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Old October 11th, 2017, 11:36 AM   #25
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 Zaph42 View Post
You know, I recognize the risk in road bicycling, but i chose not to give it up anyway. I even have a personal friend who needed a helicopter ride to stay alive after she got run over by a harley. But I really need to train bike, and the good mountain bike trails are pretty far from my home. And riding the stationary bike at the Y is way too boring for me. It was a tough call.

Maybe California Superbike school is different than normal track days. But I'm definitely done with normal track days. Way too many nut cases on the track, it's like welcome to the Thunderdome. In 2015 another rider almost killed me at a track day.

I only ever got to do one of my three bucket list tracks, NCM in Kentucky. But I always wanted Barber and COTA. Jason Pridmore does the Star school at COTA. Does anyone have any comment about that school's relative safety compared to normal track days? Maybe I could still keep that on my bucket list.
California Superbike School is way safer than normal track days and here is why. We have a 6-8 foot passing rule that is strictly enforced meaning that riders that do not follow this rule can and do get sat out for a session or even benched for the rest of the day if it happens more than once. All our corner workers are trained to look for specific things in every rider that goes by and they call in ANYTHING that looks suspicious. What I mean by that is that if they aren't doing the drill (using brakes in no brakes exercises etc) then they get called in and course control makes note of it. If a rider runs wide or makes mistakes then they get called in and it gets marked down, a rider with too many notifications gets pulled in by course control and talked to.

As a riding coach we look at ALL students (not just our own assigned students) and if we see something that concerns us like a rider adding lean angle and throttle at the same time then we drop what we are doing with our student and pull them in and coach them on why that isn't a good idea. It's hard to get away with anything inappropriate or dangerous on the track when you have 8 riding coaches and all corner workers keeping a careful eye out. Also, if you've met Trevor our course control guy you know that he doesn't take **** and safety is his highest priority. We have many no-crash days and that is always our goal.

There are no rules to how fast riders can go either. Some people think that such a focus on safety means no fun but there is no limit on how fast someone can ride provided they are doing the drills and following the passing rules.

The added bonus of a school is that you get to improve your riding and build your skills WHILE having fun riding on a track. And we go to Barber and COTA so you're set!
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