Hotfoot
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Posts posted by Hotfoot
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My downshifting technique is GREAT, my braking technique is good but could always be better; I am not abrupt with it but I am braking very hard in a coupIe of places on the track. I did catch myself being a bit tense in my arms a few times and of course that GREATLY increased the tendency of the bike to stoppie.
I am working with Jeremy Toye and he is very knowledgeable on setup. The bike suspension is set up for my weight. I am using most of the travel in front, going down to about 8-10mm from the bottom, which I'm told is ideal for my particular fork setup. Setting up for my style is a little challenging as I am rapidly changing my pace and laptimes during this Academy competition - on Saturday my settings felt great but then I went two seconds faster, then three, and suddenly the front started feeling soft. We increased compression damping and the front was more supportive but the back end became very unstable (somewhat the opposite of expected, actually). The general consensus seems to be that I need to firm up the front to make the rear more stable but we tried that three different ways (compression, preload, and moving the forks back down) and in every case my laptimes suffered - preload and compression made the rear worse, change the front height made braking better but lost cornering feel and slowed the transitions a lot.
I think this is a key statement: "you shouldn't sacrifice corner feel, feedback and rideability for the 300/350ft of braking feel and feedback". Fontana is a track with a crazy amount of accelerating and braking so it is easy to get focused on that, but overall I may be better off to ignore the braking issue and just try to carry more speed into the relevant corners. That's another way to shorten my braking distance.
I'll play with rebound and see what it does; I get the point about how it could get too quick and make it bouncy, but there enough bumpy places on the track that I should quickly be able to identify if the rebound gets too quick.
Good feedback from all of you, thanks for the advice!
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Wow. That is indeed a very long, featurless corner. I see why finding reference points would be tough.
But you need them, and you need a plan for how to ride that turn, because I see a lot of waiting, and a lot of little steering corrections. Maybe take a look at a track map and DRAW your desired line first, so you can look at the whole corner at once. ANY plan is better than NO plan. (One of my favorite lessons from Keith.)
When looking at the map, draw in your existing reference points. Based on the video, I suspect they are so far apart that your eyes cannot flow from one to the next smoothly, so you end up just rolling around the bend waiting for something to appear to tell you what to do next.
If you knew FOR SURE that you were on your planned line, and what was coming next, and exactly when you could increase throttle and exactly when the exit was approaching and exactly where you would end up on the exit, would you feel more confident in your steering and throttle control?
It may be hard to find points in that turn but if you do it, your riding will change completely through there.
You can use vanishing point to keep your eyes up and vision flowing but you will likely need some actual points to tell you where you are in that corner and what to do with the throttle. For example you could use the seam to locate yourself left to right on the track (and it looks like you do use that) but that won't tell you when you can start rolling harder on the gas. It also may not be ideal to ride the corner with a constant radius - you'll have to look at the map and decide on that - but it could be beneficial to make it more elliptical so you can carry more speed in (with the bike more upright and slowing down), then have another turn point somewhere in the turn where you get it pointed for your drive OUT.Your lines in the other corners look nice - good accurate apex points, confident steering and good throttle control.
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Have you considered changing the springs in the front? It's worth exploring different options there.
Yes, I did change them and this was day 1 riding on the new setup. The front end is GREAT, perfect, so I am trying to adjust the rear without messing with the front.
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Hotfoot, you're having a delicate balance here. Lowering the front will make the steering quicker, but will also move more weight over to the front and make the bike easier to make stoppies.
Have you considered if you can raise the rear instead? either by shims or by extending the shock itself?
Like you're saying, you really want the rear shock to extend quicker and further than it does right now. Since rebound affects the wear quite a lot, I would be reluctant to mess too much with that, but instead consider to either have less preload (so it sinks deeper) or maybe have a softer spring. If I remember the discussions on the forum right, you're not a particularly heavy rider, so it might be OK to remove a bit of preload without sacrificing too much in the other end.
I'd try giving my local suspension guru a call - in your case that would be someone like Dave Moss, I presume.
Hm, good ideas. I always balk at raising the rear because I am short and don't want to make the bike ANY taller than I have to. But sometime we have to sacrifice comfort for performance.
