The faster I go...

[DaveToo]

...the narrower my field of vision gets; ...the less I'm able to put my bike where it needs to be (like down on the apex) while looking ahead at where it needs to be next.

Annoying. And unsafe. Not sure how to fix it. I wonder if decades of wearing eyeglasses have trained my eyes to stay away from where the frames are. (It probably doesn't help that things "move" when they pass beyond the edges of the lenses, due to the refraction of plastic vs. air.)

[Kensaku]

Slow down.

Go fast slowly.

[Yody]

Originally posted by Kensaku
Slow down.

Go fast smoothly.
:teeth

[DaveToo]

Thanks; I've been doing this long enough to understand that rushing the turns is counterproductive. But I'm not; if anything, I brake way too early and coast too much.

I just haven't mastered looking far enough ahead while controlling bike placement well.

[jwatkins80504]

I wear glasses with progressive bi-focal lenses. Dang, I'm old. It is sometimes annoying when the lense frame gets in the way of what you want to see. I wonder if a set of sports frames might work better for you? Or contact lenses? Personally, I just try to work with my existing glasses and ignore the issue. I try to look past the frames and ignore the fact that they are blocking some of what I want to see.

The tunnel vision affect you describe can happen when you look at the track too close to the front of the bike. For example, I work to pick my head up and look at the apex of turn 1 at Thunderhill before I reach my brake marker or even earlier as I cross the start/finish stripe. This really helps to slow down turn 1 and eliminate the tunnel vision affect.

Fixating on stuff too close to the bike, is a bad habit I'm working on. I need to keep my eyes up and looking far down the track.

[allergic2death]

put your head lower and it will almost force you to look through the turn more. You look bolt upright in your avatar

[DaveToo]

Originally posted by allergic2death
put your head lower and it will almost force you to look through the turn more. You look bolt upright in your avatar

There, I fixed my avatar :)

My gut gets in the way of leaning too far forward :( But I've actually been told a couple of times to try to keep my back straight as I lean forward, to keep my eyes up.

Next trackday I think I'll point my video camera at my helmet/eyes for a couple of sessions.

[Yody]

Your avatar looks like someone right before a turn while setup for the turn. If that is you while "in" the turn you are still too upright and head not into the turn enough. I would agree that putting your head farther in the turn will help you focus and keep your site in the turn. Also riding above your limit could also cause problems with attention. Riding smoothly and within your limits should bring focus and keep others in in your periphiels(no idea how to spell). I'm no pro but I think its easy to pick this up based on what you are saying and your pictures.

Also when do you setup your body for the turn? Maybe you are setting up too late and your body isn't setup properly in time, its a common mistake. Probably you just need to focus on readjusting your eyesight with you head but some of these other things might help too.

[uraniaclio]

Originally posted by allergic2death
put your head lower and it will almost force you to look through the turn more. You look bolt upright in your avatar

I dont know if this is always true. I find it harder to turn my head when my head is lower. I'm having trouble with this as well so I've been giving it some thought and here's what I've come up with -

1. My range of motion is restricted. I have had some neck problems (repeatedly injured a neck muscle doing stupid weight stuff) and throw in a back protector that tends to ride up, it's difficult to turn my neck. Each session I try to exaggerate my head movement tends to cause some pain and fatigue in my neck.

2. I ride way to close to the edge. I've been working on trying to take tighter lines and I'm always freaked my front wheel is going to too far and fall of the edge of the track. I had my front wheen catch the edge once already and that sucked. I've tried to look through the turn each time and just had a hard time doing it. The compromise I've come up with is to move my sightline around a lot during a turn. Look through, at the rider in front, at the edge of the track, at where I want to go, and repeat this. It seems to help a little.

3. Also, this tends to happen on new tracks. At t hill (after 5 track days), I found it easier to look around than Infineon (2 days). I also think Infineon narrows your vision a bit more than t-Hill which feels more open.

4. Damn photogs r distracting. I keep looking right at them trying to pose.

Something I need to focus on for the next few track days.

