Hotfoot
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Posts posted by Hotfoot
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Also keep in mind you won't be the only one in your race worried about the rain and riding carefully. Some guys are really comfortable with riding in the wet but most are not!
I look forward to reading about it on your blog, too - I haven't mentioned it but I HAVE been following what you've written and found it quite fun to read.
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There is a technique taught in Level 1 at the school called the 2-Step, which helps a great deal with consistency to the apex and getting the timing right for looking into the turn. The best thing would be to get to a school but if that is not feasible, you can find info on the 2-Step technique in A Twist of the Wrist II in Chapter 23, or see it explained and demonstrated on the Twist II DVD. There is also a lot of info about reference points in the preceding chapters (21, 22); that might also be helpful to review since you mentioned needing more or better reference points in certain turns.
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It definitely looks like you can quickturn the bike, which is great and very important for carrying the high entry speeds required to get a quick laptime on a Ninja 250!
Some questions for you:
How would you rate your accuracy to the apex, are you able to consistently get the bike to the apex you want in every corner?
Do you ever have to lean the bike over more in the middle or the end of the corner, instead of getting to your desired lean angle right away and staying there?
About how far away from your turn point are you when you look in to the apex of the corner?
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What a great post! Thanks for the wonderful feedback and I'm really glad to hear you had such great success with understanding and applying the drills and getting the benefits, that is terrific.
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That is a very cool chart! I would be interested to see how full race slicks compare - I wonder if they are designed to have the max contact patch at even higher lean angles?
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I don't have any superstitions but I certainly have rituals as I'm about to go out for a race - checking to make sure the fuel switch is ON, putting a hand on the tire warmers to make sure they really were on and feel warm, peeking in the belly pan to make sure there is no oil or fluid sitting in there, making sure my grid position is written on a piece of tape on my tank, etc.
Then of course there is the suiting up part - earplugs, helmet, gloves and if I am really nervous or distracted I sometimes try to do those things out of order - like forgetting to take off my sunglasses before trying to put on my helmet.
Then I also have the experienced-based habit of MAKING SURE I REALLY AM IN FIRST GEAR as I approach my grid position for the start of the race.
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That's great! It's wonderful that you were able to apply the skills from CSS in general, and even better that you were able to spot errors and know what to do to fix them, or prevent then from happening again.
Well done!
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Would you not say making a habit of riding as fast as you can regardless of the risk involved might be considered a compulsory disorder too?
Totally cracked me up with this comment.
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That is definitely one thing we look at; Keith has quite an impressive list of possible steering errors, riders can get very creative in their ways of attempting to steer a bike! It was a really remarkable training process to learn to coach that drill; Keith has given (and still gives) that particular drill a lot of attention and it continues to evolve - it has certainly changed a lot from the first time I did it as a student. If you have a chance at a school go observe some riders doing that drill - it looks very simple at first but it is really enlightening to see how much riders can change and improve in just that one drill.
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That is called the "steering drill".
What was the cause of the plowing, were you restraining the bars after the steering input?
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I'd recommend that exact model csmith posted, too - readily available, small and light, fun, reliable. You should be able to pick one up cheap and for what you want to do there is no reason at all to pay extra for shiny brand new one.
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I think the best thing is a small dirtbike and go play in the dirt, and if that is feasible for you. If not, there are schools that focus on this, where you can rent a dirt bike and they teach you how to slide the thing around, how to slide the back end going into turns, etc. I did one of the schools, it helped me and it was a lot of fun. For one of the exercises they wet the track and we rode around fast in the mud, very slick and very educational.
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Warmers do help with the first session or two in the mornings, and they help with the first lap or so of every session. Some people use the logic that if you add up the cost of all those "wasted" warm-up laps throughout the day on multiple track days, it justifies the cost of the warmers.
Having said that, I'll also tell you that I personally never use warmers for regular track days, I'd rather just take a warm-up lap or two. I DO use them for race practice and racing, because everyone else does and they will pretty much mow you over if you don't get out there and ride fast immediately.
