Somehow I have no problem cornering and leaning or handling the bike at "sustained" speeds. Driving on the highway is not an issue at all.
Even cornering fast is not that much of an issue.
More than once I took a turn too fast, got scared and reacted by leaning harder, countersteering harder and rolling on more throttle, which saved my bacon.
I totally expected to hear the footpegs scrape but they didn't when I went to check the chicken strips on my tires there was still plenty of meat left which means that everything my instructors told me is true: don't panic, be smooth, lean harder ... the bike has more envelope than you.
All of that being said, somehow I have it stuck in my head that if I don't learn how to handle my bike at SLOW speeds I will not learn how to handle it properly at any speed.
I have this nagging feeling that riding a bike fast on the highway or on ramps is not hard ... but learning how to be precise with it and handle the bike in "extreme" situations is a hell of a lot harder.
So this past weekend I took a class called "Ride like a Pro".
Basically the entire class is a subset of some exercises that police officers go through (and it was taught by two police officers anyway ...).
There was no test. It was a set of maneuvers designed to challenge riders in slow riding skills.
If the police departments put so much emphasis on these maneuvers, there HAS to be a good reason!!!
I thought the figure 8 in the box for the MSF test was hard.
Imagine a whole morning of only slow maneuvers, non stop, in all sorts of configurations and patterns.
I was ready to keel over and pass out by the end of the class.
Couple of things came out:
1 - If there is one thing that I learned for sure is that I STILL don't know squat about how to ride bikes. I have a Speed Triple. There was a woman in the class (there were many women but that's the besides the point). This woman had a HUGE Harley. I think it was a fully loaded Road King.
I SUCKED on my Speed Triple. And I'm supposed to have the bike with better handling than any of the other heavy-ass bikes in that class. I got maybe 10% of the exercises right. This lady, nailed 90% of them, with a flair to boot! She was whipping that Harley around like it was a plastic toy!! And she was half my size!!!! I then learned that she'd been riding for 5 years and she took this class every year and she started taking it after she crashed her old Shadow in a parking lot once. She said that with a really stubborn look on her face. While she was talking "Tough as nails" was all I could think of ...
2 - one of the teachers at the end of the lesson made us go through each bike and look at the chicken strips on the front wheel. I was SHOCKED to see the the chicken strips on my bike had receded to less than nothing. I had at least 1/4 of the width still left on each side before I came in. In spite of my sucking I managed NOT to drop the bike and basically erase almost all of the chicken strips from my wheels. Also the police officer made us run our fingers over the entire surface of the tires, width-wise from side to side. The purpose is to feel the "profile" of the tire to see how it's getting used. The police officer/instructor said "In case of single vehicle accident on a motorcycle that crashed in a turn, when I investigate, the first thing I go check is the front tire. Almost every time, I see that the chicken strips are mostly still intact and the center of the tire is flat while the sides are smooth and round. It means that it's someone that rides mostly straight and turns slow and never really pushed the bike to corner hard. They panic, the slam on the front brake, they loose control. Boom.", delivered with a casual, almost bored tone.
I was dismayed and somewhat horrified to discover that my bike had that pattern: flat center, round/smooth sides and extended chicken strips on the sides (before the class).
The chicken strips are gone now but the flat part is still there.
And the reason for that is that I mostly ride on the highway and only rarely and occasionally I take the bike to twisty roads.
I am starting to think that I need to change my riding habits.
I have this thought that, if I learn how to push my bike (in the proper environment) and/or learn how to handle it in a scenario other than the highway, I'd become able to handle the bike better in emergency situations. The whole point here being that it's better to know how to ride to the extreme so that when you are riding normally and an extreme is "pushed" on you, you know what to do.
Just piling up miles on the highway is not good enough. That's what I think the moral of the story is ...
Now I just gotta figure out how to push my bike harder without taking classes all the time.
