No matter how good you think you are...

Sometimes you still screw up the fundamentals. Today riding into work I was riding with my buddy like I always do. There's this one turn right after the gate into base where it's a 90* about 25' radius turn. So it's a faster 90* turn. Today there wasn't any cagers and we took it faster than usual. About 45mph. That's not quite pushing the turn, just about 80% normally for me.

Looked for the apex, turned in as soon as I saw it. Looked for my exit, saw it was off the road, so I tried to lean more, stick a knee out, and look for my desired exit but it wouldn't lean. I pushed harder on the outside peg and harder on the inside handlebar. No dice.

So the rubber side stayed down, but I still went off the road. Thankfully this particular turn has no curbing and I was mostly out of the turn by then. After practing the rest of the turns into work as if I was taking them at warp speed, I decided that I was pushing with my outside arm for some reason and that I wasn't getting into the throttle like I should. Just coasting around turns these days.

Back to practicing turns I suppose. And thankfully the buddy was leading today so no one saw me go off the road.

sounds dangerous

Glad you kept her upright, but :spank:

I was a bit concerned about hitting the dirt that fast, but I decided that I wasn't going to crash and rode accordingly. All in all, it wasn't too bad. It just made me think. I'm also wondering if my turn in was too late, or not fast enough.

glad it came out ok, well at least you learned something new, and hopefully don't make that mistake again. motorcycling is a learning process through trial and error just be sure to learn most of it from other people :BLAA:

Go to a track and ride the bolts off that thing. It's a sportbike!! Now go kick its ass.

$$$ is the issue on that one lone. I don't have a suit or most of the things you need.

I did figure out that I was trying to push the bike up with my arms instead of pushing on the outside peg with my foot. I found the twistiest roads in Jacksonville and made myself hang off the bike on them. I also found a nice big open parking lot to practice my turns on.

Pushing the pegs is just something you do to have good balance. It's not how you lean the bike or straighten it. If anything you should be gripping the tank with your outside leg rather than using it to push down on the peg when hitting a corner. To test this go in a straight line and let go of the bars. try to turn the bike by stomping on one of the pegs. Or go through a gradual curve trying to only use your footpegs. It won't work.

Get snug up to the tank, bring your upper body into a position so that your arms aren't stretched, and with your loose arms use the handlebars to guide you through the corner along with the rest of your body following through. Make fluid and smooth motions with everything (brakes/throttle/body/handlebars/etc). You should be guiding the bike through the corner using the handlebars to initiate the dive and the throttle to start standing it up again (combined with easing off the handlebars). You should let off the brakes so smoothly a by-stander wouldn't be able to tell when you've come off the brakes and then carry on through the corner with your upper body still loose and your arms still unstretched and loose guiding the bike to the apex in a natural steering motion that sort of stems from your overall body's motion while feeding in the throttle smoothly and gradually.

It's a lot easier to feel what the bike is doing in the corner when you're loose. If you've had an issue at 80% then that's too much. Bring it down to 60%. Don't worry about going fast. Worry about going smooth and having a complete understanding of what the bike is doing rather than pushing the last little bit. Nothing should ever surprise you...especially running off the road in a lazy corner.

But don't worry I've done it too (overshooting corners...actually I did it twice....once I ended up in the grass but still vertical and the other time I jumped the curb and was lucky there wasn't more traffic....I was still vertical both times but the second time I had to repair both my rims). Also, both times I got very angry at myself for putting myself in a situation where things could have gone very badly. (but those are just the times I overshot corners and went off the road or into oncoming lanes....more than a couple times I've missed my line by a wide, wide margin).

Edit:

All of those were in my first couple years and I am very lucky not to have had a spectacular crash. You can't learn to "sport-ride" properly on public roads. It's way too risky. It's risky because you have to push yourself to the point where you are exploring what the bike is doing and trying to figure out how it is responding. You can either learn safely on public roads at 60% and take a long time to learn, or go do a performance riding school on the track and learn more in 4 hours than you did in the previous 2 years combined. It really is worth it. Stop eating out for a month, don't buy that thing you were planning on buying, and put in like $200 for a cheap leather suit. Or just get a pair of leather pants and have a tailor sew the zipper on them and your jacket so you can zip it to your jacket.

In the end it is a choice, but if you make some sacrifices and get into doing trackdays, you will be rewarded immensely by a tremendously increased enjoyment level after getting to understand riding a bike better.

^^edited

Hadn't thought of that leather pants thing. I'll have to think about it.

What I meant was not so much "pushing the bike up with the peg" I know that nothing but steering input will move the bike. You push on the outside peg to move your body to the inside, that makes the bike have less lean angle for the same turn speed and radius. But it feels like you're pushing the bike up by doing that. Lean = risk as Keith likes to say. Therefore less lean is better. It also gives you more room for speed to take the turn faster.

I also have leaned over so far while hanging off the bike that pegs scraped, and then just to prove it to myself, let go of the outside handgrip and only kept on the throttle with two fingers. Bike didn't care. If anything it felt more stable since I wasn't making unnecessary adjustments. Hanging off with my knee out and only my outside leg holding me up.

I try to practice Keith Code's stuff as often as I can. I just think with the setback pegs and Rizoma bars, I've gotten into the bad habit of locking my arms.



I do want a track day though.

It happens to most of us (including me) at one time or another. The important thing is to take stock of what just happened and learn a "life lesson" from it. I think the success of the NorCal/SoCal ride a few weeks ago was riding the "Pace" led by Cali rider and Jblk9695 as the ride leaders for a group of 15. Here's a link to another forum which explains "The Pace".
The Pace - BARF - Bay Area Riders Forum
Whenever I think I'm starting to treat public roads like the track I go back and re-read this article. Here's some highlights though..

