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Old December 8th, 2020, 04:42 PM   #244
Misti
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Name: Misti
Location: Vancouver, BC
Join Date: Oct 2010

Motorcycle(s): currently: Yamaha YZF 250 dirt/motard

Posts: 787
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ducati999 View Post
@Misti,
Thank you for taking the time to read my journey. You have given me great direction in the past and I really appreciate your help. Your question about how I relax when riding is great and I had to take a little time to think about that. I am always relaxed when riding ---except when Im not relaxed! I will attempt to explain: When I ride, I try to "flow" with the bike. Muscle memory, as you know well, along with experience, good lines and throttle control all make the bike move from DOT to Dot on the track with little actual effort, this is what I mean by "Flow". When I am riding like this my mental budget is not overwhelmed and I work with the bike, the bike stays smooth and happy and so do I. Once the decision is made to "Up the Pace" more than just a little over last lap, things start to happen. Lets take an example turn entry: Normally I would roll off just before my brake marker, begin braking-release brake and turn in at my reference point. Add 10% or more speed and I now need to roll off earlier or brake harder. Both quantities unknown at my present level and no extra budget for calculations. I either over brake or miss my turn in marker running deeper into the turn than usual. These little errors begin to add up causing slower laps over all. Once I catch myself trying to push harder and making errors, I simply remind myself that I know how to follow all the riding rules and just have to slow a bit and start hitting my mark's correctly again. Once things get back under control and back within my mental budget, I can begin to add speed slowly and there is time and mental power to make more precise inputs and adjust my markers as needed.

My feeling is that the bike is smooth and stable(Happy) when I am running my 85% pace but once I start running 90-95% I start making small mistakes that upset the pace and/or the bike and that makes me unhappy. All I need to do is refocus on my markers and lines and I get back up to speed/ smooth and can add a small amount of speed next turn. Anytime I try to take a bigger step, the bike protests (due to my inputs) and lap times fall. I really cant remember any other technique I would use to relax and stay relaxed besides remembering I know how to ride a bike so I just relax and ride and the speed comes-step by step- even if its baby steps at this point.

On another subject, I hope to be able to ride with you on COTA in the next couple of years! 2020 is done and 2021 is still an unknown but I hope to have a chance to get to Texas and ride with you and the CALI Superbike school. Great school, great track and BMW S1000RR? Where do I sign up for that deal??? Could not think of a better reason to go to Texas.
This is exactly why it's sometimes difficult to push past your personal best times and improve, because when you do up the pace past your comfort level, things start to fall apart. I'll revisit the importance of having great visual skills which tend to be the key indicator of how well, fast and smooth you end up riding. You say that when you try and up your pace you end up making some small errors that compound over time and it sounds to me like turn entry speed is one area where things really get stressful.

What happens to your visuals when you try and enter a corner faster? Does your vision change? Does it narrow down or do you lose track of your wide vision? Can you still see all your Reference points?

For me, when I try and go fast, my vision gets behind a little and my perception of speed feels faster because of it. I get scared and then I over slow. Whatever gains I made in entering the corner faster, are therefore lost.

So, it starts with having great Reference Points, but then also has a ton to do with how and when I LOOK at those reference points. The key in almost all the situations is to NOT try and go fast but to work on improving your skills, one step at a time.

Quick story for you, you may have heard it before but here it is again. The first time I raced AMA 600 at Daytona I had never ridden the track before. I showed up a week before with the intent of spending the weekend club racing and learning the track before the AMA race but unfortunately on my second session around, I blew my motor on the banking. We scrambled to get a replacement motor sent from Oregon where my B Bike was (I couldn't afford to have both my bikes there) and that meant that I had just ONE Day to learn the track during the Team Hammer track day, before AMA qualifying the next day.

I went out for each practice session with a specific exercise to work on. First was Reference Points, in finding them and in drawing the track. I called Keith Code himself between sessions to talk through areas that I was struggling. Each session out I drew the track and added more RP's and before the final practice session of the day we compared may split times with everyone else's times (I was way off the pace) and chose the two corners where I was losing the most time.

Those two corners also happened to be the corners I had the fewest reference points in. For the last session I worked on finding more and better RP's and in putting my vision together so I flowed from one point to the other. The next day was qualifying and I didn't have much practice time to step up and find several seconds of improvement. I did the same thing, systematically working on putting my visuals together until the qualifying session came and Keith Code said "ok, you've done your work, now just RIDE, relax and have fun." I let go of everything and focussed on being smooth, relaxed and in having fun. I kept shouting in my helmet, "I'm riding DAYTONA!!!!" and sure enough when I came in, I had managed to find the time needed to qualify for the race!

So many times I caught myself trying to go FASTER instead of trying to improve and I had it all backwards. If you work on trying to improve your skills, how you roll on the gas, when you roll on, adding more RP's, remaining relaxed, not allowing your vision to narrow etc.....THAT is when you will find the speed.



You're on the right track. Keep up the hard work and you will find improvement in your times!!
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