Tire Driving

[CHRISTOS]

After many years of driving motorcycles and finally being lucky enough to organize and observe my thoughts and actions before, at and after riding, thanks to Keith"s "Soft Science" concept, reading his books (starting from 1996 and still reading), being at his school (All Levels, Greece) and seeing his VHS and DVDs for many times, i need to share a new perspective issue about riding a motorcycle.

 

What is the hardware we use?

Suggestions:

• Engine (accelerate, retain constant speed, deceleration, power distribution)
• Brakes (srubb-off speed, stopping, weight distributing/balancing)
• Gearbox, Clutch and Drive Line (spin, up/down shift, acceleration/deceleration, final drive)
• Frame (ergonomics, geometry, flex, weight)
• Controls (throttle, steering, frond brake and clutch lever, back brake lever, gear lever)
• Suspensions/linkage, front/back (up/down)
• Wheels (spin, brake/tyre support)
• Tyres (spin, maintain/loosing traction, contact to Mother Earth)
• Driver (as a hardware device, affecting all above)

Learning and understanding how all above hardware parts perform and collaborate to each other every time in any external conditions (road/track), helps us to add the fine tuning to the software (our brain) that turn thoughts into motion. M' i correct Master Keith?

 

OK, there it is: If a motorcycle is a moving-rolling on rubber tyres-machine (including the rider) and driving is a product of motion produced from several software thoughts that operate hardware commands what is the part(s) that receives all of them, outputs and maintains the final motion?

 

Answer: The tyres, correct?

 

So if we are commanding -or better- "driving" the tyres how we gonna use this perspective? Is this point of view going to suggest a more safe, better planned and more effective approach to any turn? Is -at the time-the "feedback" and "feel" which we are in continuous search for and receive from the bike, enough, useful or accurate? From and how can we get more of it, understand it and finally, how and when can we use it for improvement?

 

Knowing exactly how the tyres perform and react every moment an external force tries to disturb their absolute rest, must be a good starting point. If we combine a tyre's action recorded movie, showing on real time other telemetry stuff like tyre's reaction on cornering force, deforming shape change/contact patch, lean angle stability, applied braking force, temperature change, air pressure change, wear, "pushing", sliding, overall traction "scale" etc with a detailed telemetry map of all other hardware actions (bike + rider), maybe we could see the exact effects in every bit of any of our input on the bike.Even timing factors. If we had that data recorded from one lap of the fastest guy on our favorite track and we could combine them with our same track data, could we see the difference from the tyre's data? Could we see how much more braking force can our tyre handle? Could we see and convinced that more quick turning than ours is ok, cracking the throttle on sooner is better, the exact effect of "hook turning", closing the throttle at the middle has nothing to do with holding a tight line, what effect has the "charging the turns" and much-much more...??

 

So, i suppose that the exact tyre condition reflects and presents every tiny bit of continuous, rapid made (and complex?) thoughts turned into motion. Can we use this recorded motion to feed back our thoughts and learn new things that can be tools for improvement? Is the "use all the hardware/software properly for matching every (combined) riding input to the exact desired and optimum tyre reaction, ability and performance for the next corner" a logical approach, or I'm getting crazy here? I call it "Driving the Tyres" or "Drive for the Tyres" or "Tyre Driving".

 

We all agree that many words don't exist (yet) to describe many thoughts and of course feelings about riding. Keith made a huge contribution to overcome this gigantic barrier on communication, sharing feelings and experiences and we all thank him! I'm not sure that my thoughts and feelings about all these are projected with clarity. At least I hope that they might be an inspiration for someone else.

 

Any thoughts my friends?

Edited December 13, 2010 by CHRISTOS

[Cobie Fair]

After many years of driving motorcycles and finally being lucky enough to organize and observe my thoughts and actions before, at and after riding, thanks to Keith"s "Soft Science" concept, reading his books (starting from 1996 and still reading), beeing at his school (All Levels, Greece) and seeing his VHS and DVDs for many times, i need to share a new perspective issue about riding a motorcycle.

 

What is the hardware we use?

Suggestions:

• Engine (accelerate, retain constand speed, deccelerate, power distribution)
  
• Brakes (srubb-off speed, stopping, weight distributing/balancing)
  
• Gearbox, Clutch and Drive Line (spin, up/down shift, acceleration/decceleration, final drive)
  
• Frame (ergonomics, geometry, flex, weight)
  
• Controls (throttle, streering, frond brake and clutch lever, back brake lever, gear lever)
  
• Suspensions/linkage, front/back (up/down)
  
• Wheels (spin, brake/tire support)
  
• Tires (spin, maintain/loosing traction, contact to Mother Earth)
  
• Driver (as a hardware device, affecting all above)
  

Learning and undersdanding how all above hardware parts perform and collaborate to each other every time in any external conditions (road/track), helps us to add the fine tunning to the software (our brain) that turn thoughts into motion. M' i correct Master Keith?

 

OK, there it is: If a motorcycle is a moving-rolling on rubber tires-machine (including the rider) and driving is a product of motion produced from several software thoughts that operate hardware commands what is the part(s) that recieves all of them, outputs and maintains the final motion?

Answer: The tires, correct?

So if we are commanding -or better- "driving" the tires how we gonna use this perpective?

I will return for more on this.

 

Hi Christos,

 

I'm not 100% clear on what the question is here... can you clarify?

 

Best,

Cobie

[Jaybird180]

I think he was theorizing on ways to get better data to give feedback to the rider in his training and use of the motorcycle. I think I will follow along and see where this goes.

[Fajita Dave]

It would be nice to have a bunch of telemetry to study like the MotoGP guys have but I think in the end it all comes down to rider feel anyway. Even if you see what the telemetry says you can get away with its still up to you to make it happen which is much easier said then done. All pro racers are already driving by what the tires tell them they can do, grip is the only thing thats limiting them. They just have enough practice to feel how far any given tire will let them go. Good telemetry might boost somes learning curve or build some confidence but I don't think it would be to practical compaired to just riding.