DataDan
05-12-2007, 08:24 PM
Today's drill was "soft eyes", an idea I found in a horse book, Centered Riding (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0312127340) by Sally Swift. It's basically peripheral awareness, which Keith Code calls "wide-screen vision". But she goes a step further and suggests that getting away from hard focus on a narrow visual field not only enables you to see better peripherally, it also opens up other senses that are less acute when mental bandwidth is concentrated like a laser on a single visual target. Like horse people, we have to feel what our machine is doing, so while broadening my visual field, I was also trying to improve my sense of what's going on in the suspension and at the contact patches. The experiment went pretty well, and I think I improved my feel for front end reactions. But it's going to take a lot more work before I reach the kind of understanding I hear racers describe.
While doing one of Swift's drills--alternating between hard eyes and soft eyes to experience the value of the latter--I observed an interesting phenomenon (or maybe it's just a different description). When I'm seeing the road well, I'm reasonably fast but not hurried. The road is coming at me as if in slow motion, and I react to the new wrinkles it throws at me similarly. Turn in there, aim for an exit point there. Oops, gravel on that line, better tighten it up. It's not as if my actions are planned or rehearsed; it's that I'm able to make them at the right time in the right way without any oh-shit panic. And I'm not making soft control inputs. Braking and steering can be hard, though not in an uncontrolled way.
In one particular turn (I was thinking too much about this "fast but not hurried" idea, and not enough about the turn), I found myself suddenly panicked because it was tightening up unexpectedly. Trailed the brakes in more than necessary, made a sloppy steering input, and exited a gear too high. Because I was in a learning mode, I turned around and repeated the corner to analyze my panic. Sure enough, I was able to duplicate the oh-shit moment exactly: Nearing turn-in, one spot in the corner makes it appear like a decreasing radius. But this time I immediately widened my field of vision to get the entire turn. The turn wasn't so bad after all. In fact it was just as it appeared from a greater distance. My error had been failing to maintain a wide-screen view of the turn and allowing my vision to zoom in to a too-narrow frame.
If you haven't tried riding using Code's "wide-screen vision" (A Twist of the Wrist II (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0965045021)), Lee Parks' "floodlight vision" (Total Control (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0760314039)), or Nick Ienatsch's "peripheral power" (Sport Riding Techniques (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1893618072)), I highly recommend it. Buy one of the books, practice the static drills (sitting at your desk), then use it on the road. It's one of the easiest improvements you can make to your riding.
While doing one of Swift's drills--alternating between hard eyes and soft eyes to experience the value of the latter--I observed an interesting phenomenon (or maybe it's just a different description). When I'm seeing the road well, I'm reasonably fast but not hurried. The road is coming at me as if in slow motion, and I react to the new wrinkles it throws at me similarly. Turn in there, aim for an exit point there. Oops, gravel on that line, better tighten it up. It's not as if my actions are planned or rehearsed; it's that I'm able to make them at the right time in the right way without any oh-shit panic. And I'm not making soft control inputs. Braking and steering can be hard, though not in an uncontrolled way.
In one particular turn (I was thinking too much about this "fast but not hurried" idea, and not enough about the turn), I found myself suddenly panicked because it was tightening up unexpectedly. Trailed the brakes in more than necessary, made a sloppy steering input, and exited a gear too high. Because I was in a learning mode, I turned around and repeated the corner to analyze my panic. Sure enough, I was able to duplicate the oh-shit moment exactly: Nearing turn-in, one spot in the corner makes it appear like a decreasing radius. But this time I immediately widened my field of vision to get the entire turn. The turn wasn't so bad after all. In fact it was just as it appeared from a greater distance. My error had been failing to maintain a wide-screen view of the turn and allowing my vision to zoom in to a too-narrow frame.
If you haven't tried riding using Code's "wide-screen vision" (A Twist of the Wrist II (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0965045021)), Lee Parks' "floodlight vision" (Total Control (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0760314039)), or Nick Ienatsch's "peripheral power" (Sport Riding Techniques (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1893618072)), I highly recommend it. Buy one of the books, practice the static drills (sitting at your desk), then use it on the road. It's one of the easiest improvements you can make to your riding.