Hotfoot
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Posts posted by Hotfoot
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When I started track riding I just rode around at whatever my suspension guy (he was a provider at the track) set up for my bike and I thought it was fine. But, after going through Keith Code's suspension drill, which is a detailed process of adjusting clickers to get the feel of all of the available adjustments in front and rear suspension, I got a much better understanding of how suspension adjustments can change the handling.
Now that I am comfortable making adjustments, I DO change the settings for various tracks. For example, Fontana needs more compression damping in front because it has some very hard braking zones and a particularly rough high speed bump coming down off the banking, which can cause excessive dive in front or even bottom out the forks. It also requires a lot of rear rebound damping (at least on my bike) to keep the back end from wagging around at high speeds riding through turn 2 and next to the wall on the main straight, and to stabilize it better under hard braking.
But when I take the same bike to Streets of Willow, I set the rear rebound to be very quick (less damping) because that track is lower speed, bumpier, and more technical so it needs a much quicker response from the rear - and softer on compression in front, because there is not much hard braking at that track and the softer settings make it easier to get a quick turn-in through the tighter turns and make the bike feel more compliant overall.
Tires can make a difference, too; a tire that has a very stiff carcass can make your suspension feel harsh, and suspension settings that are wrong for a certain type of tire can wear out the tire prematurely. For example, cupping in a rear tire can indicate too-stiff rear suspension settings. Dave Moss has some great videos about that, look for them on YouTube.
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Welcome and we look forward to your contributions - make sure you post to let us know how your August adventure goes!
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On the subject of minimizing rear wheel slide/hop, turning the idle up a bit on your bike can help, so the revs do not drop so low when you are off the gas/holding in the clutch.
Do it in small increments (maybe 100rpm at a time) and ride at a reduced pace at first to get the feel of it, so it doesn't surprise you and get you into corners a little faster than you expected.
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On my second bike, I had the suspension done to suit my weight (I am small and stock springs are typically are too stiff for me). I was amazed at the difference in the handling and in my confidence, so every bike I've owned since then has gone to a suspension shop to be set up with properly sized springs, valving, and rear shock.
I don't do the work myself but I have gotten good at dialing in the clickers and keeping good notes so I have a better idea of how to adjust my suspension for different tracks or to correct a handling problem.
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Robert,
Have you put on StompGrip or other grippy stuff to help you hang onto the FZR? On my Moriwaki I added Stompgrip, I went to a grippier race-seat type foam, and also added some foam padding at the rear of the gas tank to stop me from sliding so far forward, and then added some foam wrapping around the back of the tank to make it wider so I can hang onto it more easily (it is very narrow and rectangular). I just used a thick race-seat foam and carved and sanded it to shape. My thought was to experiment with the foam to find a tank shape I like, then have a custom fiberglass tank cover made. But in practice the foam works really well and I have it mounted with Velcro so it easy to move or remove, so I think I'll just leave it like that and not worry about trying to get a special tank cover made. It is a LOT more comfortable to ride with the foam pads in place and I get a much better lock-on.
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FWIW, I find it very easy to lock onto the S1000rr and VERY VERY difficult to get a stable lock on the Moriwaki. It is just hard to find places to get ahold of it, it is narrow and built to be lightweight... not comfortable! Same goes for the SuperSingle and Ninja 250s.
So don't feel bad if it is tougher on the FZR - part of the price you pay for such a cool lightweight racer.
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OK, I'm getting ready for the 2014 race season. I've never really done a good job of carrying spare parts (which hasn't been a problem so far, except when I had a fuel line split and didn't have any tubing to replace it with) but I need to get better at it.
So, here's a question for the group:
What sort of spare parts do you carry for your bike when riding races or trackdays? We've always got a wide range of tools and we carry transmission and engine oil, and I have spares rearsets and sliders... what else should I have on board for a basic spares kit?
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I'm sure you can do the stands by yourself, you'll just need a hand the first few times to get the hang of it. Here are some tips:
1) Get good stands that fit the bike well and give you a lot of leverage. Pit Bulls are GREAT, they are a bit more expensive and are big and somewhat heavy to carry, BUT they are very adjustable (can fit nearly all bikes), they last absolutely forever and are easy to resell if needed, and they have a long lever arm that makes it easier to "lift" the bike up onto the stand. I think they offer race contingency, too. You can get stand that are lighter weight and smaller, which makes them easier to transport, but every time I've tried that the stands have been less stable or provided less leverage.
2) Get slider spools put on the bike, on the rear, so your stands grab the spools. That type of stand is easier, quicker, and more stable than rear swingarm stands.
3) Make sure you leave the stand where you can REACH it when you come back from a ride.
3) Since I am small and the bike is heavy for me (we're talking the S1000rr here), I like to prop my hip against the bike to support it (keeping it upright, not leaning it much) while I reach for the rear stand and position it under the spools. Once you get the stand to grab the spools and put a little tension on it, you now have control of the bike with the stand and can let go of thebike itself and step around behind to push down on the stand and lift the bike.
