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Old September 1st, 2019, 08:11 AM   #217
Ducati999
ninjette.org certified postwhore
 
Name: Ant
Location: Wooster
Join Date: Dec 2013

Motorcycle(s): Ducati 999 2012 Ninja 250r Ducati748 Yellow finally running 2003 SV650 S (SOLD)

Posts: A lot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DannoXYZ View Post
This is cause-and-effect issue and you're looking at working on side-effects, not actual problem. It won't relate and I suggest backing up and looking at earlier factors that's actual cause of your exit issues.

First, why wet parking-lot practice won't transfer to dry racetrack. There's HUGE difference between bike's behavior at 45mph in wet lot versus 125mph on dry track. At low wet speeds, it will be very easy to break traction. The muscle-memory you develop as far as amount of throttle-twisting and correction amounts in steering and body-english will be completely different than what's required on track at higher speed.

Other thing is lean-angle. Due to low-speeds and low-traction, you'll be leaned over 15-20 degrees max in wet lot when breaking rear traction. On track, it'll be more like 50-55 degrees. Your finely calibrated sensors, inner ears, will know. If you tune them for 15-20 degrees in wet lot, they'll be completely unfamiliar with 50-55 degrees at higher speeds (ears also detects acceleration).

Which leads us back to real cause of your issues, corner-setup and entry. As you go faster into corner by having higher top-speed on previous straight and braking later, you are still covering same exact same distances through corner, from turn-in to apex to exit, but in less time. What does that mean?

Everything that happens after turn-in must occur faster! So tip-in speed from full-upright to full-lean must happen faster in order to carve same line at faster speed. And because you're going faster around curve, you have to lean more! You have to go from full-upright to leaning more in less time than previously at lower speed. That's why you are going wide and missing your apexes. The faster you go while not leaning over faster and farther, means you'll miss apexes by more and more.

This missing apexes and going wide is why you can't get on throttle sooner and 100% by exit of corner. You feel yourself being pushed off-course with not enough room to give it more throttle. So I recommend following:

- get more track-time
- practice getting from full-upright to full-lean faster
, push harder and faster on inside bar
- practice leaning over more, you've still got another 15-20 degrees before you're at limit


The types of improvements you're after takes lots of repetition with incremental progress. Like any other sporting skill such as basketball, tennis, archery, golf, etc., it requires tonnes of practice. People don't realize that it took DECADES of practice for Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods or even Valentino Rossi to reach their skill levels. DECADES of practice, almost every single day!

So I get as much practice as possible. It takes 100-laps to make X-improvement and 200-laps to get Y-improvement. There's no shortcuts. I get in 45-50 days at track each year along with most of my racing colleagues. I chopped off 20s/lap at Thunderhill my 1st year, then 15s/lap 2nd year, 7s/lap this year. And I'm still 7s/lap off from 250 record. I may chop off 3s next year, 2s year after, and 1s year after that if I keep on going 45-50 days/year. In 5-years I may have shot at lap-record, maybe. Those who spent less time at track have made lesser improvements. I'm now 5s faster than guy that beat me in my 1st race (he only gets in 20 day@track/year). It's just matter of putting in required time and laps.

Good help is watching video "Winning" about Paul Newman! Also extremely helpful to watch others on similar bikes and slightly faster at same tracks you're visting. Note where they brake, turn-in, apex, get on throttle, etc. Get a feel for the timing, the tip-in speed, throttle-control, etc. I find it especially helpful to watch videos of guys I'm racing against!

I agree with 99% of what you say. I simply dont have the time nor oppertunity to to ride on any track 1/2 as much as you do. My thoughts on riding in the rain was not to handle the bike at 120mph, but to get back the feeling from the contact patches I have been missing. Lots of racers ride in the dirt to get a better sense of traction and that is where my thoughts were not with actual direct transfer to the race track. I appreciate your feedback on this idea and understand the limits of its practicallity. 3 years ago I was lapping much faster with more lean angle than I currently am doing. I had several years where life prevented me from riding more than a few hours a year during that time. Since I had such limited time on any bike at any speed during those years, I lost a lot of the feel for what the bike was doing and my skills got really rusty. The limited riding along with a few subtle changes to the bikes setup further hurt my riding. Since I was just starting to track ride seriously when all this happened, I have gone backwards quite a bit and know I am capable of much more than I have been doing these last few trips. I have not touched my knee down in three years of track trips yet before all these issues, I was dragging my knee too much and was advised to lift my knee and just use it as a reference. I am trying to get back to the confidence in the feedback from the bike so I can again run the same lean angles I once was easily able to achieve. Listed in one of the posts above I describe the major issue I was having with not being locked onto the bike like before. I am so happy to have found this issue as now I will be able to advance with all the advice you and others have been so friendly to give me.

Others have also pointed out that my turn in is too slow. I have been working on this since my last track trip. I was experiencing the bike refusing to turn past a point, no matter how hard I tried, once I entered a turn. This was caused by my not being locked onto the bike and putting too much weight on my hands to support my body once a certain lean angle was achieved. Since I was only able to lean the bike so far, I would hesitate on turn entry because I was unsure I would make the turn due to the "steering lock" issue. I have resolved this now and am just beginning to regain my confidence. As stated before, I used to be faster and lean farther but I was less smooth with my inputs and less consistent on lines. The video was to show that I had improved since last time out and that I am getting a bit better but still a long way to go.

I fully agree with you an the lazy steering, and poor corner finish. I am trying to get this all back in order in my head. There is still a bit of worry when I enter a turn from when I was not sure if I would make it thru if the steering issue would arise again. I know I have this solved I just have to get my mind to reprogram and allow me to just relax and start riding correctly again.

I would like your feedback on what I said above about riding in the rain. I agree it is not the perfect practice for the track but much like dirt riding, I feel it can help deal with traction loss. I dont have the time nor facilities to ride dirt anymore so this is the next best thing I could come up with besides just street riding. There is too much traffic here to ride at anything more than 5mph over the posted limit.

@DannoXYZ I do really appreciate you taking the time to write out what you did and I take all advice and criticism to hart as I want to improve. I am at a good point right now and think you will see much improvement next season when I post my next video. I am going to get a membership for the track for next year so I will have to ride more than 5 track days for it to be worth the investment. I have not done more than 4 track days in a season in the last 4 years. I have also made it a priority to ride my bike on the street every chance I get and take every oppertunity to practice all the things you and others have pointed out.

Thank you
Anthony
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