-
There has been a recent cluster of spammers accessing BARFer accounts and posting spam. To safeguard your account, please consider changing your password. It would be even better to take the additional step of enabling 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) on your BARF account. Read more here.
sliding in the rain
- Thread starter Martin
- Start date
canyonrat
Veteran Knee Dragger
PeterMai said:
Hey I rode with willneversee30 today. He is a solid B street rider, smooth and conservative; I didn't see any thing squidly at all.
His points are and questions are all very legitimate. How do we all really learn these things?
(sorry, this got long)
I learned many of them from years of canyon riding. Some learn them at the track. Some take track schools with bikes with outrigers.
The safest is with outrigers, but the canyons can also teach without injury.
Speed is half skill and half knowing the road (or track). By riding with seasoned street riders, new riders can learn a lot! Especially if the street rider, like myself, is willing to ride at the other's pace.
My first track day came after 8 years of canyon riding. I'm an A paced street rider, and a B+ paced track rider. I learned several things at the track...The A Group riders are "demons" and all of the commenst about tracks being difficult/rough roads are true, many canyon roads are smother and easier. A-riders chew up the track with 1 or 2 bikes, their trailers, and their extra gear. After dragging pegs through several turns and finding body position was not helping, I had to radically adjusted my suspension. I found most A-riders would barnstorm mild corners at 140 and were too slow for me in the tight corners. A-riders would also open it up full throtle in the straits, something I've spent years of practicing and conditioning out of me. I also learned that everybody I've talked to did not see the screw on the track or the dead and splatered rattle snake on the track that day. I say all of this with the full knowledge that I am not and do not want to to be a racer. I plan to take more track days, but will sign up in the B groups so that I can practice without worry of being passed.
PeterMai, I too had about 30K miles on my 600 before upgrading. I learned that newer the bike the better it handles, regardless of cc size.
My final comment. Like stunting, there are learning curves to other m/c manuvers. And with learning curves comes mistakes. With a m/c mistakes can hurt you and or the bike, both can be monetarially expensive.
Canyonrat2
gsxrpeter
New member
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2003
- Location
- On the Apex
- Moto(s)
- 17" zx10rr
16 zx10r
15 zx6r
13 zx6r
09 zx6r
16 Alpha BMW S1000RR
R1M
959 PANIGALE
- Name
- #6 FP AFM!
Dude please lay the pipe down. Praticeing on the street is cool, but come on bro in the rain your tripping. If you want to pratice sliding go with some worn out Gp tire's. This is what I do to get used to worn out tirns with less grip then everybody else. It makes the time when you have fresh rubber more noticable. This reall helps when at the end of the race your out of rubber and you allready know what it feels like and you don't freak out.
i don't see any justification for using the streets to practice any sort of agressive riding techniques. hitting a curb at 30-40mph can land you 6ft under if you know what i mean. i work in the ER of VMC and i see some interesting stuff that would make you think twice about how one rides on the streets. i really don't mean to offend if you guys are taking it the wrong way.
peter mai
peter mai
gsxrpeter
New member
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2003
- Location
- On the Apex
- Moto(s)
- 17" zx10rr
16 zx10r
15 zx6r
13 zx6r
09 zx6r
16 Alpha BMW S1000RR
R1M
959 PANIGALE
- Name
- #6 FP AFM!
PeterMai with all do respect I feel the same way, but most people don't ride like this next to curbs and traffic lights. Twisties are usly a good polace to hon skills that a normal street city riders don't have.
MrCrash
King of FAIL
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2002
- Location
- HayWEIRD
- Moto(s)
- CBR600F4, Mojo SL, Anthem X 29er, XTC 29er Composite, XTC 29er Singlespeed
- Name
- Mikey
Or go ride Redwood "Chip Seal" Road.gsxrpeter said:
He could always throw on some D207ZRs. At track speeds, I'd find more confidence in 5 day old GP takeoffs than I would with those.
