Ken Hill Coaching (sponsored by Rickdiculous Racing)

[Gurk]

Has anyone tried this? I always wanted to take coaching from Ken Hill. I had a date setup months in advance for March but since I set it up I moved to Bay Area and the day was at Chuckwalla.

So the other day I finally setup a day of coaching for May 20th at Thill. I'm excited as hell to say the least. Really looking forward/hoping to have some breakthrough in my riding.

http://rickdiculousracing.com/coaching/

I'll post back next month after I take the course.

UPDATE

Alriiiiiight. I finally have some time to type this out.

I've done the Ken Hill Coaching / Rickdiculous Racing on Tuesday (5/20/14)

As a fatass who can't keep physical and mental strength for a straight 8 hours, it didn't bother me one bit that the day started about an hour later than a usual track day. The extra time gave us the chance to meet all the instructors. Ken Hill came up to me introduced himself and told me how the day is gonna go down. So did Josh from Rickdiculous Racing (RR). He asked me if I need any technical help or anything like that for the bike. Already from the beginning, personal attention was there. Who cares right? We handle our own sh!t and get things done. We don't need help! But no. When you look at it from a customer service point of view, this is a very welcome attitude.

Rider's meeting was all about introduction. Ken Hill address the fact that we start a bit later. And told us in the past they rode TOO MUCH. He says it's quality of laps you do, not the quantity. I do agree whole heartedly. If you're not giving your full focus, what's the point of practicing? I've also always enjoyed Ken Hill / Nick Ienatsch / Yamaha Champion Riding School (YCRS)'s many philosophies on riding. Some of those were mentioned again in the meeting. "Practice makes permanent." We'll get back to that.

Ken Hill assigned instructors to students at the end of the meeting. I was assigned to him along with "Grime". You heard it right. 2 students per instructor. And a total of 6 students that day. I pretty much haven't run into anyone on track besides my instructor and teammate. I would be tempted to pay the entry fee $1000 for a trackday like that with no instruction! The education you get on top of that makes it very much worth it in my opinion. Oh and the instructors? Wow. Scott Russell (WHUT??), Ken Hill, Shane Turpin, Phil Horwitz to name a few. Go do a google search if you don't recognize the names. These guys are not only stupid fast, but also are very skilled in teaching the techniques, simplifying all the info and feeding it to you as building blocks.

"Practice makes permanent." Why not perfect? Cause you might be practicing something wrong. And it becomes a permanent habit that's not necessarily correct technique. This tied in perfectly to what I wanted to work on. Ken Hill approached me after the meeting as I was in his team. He asked me to talk about my riding experience and problems for a bit. I told him how I went to a lot of track days in the past 3 years I've been a rider. I told him I got really decently fast in Buttonwillow, for example. But once I moved north and tried Thunderhill, it felt like I had to do it all over again. I told him I think this is because I almost "memorized" what to do correctly in Buttonwillow or Chuckwalla or Streets of Willow by just trial and error. Not necessarily having awesome technique. He said "perfect" and moved on to Grime to talk about his riding.

This already was hinting that the instruction we were gonna get would be somewhat personalized. Which is something you can't have when you got 30 people on the track with 5 instructors randomly riding around.

Next thing was the car ride. We all hopped on Ken's van. YCRS is famous for their van rides. They almost flip the damn thing while showing you how to get around on track, lol. But Ken took it very slow. He believed people would focus more and take the info in better. He talked about lines, braking, entry/exit corners, apexes, exit apexes and all that goodness. Few laps and a load of info and we hopped off to get suited up.

As a guy who's big on "being on time," I was ready right away. Grime was working on last couple checks on his bike and getting suited up. Ken Hill saw that I was ready and took me with him to get my vision, brake and throttle control warmed up. He says he does it often before riding. Accelerate smoothly, brake smoothly, accelerate smoothly, brake smoothly. Then he held my bike up while i took my feet off the ground. Told me to apply 5% initial brake. I'll say this. I'm very aware of all the techniques that Ken teaches. In theory, I'm already on board with Ken Hill / Nick Ienatsch / Yamaha Champion Riding School / Fastersafer.com school of thought as opposed to what some other big schools teach. But applying the technique you know in theory by heart, is a whole different game. I can already tell you that I was braking like 15% instead of 5% initially. Ken Hill noticed that and we worked on it. He made sure that I understood how little 5% is and how effective it is on the bike. We think of stabbing the brake is like 50%. It's not. It's as low as anything more than 5%.

