the brakes, or let off the brakes to shift then get back on, if you need to. If you're slowing down gently then you might not even be using full engine braking but you need to get the next gear down, so blip/downshift. Stops pilions biting the back of your head and punching you in the kidneys as well. For me I set the throttle cable slack just so, as I find I blip by more or less the same amount (of twist) so when the throttle gets a bit slack, I end up with lumpy downshifts. That mainly applies to the track when it's all done a lot quicker. Where the engine revs ends up exactly before letting out the clutch isn't a science - as Jason says, it needs to be spinning somewhere close to where it will be once you let the clutch out, but really you're just firing it up there, because if you don't it'll drop instead , which is the wrong way.

If you only lowered it for the look then I'd set it back to stock and ignore whatever minimal difference there is in looks. You won't look very cool tiptoeing round bends or running wide if you've upset the handling.

Yep one of the ZX6 shock fits, I think there are a few variations, but it is the right length and has the same spring weigh (ish), check out svrider.com or sv650.org forums and do a search. I've never raced but the first time I took the SV on the track it had stock springs and braking was a bit, erm, interesting!

lakebum, my question exactly. Briang, let me try to work it out... 1 Braking - load on front, then let off brakes, front rises, weight moves back 2 start turning in, load on front as it's changing lean angle (getting pushed over) 3 Stay at constant lean angle: some load on front but fairly balanced. Use a bit of throttle here to load the back a little and to be ready to use throttle control if it slides So if I run 1 into 2 it'll keep the front more settled (not proper trail braking, I'm not up to that, just stopping it pogoing). If I don't pick up the throttle until 3 then it could end up moving the weight too far back until it settles down? If I can pick up the throttle between 2 and 3 then it'll ease the transition, perhaps, or at least turn two weight transfers into one. Am I thinking it through right? In terms of my constantly-increasing lean angle towards the apex, I do so because I'm not able to just chuck it over and hold it at a constant angle, either confidence (track) or grip (road, where you need more safety margin and/or can't see right through the bend). You're probably right, I am leaning on the steering too much, but I'm probably too used to doing it, i.e. bad habit from road riding. More throttle at this point? Not sure is the honest answer, harder to turn in I think so end up running wide of the apex etc.