Woody Posted October 11, 2005 Report Share Posted October 11, 2005 About to attend my first cornering school, at Philliip Island, Australia on the 29th and after reading through this forum I can't wait! I'll let you all know how I get on. Fantastic forum, by the way. Best source of cornering advice on the web. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stuman Posted October 11, 2005 Report Share Posted October 11, 2005 Your going to have a great time! The Island is one of my favorite tracks My avatar pic is me comming out of Sybiria durring a track day I did there last year:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woody Posted November 1, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 Sorry, can't seem to upload photos (maybe too few posts?). Follow the link below: http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mysterybu...hdIq3DBO5QRnFri Attended last Saturday and had a fantastic time. I have been reading Keith?s books and have been practising his techniques for a few years now, so there wasn?t any ?new? information to be gleaned by attending the cornering school, but I expected this and this wasn?t the point of my deciding to attend. There really is no substitute for practical training and the enforced program of concentrating on one technique at a time, whilst removing many other attention grabbers (traffic, road conditions, turn-in points, etc...) was for me, the whole point of the school. I found that I was happy to practice everything without any additional on-track assistance, although it was great to have an instructor go past and show the thumbs up signal (I mean, who wouldn?t like that?). Gone was the haphazard, randomness of trying to apply everything that I had read about and for the first time I really experienced the differences that some of the techniques actually made to my riding. It also enabled me to at last nail my fast turn-in and it was a pretty special feeling to finally hit the apex at MG. Loved it. Steve Brouggy is an exceptional communicator and explains everything brilliantly. Yeah, I?ll be back for level 2, although perhaps on one of the school Triumphs next time (see below). The BIG question, am I a better rider because of attending the superbike school? Yes, I think so. I don?t think that there are any huge improvements in my riding, but I have some more knowledge which will certainly give me more confidence in my riding. I still find myself coming off the throttle when running wide going around corners, but now I have some more information to throw at my body to convince it that getting on the throttle is the right thing to do. For instance, I had quite a few problems with turn 2 (southern loop). This is a decreasing radius corner that has two turn points. You need to enter the turn a little slower than you would expect so that you can tip it in a second time as the turn tightens and drops down the hill on the exit. This second turn point was a problem for me, as I was always wary of the ground clearance on my BM and was scared of grounding out the engine. This [ground clearance] has always been my main fear with the BM, but with a little more track time to find exactly where the limits are with the bike (where the footpegs start to grind), if I also concentrate on turning the bike quicker for my current entry speed, I am confident that I will be able to find a solution that works. So how did the BM perform. Pretty well it must be said (although the poor boxer did start to shake itself apart at one point as the screws started coming out of my fuel cap!). I have been saying since I bought it that the R1100S is a surprisingly quick motorcycle and it certainly proved to be so on the track. Running around in fourth created problems though. Coming around turn 11 toward turn 12, the old thumper kept hitting the rev-limiter and I am sorry Steve/ Keith, but I am afraid to say that I often opted to take turn 12 in 5th in preference to losing some speed on the approach to turn 12, so that I could drive all the way through onto the main straight. It?s a speed thing! Ground clearance also became a bit of an issue by the third session and on a few occasions the footpegs went down and although these have some give in them, the engine doesn?t follow too far behind and that has a little less give! It didn?t really spoil the day, but it did play on my mind quite a lot. Either I need to hang off a lot more, or try another bike (a school Triumph, perhaps).. In summary, now saving for a ride day, before attending level two. Brilliant, thanks guys! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stuman Posted November 11, 2005 Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 Thanks for posting your report and I'm glad you had a good time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.