On the other hand, traction control through smoothness, body position, throttle management, and line selection are all good things that can be practiced in the rain.
- Mike
GPgofast
New member
canyonrat2 said:
I have to take exception to that statement. In the last 2 years I have ridden with a lot of fast guys, and after 1 or 2 sessions at a new track, truly fast guys are going nearlly as fast as the veterans of that specific track. Fast guys go fast EVERYWHERE. GP
canyonrat
Veteran Knee Dragger
GPgofast said:
Yes, in one session, assuming a season is a "day" at the track, one can get in 30-40 laps. That can be enough to learn the track. When I ride Skaggs road for the "day" it involves three runs down and three runs up. In the summer I ride it about once per week. The math would indicate it should take me 10 weeks to learn this road compaired to one day to learn the track.
I also will pose this question.
If someone wants to learn how to slide the rear, who teaches this? and how do the teach this?
Canyonrat2
Mark
4xfore
Lost Out of Bounds
Sorry I'm late to the game, but I have to argue with everyone. There is a lot that can be learned on the street...if you are smart about it. There is little to be learned on the track...if you are dumb about it.
At this time in our lives, the optimal place to learn skills would be on a closed course: free of road debris, vehicles moving in opposite directions, and emergency crews waiting on the sidelines.
However, I commute from Pacifica to San Francisco (sometimes to a fine dining Italian establishment in the East Bay) rain or shine, and there is a lot of foggy-wet weather, which gives plenty to learn about on a liter bike. Hopefully you are smart enough to scale back from track pace/aggression. Getting over the pucker factor of sliding is one of these. I unexpectedly slide often when it rains: changing lanes across the bump dots slides the tires, turning across man-hole covers/ crosswalk paint, freeway round-abouts laden with antifreeze/eucalyptus tree leaves.
I have found you can learn to hold a line at greater speeds in traffic, and to react appropriately when someone cuts into you. An experience that I used a couple of times when racing in a pack and someone tucks their front wheel on the track and then slid across or on the track.
Gary's book mentions learning what this "feels" like, so you can be relaxed when it happens. But it also says to be smooth. However, it's really tough to learn on a big bike. Easier on a smaller bike.
That being said, the streets are lousy designs when you make a mistake. There is an enormous probability that the human body will make contact with an immovable obstruction, or another vehicle, which the human body will lose.
At this time in our lives, the optimal place to learn skills would be on a closed course: free of road debris, vehicles moving in opposite directions, and emergency crews waiting on the sidelines.
However, I commute from Pacifica to San Francisco (sometimes to a fine dining Italian establishment in the East Bay) rain or shine, and there is a lot of foggy-wet weather, which gives plenty to learn about on a liter bike. Hopefully you are smart enough to scale back from track pace/aggression. Getting over the pucker factor of sliding is one of these. I unexpectedly slide often when it rains: changing lanes across the bump dots slides the tires, turning across man-hole covers/ crosswalk paint, freeway round-abouts laden with antifreeze/eucalyptus tree leaves.
I have found you can learn to hold a line at greater speeds in traffic, and to react appropriately when someone cuts into you. An experience that I used a couple of times when racing in a pack and someone tucks their front wheel on the track and then slid across or on the track.
Gary's book mentions learning what this "feels" like, so you can be relaxed when it happens. But it also says to be smooth. However, it's really tough to learn on a big bike. Easier on a smaller bike.
That being said, the streets are lousy designs when you make a mistake. There is an enormous probability that the human body will make contact with an immovable obstruction, or another vehicle, which the human body will lose.
afmotorsports
New member
Thank you - well put! He does not however have a monopoly on XR100s, so you can pick one up and go to a number of TT tracks in the bay area and slide around until you can't pick up your leg anymore. I would suggest that "sliding" is not exactly an essential skill to master for a newbie racer/trackrider - most are still working on the right lines, hitting the apex and finding their brake markers before they have to be concerned about controlling a slide. As a new racer, I don't recall saving or controlling too many "slides" because I was too busy bouncing off the track and watching the bike cartwheeling into the Willow Springs desert...