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I'll be at some of the Fastrack days at Auto Club Speedway, and will try to get out to Streets for some trackdays with whoever is running there this year. And I'll be racing with WERA West again this year. I might try to do a day or two at Chuckwalla.
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So I have a rather strange question and figured I would post it here. When we covered body position in Level 3 we were given great instruction on how to position ourselves on the bike. I'm wondering however if "one size fits all" for position. With different sized riders of different weights are there optimizations in body position that can be leveraged to take advantage of more or less weight when hanging off?
At 6'0 and a "few extra pounds" I'm at a disadvantage when it comes to straight line acceleration in comparison to very small people. Is there any way to turn that disadvantage into an advantage in the corners or am I banished to a life of salads?
This is hard to answer generically because everyone is different - strength, weight distribution, flexibility, and height all factor in when finding a comfortable, secure, and effective body position, plus of course there are lots of different shapes of motorcycles out there. Even the way your gear fits you can have influence on your body position - like a back protector that jabs your neck or leathers that are too tight in the legs or arms. So, each person has to experiment to find the position that works best for them.
When we work with students at the school, the first thing we look for is getting a solid lock-on with the lower body; being able to effectively control the motorcycle is the MOST important thing, and if you are having to hang onto the bars to support yourself, your control of the bike will suffer. So, we start with having the rider move around in the seat (with the bike on secure stands) and find a position that allows him/her to get a really solid lock-on with the knee/outer leg so he/she can lean the upper body into a turn without losing that lock and sliding aroung the tank or having to brace on the bars. THEN we start experimenting with moving more upper body mass over and down.
A heavier rider - especially on that is heavier in the upper body - can potentially move more mass off to the side, which can be an advantage, and a taller rider can often hang more mass off the the side, but in every case it only works well if the rider is solidly locked on - and that probably depends more on strngth, flexibility, and how well you fit on the bike you ride.
As you can see from watching other riders on the track, good technique is more critical than how you hang off - you can find lots of examples of riders that hang off extravagantly but can't ride very fast, and other examples of heavy riders or rider that barely hang off at all that can FLY around the track.
Now, if you have a lightweight/low horsepower bike (like Robert!), being a lightweight rider really emphasizes the strengths of the bike, and losing weight (off the bike or yourself) or hanging off more can make a really noticeable difference.
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It can be a big help, if you are new to racing and new to messing around with stands and warmers, to recruit or pay a helper for your first race day, preferably someone who has raced; or at least pit with someone who has raced before, so you can get some assistance with stands and warmers and have someone around to answer questions. If you are small in stature and the bike is a handful for you, just getting used to not having a kickstand is an adjustment, and learning to handle the stands and warmers for the first time on race day makes everything rushed and stressful. You will also be contending with putting on numbers, getting through tech, etc.
It is also a good idea (if you get a chance before your own race days start) to volunteer to help a racer in their pit for a day, so you can observe the routine on race day, and get some practice wih stands, warmers, etc.
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Regarding size of the warmers - I ride a Honda MD250H which is a smaller size bike, and has really skinny tires, so I tun two front warmers (120/70 size.) On my 450 Super Single, the tire size is 120/70 front and 160/55 back, which may be the same as your Ninja - on that one I run standard warmers (which are made to fit 120/70 front and 180-190/55 rear tire), the back is a little too big but it works fine. Using a warmer that is too small is a major hassle, using one that is too big is just an issue of making sure you have even contact everywhere on the tire (ie, no big loose gaps) and NOT overlapping the warmer on itself which can cook the cover of the warmer. MotoD makes warmers that they claim will not overheat even if you make a mistake like that - those happen to be the ones I use, they work well and are easy to put on but they are not cheap.
There are a few companies that make warmers sized for the Ninja 250, I think Chicken Hawk is one of them. For real expert advice on this, contact Feel Like A Pro (feellikeapro.com), they rent Ninjas for racing and they can tell you which warmers to use and they may have them for sale.
You also may want to look on the WERA forum, there is a huge thread on racing 250s called "everything you need to know" which has tons of info of all kinds, or check the classifieds on WERA where you may be able to find used warmers for sale or a racer discount on new ones.
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You CAN race a 250 without warmers, but if you want to be competitive you will need them. I am not familiar with MRA, but with many organizations a typical race day would consist of something like 2 short practices (10 min or so) first thing in the morning in cool temps, and then races later in the day. You only get one warm up lap before each race. With such short practices and warm ups, you can't really afford to spend time warming up your tires on the track.
Also, in the races, most likely everyone elase will have warmers. If you are tentative in the first few turns and the first lap or two, you can lose a lot of ground to other riders. On a 250 the racing is clsoe and very competitive so it is quite difficult to make up lost time. Also you can lose a lot of positions and have to work your way thorugh the field to get them back, which takes a lot more effort than keeping up from the start.
Personally, I never run warmers for open track days (just becuase it's a hassle) but I always run them in races. You don't really have to take them on and off many times on a race day compared to a track day.
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Thanks, Tyler, I'll try that!
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Wow, that looks fun, great restoration!
