Trail braking

Us old time dirt riders perfected it so yah it does come natural. They say dirt riders make better street riders right?


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Gator - so glad you survived your high speed lowside...since you survived, I presume you have learned that the most important aspect of a lowside is to hold the f still until everything has stopped moving. Period. No more crunching, no more sliding, no more sound at all. [Do not be confused by the fact that there may be dust and/or/bodywork from other riders and their bikes]. Only once everything is quiet and still is it advisable to get up. Too many of us have tried to stand up while still travelling at 60 mph groundspeed and then, because it SEEMED we'd slowed down enough, we tried to stand up and were flipped about and then suffered broken this and that. Thank you for stating that whicfh is most important about trail braking; Your suspension MUST be in working order before you attempt to test its limits.

 

And really good street riders are born of really good dirt riders.

 

I love these uber-technical discussions that completely discount the pant-filling nature of FEAR. We ignore the basic human reactions that are built-in by evolution: instinctive, innate. Yeah, a tiny percentage of people just don't feel fear the way normal people do (and they win races).

There's definitely a lot of variation in how strong the fear reactions are in one person to the next, so if you insist on it I guess I can suspend disbelief sufficiently to imagine that VFRworld is populated by nothing but stone-cold killa's.

 

Start at 2:36, end at 3:22:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q7vTQ4NDiU

 

Sliding is much better than tumbling! I have tossed bikes down the track many times and have always manages to slide and not tumble. I can't say that about my MX times though. Eating a double, over the bars, spit over a burm...... I have been hurt a LOT more in the dirt than a road coarse. But I think the dirt has made me a much better rider, especially at the track.

 

Yes, I may still be puckered up. I took the course on a punched out Yamaha SR500. More recently, Reg was guest speaker at a yearly thing I have an interest in. We went group riding. He was packing double. (wife) From my POV, which was behind.. He is still damned fast and so smooth that it's unexplainable.

Until the actual experience of experiencing just how fast these world class fast guys are cannot be put into words.

Renting a track for a day wasn't that hard core. Now it's almost every weekend at many tracks weather and other conditions permitting. Tracks are a business and they need to support themselves. What has changed is really for the better but all in all the whole effort is safer and better managed. I got lucky..The guy who was popping for the rent was a big corporate gun with a Lotus and a Porsche. Actually it was his kid's Porsche. I got to tag along.. At the time at SIR there were "access points" too..

 

I found the blue groove as hard as the asphalt a time or three.. Ah yes, sliding in the marbles..

Just my two centavos about dirt riding. I think it should be a part of these MSF courses. I still hear on a regular basis from dudes that freak out when the ass end of a bike kicks out just a little on a turn then they go into analysis about suspension tuning, endless droning on tires ect., when maybe all that happened is ya ran over a Jo-jo with the rear wheel. In the dirt. it's not a big deal and really part of the fun.

 

I hope if in fact, there are stone cold killers here, equilibrium can be reached by the panty collecting population.

 

Are we talking bikes here or the missionary position?

 

Reverse cowboy. lol

 

Yes and yes.

Reg dragged MY toes and braked deeper into a corner than I thought possible. On the same bike as mine, but with two of us. After, he bet someone he could touch bodywork and went out and did it. I was a new rider, about a year of street only riding. We had talked about some things that worried me, so he showed me how much farther my bike's limits were and explained a little about it. After that, I realized that, if I was smooth enough, I could literally lean over until hard parts dragged if I got in trouble. My idea of brakes changed forever, too. I got the concept of smoothly, progressively braking and loading the front in a way nobody could have described.

I literally started that day near the back of the slow group, and was pretty much the fastest of the slow group when we were done. It was genuinely transformative.

I also got to ride with Jason on a different occasion. This was the year after he won the 750 supersport title. I was (and am again) a slow group guy so we were riding with the fast group, and Jason weaved around people going over the fucking corkscrew at Laguna Seca. Outside one guy into 8 and outside another going over the falls, both on good bikes and in the fast group, and he had 180lbs of passenger on his VFR. One of the most disturbing and impressive things I've ever experienced on a bike. He claimed you just had to throw it over and get on the throttle even though it felt squirly and the back end would just hook up when you hit the bottom of the hill. Heh. Scared the piss out of me, but he was right.

I think Reg was nearly as fast with passengers, but smoother. Jason was scarier and more impressive in the way threw that thing into corners so quickly it made you wonder how he could do it and still be so glass smooth. You felt like you were racing. They both braked so hard I didn't think it was possible, all the way to the apex (or so it seemed) but were back on the throttle so smoothly you couldn't tell where they stopped braking and started accelerating. And the amount of power they put down without getting loose seemed impossible, but again it was all so smooth it just worked.

 

I thought that one was only for Wing riders..

 

BE ADVISED!!!

There is the dude, the dood and a smattering of dudettes but only one THE DUDE!

http://humoropedia.com/big-lebowski-quotes/

 

Yeah, there is only one The Dude. But he's out there, takin' it easy for all us sinners.

I take comfort in knowing that.

 

Deal! I wanna be Jesus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1SfzV67Bqw

 

Drove back through the curve I spoke of at the beginning of this thread.
Found out the reason that I was taken by surprise was becAuse it was a compound right hander. I had a moderate right hander obscuring the view of the second slippery and wet part, there was approx 20-30 yards between the two.
so I pop out of the first on the outside ready to lean into the second (I do know the road a little), only to find everything wet.I had about 20 feet of dry to shed speed and start to turn in. Problem was by the time I got slowed and started to come off the brakes I was already in the wet and still going faster than I was comfortable with.
Not much else changes, only that I realized how it was that I was caught with my pants down and ended up farther than 70% into my comfort zone.
I guess adding a bit more rear brake wasn't the worst move because it worked. Biggest thing is being able to hold it together, not tense up, and not panic .
Just the other day I saw what I though was a rabbit headed at my front wheel. After my dog experience before I even really started to ride ,I cringed and tensed up like a little bitch, didn't put me off course but imagine my embarrassment when I realized it was only a tan colored shopping bag not a wascalwy wabbit. Gotta beat that gremlin in the near future, certainly can't make any evasive moves with your body tensed and your eyes closed.

 

I sort of ran the numbers on how much speed could be scrubbed in 20 feet. The only thing I could figure is that I do not have the reflexes of a cobra.

On to the next subject. Is there any truth to the rumor that Elvis will perform at the donalds inauguration fest?