Preload is a great idea and pretty simple to try.
Good point about the wear on rebound; I suspect the rebound is a bit too slow anyway, so I think I'll start with making that a little quicker to see if it helps, and I'll just see how it feels and keep an eye on the tire wear. If it doesn't help or the tire wear suffers, I'll try preload next.
Thanks for the feedback - this gives me a starting point, and I am still interested to hear feedback from others if you have thoughts on the subject.
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Hi y'all,
Looking for some ideas from the forum. As you know I am doing this Academy competition and we had a round this weekend. I was on an upgraded suspension, and I am very happy with it. We also lowered the front of the bike a little (dropped the triple down lower on the forks), which sharpened up the handling and REALLY like how that feels, it turns very quickly and gives me a lot of feedback in corners.
However, with that change I am having challenges under hard braking, the back tire is not staying in contact with the pavement, causing a lot of rear instability (wagging or coming around) or lifting totally up in a stoppie. I tried raising the front of the bike back up and that fixed it but I didn't like how the handling changed in corners so I put it back.
I want to fiddle with the rear suspension to try to improve the situation (preferably without messing around with the front settings because they are GREAT). Any suggestions? Should I speed up rebound to keep the tire more in contact? Should I soften compression so it doesn't get bounced up as easily and is more compliant? Change rear tire pressure? Just a LITTLE bit more rear traction would be enough to keep the back from coming around and that's what I am trying to accomplish.
I am already doing all I can with my body to manage it - sitting back farther, staying relaxed in my arms (I learned quickly that ANY tension in my arms causes the rear wheel to lift right up dramatically), braking earlier and more gradually, etc., but I have had to extend my braking distance noticeably and it is affecting my lap times and leaving me open to late passes entering corners where I was not having that problem before.
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That's interesting actually.
I made some progress the last time I was there by splitting the corners into multiple parts. Several of the turns on the track map are listed as one corner but someone pointed out to me that several of the more difficult ones are actually two turns. By thinking of them in this manner I suppose I started picking reference points for each of them and that made them less intimidating.
It does not really help that this track has very little in the way of reference points. Just lots of grass. I might actually see if I can talk some people into getting out the tape and doing CSS style X's on the surface for reference points.
khp is thinking along the same lines I was thinking as I read your original post.
Please choose a corner - one at Barber would be nice, since I know that track - and describe to me EXACTLY what your eyes are doing as you ride up to and through that corner. If you have reference points, describe the point and what it means to you.
As you think through visual pictures of the corner, are there parts of it that are crystal clear to you, where you can call up a VERY clear picture with a lot of detail? Are there other parts of the corner that are hazy and hard to remember, or vague with less detail or blank areas?
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Ok, we had our second round today. Suspension changes felt GREAT!! Nice to have it set up properly for my weight. My goal was to drop my lap time two seconds, mission accomplished! Dropped my fastest time 2.5 seconds and my average time 3 seconds, I'm really happy with that.
Guess what? Eric Bostrom rode with us today. He gave me a big thumbs up on the track, which was very cool, then later complimented me on my riding and gave me a couple of tips, how great is THAT? He was super nice and it was great to meet him.
Plus of course I rode with Jeremy Toye again, he is coaching me and it is incredible to watch him ride. I am following him and I think I am driving really hard, but he is running away from me and there is SMOKE coming off his tire. He is, literally, smoking me on two particular turns. But I am pushing harder and harder in my drives and trusting the bike more and making good improvements.
It is so much fun to ride with these top pros. Jeremy Toye, Chris Ulrich, Eric Bostrom, Chris Fillmore, Steve Rapp - all amazing riders, I'm having a blast.
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R Chase, did you know that the School's Coaches use 'race take off' tires exclusively? I have seen them ride them to the belts without a problem many times.Yes they do.
Often times you will see "race take off" tires that have wear but have a lot of life left in them. There's a reason racers replace their tires like that. They want the maximum grip and don't want any surprises. Often times they will run brand new tires for races just for the peace of mind and that little extra bit of grip that could give them the edge to be the one on the podium.
