Jump to content

tthelin

Members
  • Posts

    3
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by tthelin

  1. It looks the major theme here is that most of us are losing too much salt and it is affecting our riding. It seems like the obvious and easy anwer is to increase our salt intake to replentish what is lost while riding, but my doctor keeps telling me to try and decrease salt intake or risk higher blood pressure. What's up with that?
  2. YellowDuck congratulations on your progress. I just finished reading this entire thread and it has been fun to see how you have progressed from your initial fear of leaning to far to now having to worry about dragging your knee. One of the recurring issues that comes up in many of the responses posted is when to start turning on the throttle. I can tell you that the correct answer is as early as possible. Remember the primary reason for turning on the throttle is not to accelerate, but to counter act the loading up of the front end once the bike starts turning and stabilize the suspension in the middle of it's travel where it will work the best. Here is an example of what I mean. Once in a race on a very small bike, I was convinced I could pass the bike in front of me if I could just get the throttle openned a tiny bit earlier on a specific corner. Time and time again as I approached the corner I would momentarily close the throttle to set my speed, turn to set my lean angle and open the throttle to stabilize the bike through the corner. As the bike continued to feel firmly planted with no tendency for the tires to slide, I set the speed slightly higher each lap and eventually convinced myself that, while I knew I could carry more speed through the corner, the only way I was going to be able to do it was to hold the throttle wide open on my entry. Unfortunately by holding the throttle wide open as I entered the turn instead of momentarily closing it and then opening it after setting my lean, the result was less than satisfactory. I reached my lean angle and was happy with the speed, but with the throttle already all the way open I had no power left to overcome the decelerative forces that naturally shifted more weight to the front end and unloaded the rear end ever so slightly. As soon as I hit the point, the suspension now was out of the middle of it's optimum functioning range and no longer able to work efficiently to maintain traction, and down I went in a low side. Input from racers behind me indicated that I hadn't really been going any faster through the corner that time, and so should have had the same ammount of traction as on all the previous laps, so the loos of traction was caused by me mismanaging the throttle I taking the suspension out of play. I would also like to reiterate the advice I have seen others give you about where to spend you money. It's always fun to add new parts to your go-fast machine that you think will help, but it is definately worth spending the money for some good on track coaching. You can learn how to ride any motorcycle, no matter how poorly equiped or set up, faster with good technique. I spent ove 20 years dabbling in club racing without a lot of improvement. Then one day, a few years ago, it was like a light bulb blinked on over my head and I figured out how to ride. I now get a lot more out of my bike, my tires, everything. The only thing I can think of that accounts for the difference is that I attended a CSS course again (I had taken one in 1987 but they have made substantial changes to the program since then). Your photos remind me a lot of me, and I will attach a couple before and after shots to this post. Both ar on the same bike on similar corners, one prior to taking the CSS course, and one after. You will see the difference.
  3. I can identify with what you are saying about basics exactly. Without going into a long story, let me tell you a couple of the fastest laps I ever turned on my home track were when I jumped on my parts bike, shod with 10 year old tires on it, just to see how it ran. Knowing I was on tires which had about as much grip as a bowling ball I jus cruised around at an easy comfortable pace. I couldn't believe it when two different stopwatches showed lap times 10 seconds faster than my best race laps up to then. The Navy Seals have a saying that "Slow is Smooth.....Smooth is Fast." It's all about the basics.
×
×
  • Create New...