Quote:
Originally Posted by snot
Without upsetting the suspension, in a corner....going in to hot. How do you keep from making it worst? I get the each time braking distance should increase... But where do you start?
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Let’s start with these 2 questions because they are pretty darn important.
Where do you start with picking a brake marker?: When I read a few riding skills books I found this area to be somewhat lacking. I understand why too… it’s vague, you may be fighting your SR’s and feels somewhat questionable until you establish a baseline. Which is exactly what we are going to do.
Do you remember doing the no brake drill during track school at Mid-Ohio? This is the beginning of how your find your very first, and very safe braking marker, as well as a 75% skill entry speed as a bonus. Without worrying about other braking inputs and all that shifting of gears, how much of your attention did you have to focus on entry speed? Nearly all of it aye? Now if you can remember again, where did you roll off the gas for turn 7? If you can remember that point on the track, congratulations, you had just set your very first braking marker. But let’s look closer, why am I talking about the no brake drill while on the subject of braking? Because during the drill you were goals were to set entry speed and a turn in point. It’s important to know that your turn in point and your braking marker are attached at the hip. If you move your turn in point, your brake marker can also be moved respectively. To put it simply, if your braking in a straight line, that line has a start (brake marker) and end (turn in point). Move either of those points, and the line (braking distance available) will be shorter or longer based on your movement(s). Understanding the relationship between those two points is the key to getting most out of your brakes (and is one of the secrets of advanced passing skills @
alex.s). From that point on, small forward movements (about a bike length) of the brake marker can be made to decrease the amount of track space between that new marker and the turns turn in point. You should remember to do your hard braking near the front end of that braking line (braking zone) and trail off the brake before the turn in point to accurately set your entry speed. And… since we don’t normally downshift in turns, downshifting is another activity that is timed in the braking zone and based off the turn in point.
Without upsetting the suspension, in a corner....going in to hot. How do you keep from making it worst?: First! An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Getting a handle on the needed skills to negotiate a corner well should be done before testing higher speeds that may trigger the going in to hot SR. When you overcook a turn, don't panic! Unless you're nearly at race pace, truly overcooking the turn entry is kinda rare on modern bike hardware. It’s an SR, and part of the point of asking questions and learning is how to handle those SR’s effectively. Mainly though, chopping the throttle will make the instability worse in many ways and get your lower body in position while on the gas and get your grip and arms loose just before your braking marker and stay there! This will prevent much instability before it even starts.
In my experience, the most common entry speed issues are over braking, followed by an entry speed that is only mildly over the riders comfortable entry speed sending them wide because the rider may feel they can’t turn in time. This is where knowing how to hook turn can pay big dividends. The SR will trigger that the rider is going too fast, and then the rider causes 99% of the instabilities by reacting to the SR’s vs making corrective actions. Look where you want to go, keep loose, and move that head and torso much, much lower and to the inside while maintaining good throttle control. This will maintain and even improve stability if you find yourself running wide in a corner for any reason. Do not move your lower body off the bike at this time as it will add instability.
When the rider feels they more than mildly over their comfortable entry speed. There are 2 main schools of thought on how to handle it; just gas it and lean it, which plays on the above statement that overcooking the turn is rare. The other is an product (result) of decisive actions; stay calm and loose, reduce lean angle, brake to a more controllable speed, repoint the bike (re-steer) and restart throttle roll. Only one of these puts the rider in complete 100% control, 100% of the time, while maintaining as much stability as possible. While the other leaves the rider at the mercy of speed, the bike, available traction and a bit of blind luck, and at the same time, the rider may be fighting the bike due to the SR’s.
So assuming you as the rider wants to be in complete control all the time. If you find yourself too hot on entry; stay calm and loose, reduce lean angle, brake, repoint then restart your throttle roll. To just throttle it out and add lean as needed is a common reason for crashes. The reason this works, is also based on the first school of thought. WTF how?!?!?!? Think about it honestly, since it’s rare to “really” overcook a corner, then you shouldn’t be so far off your corner entry speed and line that the rider cannot complete these actions while still remaining on the track surface. Now let’s be realistic here, surface elevation change can make doing this visually very difficult. When you can't see how much tarmac to work with the SR’s are much, much worse.
There is an exception to doing this though, if there is a rider to your outside you can’t run them over, possibly crashing two riders instead of one and so goes the risk of riding fast…
There is also another option as a last resort depending on how comfortable you are with alternate lines through the corner. If a rider overcooks their normal turn in point, do they know another line that allows for additional braking distance? When a rider “seriously” overcooks a corner, your turn in point can be near the edge of the track before the corner followed by a quick flick. Check the red car in the image below, the other cars in the image have their various turn in points but the red car hasn’t turned yet. Compare the orange car to the red car. The orange car has a better turn in point for the corner, but if the red car overshot the entry speed, the red car can move the turn in point closer to the edge of the tarmac to allow for more braking distance while straight up vs trying to brake in the corner adding instability and possibly overloading the front wheel causing a lowside. @
lowcel has witnessed me do just this, that extra 50ft of braking distance made the difference between making the corner vs making sand castles in china beach. hahahahahahaha Talking to a coach about how you "blew the corner" is a much better conversation than a chat in the medical building about what happened in the corner.
When to dip and roll on?: What do you mean here? Turn and start to roll the throttle?