To add a few bits to this discussion - 1000cc bikes in race conditions EAT tires. Often a club racer changes tires 'early' just because they have TIME to change the tires at a certain point in the day. Example - on a double-header weekend my husband races (typically) 3-4 sprint races Saturday and 3-4 Sunday. He changes tires Saturday evening because that is when he has time to do it! His take-offs usually have more life left in them, and sometimes he uses them for practice days. But they don't have enough rubber to make it through 3-4 more races, and often certain tracks wear one side more than the other, so you have to flip the tire or change it early. Usually on the 1000cc bikes they wear out the rear about twice as fast as the front. (For comparison, last year when I raced my 250 and 450 bikes I could run about EIGHT race days before I changed tires, and even then they still had rubber - they just had been heat cycled so many times that they were getting less grippy. Also on those bikes the FRONT wore out first. Horsepower makes a difference!)
The school does use race take-offs on coach bikes and we do run them until the rubber is visibly almost gone, to get the most out of them. But, we have a lot of training on managing tires and access to a mechanic to change them on request, so if a tire no longer has adequate grip for the conditions or for the pace we need to ride on a given day, we can get the tire changed quickly or hop on a different bike if needed. On wet days (and sometimes very cold days) the coach bikes get changed to Q3s because the race slicks don't do well. Running the coach bikes on race take-offs is more of a financial decision than a "maximum grip" decision - it costs less to run the take-offs and is a good use for tires that would otherwise probably be destroyed. They are not legal for roads so they are of limited use.
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So if you had to choose between racing tires take offs or new Q3s, which set would you pick?
This is kind of a cool question, definitely stimulates some thought and some discussion. Personally, if conditions were perfect (warm and sunny) and I needed to go as fast as I could possibly go, and the take offs appeared to have plenty of usable rubber left and were recent take-offs (not old and dried out) AND I was familiar with the specific tire model, I would choose the take offs.
However if it was cool, cloudy, windy or damp I would absolutely 100% choose the Q3s. Or, if I wanted to get multiple days from the tire, I'd pick the Q3s.
If I was not planning to run maximum fastest pace, I'd choose the Q3s every time - I find them to be more comfortable and predictable to ride on in general - they cost less, last longer, handle a variety of conditions, steer in a way that I find predictable and pleasant (race tires can be abrupt in steering transitions), warm up easily, and the performance level is so good that I wouldn't be worried about grip until I was getting into my absolute max pace. And even THEN I'd never worry about the front, just the rear when leaned over and hard on the gas on a very high horsepower bike.
In short, MOST of the time I'd take the Q3s. But, the fact remains that when they are up to their ideal operating temperature and still have rubber on them, race tires do give more grip and are more planted when you lay down the power.
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You can make up for that faux pas by going to the website and voting for Hottie, er I mean Hotfoot.
And i did :-)
You guys are hilarious - and awesome, thanks for the votes, I love it.
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Iannone was impressive, he rode really aggressively but also looked well in control. He made some amazing split second decisions to take advantage of opportunities that suddenly presented themselves. Khp - totally agree on the power comment, Rossi was working hard to get ahead in the corners but repeatedly getting outrun on the straights.
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I couldn't be a troll or spam - until now. If anybody needs a Snuggie or a Shamwow, gimme a PM, my prices are the best.
Everyone needs a Snuggie! Right?
Welcome to the forum and please keep posting, the more the merrier.
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Pretty much the same thing you got for working your tailfeathers off for a whole race season... bragging rights!
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The best way I can answer this is that I don't feel like I am kissing the mirror when making a right turn. I feel like im just sliding off sideways.
A common position problem that causes that feeling of slipping off sideways is having the inside hip pushed forward (which usually also results in the inside shoulder being pushed forward), instead of "opening" the pelvis into the turn. This can be caused by crowding the tank (try sitting back a little farther in the seat) or by hanging the butt off TOO far on that side (experiment with that - try keeping your butt all the way in the seat, then halfway to your prior position, etc., until you find what works best) or just by tension on right hand turns - if you are nervous about leaning the bike (and/or your body) to the right and are tense in your right arm, it can make you crossed up, pushing your inside shoulder and hip forward, instead of opened up into the turn. If it is a tension or resistance to turning right, try a more conservative body position - sit in the seat, lock on tight with your outside knee (or both knees) and just practice leaning your head and upper body into the turn, with the right elbow down and RELAXED. When that starts to feel "too" easy, start moving the butt over a bit, then a bit more, etc. but do it gradually enough that you can keep your upper body and arms relaxed throughout. That process can also help you identify at what point you start to feel like you are slipping, which may help you find a place on the bike that needs StompGrip, or a better heel guard, or just a change in your hang-off positioning.
