When racing the "Isle of Mines TT" do no enter your 250 in the open class

[CycleCam303]

@Sirref - Just a heads up, this might be kinda long. I'll share my experiences and philosophy on how to become a fast street rider. This is open to everyone not just you. Come hither for unsolicited riding advice haha. I do believe any competent motorcyclist can become what most consider a fast street rider. Which is essentially what you are asking. Maybe you won't have all the funds or means to do quite everything, but I can almost guarantee that dabbling in most of my ideas you will be leaps and bounds better than you are now. Don't get discouraged if things don't happen as quickly as you like.

When I first started motorcycling two years ago, I originally wanted a street bike. @rojoracing53 was really into dirt biking at the time. All of my acquaintances said to start in the dirt. Cool. I love dirt riding. I ended up doing a handful of dirt races but mostly did trail riding with friends. Dirt riding does so much for your riding, especially street riding. It's a shame that so many street only folks dismiss the benefits of off road. Problem is most people who say they've ridden dirt went into someone's backyard, did donuts on the lawn, and then claim, yup I've had plenty of dirt riding experience. Trying to ride fast in the woods requires the rider be pretty uncomfortable in a very fast paced environment. The controls of the clutch, front and rear brakes, weighting different ends of the bike, throttle control, understanding traction at the front and rear tire, are the concepts that really get reinforced. In off road riding many times you are riding in an unfamiliar area or weather/conditions are changing as you are riding. You learn to adapt to the situations and predict what might be coming around the next corner. Going faster requires you to look even further ahead. Sounds similar to street riding right? The more technical aspects of dirt riding like, stoppies, wheelies, jumping, and steering with the rear can be learned in a controlled and semi safe environment off road. It's mostly overkill for street riding but it all transfers to you having more tools in your skills set. Spending time on a flat track/TT course will get you comfortable with threshold braking, backing it into a corner, and lighting up the rear on corner exits. If you can get dirt experience.

My 12 time riding a motorcycle I entered my bike into the open supermoto racing class with a mini motorcycle racing association. Super motard is a dirt bike fitted with road racing tires/wheels ridden on a go kart track. I recently am trying to get back into racing supermoto. Aside from dirt, Mini Moto Racing is the best way to learn to go fast. Rojoracing53, half the people that race ninjettes on this forum, some really fast AFMers, Cameron beaubier, Joey Pascarella, The Hayden brothers. They all started racing mini moto and supermoto bikes. The buy in is cheap. The practice is cheap. Almost everything you learn on these little bikes transferred over to the ninjette. Hard braking, learning lines, body positioning and dealing with clearance issues, being smooth, when to get on the throttle and importance of getting a good drive. Not only that but just doing the trackdays for the mini bikes is a great way to get comfortable being on track with other people and dealing with traffic. You get a chance to follow people faster than you and that alone will help you get way faster. Racing mini bikes will help you push yourself even further. Lower speeds and being on a closed course makes things much safer. You could literally spend a season doing a couple mini bike trackdays every month and spend less than $120 each month while drastically improving your skills. This includes Supermoto. The style of riding and the chassis is different but the skills and techniques transfer right over to sport bikes. Taking advantage of a motard's abilities are similar to proper fast street riding techniques. Braking very deep, flicking the thing over asap, and getting the bike straight up to get on the gas. It's an extremely controlled aggression along with late apexing. It's a style that you can use to ride fast on the street in a safer manner. By cutting a late apex you can see more through a blind curve. Once again riding fast is mostly about looking as far ahead as you can to plot out your lines.

Then there is what Choneofakind is suggesting. Big bike track days seem intimidating but aren't. When Honda was marketing for the 2007 CBR 600 they mentioned statistics from a really interesting study. They claimed only 5% of all sport bikes sold ever find their way to a race track. Now think of that small percentage of people. Even less of all track day attendees race. Out of those racers a micro amount of them ever make it to the leagues of professional racing let alone AMA caliber. Don't look at that as a slap in the face. What that means is that people who are running in the intermediate group at their local track are going to look like gods compared to their street only friends. The beginning level group at a track day, aka C group should have a description reading, "No talent of any kind necessary." Seriously. If you can ride on a winding back road whilst doing 5 over the speed limit consider yourself completely ready to go to a beginner group track session. I did my first track day the within the first week I bought my bike. Yes as I got my license, bought a bike, and then literally went to the track with the paper license plate still on. You should've seen the look of my loan counselor at the credit union when I answered her question where was my first big ride happening, "The race track." I was getting held up all through the group c sessions. My only experience before that was dirt, mini bike racing, and I had less than 400 miles on the street. So don't be intimidated at all by doing big bike track days. So from what I said earlier about getting everything from mini bikes, well that's not entirely true. Unfortunately you don't learn quite as much from the 250/300's compared to everything else on the track because you quickly realize that they are slow. Like you can watch the sunset and the wildlife cruising down the straights slow. An sv650 is considered a great noob track bike and it is literally making twice the hp the ninjettes are. But big bike track days do something that no other suggestion I have made so far can quite replicate. That is outright speed. You get exposed to going way faster than you go on the street. When you do get back on the street you quickly realize how slow and not hard you are pushing the bike. It also resets your comfort zone on the street. You realize how dangerous the street is but at the same time you're comfortable going much faster on the street because you have a much better sense of how much you're pushing the limits of the motorcycle. I will warn you that getting faster and becoming confident can have a major drawback. It's a double edged byproduct of getting fast. I deal with this issue all the time as a matter of fact. It's hard to enjoy street riding when you can do double or triple the speed limits on all of your favorite back roads and realize that you still aren't kissing knee every corner and you still have chicken strips, and that at any time you WILL go to jail if an LEO sees you or you WILL die if there is a car stalled in your lane in the middle of the turn. In short, it's frustrating to not be able to go as fast as you know you can for multiple factors and when you do have fun on the street, even on a slow ass ninja 250, you're just simply going way too fast for street conditions. That's why a lot of track day enthusiasts and racers don't ride on the street anymore. It really has nothing to do with it being to dangerous out in the street or it costs too much to insure a bike...it's that they are bored.