Taking the bike to twisty roads and some more parking lot practice with some heavy-duty frame sliders is probably on top of my list at this point.
Even cornering fast is not that much of an issue.
More than once I took a turn too fast, got scared and reacted by leaning harder, countersteering harder and rolling on more throttle, which saved my bacon.
I totally expected to hear the footpegs scrape but they didn't when I went to check the chicken strips on my tires there was still plenty of meat left which means that everything my instructors told me is true: don't panic, be smooth, lean harder ... the bike has more envelope than you.
All of that being said, somehow I have it stuck in my head that if I don't learn how to handle my bike at SLOW speeds I will not learn how to handle it properly at any speed.
I have this nagging feeling that riding a bike fast on the highway or on ramps is not hard ... but learning how to be precise with it and handle the bike in "extreme" situations is a hell of a lot harder.
So this past weekend I took a class called "Ride like a Pro".
Basically the entire class is a subset of some exercises that police officers go through (and it was taught by two police officers anyway ...).
There was no test. It was a set of maneuvers designed to challenge riders in slow riding skills.
If the police departments put so much emphasis on these maneuvers, there HAS to be a good reason!!!
I thought the figure 8 in the box for the MSF test was hard.
Imagine a whole morning of only slow maneuvers, non stop, in all sorts of configurations and patterns.
I was ready to keel over and pass out by the end of the class.
Couple of things came out:
1 - If there is one thing that I learned for sure is that I STILL don't know squat about how to ride bikes. I have a Speed Triple. There was a woman in the class (there were many women but that's the besides the point). This woman had a HUGE Harley. I think it was a fully loaded Road King.
I SUCKED on my Speed Triple. And I'm supposed to have the bike with better handling than any of the other heavy-ass bikes in that class. I got maybe 10% of the exercises right. This lady, nailed 90% of them, with a flair to boot! She was whipping that Harley around like it was a plastic toy!! And she was half my size!!!! I then learned that she'd been riding for 5 years and she took this class every year and she started taking it after she crashed her old Shadow in a parking lot once. She said that with a really stubborn look on her face. While she was talking "Tough as nails" was all I could think of ...
2 - one of the teachers at the end of the lesson made us go through each bike and look at the chicken strips on the front wheel. I was SHOCKED to see the the chicken strips on my bike had receded to less than nothing. I had at least 1/4 of the width still left on each side before I came in. In spite of my sucking I managed NOT to drop the bike and basically erase almost all of the chicken strips from my wheels. Also the police officer made us run our fingers over the entire surface of the tires, width-wise from side to side. The purpose is to feel the "profile" of the tire to see how it's getting used. The police officer/instructor said "In case of single vehicle accident on a motorcycle that crashed in a turn, when I investigate, the first thing I go check is the front tire. Almost every time, I see that the chicken strips are mostly still intact and the center of the tire is flat while the sides are smooth and round. It means that it's someone that rides mostly straight and turns slow and never really pushed the bike to corner hard. They panic, the slam on the front brake, they loose control. Boom.", delivered with a casual, almost bored tone.
I was dismayed and somewhat horrified to discover that my bike had that pattern: flat center, round/smooth sides and extended chicken strips on the sides (before the class).
The chicken strips are gone now but the flat part is still there.
And the reason for that is that I mostly ride on the highway and only rarely and occasionally I take the bike to twisty roads.
I am starting to think that I need to change my riding habits.
I have this thought that, if I learn how to push my bike (in the proper environment) and/or learn how to handle it in a scenario other than the highway, I'd become able to handle the bike better in emergency situations. The whole point here being that it's better to know how to ride to the extreme so that when you are riding normally and an extreme is "pushed" on you, you know what to do.
Just piling up miles on the highway is not good enough. That's what I think the moral of the story is ...
Now I just gotta figure out how to push my bike harder without taking classes all the time.
Taking the bike to twisty roads and some more parking lot practice with some heavy-duty frame sliders is probably on top of my list at this point.