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I agree - rotating the hips into the turn will really help, will make it easier to lock on, to drop the knee down and out more, and drop the upper body lower and inside.
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Glad this was helpful, and we do appreciate your kind words and your constructive feedback.
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Tag, it is reasonable to me that your heavier bike may need to run a higher pressure than the lighter weight sport bikes. Since you are knowledgeable about what pressures work for your bike, it would have been better to set the pressures to what you requested so that it was not a distraction.
Your feedback has sparked some discussion between the U.S. branch and the Australia branch, the policies are being reviewed. Thanks for the specific and constructive feedback, the information is being put to good use.
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+1 on the Moto-D tire warmers. My husband and I both have them, they are easy to put on and take off, are not prone to hot spots, and work great.
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I'll give you my 2 cents...
Definite yes on reverse shift pattern. On the newer bikes it is really easy, you just make a little change on the shift rod end, takes no time at all and costs nothing.
Short stroke throttle - in my opinion, not needed on this bike, plus since the throttle is fully electronic and tied to a LOT of sensors in the bike, it may not even be possible. You need to have fine control of the throttle, this thing has oodles of power, so I wouldn't even consider that short stroke throttle unless you have a physical difficulty turning the standard throttle all the way.
Footpegs - this is personal preference. Definitely you can get pegs that have more grip than the stock ones (and that would be wise for racing), plus rigid pegs could help with crash protection. Whether they are adjustable, and how much adjustment you have, is also personal preference depending on your height, leg length, flexibility, etc. Personally I think the Gilles and HP Parts rearsets have the coolest looking and most flexible adjustment, they are really neat, but it would be smart to do a little research on how they do in crashes - is there a sacrificial part (inexpensive) that breaks off so the rearsets aren't destroyed in a crash? Or, are they so sturdy that they will not break?
California Superbike School also has new ergonomic footpegs that are grippy and have a larger support surface for your foot, they allow easier positioning of the foot in corners without losing grip, definitely check into those, they are very cool. Gilles makes them. Here is a link:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1162250413791316.1073741846.438993456117019&type=3
Yes on the Race Power Kit, if you can swing it, you need to get rid of the catalytic converter anyway (do you have those in Europe?) so you'll need an exhaust, why not use the one that BMW recommends? Saves a lot of time researching and experimenting with other options.
The data logger is awesome if you have the funds and are interested in really analyzing your riding and the bikes performance, and once you start doing that you'll start wanting the HP Race Calibration Kit to start tweaking things (like the DTC response). It is also nice to be able to change the adaptation values that the bike learns, resetting them when you change components, etc.
And if you have any money left after that...custom paint job?
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I'm not sure if you attended a school in the U.S.; I can only speak to how we do it here, but here's the scoop:
We DO check tire pressure on every bike, every day. It's a safety issue and part of our tech process.
Tire pressures are set based on type and brand of tire - we do NOT set all tires the same. For example, many race tires are designed to run low pressure in the rear, around 21-23 psi.
At tech we have and use a reference card which his a list of tires by type and brand with recommended cold pressure for track. If we run across a model or brand we don't have specifically listed, we go by type (street tire, street/track tire, race tire) and/or ask our mechanic for a recommendation.
School bikes on Dunlop Q3s are set normally to 31 psi front, 30 psi rear. This is sometimes changed by the mechanic on the day of a school if there is something more appropriate for a certain track or expected temperatures.
If a student requests a particular pressure and is knowledgeable about track riding and why they want that pressure, we typically set it to the students request.
If a student has what is obviously a track-dedicated bike and/or is running tire warmers, we usually ask if they have a preferred pressure.
