tmckeen

I think perhaps you need to rephrase your goal Stroker, I'm not sure if its just a slight disconnect in the translation or what but when you state your goal as "Achieve Max Lean" you sound like you want to push the bike exactly to 100% which comes off as rather dangerous and disconcerting for a lot of the folks around here, but it sounds like your actual goal is more like " Become more comfortable with greater lean angles, and improve my confidence at lean on the motorcycle" that is a goal most of the people on these forums understand and probably share. Now if you think that making once really good pass around a corner and grinding some hard parts on the pavement will be some kind of magic pill for you confidence I'm afraid you might be mistaken. Like everyone else said you just need to practice, there really is no substitute for seat time. Tyler

According to this months issue of RRW the AMA series will be broadcast on CBS Sports, which sadly also isn't included in my current TV package, and doesn't come in HD at all on my carrier

I think the best answer revolves around what's most comfortable and what gives you the best "lock" on the gas tank, I think the rule of thumb would be to position yourself so your inner thigh lines up with and lays even with the angle of your gas tank, which can vary depending on the shape of your tank Tyler

Why are you so concerned about achieving "max lean" ?? I don't think anyone on these forum's would recommend that as a goal on public road's, or even on a race track for that matter. A number of the techniques and skills taught by CSS are for the express purpose of using less lean angle. As for your questions, How you get there is really a intangible question, it's like asking "how do I overcome my fear of heights" or "How do I talk to women", the only difference between leaning the bike 15 degrees and 60 degrees is in your head. Troubleshooting body position is much easier with some photographs of what it is your doing, but shifting you cheek off matters little if your upper body isn't hung off as that is where most of you body weight is, you could in fact be "crossed up" and causing more harm then good. The key is a good solid lock-on with your outside leg so you can hang your upper body off to the inside without supporting yourself with the handlebars. I've found a good way to see the real world results of hanging off has on your lean angle is on long sweeping medium speed turn's like freeway interchanges, once your in the turn and your lean angle is set and your locked onto the tank, hang your upper body off more and more and see how much you have to stand the bike up to maintain the same line, you don't need to be at extreme lean angles or speeds to notice the difference Tyler

Welcome to the forums KawaiGirl, and yes you can enjoy it too much, especially when your bank account can no longer afford to support it The Ridge looks like a fantastic track from the video's and pictures I've seen of it, I'm sure you'll have a fantastic time there. Tyler

beIN Sport has been added to the Verizon Fios channel lineup, but only under their top tier "Ultimate HD" package

Both races Hayes was out front when his bike failed, I doubt the results for the season change much, He just might not clinch it 3 rounds early this time. On a side note did anyone else notice a difference in Herrin's riding once Hayes was no longer leading the way ??

Some video from my corner out at Vegas this past weekend

Your simply asking how you scrape the pegs on your bike ?? That's just a matter of using enough lean angle that you run out of ground clearance, that can be done with any kind of body positioning, but I would recommend against riding around intentionally scraping your pegs on every corner as that leaves you very little to zero margin of error or buffer should you need it.

Clutch-less shifting is not part of the set curriculum in any of levels 1 through 3, I do believe if you ask your coach specifically about it they can give you some coaching on the technique but it is not part of the normal Class and Drills

I'm not sure I understand exactly what your asking, With proper, or improper depending on your point of view, body positioning you can drag your Knee on a Goldwing, there are youtube video's to prove it, If your asking how to drag your peg's without touching your knee down cause you don't have knee pucks, just don't stick it out there would be my advice. If your asking how to gauge your lean angle without using your knee as a reference I would ask both why and where are you trying to use max lean angle on your bike ?