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A major indicator for me for turning in too early OR too late is where I actually apex.
How quickly & aggressively I'm able to roll on throttle is another. Turning in early sucks because I generally apex early and still need to keep the bike leaned over quite a bit to complete the turn. As such, picking the bike up while rolling on the throttle aggressively has to wait. Come to think of it, turning in too late causes a similar problem
.OK, good answers from everyone! Yup, turning in early will usually mean an early apex and then running wide on the exit, and/or having to make steering corrections.
Turning in too LATE can also be indicated by your apex - it may be too late, in which case you end up on the inside of the track at the exit so you are not using all the track (which means you didn't straighten out the corner as much as possible, and thus your entry/corner speed was lower than it could have been), OR something else commonly seen is turning in too late and not being able to GET to the apex you wanted.
For example, at my track day the other day I watched riders take a a very late turn point (they were watching each other, I think), and then never get anywhere near the inside edge of the track at the apex; I'd say they were at least fifteen feet wide of an apex cone that had been set at the edge of the track by the trackday provider. Ergo, they didn't really straighten out the corner as much as possible and then they had to compensate for that by either using a very low entry speed, or by stalling on the throttle to keep from running wide.
RChase's statement above is a nice restatement of the definition of a good turn point: one that allows you to make one steering input, and apply good throttle control through the corner.
Sometimes when you use an entry point that is too late, you make your turn angle into the corner much tighter (more acute) than it needed to be; anybody remember which Level 3 classroom topic and track drill addresses that?
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Hm - not a lot of responses on this! OK, let's start with a different question - how do you know if your turn point is too EARLY?
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Welcome to the forum, glad to have you aboard. I'd sure be interested to see a photo of your restored CB450K5 if you have a chance to post one one up!
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I was riding an open trackday yesterday and watching some of the other riders. In various turns, I saw some people turning in early, which is a very common error, but in one particular corner I saw a couple of riders turning in late, and continuing to do it throughout the whole day.
We talk a lot about the error of turning in too early, but not as much about turning in too late.
So, here's the question for the group: how do you know when your turn point is too late? What indicator(s) would help you notice that?
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Great info, thanks, we'll try it out, I really appreciate the ideas, I'll let you know how it goes.
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OK I need a little help. I've got a Starlane laptimer newly installed on the BMW S1000rr and want to connect the RPM sensor. It says you can do that by wrapping a sensor wire around the ignition coil to pick up an RPM signal but we can't get that to work. I called Yoyodyne and they said it is very difficult on the BMW to get a signal and the best thing is to just tap into the signal wire the feeds the RPM info to the tach.
Anybody know what wire that is or how to find it? As far as I know the BMW has a complex canbus and I'm not sure there IS a simple tach signal wire. Yoyodyne suggested we call our dyno expert and ask them what wire they hook into for RPM when running the bike on the dyno. So... Timmer? Any thoughts?
I have an older version Starlane on my Moriwaki and it picks up an RPM signal off the Moriwaki iginition wire with no trouble at all. But the new timer won't pick up a signal off the YZ450 Super Single rpm wire either, I have the same problem with THAT bike, so I'm trying to find a solution for that one, too.
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There is a lot of focus these days with local track day organizations and club racing organizations to bring in new riders. So, this has got me wondering - for those of you that have never ridden on a track, or have been to a school but never an open track day, what would it take to get you out to a track day? Or, conversely, what KEEPS you from trying out riding on the track?
C'mon, lurkers, let's hear from you!
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Hmmm, good points, what about if it's been a couple of years since you completed the Level IV?
As an example, I would like to do the braking again, would you go on a Level IV class or back to the level that had the braking classes?
In Level 4 you can do ANY of the prior drills, so Level 4 would work great, just mention that you want to work in braking, either in your Level 4 survey (filled out prior to the class) or with your Level 4 consultant at the beginning of the day. Level 4 will give you more flexibility to work on braking for as much or as little as you need to, during the course of your day, plus it would give you more time to get out to off-track to ride the special Braking Bike training rig, if you wish to do so.
However, there certainly are students who sometimes choose to re-do a level, or all the levels, in order to hear all the classroom material again and/or to do all the drills in their specific Level 1-3 order. I did that myself, after a long break from riding; it had been a while and I wanted to hear all the classroom material again. So, ultimately it is up to you.
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C'mon Cobie, seriously, how am I supposed to survive without making a joke?
Actually after a number of weeks in a leg cast I am having to start all over with fitness and particularly working on getting all the tendons and ligaments in my knee, ankle and foot working right again.
I had always heard that you had to hold a stretch at least 20 seconds for it to be effective - are you saying your doc told you that you have to hold each stretch more than a minute? Did he say EACH stretch has to be for 7 minutes, or was that total time for your whole routine?
Keith Code Talks Trail Braking--Interview
in Cornering and Techniques
Posted
The best and clearest explanation I have ever seen of this is on the recent Twist of the Wrist II DVD, there is a GREAT computer animated graphic that shows what happens - in my opinion, that little clip alone is worth the price of the DVD.