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mike isbill

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Everything posted by mike isbill

  1. Yeah, I can see Norris. The 'stache was pretty ridiculous...and just like Chuck Norris, I can slam a revolving door.
  2. I know...I just mean getting close to the limit. I've been in situations where I could feel it getting close and that's about enough for me. I know there are those who are comfortable riding that edge and maybe pushing the front a bit and I'm just saying I'm not one of them. I prefer to have a significantly bigger cushion than some of the other guys. Guess that's why they're so much faster I should have made a more clear delineation between a small slide being where I was getting comfortable with traction at the back, and just feeling the approaching limits with the front end.
  3. It was only toward the end of this last year that I started to get somewhat comfortable with the traction at the rear of the bike. That is to say, I got to where I knew at certain corners I could get a little slide on the exit and I could roll with it and not lose any attention to it (thanks to James Toohey for his help on this one). I haven't really gotten comfortable with the front end traction yet. I've felt the edge a few times and it wasn't at all comfortable for me. A few good rain days with the school definitely helped me get much closer to that, but I know that my technique isn't quite good enough for me to hang out on the edge like some of the other guys do, so I'm just going to have to work on that for a few more years.
  4. He's 11. As far as red bull racing etc.... there's no doubt he has the talent, I've chased that little guy around the track a bunch, but I'm not sure what he and his dad have on their sight picture for him.
  5. eh....that's a normal morning drive to the track with certain members of our crew That's INSANE! I don't know if I'd have been the guy on the little Segway. That's some trust there.
  6. 1. accurate understanding of the mechanics of how the control functions of the motorcycle operate 2. accurate understanding of how to operate them 3. Ability to accurately/precisely operate them 4. Training on lines, how to select them, why they work and don't work 5. perfect practice (or as close to it as one can get) of the above, with appropriate feedback from a super-awesome coach. 6. experience ^ intentional grammatical error for humor & emphasis purposes
  7. WOW! He took 8 seconds off his last race school? WAY TO GO PAUL!!!!!!
  8. I'm really falling in love with the world superbike scene. And just as here in America, it seems the best racing is at the 600 level. I'm a big Johnny Rea fan with world supersport. If Johnny Rea is nearby, there is soon to be a battle. Here in the states...again, my favorite guys are in the 600 class. For the established guys, I love watching Josh Herrin, but I'm keeping my eye on my boy Josh Galster. He's had a bit of a setback with his injury, but mark my words, we're gonna see him fighting with the big boys one day.
  9. I agree with acebobby, but I've seen a few crashes that even with really bad throttle control they would have made it through were it not for one big error... A lack of understanding of countersteering leading to the rider holding pressure on the bars/manhandling it through the turn and sapping front end traction as a result.
  10. I think what it boils down to is that these techniques FEEL safe and effective. Corners are scary. Straight line speed is one thing, but add a corner to it and the fear goes through the roof. Well, if speed is the monster, then the brakes (and decelerating by being off the gas) are our salvation right? Fortunately someone has taken the time and effort to show that this really is not the case. I must admit I was a bit of doubter when I first heard of the school as well, but there really is no arguing with logic and data. It just works, it's got data to back it up, and it's not based on someone's feeling. Some of the techniques I've read about in magazines (I was a big fan of that particular column as well) seem to be either racing technique mis-applied to the average street rider, or as I opined above, based on someone's feeling on the subject. I agree with LeftLaner that it's all about who you choose to listen to.
  11. Sure, just call up the office and let them know. People do it all the time. On the morning of the school, you could also remind one of the folks at registration as well.
  12. Like Will tugging on Peter's elbow as he passed him this past Tuesday oh, that was funny. I was right behind them when will did that. Looked like he startled peter pretty good there.
  13. http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p166/mi...l/sbkbarber.jpg Still having trouble with the photo attaching buttons on the page, so I'm just going to post a link to the photo. This was taken this past weekend at barber.
  14. The BB code image tags have been disabled on this site as well. I tried to do that to get around the actual image attachment button but found that bb code tags were blocked as well.
  15. I don't know exactly what Will could do for you, but at my last couple outings with CSS I saw a few vertically challenged ladies find ways around it. If you can at least hang off a little bit to one side and stand it up with one foot, when you come in from the track the instructors or other students are quick to take the bike from you and park it. I'm not sure how they worked lining up at Hot Pit prior to the session starts, but other than that I don't see any other places where touching the ground is any issue at all. A little prior coordination with the instructors and you might be OK. If you can reach the controls, you should be good. I'm sure the staff will be along shortly with a much better answer.
  16. Yeah, definitely get some stomp pads. Probably the best thing I put on my bike for making me comfortable at speed. Amazing how such a simple little thing can make so much difference. As for getting everything consistent, I took a page from the school and started doing a lot of practice in my garage with the bike on the stands to get some 'gluteal reference points'. I just wanted to get to the point where I knew exactly where my butt should sit on the seat during corner set up/braking without having to pay it any more attention. It really worked, and allowed me to focus more on the bike and the actual corner rather than having my head up my a** so to speak. With the stomp pads you'll most likely feel a great deal more control over your body under braking and be able to keep the force off your arms. You'll feel a bunch more comfortable while hanging off as well. Won't feel so precarious. And you're right to try and absorb most if not all the force of braking through your legs. Relaxed hands and arms will be much more able to dial in precise inputs to the controls. Stiffen them up and the inputs will stiffen as well. Oh and I'm about your size, so I understand the difficulty of holding that much weight back during hard braking.