Rest of the type up, I'm not going to talk to you about every single technique we talked about. It would take ages. Do your self a favor and get a fastersafer.com membership and read/watch all articles/videos. I'll just mention what I think made the day worth every single penny.

When they said personalized attention, they weren't kidding. Grime joined us in 5-10 minutes and we started off by Ken riding in front, me and Grime following. I followed in front for 3 laps, then Grime did for another 3 while I followed both of them. Ken was showing entry/exit apexes and watching us hit them through his side mirrors. We pulled over to hot pit lane after 6 laps and Ken approached us. He told Grime that he needs to work on his braking. He told me that I need to work on my vision initially. I thought to myself "yeah right. all of that from just watching you through side mirrors??." Yes. Ken was amazing at just looking at your riding and spotting what's holding you back. Later on his point was proven when we rode in front for a few laps and Ken shot each of us from behind. He showed Grime that his brake let off was too abrupt and the bike was standing up mid corner. He showed me that I wasn't picking up my head soon enough so I wasn't comfortable getting on throttle sooner even though I got my exit line earlier. Do you think I don't know I have to pick my vision up sooner? Do you think Grime doesn't know letting throttle off mid corner runs you wide? We knew these things. The difference is, you can still make these mistakes. It's all about applying what you know and applying it at a good degree. If you're not hitting every apex, there must be a reason. And determining why is the most important thing. Ken Hill was amazing determining the why.

Which brings us to the best part about Ken Hill / RR Coaching. I've been to another school where we were given the technique and sent out to the track. We rode around and maybe you missed a few apexes. A super fast racer guy would come get you and pull you over to the hot pits. He'd tell you you missed your apex turn x, turn y, turn z. You'd say ok and follow him around. Kinda went slow but hit all your apexes. Then he'd give you a thumbs up and fly away. What did that teach me? I have to hit my apexes. Cool story bro.

No one actually spared the time to tell you why. Maybe they just couldn't spot it? Not everyone can. Sure, they taught us the technique. But I already read all this stuff! Probably why a lot of schools feel like "huh.. that was great but... I didn't feel like I learned anything new" Ofcourse you haven't. You spend hours on the internet reading about this stuff already. (Hopefully not on a forum know it all but a good source)

The most valuable thing I gained from this school was that I now was given extremely specific reasons why I miss my apexes. It changed my attitude towards practice. I was equipped enough to analyze my riding instead of just do the same thing over and over again until it kind of felt ok. Did I miss because my braking was bad? Why was my braking bad? What part of my braking was bad (initial 5%? Release? How fast I build up pressure? Where I started braking? Where I ended braking?). Did you know your initial braking or brake release could be hindered by your body position? I didn't.

Everything that was taught here was building up and making sense. They tied everything together really nicely. We would run into problems, and the next lecture would iron out those problems and fix them. We were getting faster, but more importantly, smoother and safer.

Rest of the day we had 2 ups with Ken, we rode a rental car on track (not everyone did. Ken Hill did it for me and grime and one more guy joined who Ken thought would benefit from it). You'd be surprised how many similar mistakes you do on a car that you do on a bike. We were provided critique after every session Ken shot me and Grime.

I'm losing focus and probably forgetting a lot of great points. But I'll leave you with couple lines from Ken Hill that makes me a fan of this school and his attitude towards teaching technique.

"I've been exchanging emails with Bradley Smith. Scott Russell can pretty much get a hold of Rossi any time. If there was a better technique to how to ride a motorcycle, those guys would be doing it."

"You want to learn technique? Watch MotoGP!"

"We should ABSOLUTELY use same techniques as champions do. It's the level of these techniques we apply that is different."

Absolutely recommended. I'll see you in October @ Thunderhill when the school comes back from Miller.

[csmith12]

/subbed

[Alex]

Have never heard a bad review of Ken's sessions, and I'm sure yours won't be any different. Enjoy!

[Gurk]

Just over a week left. DYING to get there!

[Gurk]

Updated first post

[CC Cowboy]

Originally Posted by Gurk

[B]"I've been exchanging emails with Bradley Smith. Scott Russell can pretty much get a hold of Rossi any time.

Exchange usually means you email them and they email you back!

[Gurk]

Originally Posted by CC Cowboy

Exchange usually means you email them and they email you back!

1/10

[Motofool]

Originally Posted by Gurk

Updated first post