It is VERY VERY common for students to arrive with their own bike with tires pressures set way too high for track use. Motorcycle shops and dealerships set the tire pressure to what is recommended for street use, which is a generic pressure set to handle a lot of weight, possibly including a passenger and luggage. For example, we often see pressure of 45-50 psi for a tire that should be run at about 30psi for the racetrack.
Most manufacturers of tires designed for street AND track will have different recommended pressure for street vs track use, BUT that can be hard to find - in many cases it is only provided to tire distributors that service track days.
Since it is so common for students to show up with a street bike with very high pressures, it is easy to fall in the habit - when you see a street bike - to simply lower the pressure according to what is recommended for track without asking what the rider prefers; if you DO ask, most riders will look and feel a little panicky, since they don't know the answer. In your case, since you asked about it, the tech person should have provided a better explanation (it does provide more grip, so at least he/she made an attempt to explain) but if you were not happy with the pressure recommended, the tech person should have either used the pressure you requested (if reasonable) or sent you to the mechanic to provide an expert recommendation and work with you to come to a decision you were comfortable with.
The number one priority is safety, always, but the number two priority is to make sure that the tires are not a problem or a distraction for you; in this case it seems you had concerns, and that should have been addressed.
You are ALWAYS welcome, at a school, to show the mechanic your tires and ask questions about the wear, the pressures, etc.
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This forum is AWESOME! I just want to say thanks for the voting support on the Academy competition. In the past few weeks I have been gaining steadily on the competition in the voting portion and I am currently in THIRD PLACE and closing fast on the leaders. Our next day of riding is Oct 24th and my goal is to drop my laptime by two seconds. I'll keep you posted on how that goes. The bike is currently in the shop getting suspension service, oil change, new tires and a general safety check. In the meantime, I continue working on strength training to improve the speed of my hip flick for the quick transitions at Auto Club Speedway. There are SEVEN chicanes at that track (including one that is high speed and downhill), so getting across the bike fast, without losing the lock-on, to get it turned on time becomes really important. I am doing lots of lunges, side leg lifts, sit-ups, leg lifts for lower abs, stair climbing and hill hikes, generally trying to improve/maximize my core strength and leg strength.
Remember you can vote once a week, once per device - thanks again for the support and keep voting, your participation is motivating me even more to ride faster and more aggressively and go for the WIN on this thing!!
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So I reread totw 2 and decided to try the knee to knee around my last track day. I went the first session like I normally do. Than next session tried it. It takes a ton more leg strength to do it. I also noticed when shifting my weight up for the transition the bike would dip down. Is this a normal thing or am I doing something wrong? Also any recommendations on leg exercises to get my legs up to par to attempt next year?
Thanks
It sounds like you might be adding something extra to the drill. Knee-to-knee is just designed to make sure you keep at least one knee on the tank at all times to keep your lower body stable and anchored, as opposed to having no knee lock or letting go completely when transitioning from side to side (which is a very common habit).
That, in itself, should not create excessive fatigue and it definitely should not cause any suspension upset.
If you have never used your knee to lock on, and now you suddenly start, yes you could feel some fatigue - but if it takes, as you say, "a ton more leg strength" than you expect, then it sounds like you are having to work unreasonably hard to lock in your knee, which means we need to look at your body position and figure out why it is difficult or exhausting to lock your knee in the tank. Are your rearsets too low or too high? Are you crowding the tank? When you go around a left hand corner, is your pelvis rotated INTO the corner, or away from it? If it is rotated away (left hip forward of right hip), that forces your outside knee away from the tank and makes lock on very difficult.
Regarding the suspension dip, it sounds like you need to incorporate the NEXT drill we cover at the school - the hip-flick, which builds upon knee-to-knee to allow you to get across the bike quickly, without upsetting the bike - it helps you move across without using the bars to pull yourself across or the pegs to push off. Pushing off using the pegs is usually the cause of a suspension bounce.
Hip flick uses your knee to pull your hips across the seat, and that IS tiring as it employs muscles you don't often use - unless you ride horses often.