Here is the conclusion I came to after toying around with and without warmers - this is just my personal opinion:
1) if you are going to use full race tires, like slicks, you will probably need to run warmers because otherwise it is hard to get them up to temp - they want a higher operating temperature and can feel very stiff or slippery until they get there.
2) for racing, you will need warmers, or the whole field will pass you in the first three turns while you are trying evaluate your traction. It's hard to get all those positions back.
3) If you are using Q3s (which have a wide operating temp and warm up fast) or other DOT tires, it's probably not worth all the trouble to set up warmers, generator, stands, etc. and take the warmers on and off every session; your body and your suspension also need to warm up first session so you probably won't be at max pace/max lean angle anyway, and you can always use the first lap or two or each later session to work on something like finding reference points, or body position, etc., until your tires are up to temp.
4) it can be very useful to get a lot of experience warming up cold tires - I know of people that have gotten rather dependent on warmers and if, for some reason, they weren't working or hadn't been set up in time, they were not very prepared to deal with cold tires and rode too aggressively and/or did not know HOW to properly warm up their tires.
Again, this is all just my opinion but I hope it is helpful to you.
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... the break in was more than I expected.
Do you mean it took longer than you expected to break it in, or that the helmet changed/loosened up more than you expected?
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Search the web for videos or articles from Dave Moss. He gives actual examples with photos or videos and they are very instructive.
Typically you'd want relatively smooth and even wear with a sort of orange-peel texture. For spirited or track riding it is normal to see some balling up of rubber at the tire edges. What is NOT normal is cupping, or bands of really ragged rubber where the top layers of rubber are tearing. Excessive wear like that can be caused by improper suspension settings or improper tire pressures.
In track riding, it is common to see a lot of weird globs on the rubber of the front tire, right in the middle track of the tire (the part you ride on when straight up and down). This sometimes concerns new track riders but it is totally normal - when exiting the track on heated-up tires, you run over bits of rubber sitting on the track from other bikes and cars; your hot tire picks up those bits and is hot enough to soften them and squash them onto your tire. They don't hurt anything and quickly wear off on your next outing.
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Great answer, very thorough, thank you!
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We are staring to play with this on ours now, it is SO cool what you can do!!! It is pretty amazing to be able to ride a session and then look at ALL the data that is available - like seeing exactly how much the tires slip in each corner, and where and how much EXACTLY the TC intervenes, and you can see throttle position, and lean angle, and ALL kinds of cool stuff.
I can't believe how much this thing does - I thought you'd have to spend $100K to get this kind of data setup.
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this is PURELY theoretical and not trying to be sexist but if COG has a formularic pattern,
then it could explain why riders who are more top heavy (esp women) prefer lowered front bikes, it offsets a part of their COG on the stock settings, how much im not sure.
Im sure Im taller than hotfoot but with a lanky light build , i actually prefer a slightly taller front end , maybe my COMBINED COG of a similar bike+rider might be actually the same as hotfoots lowered front build.
there almost certainly can only have one "Sweet spot" range in a formula governed with constants like gravity and mostly fixed variables (wheelbase,power output,tire sizing) imho
Ha ha, I WISH I was top heavy.
I'm sure those who know me are giggling at the image...The center of gravity is usually lower on women than men, actually, and women are often shorter and lighter, which makes shifting weight by hanging off more challenging for women in general. But, we have the advantage of light weight, flexibility, and being a lot smarter overall... (hee hee)
Regarding lowering the front, I think it is just preference on how stable you want the bike to feel in corners and how much effort you want it to take to turn the bike. I started OUT lowering the front as much as possible mainly just to get the bike as low as possible because I am so short. But I also learned that I liked the way they handled with a low front. My husband hates riding my bikes, they feel wobbly and nervous to him. To me, his bikes feel totally planted in corners and more stable under braking but I have to push a lot harder on the bars to turn them and I can't get them turned as quick.