  17. I stay away from the rear brake for the most part. As I see it, as the pace increases and forward weight transfer under braking increases with it, the percentage of the total braking capacity that the rear brake possesses approaches zero. Most of us don't have need, or the necessary precision in our control inputs to tap into this tiny percentage effectively and safely. On the track, I've heard of some riders using it effectively and it being of real benefit. But I'm sure most of those guys get paid alot of money to ride. Even going at speeds most of us consider ridiculous, they still have 9 of the 10 dollars left and can afford to work out that intricate balancing act. It has its purposes, but I think it's one of those that has very specific (and limited) applications that can get overused by those of us wanting to be like our idols in pro-racing. I really only use the rear on the street, and that's because my Honda ST1300 has linked ABS brakes and does it for me.
  18. Couple of my favorites. Both at Barber. 1st is from level three, and 2nd is me trying to apply those lessons on my own bike.
  19. I think that unless you're trying to use the school as a venue to set up your race bike as well, renting one of their bikes the best bet. For an extra 300 bucks (the price of a set of good tires), you don't have to worry about anything on your bike breaking and ending your day early. Their bikes are set up beautifully, and just knowing that will give incredible confidence which helps alot. And even little things like not having to trailer your bike, or even so much as refuel or tinker between sessions are great. You get more time to talk to instructors, benchrace with the other studetns, or just rest. And if you crash you're only out your damage deposit at most. Sure if you're bike is worth less than the damage deposit plus rental fee it may be financially sound. But I don't see that being the case very often. I love my bike, but I think I'll probably always do the rental. just my two cents.
  20. actually, I'm not really sure how much it weighs. Stock it's a claimed 372 dry. With most of the street stuff gone, and a few other tweeks I figure I've pulled maybe 15 lbs off that. Nothing too significant. If I had the cash for titanium and carbon fiber everything I'd be sitting pretty on a 340lb bike, but alas, my budget is that of a common military man. It'll do until I make a few million...somehow
  21. I don't have alot of experience with riding full-on race bikes, but what I've noticed is that it's not so much the bike that matters with me, but how well its suspension is set up. Up until I had done CSS, the best handling bike I had been on was a 04 CBR600RR. Once I got on the zx-6 at the school, that was the one. That bike really felt like it was on rails. But since then I've been building a pure track bike out of an 04 SV650S. I had the suspension professionally built and set-up, and now I feel like most of the bikes I've ridden before were sluggish on turn-in and gave very vague feedback. I'm much faster on this bike than I was on the ZX-6 School bike, and that thing felt amazing. My first track day on the SV, I went to barber where I had done all three levels of CSS that I had taken. By the second session I had matched my laptimes from the school, and by the end of the day had dropped over 4 seconds from them. I know mid 1:40s are not terribly quick there at barber, but for a 65 hp "begginer" bike I sure felt like I was flying. I'm sure that if I had suspension professionally set on any of the 600 supersport bikes they'd feel way better than the SV. But for now, it's my SV track bike.
  22. For me, street riding and track riding are totally different from this perspective. On the street, it's mostly about solitude and being in a beautiful place on a bike (on the street I'm mostly a touring rider). On the track it's about focus and sharpening myself to a razor's edge. I've never really been happy with myself unless I'm competing, be it with other people or with myself. Since I was very young, I have been obsessive about being absolutely as good at anything that I do as I can possibly be. (and with track riding I have a LONG way to go, so it's sort-of like job security for my Dr. Jekyl side ) And now I have a place to focus this little obsessive compulsive aspect of my personality so that it doesn't drive my wife completely batty. It doesn't hurt that it is the only hobby/obsession that's has grabbed hold of all parts of my life. It's physically tough, and has driven me to intensify my workouts again, back to how I was playing basketball in college a few years back. It just really ticked me off that as physically fit as I thought I was, after level 3 with CSS, I was completely beat at the end of the day. I couldn't see letting conditioning get in the way of me going faster. It's Intellectually challenging. I never realized how much I would need all of my engineering classes in the real world until I started riding motorcycles and trying to REALLY understand the intricacies of them. From the simple act of countersteering, to how suspension set-up, swing-arm pivot location, fork offset, etc...effect the behavior of this machine all just enticed me, and I have to learn more. And, (this may sound a little fruity) looking for that perfect lap is a big time spirtual high. I tend to liken it to surfing and looking for that perfect wave, or snowboarding and getting the perfect run. For weeks after a track day, I feel so much more focused in every way. So there's my rambling reasons for riding.
  23. I'm no expert, but it sure looks like the unstable body position is causing you to be pretty stiff through your arms. I know that if I unexpectedly scrape pegs and I'm stiff on the bars, I invariably convert that jolt of surprise into some input at the bars. Normally that was the old SR of rolling of the throttle, and trying to stand the bike up, both of which toss addtional weight onto a front end which is already doing alot of work, compressing suspension and compounding the issue. This caused me to (nearly) crash a couple times...I was lucky. Once I got the body position down and was comfortable with it, my arms were much more loose and it allowed my brain to actually dictate what my hands did rather than just react after fear had done it's dirty work. Loosen the arms up and actually try and rest your outside arm on the tank, lock into the tank with your outside leg, and put your upper body low and to the inside of the centerline of the bike. Oh, and definitely go do the school. Nothing like having those guys demonstrating it right in front of you and critiqueing on the spot to make it work for you.
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