[Snoggin]

Originally posted by uraniaclio
2. I ride way to close to the edge. I've been working on trying to take tighter lines and I'm always freaked my front wheel is going to too far and fall of the edge of the track. I had my front wheen catch the edge once already and that sucked. I've tried to look through the turn each time and just had a hard time doing it. The compromise I've come up with is to move my sightline around a lot during a turn. Look through, at the rider in front, at the edge of the track, at where I want to go, and repeat this. It seems to help a little.


4. Damn photogs r distracting. I keep looking right at them trying to pose.

Something I need to focus on for the next few track days.

Your copmpromise is probably holdig you b ack from being smooth in the corner. If you need to adjust your gear so it doesnt hinder your movements then that is what you should do.


You dont want to be "hunting" your eyes around while riding a bike and especially not in the middle of a turn. You want to pick up your reference points and once you are confident you are going to acquire your chosen line move on to the next reference point.

Rather try to make your eyes "BIG" and focus on your intended path while stilll being aware of what is going on in the periphery.

Hunting around with your vision will just make you nervous and uncertain.

Just my three cents
:laughing :laughing

[allergic2death]

Originally posted by uraniaclio
I dont know if this is always true. I find it harder to turn my head when my head is lower. I'm having trouble with this as well so I've been giving it some thought and here's what I've come up with -

1. My range of motion is restricted. I have had some neck problems (repeatedly injured a neck muscle doing stupid weight stuff) and throw in a back protector that tends to ride up, it's difficult to turn my neck. Each session I try to exaggerate my head movement tends to cause some pain and fatigue in my neck.

2. I ride way to close to the edge. I've been working on trying to take tighter lines and I'm always freaked my front wheel is going to too far and fall of the edge of the track. I had my front wheen catch the edge once already and that sucked. I've tried to look through the turn each time and just had a hard time doing it. The compromise I've come up with is to move my sightline around a lot during a turn. Look through, at the rider in front, at the edge of the track, at where I want to go, and repeat this. It seems to help a little.

3. Also, this tends to happen on new tracks. At t hill (after 5 track days), I found it easier to look around than Infineon (2 days). I also think Infineon narrows your vision a bit more than t-Hill which feels more open.

4. Damn photogs r distracting. I keep looking right at them trying to pose.

Something I need to focus on for the next few track days.

Look at snoggins avatar do you see his shoulder and head position, it would be even harder to look straight than to look through the turn. If you look at your photos your crossed up, meaning drop your shoulder and get your spine straight with your butt. The control was like night and day when i really started dropping my shoulder and head into the turn. I need work but im getting better slowly

http://www.bayarearidersforum.com/forums/images/threads/000/199/415/3074368-mf1a7670meme.jpg

[uraniaclio]

Originally posted by allergic2death
Look at snoggins avatar do you see his shoulder and head position, it would be even harder to look straight than to look through the turn. If you look at your photos your crossed up, meaning drop your shoulder and get your spine straight with your butt. The control was like night and day when i really started dropping my shoulder and head into the turn. I need work but im getting better slowly

http://www.bayarearidersforum.com/forums/images/threads/000/199/415/3074368-mf1a7670meme.jpg

Yeah. This is something I need to work on. You pointed it out looking at the photos.

Snoggin,
I feel fairly comfortable in the corners and not too slow in most of them but I am trying to ride cleaner. And the #1 thing I notice is the head positioning. My head just ain't turning enough. I'll definitely consciously drop my shoulder next time to see if that helps as well as trying to stuff the back protector down as much as possible.

Also, do you guys point your chin up or look up with your eyes only? This is causing the problem with my gear. If I try to point my chin up, I feel like the back of the helmet is hitting up against the top of the back protector riding up and I need to really squeeze my neck to keep my head up. I tend to use my peripheral vision to look farther away which I'm hoping to change.

Actually looking at this pic, it looks like the back of the helmet is hitting the speed hump.

http://gotbluemilk.com/web070408/t/images/MF1A8617.JPG

[Yody]

BP doesn't look bad in that picture, better than I expected by your posts. My street jacket has a speed hump and my helmet hit it. You are not looking "up" but looking through the turn. I think you are concentrating on moving your head too much, move your upper body and let your head follow. If your helmet hits the hump then use your eyes. The key is to be looking through the turn, not "up and ahead" If you end up looking up and ahead thats okay but the goal is to look through the turn and have everything in sync. Do you have any front shot pictures?

