Kevin Kane
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Posts
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Posts posted by Kevin Kane
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As a teenager; I was on a borrowed 250 cc scrambler with a borrowed helmet which I of course rode without fastening the chin strap. How cool! As my confidence and speed rose at the crest of a hill, I descended with gusto only to find the bike and my now clearly oversized helmet bouncing all over the place. A smarter rider might have made some adjustments here but not me - I kept going until of course the helmet slid down and covered my eyes completely. The experienced dirt rider that I had become (in the previous 5 minutes) knew just what to do, grab that good ole front brake. This was my very first unplanned flying dismount of my distinguished riding career. I also learned how many hours of my bus boy job would it take to pay the bike lender for the repairs from my ride.
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Damien;
The mailing address is correct; my shots from NJMP arrived last week.
Rainman
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Damien;
His name is Bob Hartman
etechphoto
PO Box 1187
Eldersburg, MD 21784
I don't have his phone number or his e-mail address but some other Forum member may have it.
Rainman
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RC!Personally which bike crashes better is not very important to me. I care a lot more about myself than any of my bikes and I'm probably a lot less durable than any of them. Not crashing at all is a much better solution. Sometimes it can't be avoided I admit.
Making an investment in education and training is a good first step to prevent a LOT of crashes. There's another benefit as well. Confidence and speed.
Finally someone gets to the heart of it.
Rainman
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I have worked with Will and Daniel in the garages of NJMP for the past four or five years and I am amazed how much those R&G sliders save most of the bikes that have gone down there. Not all of course as Hotfoot said but they do seem to offer a level of protection that makes the investment worthwhile. There is no way Will would put them on every School bike if they didn't.
Rainman
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Hugh;
If your racing career gets waylaid, you're still a very entertaining writer. The Forum also seems to be coming around to the Prairie Dog Racing team as the Canadian Team of Choice to root for this season.
Go Dogs!
Rainman
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Hugh;
I'm sorry to hear this; racing isn't easy and crashing has real consequences. Please tell us that Brody wasn't the one who stuffed you. Heal quickly!
Rainman
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Renting a bike seems like the best option to make the plunge, its just that I've never heard of such a thing in my area. I'll look into that today
Nic;
I know a few years ago you could rent a race bike from Penguin at Loudon; I would check that out with Eric to see if they still do.
Kevin
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Now to try and pull a play from Hotfoots playbook, in the beginning of TWOTW II Keith talks about the various different types of advice a rider is likely to experience at the track, which of those types of advice do these responses to the original post reflect ?
1: Yes, same situation for me. Sounds like you're doing just fine without it so I'd let it leave your mind.
2: ...me too! It's OK, it's really OK and I've been doing this for 14 years.
3: It does not bother me one bit that I'm not scraping my knee on the track through every corner.
4: You need to rotate your hips (and for that matter, your upper body) more into the corner if you want to get your knee down.
Actually Tyler the first three do respond to his original post which did not include anything more than a common lament of riders who have never touched knee puck to the deck. The fourth was Yellow Duck's and it appears immediately after Hawk posts a photo - the only empirical evidence that Hawk offers up. The photo expanded his original question with something that Forum members could use to generate more specific feed back. It's a good thread and demonstrates why this Forum works as well as it does. Hopefully Hawk and other Members have learned something from it and maybe others who have been monitoring it - but see it from a different angle can chime in too.
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there is no one answer its entirely situational
That's one thing we can agree on. There is no one answer. Here's some
observations that I have come to just from this conversation.
...
I'm going to pick up this conversation with Tyler offline as I don't want to derail the topic any further. Someone asked specific questions and our healthy debate is not adding to that at this point.
WHY?????????????
This is a very good thread; don't take it off line - that's why we're all here.
Rainman
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...me too! It's OK, it's really OK and I've been doing this for 14 years.
Rainman
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Brad's on point, especially about acclimating to your new tires before you get to Sears Point. On a related note, I work in the garage with Will and Daniel when the School is at NJMP. I can tell you that their schedules can get quite busy especially in the morning before the track goes green. Although they will try and accommodate your request, their first priority is to make sure the School's BMW's are ready to roll at first call. Last week we were mounting and changing Coaches' and Students' tires as quickly as we could. Students' riding their own bikes who asked for tire changes didn't get theirs replaced until there were bikes on the track.
Rainman
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LA;
4 year old tires are less that ideal for your first time at the track regardless of venue. Since you have Dunlops you might want to look at their Q3's (Qualifiers). They are dual purpose tires (street & track) and they are truly at home on the track (used on all student bikes at the School) yet wear well and offer superior grip to boot.
Also, any prep work you can do before you arrive will allow you to focus more on what the School has to offer.
Good Luck and Welcome to the Forum.
Rainman
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Easily one of the most important and least often discussed topics in the Forums is Race Control.
The answer is just as easy Nic; the California Superbike School is a Cornering School - not a race School so there is nothing in the four levels that addresses "Race Control". The School does have Code RACE but it is significantly different from the regular school events.
Rainman
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Thanks Eirik!
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Fernando;
Congratulations on your success!
Rainman
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Hugh;
These are a blast to read.
Thanks for sharing them with the Forum.
Kevin
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Hugh;
Good luck this weekend and I know I look forward to reading your blog next week. FWIW, at the five minute horn of my rookie race a number of years ago it started to rain...it happens!
Kevin
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...and don't forget to keep Brodie away from your bike!
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Eirik;
If I were asked; I would nominate you as the Sage of the Forum for non CSS Curriculum Items. I don't know where you find this stuff but it never fails to fascinate/educate all of us.
Thanks;
Rainman
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"Bad Brodie, bad!"
Hugh;
That was priceless!
Rainman
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Not to pile on here but I tried uploading "Redneck Fireworks" from YouTube so Benny could tell us if the star is one of his peeps from this racing series.
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Tyler;
To avoid confusion I mean the MotoGP races. They we're on here very early Sunday.
Rain
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OK, so I didn't set my DVR in time and I missed today's races. Can anyone who is planning on posting about it hold until Wednesday which is the next time it airs in my neck of the woods? As a Moderator - I MUST review every post and if I review yours I will know the outcome.
TIA;
Rainman
Top 10 Excuses For Crashing
in Cornering and Techniques
Posted
Good God RC; I did the same thing with my Ducati 996 at the end of the 2012 riding season - after owning and riding it for 12 years without a single blemish -
Now it's smaller sister, a race prepped 748 SPS w/ 853 kit hit the deck in anger a number of times but that 996, she was spotless until then.