There answer to your overall question is simple, Lap Times, your basically asking how do you tell what's the fastest way around the track, and the answer is whatever results in the fastest lap time. Now as for the Corner speed vs Point and Shoot technique, that depends on tons of factors, there was a good article in RRW a few months back on the evolution of MotoGP technology and its effect on riding styles. Over the years as technology changed riding technique and corning lines shifted back and forth from one to the other, you used whichever style fit the equipment you had at the time, what sets the current state of MotoGP technology and the new breed of "Aliens" apart is that they no longer ride with one style based on the bike, but have to adapt the style to each corner individually. also on a side note, I do believe you have more contact patch whilst leaned over due to the deformation of the tire carcass, standing the bike up isn't to increase the size of the contact patch, its to reduce the cornering load on the tire thus allowing more available traction for acceleration.

Just cause you're bike isn't a scaled back replica of a WSBK championship winning racer doesn't meant it isn't perfectly at home and capable in the twisties. I believe its not that uncommon for older gentlemen on R1150GS's to smoke young hot shot's on sportbikes through windy back roads, It's got little to do with the machinery and everything to do with the rider. A CRF450R is way less purpose built for a road track then your Busa is, doesn't make it any less fun to ride the wheels off it tho. Bottom line, ride the bike you want to ride and enjoy it. Tyler

I think there can be a fine line between Immersion and Saturation and that really depends on the student, but IMO, given what I've read about Shakabusa's riding experience from a few post's on the forum's learning and being coached on his own bike would do him more good then on the S1000's Tyler

Welcome to the forums Shakabusa. Assuming you've got yourself a decent helmet there is no better investment in your personal safety then the skills and techniques to fully control your motorcycle, and there is no better or safer place to learn those skills then at a C.S.S. school, since you've already had one minor mishap convincing your wife that the best way to prevent a repeat is education and training shouldn't be that hard of a sell. good luck in any case Tyler

There is a downside to Braking too quickly in some situations, nothing like stopping well short of what was in front of you only to be plowed into from behind. Whenever I need to do a quick stop or hard braking after a good initial brake application, IE making sure I can stop in time, I always check my mirrors to see what's behind me and adjust my braking distance to give the vehicle behind me enough time to stop also. Tyler

As a Habitual Offender I HIGHLY recommend becoming a Corner Worker for the school. Not only is it a FREE TRACK DAY , but its run with the precision and safety you only get with C.S.S. and as they do require corner workers to maintain the same format as the students, IE no brakes and 1 gear in the morning progressing on towards full gears full brakes in the afternoon, it's a great opportunity to go back over drills from a school day on your own. and while Trevor didn't mention it, there is a Super Secret Bonus Round ..... Tyler

I think you're confused about what I'm talking about in relation to what 98% of this thread has been about, Like Cobie said, "MOST" of the time time when your going to down shift you are either off the throttle, or off the throttle and on the brakes, so to unload the transmission you have to blip the throttle, which allows the gearbox to shift. This is what virtually every post in this thread has been referring too. However, in some street riding applications you may need to downshift while ON the throttle, for example, have you ever, while driving a manual shift vehicle, applied the gas and found the engine response not to your liking and decided to grab a quick downshift ??? In this example you are starting out On the throttle and the transmission is engaged, you cannot Blip the throttle if your already on the gas, so rather then rolling off the throttle, giving it a small blip, shifting, and then rolling back on the throttle, you can simply use the same slight roll off from the up-shifting technique to unload the transmission and allow you to downshift and reapply the throttle. A little practice and its very smooth and quick. You can also technically up-shift while off the throttle with a blip, but I honestly can't think of a reason you would need to up-shift while off throttle. It all comes down too unloading the transmission which allows the gears to change, you can shift in either direction once you have done so, and how you achieve the unloading of your transmission depends on which state you are in before you shift, If your ON the Gas, a slight roll off, if your OFF the gas a small blip