Reading books about motorcycling technique only really helps if you can put them into practice. Not that they aren't valuable. The information will save you time in learning how things are supposed to be done instead of learning from mistake after mistake, or crash after crash, out on the road. Unfortunately, the streets are the WORST place to really get any good practice. Ever hear about people saying they did their first track day and learned more about motorcycling that day than the last 2 years of street riding? That makes complete sense. Some people do get faster by riding in the street. But it takes a ridiculous amount of time longer because no one wants to crash in the street. On a track you'll be so much more confident about braking hard and leaning the bike over because the only thing that can cause you to crash for the most part is well, you. Books aren't bad. I've read the Keith Code stuff and watched the movie. Good stuff, if you have a lot of high performance riding experience or are racing his book is actually a really good way to reevaluate your riding. A lot of people are going to disagree with me because Keith Code is put on some sort of sick pedestal in most riding communities. The books written by Lee Parks and Nick Ienatsch will help you out much more in the early stages because they are written in a much simpler, modern way, and are very straight forward. Lee's total control book is great for noobs and riding in the street like an ass, but a very controlled and safe ass. He essentially teaches you more than you need for the street and all the techniques work really well for the track. Nick's Sport Riding Techniques preach the gospel on being a very responsible sport rider in the street. Example, Lee sees nothing wrong with dragging knee in the street, just pick good lines and if your knee hits it's because you're in the proper body position. Nick talks about the pace, and that hanging off the bike like you're in moto gp is completely ridiculous for the street, and cops don't like it. Both books cover the extremes if you will, with very different philosophies which kinda gives riders a good ying and yang of riding tools in regards to the street.


Probably more than you want to know. As was said earlier, I can beat up on street squids on liter bikes all day with little red. I did all of this on a super low budget. Pick 3 of these ways or do all of them and I'd be hard pressed to see you not be up front on your next group ride.

[Sirref]

Originally Posted by CycleCam303

You could literally spend a season doing a couple mini bike trackdays every month and spend less than $120 each month while drastically improving your skills.

Wow, a reasonably safe, efficient, and cheap way to improve quickly I think I may do this, in fact I'm already looking up local mini bike track days

Originally Posted by CycleCam303

people who are running in the intermediate group at their local track are going to look like gods compared to their street only friends. The beginning level group at a track day, aka C group should have a description reading, "No talent of any kind necessary." Seriously. If you can ride on a winding back road whilst doing 5 over the speed limit consider yourself completely ready to go to a beginner group track session.

holy hell, I had no idea that group C would be that light, I could definitely head over right now and sign up for beginners level no problem at all

Originally Posted by CycleCam303

Probably more than you want to know. As was said earlier, I can beat up on street squids on liter bikes all day with little red. I did all of this on a super low budget. Pick 3 of these ways or do all of them and I'd be hard pressed to see you not be up front on your next group ride.

thank you for the writeup I'll try my hardest to put it to good use especially with dirt or minimoto racing, that seems to be the best way to quickly and safely improve my riding and it sounds as if it's within a reasonable budget too

[WesleySnipes]

Originally Posted by Sirref

holy hell, I had no idea that group C would be that light, I could definitely head over right now and sign up for beginners level no problem at all

yeah c group is very slow and safe no pressure and you learn loads. totally worth it.

[choneofakind]

C group is really relaxed. Only thing that sucks is not all track organizations allow passing in the C group. So if you outgrow the C group, you'll have to take a hot pit occasionally go give people a 30 second lead so you don't ride up on them in the braking zones.

I've heard that intermediate is a cluster-f**k of guys who should be in A and guys who are barely out of C.

[rojoracing53]

Hell even the A group is a cluster**** of fast street riders and race who wish they were as fast as me that's how it was on the Yamaha

Now on my lil ninja only the fast street guys are slower then me and racers can just go by. I have zero traffic anxiety on the ninja.

Oh and I just found out I've been invited to a private two day track day at Laguna seca for Yamaha and Mazda peeps I'm hoping I can score an R6 for the day but if not ill at least have the ninja.

[BRad704]

That is one of the best written and most concise posts I've ever read about anything, ever.
Thank you for taking the time to put all that into words.

[choneofakind]

Originally Posted by rojoracing53

Oh and I just found out I've been invited to a private two day track day at Laguna seca for Yamaha and Mazda peeps I'm hoping I can score an R6 for the day but if not ill at least have the ninja.

Please don't forget the GoPro's. We need another "playing with the big bikes" youtube phenomenon

[rojoracing53]

Originally Posted by choneofakind

Please don't forget the GoPro's. We need another "playing with the big bikes" youtube phenomenon

Instead of a Ninjette playing with the big bike vidoe how about a middle sized bike absolutely destroying the big bikes video?

[choneofakind]

Acceptable.

[WesleySnipes]

Ohh I totally got invited to that too....