Also it looks as if you are hanging off almost too much, I know you are fast C, slow B, you just need one cheek off the seat, looks almost as if you have almost both cheeks off? Put your upper body off the bike and into the turn more and just shift one cheek off of the seat. I think part of the problem is you are hanging your lower body off the seat more than your upper and it is forcing the upper torso to stay closer to the tank and not as far over

[DaveToo]

Who are you talking to, Yody? Me or the threadjacker? :)

[Yody]

lol, threadjacker, BTW I hate trying to sound like the know-it-all as I'm not really much faster than most, but I think its easy to look at someone else and figure out what they are doing. Hope it helps

[AFM535]

FWIW, I wear contacts nearly all the time since glasses make me feel like I'm in a tunnel. Even with frameless glasses, they force me to move my head and not my eyes. The out-of-focus area at the edges of the glasses make peripheral vision useless if my eyes are anything but straight forward.

Might be worth converting to contacts if you can, but I suspect it'd take a few months of regular wear (at least) to get your eyes in the habit of moving around and using the extra field of view.

[uraniaclio]

Originally posted by DaveToo
Who are you talking to, Yody? Me or the threadjacker? :)

My bad, DaveToo. Guess I did jack it. :p

I was trying to make the point that this problem is prolly a lot more common. I've been looking at a lot of pictures and those who look through well definitely stand out.

Yody, Thanks for your input. Yeah....I'll try to do less on the lowerbody and lower my inside shoulder more. That should save my legs too. I get tired after riding about 15 minutes.

Okay, returniing the thread back to DaveToo.
I would try lowering your head a bit too. See if you can pivot the outside elbow on the tank and try to rest the shoulder on the tank even (I have trouble doing this as well). I can see how dropping the inside shoulder will naturally rotate your head as Allergic2Death pointed out.


Originally posted by daemon
FWIW, I wear contacts nearly all the time since glasses make me feel like I'm in a tunnel. Even with frameless glasses, they force me to move my head and not my eyes. The out-of-focus area at the edges of the glasses make peripheral vision useless if my eyes are anything but straight forward.

Might be worth converting to contacts if you can, but I suspect it'd take a few months of regular wear (at least) to get your eyes in the habit of moving around and using the extra field of view.

Yup. This is the reason why I try to pick my chin up. It's hard to frame my sightline within the glasses. Hmm...maybe it's time for a visit to to the optometrist.

[quasi888]

Those sunglasses are prescription Kyong? And all along I thought you were just trying your best to look like 90s-era Chow Yun Fat! :teeth

[DaveToo]

I don't mind the counterexamples, really, I was just confused about who was addressing who.

Yeah ... I think some of my trouble might be going to different schools with different philosophies about body position.

Or going to too many schools and not enough regular trackdays :)

On the plus side, I did feel much better running thunderhill backwards (all day on Wednesday) than I ever have before, and I think that has a lot to do with visual skills.

On thursday I was videotaped from behind for a few laps, and I'm working on editing the video so I can see my head turns better. In some places it's clear that I'm looking at the apex for too long.

[uraniaclio]

Originally posted by quasi888
And all along I thought you were just trying your best to look like 90s-era Chow Yun Fat! :teeth

Well...that too.
Chicks dig the retro 70's style big lenses. :cool
But main reason is to have greater perpheral vision. My normal glasses have much smaller lenses and it sucks trying to do activities requiring peripheral vision with those things on.

DaveToo,
Yeah...different schools confuse you from what I hear. I take it you were at Star. They definitely teach you something quite different. I got the inside scoop from 2 friends who attended their schools. As they say, do what feels comfortable. If you look at some of the AFM guys, they all have very different styles. Some guys hang off a lot and others barely move. And they're all pretty fast. I just like to pose for the camera. Hanging off sure looks cool. :shhh Mike S saw my pic and told me to stop exaggerating so much. No need for such drastic bp taking the carousel at 35mph. :laughing I had to fess up that I was posing. There's one pic where I was looking directly at the photog instead of the turn.

