Riding Advice

Discussion in 'General VFR Discussions' started by jayzonk, Sep 27, 2015.

  1. Gator

    Gator Insider

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    Knight you consider 2 hours too far to do track days but will still ride streets for 2 hours? Just curious how close would a track have to be to attend? We give extra points for who travels the furthest for our track day weekends. Florida to Mid Ohio, Texas to Mid Ohio, Minnesota to Jennings Florida, NH to Barber in Alabama and this year a friend rented out Laguna on Christmas eve and a few east coasters are seriously thinking about shattering the distance record. I'm going to miss it for the first time, too many family things during the holidays. It would be fun to do 2 days at Laguna though. 2 hours is cake, do it!
     
  2. GreyVF750F

    GreyVF750F Member

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    In lieu of track days, try parking lot-deserted road days to practice your braking and throttle techniques. Braking and throttle control is a must if you want to be smooth and fast. Plus it saves your ass on the street.

    Find a large parking lot and pick out or mark a spot where you start your braking. You can start out at thirty five mph so you're more concentrated on braking vs speed. When you hit that mark start applying your brakes quickly, mark the spot where you stopped. Now keep doing that but keep stopping shorter and shorter to where you feel you're doing almost a stoppie. Repeat many times.

    After you get comfortable with that, up your speed 10-20 mph and do it all over again. You'll start to find that you do not jam on your brakes but jab on your brakes to about 80%+ of their stopping power and then modulate from there for quick stops. Or modulate first then jab. Stuff like that helps you get a fine feel for braking. Front brakes ONLY.

    Throttle wise find some open enough turns so you can see thru the corner for traffic and safety. Entry the corner at a decent speed with medium lean angle. Now apply your front brakes lightly at first. Then modulate the throttle to keep your line in the corner with brakes on. Two fingers on the brake lever and the rest for throttle.

    The brakes will make the bike want to stand up and go wide. The right amount of throttle will make it lay back down. Too little will want to stand the bike up and to much you dive in to the corner. Just steer the bike with throttle and nothing else if you can. Keep same riding position and countersteer input. You can start out at 35mph to start to get the feel of what the bike is going to do. The faster you take the corner the faster and more precise the inputs of throttle or brake will be needed. You do this enough it will be come second nature. At first you'll most likely be choppy on both. After you should be smoother and deliberate in your movements.

    Just remember you don't need fast speeds to practice in the beginning. The speed will come once you get your act together and gain some skills in the fine art of braking and throttle modulation. Most of all have fun with it.
     
  3. Bubba Zanetti

    Bubba Zanetti Member

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    Knight:

    Money isn't the problem...time and personal issue are.

    Grey has a excellent idea about a nice big parking lot. Can practice body position, hard braking, trail braking and a few other essentials in that arena.

    I'm with Gator. The closest track to me was New Jersey Motorsports Park (NJMP). I MADE IT HAPPEN. Budget? Yeah, had a spread sheet of the costs it took to run the track with a two-stroke. I didn't buy myself anything BUT track time, gear and parts. Outside of needing new clothes for work all my 'fun' money went to the track addiction and I WAS NEVER IN DEBT. Paid cash for everything or I should say paid off the credit cards monthly as I had to order stuff online. Had a special bank account set up for track only purchases. The list goes on....LOL! For my birthday, anniversary, holidays my gift? "Just give me money for the track".

    I'll say it again...the street will never compare to the track no matter how fast or hard you go on the street. They are two opposite worlds. I am not a purist. A street ride is nice and you learn how to handle 'unpredictability' on the street as well as taking crap lines through turns to stay out of trouble (hopefully) but I could have never ridden the TZ on the street the way I did the track. Mostly because you had to ride the 125 flat out for the damn thing to work right.

    You can learn quite a bit the way you are dong things Knight and that's good. If that's all you can do then do the best you can with what you have; but if you are itching for the next level...the land of asphalt dreams is waiting...

    Oh, and yes I did study and practice riding techniques. I was a MSF Coach for 9 years. I did the same exercise on my VFR. I took additional classes like Total Control Level 1 and 2. I did exercises out of books like Proficient Motorcycling, and the one Nick Ienatsh wrote Sport Bike Techniques? Finally, after a couple hours practicing cornering in a parking lot I realized I had done pretty much all I could for street practice. That's when I turned to my friend and asked if he wanted to do more. What do you have in mind? "Track days" was my response. Helll ya baby!

    BZ
     
  4. Bubba Zanetti

    Bubba Zanetti Member

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    Badbilly...I'm a gonna beat your ass!!!

    ON a serious note, why haven't you driven off SOW yet? Damn your skillz are lacking Brother.

    BZ
     
  5. Badbilly

    Badbilly Official VFRWorld Troll Of The Year!

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    For newer "contributors" BZ and BB go back a long way.

    As to SOW we go to "give a dude enough rope..." Unlike the plastic surgeon who hung himself SOW, will cross the Rubicon all by himself.
     
  6. Bubba Zanetti

    Bubba Zanetti Member

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    I'll take your word for it BB, but that guy/girl/ she-male is the most impressive troll I have witnessed on the internet. Mostly because I think he/she/it actually believes what words get spewed onto the screen.

    BZ
     
  7. Badbilly

    Badbilly Official VFRWorld Troll Of The Year!

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    We tried to get one of those handy-dandy Google translators to work on his "words" but even Gooogle gave up trying to figure oot what language he was babbling. ;)

    Any chance you'll get out from under that cloud and get back to riding soon?

    Please notice I am Troll numero uno. I aim to keep up my rep.

    Cheers,

    B
     
  8. sunofwolf

    sunofwolf New Member

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    Yes indeed, # uno waste of time, I think BB should go and troll the Vespa scooter forum m he might actual be able to get one cheap!
     
  9. Badbilly

    Badbilly Official VFRWorld Troll Of The Year!

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    Older Vespa scooters are highly collectable by the scooter crowd both in the US and UK. They are still raced in UK.

    If SOW, as we know, did not have a line of shemales to act as surrogate plugs, we might derive that once again he is talking oot his ass.


    Howzat Dan? LOL
     
  10. Gator

    Gator Insider

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    Assphincter says what?
     
  11. Bubba Zanetti

    Bubba Zanetti Member

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    At some point I should be on two wheels again. The friend I sold my TZ125 to has a tricked out FZR400 and he'll loan it to me for a track day. Thinking something next year. He has a SV650 for sale that is awesome but just cants dedicate myself to it at the moment.

    I don't think your rep is totally at stake, but your type of trolling is professional BB. You care about your work and thus do a great service for VFRW. You my friend are a 'craftsman' and work trolling like a master painter or sculptor.

    SOW is the Jackson Pollock of trolling. Actually he is the Lennon/Ono singing collaboration of trolling.

    It just doesn't make sense.

    BZ
     
  12. Badbilly

    Badbilly Official VFRWorld Troll Of The Year!

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    Do ya think Yoko is writing SOW's stuff? Lord help us all..

    Got a bud that added an SV to his VFR.. He says great things about it..
     
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