I have never been to the California Superbike School but I have read and watched Twist Of The Wrist 2 so many times it is engrained in my brain. Keith Code's instruction on the 2 Step Vision Technique is by far what has improved my riding the most. Everything has slowed down for me in my mind resulting in the bike going faster. I live in Banff National Park (Canada) and there is a one way mountain road which is very track like. I have ridden this hundreds of times not worrying about oncoming traffic. I use this road to work on body position, trail braking, flick rates, throttle control and of course VISION. Yesterday I ran off the road at a good speed. I do wear all the gear including an Air Bag vest which worked very well. Just like a Moto GP rider I was more mad at myself than hurt and was worried about my bikes condition. I have been going over the incident in my head all night and all day today trying to figure out what I did wrong. I now know what it was. On this particular corner I did not 2 step properly (look ahead into the turn early enough) and all my survival reactions took over. I panicked because of my speed and hit the brakes bringing the bike up. I then target fixated on the side of the road and I froze on the bars. Nothing could help me now as I flipped the bike in the ditch.
This could make someone not want to ride for a while but when you can identify why things went wrong it makes it much better. I owe this confidence to Keith Code and his teachings. It is important to note that even after doing something hundreds if not thousands of times we can still fall victim to our survival reactions. They can creep in any time but as long as you know what the causes are you can deal with them and learn. I must confess that I really don't feel like riding right now at all but hope that changes soon. Thanks Keith and to the female truck driver who helped me pick my bike up.
Don Dagg