[DaveToo]

My new avatar pic was taken last week at STAR, but I'm not even sure where. Maybe in turn 2 while we were running backwards. It looks like I'm staring at the photog but I barely remember seeing him out there; he wasn't distracting me.

The STAR guys are worried about us getting off the bike too far to recover from a slide, I think, and also making sure that we don't use our arms at all in hanging off or moving back to the other side.

[allergic2death]

if you set up for the turn before the turn it helps with arm fatigue while braking. It also helps not to hang off too much because when your braking it just would not feel right to have both cheeks off with that amount of forward force. Before the turn I slide my ass off in that direction so when i go to drop in i only have to drop the shoulder and lay the knee down, instead of moving the whole body over at once. It helped me settle the bike going into the turn. I think i am going to start writing down where i feel most comfortable braking, shifting,what gear i am in for which corner, and markers. I have been logging my suspension settings and tire pressures since late last year and it has helped a lot. The better you get you might not have to do this but i think it will help a lot especially if you are thinking of changing sprockets like i am. I propably just need to stick with what i have and learn to get a better drive. I know i could get much more speed going into the front straight if i was in the right gear consistently instead of not remembering what gear i am in and where i should appply more throttle. I came from a 750 so this new bikes power band is way different and does not like to lug.I also have been working on getting my knee off the ground once it touches and letting it just hover over the pavement

[Kensaku]

Hey DaveToo - you realize that when you post this kind of thread, EVERYONE becomes an expert, right? ;)

[Baptistro]

Kyong, try not hanging your ass off as much and opening up your hips and your shoulders into the turn. DT, hard to tell from that angle, but considering how much of your ass is visible behind and below your shoulder, I might suggest you try the same thing. Opening up your shoulders to the turn allows you to see better more comfortably. Just my :2cents

[dgrace]

Re: The faster I go...

The older I was. ;)

dave

[uraniaclio]

Originally posted by DaveToo
My new avatar pic was taken last week at STAR, but I'm not even sure where. Maybe in turn 2 while we were running backwards. It looks like I'm staring at the photog but I barely remember seeing him out there; he wasn't distracting me.

The STAR guys are worried about us getting off the bike too far to recover from a slide, I think, and also making sure that we don't use our arms at all in hanging off or moving back to the other side.

Yeah. I tend to tug a bit at the handlebar when I'm transitioning from one side to the other. I definitely can sense the suspension complaining sometimes especially when Im tired. I'll try to smooth out my bp now that I have my pics and I can concentrate on riding instead of posing for the camera. :p

Originally posted by Kensaku
Hey DaveToo - you realize that when you post this kind of thread, EVERYONE becomes an expert, right? ;)

Hey....I admit I'm just posing. BTW, how come u dont have a beard in real life? :p Good meeting you. Nice to put a face to the name.

[Kensaku]

Sorry to thread hijack, but screw whoever squashed my post...haters :twofinger

[Yody]

Originally posted by DaveToo


On the plus side, I did feel much better running thunderhill backwards (all day on Wednesday) than I ever have before, and I think that has a lot to do with visual skills.

On thursday I was videotaped from behind for a few laps, and I'm working on editing the video so I can see my head turns better. In some places it's clear that I'm looking at the apex for too long.

Maybe you are better at right handers too :confused

[Kensaku]

Originally posted by uraniaclio
Hey....I admit I'm just posing. BTW, how come u dont have a beard in real life? :p Good meeting you. Nice to put a face to the name.

Actually, I am the hairiest Asian person I know and could probably grow a beard in week. If I did, I would totally take care of three little birdies.

[Dar25]

Originally posted by uraniaclio

http://gotbluemilk.com/web070408/t/images/MF1A8617.JPG

Kyong, as others said, dont hang the butt off so much and try to use your outside leg for better anchoring on the bike. Once you feel like you dont need a death grip on the handlebars to stay on the bike in a turn, you can use your inside sholder and leg more freely looking and turning into the corner.

Cheers

[DaveToo]

Originally posted by yody
Maybe you are better at right handers too :confused

I'm better at right turns than I used to be; I've done three days at Sears Point so far this year with that goal in mind.

[Yody]

lets see some other pics other than your avatar