Lessons to be learned when riding unfamilliar roads...

[tomacGTi]

1: Slow is better on unfamilliar roads than coming off line and nearly eating poo. Twice.

2: Motorcycles have a much different way of cornering versus bicycles and vice versa.

3: When in doubt, parking lot practice is a good place to work on things.

After riding with Rob and getting a bit of confidence, I totally overcooked a RH turn on an unfamilliar road. Once again, slid the rear and the bike didn't respond to input. I was using the rear brake and front simultainously to set the bike but it was a DH RH turn that loaded the front wheel;and I was going in way too hot. Once straight, hard on the brakes to slow the bike but slid along a patch of leaves for a bit. Didn't drop it, but scared the crap out of myself. Thank goodness for familliarity with two wheels, all those bike miles paid off. I was also very lucky that there were no oncoming cars, lest I would have made a fine hood ornament.

Got myself back together and tried again. The first few corners went OK but another big, blind RH'r got the best of me. Offline again, this time not so bad but at this point, it was time for a break. Near hood ornament, pt2.

Moral of the story: no more bravado and speed where you don't know what's coming up. No matter how good your tires are, they cannot make up for rider error. After Rob and I split up, I went to an empty parking lot and just worked on body positioning and bike control for about an hour. It helped to get some confidence back and made me more familliar with the traits of the bike. Never got above 30 and second gear but just doing repitition helped.

I'm going to have to go ride that road again just to get back what faith I lost.

-Randy

[gsxr400 racer]

You need a track day bro not a kevin winslow parking lot!

[PitterB4]

Nah, I disagree, Jay.  Randy wasn't practicing stunts, he was working on basic technique which I think is good to do in the lot.  

Randy - I hope you don't mind me saying this here but we have other new riders here that may benefit from it.  I think you ran out of confidence, not your physical ability or the bike's.  I was behind you.  You had lots of lean angle left.  You came in hotter than you were comfortable with (it was a blind, sharply decreasing radius righthander).  Rather than being smooth, focusing on the exit and maintaning your lean, you got on the brakes, stood the bike up and looked at the woods.  Of course, there's always the chance you can break traction and lowside if you keep trying to lean your way through.  IMHO, that chance is better to take than A) the hood ornament option (which you would have become had there been any traffic) B) hitting a guardrail (which you would have had there been one in that turn like there is in many of the turns on that road) or C) hitting a gigantic tree (which you ALMOST did).  

One other piece of advice I'll give to newer riders - if you do something like blow a turn and nearly eat a tree, STOP.  Pull over.  Take a breath.  Clean your shorts.  After the first one, my instinct was to pass Randy to get him to pull over.  I didn't and he ended up blowing the next blind, decreasing radius turn we came to.  Hell, by that time, I needed to clean MY shorts!  

Be careful out there!

[gsxr400 racer]

Yes i understand that he wasnt doing stunts .But pushing your limits on the street is just straight retarded ! take a street school learn some good technics in a safe enviroment!  And my bit of advice " always look where ya wanna go ,never target fixate " Im not harrasing you and im glad your safe , But if everyone that has taken a track school can say that it has made them a better ridder than it is well worth it!

[mtbcrazy]

Hey Randy!

Yeah, they don't handle the same as a bicycle, do they?  I think the biggest difference is where the center of gravity is compared to your body position.

On a motorcycle, the center is pretty low, since you are only 30-40% of the weight of the package, but on a bicycle, your body is 80-90% of the weight (depending on how fit you are and how much you spent on your bicycle). AND, on a bicycle you sit WAY HIGH compared!  When I'm on my road bike, the center of gravity is close to my hips (which are as high as the handlebar).

One of the nice (and freaky) things about motorcycling is how they handle.  They stick like crazy, and can lean WAY over.  Brakes are better (more rubber?) and the acceleration is SO MUCH FUN compared to actually WORKING for it!

I've put about the same miles on my road bike as I have on my Bandit
this year!  Sad for the Bandit, but great for the road bike!

http://www.RideAnalyzer.com

[tomacGTi]

Yeah, I've pretty much figured out that decreasing radius, DH RH's are my nemesis. LH's are no problem, just going to the right. Something to work on. It's totally true what they say about your body's natural tendancy to protect it's dominant side.

My brain computed that it wasn't going to make it and the results are obvious. Thinking back and knowing more about it, if I hung off a bit more and gave it a bit more gas to tighten my turn, I might have been OK. It all started with going in too hot , not having my weight back far enough to level the bike, the rear end sliding (under braking) and completely missing my turn in point. After that, my brain went into "ohshit!" mode and had to think my way through. I'm happy I didn't see that big tree as I did target fixate, I was focused on the line out of the weeds and voila, back onto tarmac.

No stunting for me Jay, I could care less about riding like that. For sure it was more my confidence than the bike, but hopefully more seat time will cure it. Just doing some high lean, low speed stuff in an empty parking lot was good. I was able to make the bike squirm and wallow and figure out how much I can hang off without too much concern. I wish I had some cones to make it like a small autocross, it was actually pretty fun!

Things were going well till that happened! Time for more practice, and Rob, I don't mind at all being an example. I'm happier for others to learn from my mistakes because their outcome might be much, much worse than mine...

-Randy

[Garyola]

Glad to hear you are OK, Randy.

Thinking back and knowing more about it, if I hung off a bit more and gave it a bit more gas to tighten my turn, I might have been OK.

Hanging off a bit more yes and looking through the corner, yes. Giving it more gas to tighten the corner, nope. Not in my experience. The more gas you give the bike in a corner the more to the outside of the corner the bike will want to go.

Take it easy out there. At the track all you will hit it the ground, mostly. On the street, the obstacles are infinite.


G

[tomacGTi]

Good tips Gary and thanks to everyone for the tips. I sure am appreciating them and taking it all in.

I have to also stop thinking about cornering like a cyclist or even a dirt biker, very different dynamics. More practice, SLOW practice...

No more unplanned bravado for me. The hospital bill would pretty much bankrupt me for all eternity.

-Randy