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I love my Starlane but the setup process is a bit clumsy (getting the initial coordinates stored for start/finish and segments) and the software is not as intuitive and glossy as it could be.
I totally agree on the software UX being, uhm, unintuitive. But I don't quite understand why setting the initial coordinates is 'clumsy'. Are you putting in the coordinates again every time you go to a specific track? I haven't filled out the 10 slots in the GPS logger, so maybe that's why I dont have a problem.
Once a track is set up once, it is GREAT - super easy to just choose the track you are riding. But whenever I go to a new track (especially if it is for racing) it is a pain to set up the start/finish and segment markers, because I am trying to push those flush-mount membrane buttons with race gloves on while riding at speed on the track. I have two Starlanes and the newer one has an auto-detect for the Start/Finish; a great idea but I have had it work on some tracks and not on others, I'm not sure why - maybe the track is too wide?
So for the initial setup I have tried a few different techniques:
1) Setting the points during a slow sighting lap - this works at a trackday but not at a race practice, they don't do slow sighting laps. The pace in practice is too high and it is too crowded/dangerous to just go slow, plus I can't afford to lose the practice time because we only get 1-2 ten minute practice sessions. I've done it a couple of times but I feel like I'm taking my life in my hands every time, and usually don't get the markers exactly where I want.
2) Asking permission to ride the track alone, early in the morning or during lunch break - again, usually won't happen on a race weekend, too much going on, and/or rules prevent it
3) Going out with no glove on my left hand to make pushing the flat buttons easier - not very safe and could get me in trouble, but I did do it once and it worked.
4) If I am there the night before, unmounting the timer form the bike, hooking it to a battery, and carrying it out on the track on foot or a bicycle to mark the segment points.
5) Loading a "known" track - the newer timer was supposed to come with some tracks pre-loaded, so you could just tell it to search and find tracks near you and load them. So far I haven't found a track pre-loaded, but again - it's a GREAT idea, if I could get it to work.
What I should do is download coordinates from my old timer (which has at least 8 tracks loaded in it) to my new one; I think that is possible but I haven't researched how to do it or tried it yet.
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Thanks guys. Hotfoot you do realize it's the school's fault. I loved #25 out of the school's 2012 fleet so much I ended up losing my mind a bit.
4erramses One thing you may want to focus some research on is suspension. My suggestion is for a DDC equipped bike but most racers prefer conventional suspension. I'm a bit biased towards DDC because I know an amazing rider who is very fond of the system. My 2013 is equipped with an very well setup Ohlins system but if I were doing a new bike I would go with DDC for the flexibility. It's a slight compromise but it gives a huge amount of flexibility in rapidly changing situations. If you have the knowledge time and patience though it's hard to beat a good Ohlins setup.
I agree on this. I bought a 2014 but after putting in some riding and coaching time on the 2015, I have become a very big fan of the Dynamic Damping Control and the on-the-fly adjustability of it. And I am a rider that is willing to fiddle with the suspension, turn clickers, add upgrades, etc.; I was used to doing that and kind of enjoyed it. For a rider that is hesitant to fool with the mechanical suspension, this is a godsend - it is so easy to experiment with the settings, and you don't necessarily have to made adjustments from track to track anymore.
Suspension And Rear Tire Under Braking
in School Questions/General Discussion
Posted
Good questions and there are indeed a lot of things going on, including a coach that puts some emphasis on being VERY aggressive. I was not charging the corners to begin with, but when we first made the change that affected my braking distance, then yes tons of SRs started firing off - I began braking at my prior markers and usual intensity, but the bike behaved very differently, I was overloading the front and lofting the rear so I had to back off the front brake and quickly ran out of stopping distance. So yes, the first few laps the eyes got wide and the arms got tense and my corner entries were a bit ragged, all the effects of charging. To handle that, I started braking much earlier and more gently, but my laptimes were 2 seconds slower as a result (there are multiple hard braking zones at Fontana), thus my concerns about trying to fix it.
After paying a LOT of attention to making sure I wasn't tense in my arms or target-fixed, my corner entries improved and the laptimes got a little better. In the last few laps I focused on finding new, appropriate brake markers and THEN my laptime improved again.