Interesting comments on wheelbase - on my SuperSingle we just shortened the wheelbase significantly by moving the rear wheel forward, and lowered the front an additional 5mm (I had already lowered it 5mm), and the net result was much sharper handling. We tried lowering the front ANOTHER 5mm but at that point it started to wobble on corner entries.
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Not sure this was answered, and I don't know why it would. It would depend a bit on the rider and how he/she rode. With more weight on the front, and if the rider steered quicker, could be back on the gas sooner. If aggressive with the throttle, there would be more rear wear. We had a guy that used to like his bike set up like this, and made it work well.Does setting the geometry etc for quicker turn in result in more tire wear?
CF
I've lowered the front on every race bike I've had. I like the bike to steer quickly and with less effort. The trade off is the bike is twitchier and less stable.
Quick turning the bike seems to me to result in a lot less wear to the front tire compared to turning in slower and on the brakes; trail braking puts a LOT of load on the front tire, and turning slower tends to use more lean angle and/or have you leaned over longer. The most wear I ever put on a front tire was when I was experimenting with trail braking, trying to mimic the style of some of my competitors to see if I could gain anything anywhere by doing so. I really worked the front tire!
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Just out of curiosity, Benny - if you HAD turned the bike more slowly (assuming the same entry speed), do you think you would have made the turn?
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Great! Welcome aboard. Is there a story behind the "lawman" forum name?
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Definitely not a dumb question and I don't know if there IS a calculation for that - maybe our resident tire expert can help.
Do you have any idea of the weight of your bike? What sort of riding are you doing, street or track? What type of tires, road use or track use or racing slicks?
The best thing to do is to ask the tire vendor, if possible.
For what it is worth, the lightweight 125cc race bikes (which are likely lighter weight than yours, if yours is street legal) run similar size tires and usually start with about 25psi cold (27-28psi hot) for both front and rear, for racing use. For street you'd probably want it a big higher.
This is a guess (not a calculation) on my part, but you could probably start at around 30 psi front and 28 psi rear (cold pressures) and see how the bike feels and how the tires wear. Pressures too high would probably give you a harsh ride and a feeling of not enough grip, if the pressures are too low you might notice the steering feels sluggish.
If you think your bike weight is similar to a Ninja 250, you could search the web for tire pressures for those - the tire size is similar and they are commonly used for racing, and for those race bikes the weight is lighter and would probably be more comparable to a 150cc naked bike.
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Welcome, where specifically are you from? We have folks from all over the world on this forum.
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For the Schuberth experts - I saw something on the web about specific models for women, that had some features that sound interesting to me, including a different fit, smaller sizes, different type of liner, etc. I need a helmet for roadracing, do you have one in a women's version?
As far as I could tell the women's model was only in the flip-up version, and I have never tried one of those. Are they suitable for racing use? It would be for roadracing-use only (no street riding), speeds up to 160-170mph. If that one is not suitable, what model is best to use?
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in School Questions/General Discussion
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Wow, these are really fun to read. And I SO agree with you about safety wire. Also I have a 450 SuperSingle which vibrates an insane amount and apparently considers any threaded fastener a foreign body that must be rejected as soon as possible - so I can relate to your challenges in keeping critical parts attached to the bike!
There certainly is a big difference between trying to run a race, and trying to run a season to compete for a points championship. After doing it a few years now, I have a whole new appreciation for the amount of effort involved in just showing up, starting and finishing the races. Speed and laptimes are important but it takes a lot more than just being able to ride fast to get through a season in good standings in the points. Your blog is a nice illustration of that, and a very entertaining description of some of the details involved and the ups and downs of it all.
For me, it is usually the 4:45 am departures (instead of the various bruises and lacerations that appear to be a normal part of handling and maintaining race bikes and all the sharp, odd-shaped, or heavy accessories that go with them!) that make me ask myself if I am having fun on race weekends...