jamierose757 Posted July 17, 2008 Report Share Posted July 17, 2008 Hi all! I have only been riding for the last 12 months and own a 2007 Yamaha R6. I have done a couple of track days on it and I've heard it is a really good handling machine. However, I have always found right handers alot more difficult than lefts. Is this normal? I would have thought that riding around in the UK it would be the opposite way round due to all the roundabouts we have. I know that it is nothing to do with the bike and that it is far more capable than I am. I would just like to know if there were any good drills people can suggest to get me more comfortable with right handers and stop 50-pencing my way round! Many thanks! Jay R Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick448 Posted July 17, 2008 Report Share Posted July 17, 2008 I'd suggest you buy the Twist of the wrist books or DVD or both, or better still invest in Level 1 of the school and work on the drills there and afterwards. It may look expensive but it is definitley money well spent. I have been riding 25 years plus and done track days and it helped me lots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hubbard_28 Posted July 17, 2008 Report Share Posted July 17, 2008 Practice, and take more time in the rights. Work on form, entry speed, and keeping it exactly in line with what you'd do on the lefts. The rest will fall into place. My first couple tracks were left handers, and I was smoking them and the couple right handers were horrible for me (I think most riders like left handers). All this winter and spring I went out to a track that is a right hand dominant track, and while I hated it at first, slowed down, focused on them, and am now possibly stronger at rights than lefts. The lap times came slowly but surely. I'm going back to the left dominant track this fall, and can't wait. I'm willing to bet I take off at least a second a lap and probably more just off the 3 rights, I was that bad at it. New Mexico has a track where it's one way one day, and flip it around the next. Choice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acebobby Posted July 18, 2008 Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 I have always been better at lefts than rights, you could see from my tyre wear that I was leaning the bike further to the left which was a pain as my local track (knockhill) only has 1 left and all the rest are rights! I have recently learned that relaxing is the key to fixing this problem, I now take roundabouts with confidence and cant wait to get back on the track! Try this, go out on your bike and ride as normal, take a mental note of what you are doing different from left to right, I bet that you find you are quite relaxed going left and on rights you are gripping the bars a bit tighter maybe you will feel tension in your upper body muscles, you may even find that you are unconsciously holding your breath until the exit is in sight so make sure you are breathing! there is an article in Keiths corner on this subject, have a look at that and as Rick says get the TOTW books and try to go to a school, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamierose757 Posted July 18, 2008 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 Thanks all for your advice. I think I'll be enrolling myself in a CSS Level 1 course as soon as and just try to relax on the bike! Cheers again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobie Fair Posted July 18, 2008 Report Share Posted July 18, 2008 Thanks all for your advice. I think I'll be enrolling myself in a CSS Level 1 course as soon as and just try to relax on the bike! Cheers again! Hi Jay R, and welcome to the forum. It's pretty common at the school that we get riders that are better on one side than the other. We do work on this quite a bit at the school, but in the mean time, the Twist 2 book has quite a bit of information on steering (8 chapters in fact), this could give you a place to start. Let us know if you have any questions on that stuff, and how your "rights" go. Best, Cobie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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