Just a tidbit of info: at the Freddie Spencer Pro School we attended two weeks ago, Nick Ienatch sort of pushed Freddie into telling us about one of the "new tracks" he had gone to early in his GP career (I believe in Malaysia) and he set a new lap record during his very first session there, on the NINTH LAP! Personally, I consider myself lucky if I don't run off my first time on a new track during the first nine laps, nevermind setting a new lap record... Maybe that's why I never got a factory ride...
canyonrat2 said:
Man, there's such a huge difference between learning a road and learning a track at a consistently fast race pace that I'm not sure there's any relevance here. I spent two days at Road Atlanta last year trying to learn the track to the point where I felt comfortable at even my decidedly non-pro race pace, and never got there. I can't imagine doing it in 10 laps, or 40...
Another thing I've been finding useful (and very fun too) is karting at Lemans. Yes, it's 4 wheels vs. 2 and the dynamics are different, but not so different that you can't learn something to aid your dirt bike training (
). It also teaches you a bit about how relentlessly consistent the fast guys are, on bikes or in cars - you start getting within a second or so of the record, and find that you just absolutely cannot keep up with the top guys because they're doing everything perfectly and you're making little mistakes that start to add up.
NoQuarter
New member
To second both Jeff and Alex on a few points... I believe Freddie's lap record story involved Suzuka, and he told it to us when asked about how he goes about learning a track. Two things stuck with me: 1. he breaks down a track into 1/3's and concentrate on each 1/3 individually. Once he figures out the first 1/3, he learns the 2nd, etc. That way he can focus on a limited set of turns and really get it down. 2. Once he learns the racing line, he always rides it, regardless if he's at 100% race pace or just going 60% and warming up the tires. To go slower, he doesn't change his lines or markers, just the amount of input he feeds into the brakes and throttle. This way he's always reinforcing his lines and his markers into his brain.
I personally have practiced this skill in the most risk-free way possible... video games! Doesn't much matter which game or platform, as long as it's a somewhat realistic road course and you can turn off the overhead maps and things that you wouldn't have in real life. But learning a track is learning a track. Braking markers, apexes, acceleration points.. all pretty apply. Of course it does nothing for your physical skills and bike control. But that's why I've got an XR100 like a few others here do!
As many here have already pointed out, there's a ton of knowledge, practice, and funding that goes into motorsports. I've only been at it for 2 years, but it's a major endeavor from nearly every aspect you can think. Way too much fun too.
Good luck with your plans to get out there!
I personally have practiced this skill in the most risk-free way possible... video games! Doesn't much matter which game or platform, as long as it's a somewhat realistic road course and you can turn off the overhead maps and things that you wouldn't have in real life. But learning a track is learning a track. Braking markers, apexes, acceleration points.. all pretty apply. Of course it does nothing for your physical skills and bike control. But that's why I've got an XR100 like a few others here do!
As many here have already pointed out, there's a ton of knowledge, practice, and funding that goes into motorsports. I've only been at it for 2 years, but it's a major endeavor from nearly every aspect you can think. Way too much fun too.
Good luck with your plans to get out there!
zx9r_blue
New member
If you want to practise on the street, just ride at a 6/10ths pace and practise looking as far ahead as you can, being smooth on and off the throttle, and your body positioning. I went from running 2:40's at Thunderhill to 2:01's in 3 trackdays by practising what I learned at the track on the street.
canyonrat
Veteran Knee Dragger
Thank you all...Freddie Spencer...I might take a class from him. Personally I need some experience pushing the front, rear slides don't much bother me anymore, but a front slide can quickly become a dump. I've only had a hand full of dual tire slides greater than 12 inches of side slip.
SO a session should be considered about a 20 minute time period or 8-10 laps at most tracks.
Canyonrat2
SO a session should be considered about a 20 minute time period or 8-10 laps at most tracks.
Canyonrat2