There was a product available in 2004 that put a simple HUD on your helmet with RPM and Speed, "SportVue MC-1" by Motion Research but I cant seem to find anywhere to actually purchase one so I'm guessing it never took off. I can imagine in about a decade or so the HUD on motorcycle helmets looking something like what Tony Stark has in the Iron Man film's, considering how much electronics are using GPS based tech in racing now I could see massive use of GPS and DAQ in the HUD, especially during testing and practice, Constant updates from the "Pit Board" etc. etc. all on voice command so you can bring them up and then make them go away so as not to distract you of course

MotoGP: The real battle will be between Pedrosa and Lorenzo again, with Rossi and Marquez fighting for the bottom step of the podium, I think Rossi will win one or two races this season but wont be able to contend for the championship, I also think Marquez will see the top of the box at least once, and Crutchlow will end up on the bottom step a few times again this season. The Ducati's will continue to suck and be off the pace despite a improved development program, they wont be able to outpace the development of Honda and Yamaha enough to close the gap WSBK: I think the battle will be between Sykes and Melandri this year, both did really well last season and will build on that success. I think Checa will do well but will spend most of the season developing the new bike, same with Honda who will spend the first part of the year adapting their new MotoGP electronics package to their bike. I think WSBK will continue to be the best racing on TV ( assuming you get coverage where you live ) with lots of manufacturers and riders sharing the podium . AMA SBK: I think the "Josh Hayes Show" will pick up right where it ended last season and the rest of the field will be racing for second place, the most interesting thing I predict here is the improved development of both the EBR and the KTM race bikes from top 10 contenders to regular podium finishers. Tyler

On my street bike you cannot clutch-less up-shift from 2nd to 5th with a single roll off, but the on off shift on off shift works fine and can be done very quickly. I don't wanna confuse anyone, but you can also clutch-less down shift with the same roll off you up shift with, its just a matter of unloading the gearbox to allow the dogs to shift into the next gear

Actually its Fox Sports that sucks, they are the ones pulling the strings and screwing us out of 2 wheeled action, I can assure you I was quite happy to check my DVR the other night and watch my latest recording of "Superbike Family" to find 30 min of Emergency Live Newcast about a NASCAR wreck .....

I think "Effective Lean Angle" works just fine for the 2D view of a single contact patch to CoG vs Visual Lean angle, What you need is a new term, I suggest "System Lean" which would be the combination of the "Effective Lean" of both tires, In regards to "System Lean" does weight distribution matter ?? if you are at a 60/40 weight load do you need to weight the average of your effective leans to properly calculate your system lean. How does the location of the CoG in the Z axis relate to the "effective lean" of each tire. On a side note, in my experience anything that has a negligible effect on paper usually results in a small effect in practice, and a small effect on paper ends up a moderate effect etc. etc. for example on paper shifting around your weight on the seat only results in a few degrees of change, but in practice when I do it on a freeway interchange the effect is very noticeable Tyler

How far back are you really cranking your knee out ? In my limited experience, most of the time your not sticking your knee out sideways nearly as much as you think you are, and as such won't make knee contact in corners where you are already carrying enough lean to have your knee down. Twisting your knee out a few more degrees will most likely help a lot more then double thick pucks and cost you nothing. Tyler

there is a world of difference from negligible effect and no effect, but I like where we are getting After much thought and a lot of time staring at my 3D model I have a thought on your statement that everything at 55 mph and 1 G will cut a 200 ft radius, and it revolves around the "slip angle", the longer wheelbase bisects a larger portion of the radius its traversing , resulting in a greater "slip angle" which I would think means it needs more lateral acceleration to traverse the are then the shorter wheelbase, you can demonstrate this in the extreme with a wheelbase of double the radius where the wheels sit on opposing points along the circle and would have to actually "crab" sideways to traverse it, the opposite which would be a infinitesimally small wheel base would have almost no slip angle at all and need very little lateral acceleration to traverse the same arc. Also every measurement I can manage shows the longer wheelbase naturally resulting in a lower "effective lean", which means the longer wheelbase in addition to needing slightly more G force to traverse the arc is also generating slightly less G force at a given angle