The Pace Principles
Set cornering speed early.
Blow the entrance and you'll never recover.

Look down the road.
Maintaining a high visual horizon will reduce perceived speed and help you avoid panic situations.

Steer the bike quickly.
There's a reason Wayne Rainey works out--turning a fast-moving motorcycle takes muscle.

Use your brakes smoothly but firmly.
Get on and then off the brakes; don't drag 'em.

Get the throttle on early.
Starting the drive settles the chassis, especially through a bumpy corner.

Never cross the centerline except to pass.
Crossing the centerline in a corner is an instant ticket and an admission that you can't really steer your bike. In racing terms, your lane is your course; staying right of the line adds a significant challenge to most roads and is mandatory for sport riding's future.

Don't crowd the centerline.
Always expect an oncoming car with two wheels in your lane.

Don't hang off in the corners or tuck in on the straights.
Sitting sedately on the bike looks safer and reduces unwanted attention. It also provides a built-in safety margin.

When leading, ride for the group.
Good verbal communication is augmented with hand signals and turn signals; change direction and speed smoothly.

When following, ride with the group.
If you can't follow a leader, don't expect anyone to follow you when you're setting The Pace.

I've read about it before. Usually it's only my buddy and me. I think my point was that no matter how good you think you are, you should still practice. It was the "I ride to work every day, I don't need to practice anymore" mentality that probably caused the whole incident.

Stay humble when you're dealing with something that could kill you. It's a message that's repeated throughout history, and yet we still have to repeat it. It's why zookeepers are usually limited to handling the poisonous snakes for a month or two. As soon as you start to feel comfortable, you need to practice/train, or take a break for awhile so that next time you aren't comfortable.

I'd put over 7000 miles on this bike in just about 8 months. I thought I knew her. I got careless. Thankfully it was just a slap and not a bite. I know the limits of my bike, I've ridden the edge, usually in a nice big, empty parking lot. I out ride liter bikes all the time. Not on the straights of course.

I got lazy and ****y, and it made me sloppy.

BTW, when I really start itching to ride hard, I either go to my favorite parking lot or I ride out to the old airstrip. I won't say I never speed on public roads, or ride it hard, but those times are rare and when there's not a car in sight.

EDIT: Apparently, I can't write c0cky...

Oh, and you're probably right about the not being loose thing. I notice that sometimes I'm loose and the bike just performs, somedays it's like I can't loosen up for anything. When I do notice that I'm tight mid-turn and correct it, it's almost like the bike perks up and says "hell yeah, let's go." It stops wobbling and my roll on gets smoother.

I probably just need more time in the saddle, and a place to push her hard at speeds over 35 or so. Like a track. I want to go so much, but with the place we're in right now, the kids come first. I'd even skip lunch every day if it'd help, but since I eat leftovers or a ham sandwich for lunch everyday anyway, I doubt it would. But you know, in 2 years the tracks will still be there.

DownrangeFuture said:

Stay humble when you're dealing with something that could kill you. It's a message that's repeated throughout history, and yet we still have to repeat it.

Click to expand...

I know the feeling, yesterday I was coming back home from a friend's house and, in Florida, in order to look for turns you need to use the highway ramps!!!
I was taking 528 westbound from US1 Google Maps.
The turn is pretty nice but I had a car in front of me, so he ruined the turn!!!!! as I'm keeping my distance suddenly the car started slowing down until it came to a stop (in the ramp!!!!) I moved towards the left and started accelerating...

Look where you want to go not where you do not want to go!!!!!!!
Of course I was close to the right lane and that is what I was looking at. At the end I went over that line basically merging into the rightmost lane of the highway:spank::spank::spank:. As I was accelerating I was going faster than the car coming far behind in that lane. Nothing happened but the endless thought...Why did I do that? What if there was a car coming faster than me!!!!!

I'm thankful for the reminder and the opportunity of not making the same mistake again

It gets tricky trying to gauge good advice like this through text. I just know I do it 50% wrong still but am 48% less wrong than I was a couple years ago. I also know that the best lesson I learned was to stop thinking I knew anything about anything. The only thing I now regard as actually worth discussion for my own riding is objective material. Things like what better riders tell me when they run behind me watching me to give me pointers. Or video. Or those riding schools. Everything else is just practice to lower your "nervous" level and raise your "confidence" level so that you are more capable of turning those objective information sources into genuine improvement in your riding.

Reading/watching twist of the wrist and following racing on tv and doing all the internet reading in the world is a great place to start. It gives you a general sense of good habits vs bad habits. But what I found is at the end of the day what's happening in your mind and what your bike is receiving in terms of actual input is pretty different. Because if any of us were doing in reality what we THINK we're doing in our minds, then we would all be capable of lining up in a racer grid on race day.

lonesoldier84 said:

I also know that the best lesson I learned was to stop thinking I knew anything about anything.

Click to expand...

That's the realization I came to. Maybe I should have titled this thread, "No matter how good you think you are... Don't." You see it up and down the skill levels. Even Rossi seems to think he's 10x better than he is. Of course, give him a 250 and me a 1000 and he'd still kick my ass... but that's beside my point.

No matter how good you think you are, from squid to WSBK champ, don't get haughty, there's always someone better. And the penalties for exceeding your skill can be deadly.

That was my point. That hopefully someone could learn from my mistakes.