Group ride advice

[CC Cowboy]

I saw this on a forum of local guys I ride with alot.

http://www99.epinions.com/auto-revie...3995BFDF-prod1


Step One: Don't Die' -Advise On Group Sport Riding
Aug 12 '00



Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: Getting killed sucks. You can’t ride anymore if you’re dead, your friends are going to be really upset (and they’re going to have to put on suits and dresses for your funeral-ugh) and your bike will get trashed. Oh-and the cops and paramedics who pick you up will have another dead squid story, which will grow like an urban legend until some freak spots me carrying my helmet at Barnes and Noble and feels free to tell me about the wreck “he” saw that was so bad they had to hose the guy into the ditch. So I can shop for books without talking to the mentally deranged, I’d take it as a personal favor if you didn’t get killed riding your sportbike. Thanks!

If you ride a sportbike, I need to apologize to you for that paragraph. Unless you just started, you probably know the metal taste you get in your mouth when you hear one of your friends has gone down. Funny how your heart can start to do the big beats standing in your living room holding the phone, and how your mind focuses like a laser just like you were on the bike with him when it all went bad. If we don’t figure it out before we get on a bike for the first time, it never takes long to learn this thing we do isn’t a video game, no matter what the “better” riders on their “safer” bikes believe. We might be juvenile (don’t ever try to explain the fun of “Kill Switch Tag” to one of them) but we know the risks and we know they are as real than anything we’ve ever known. You can get killed doing this. And that sucks.

The greater performance potential of a sportbike demands more risk management than a tourer or cruiser, and group sport riding carries a lot more risk than pounding out 500 miles of interstate on a Gold Wing. It is my opinion that, short of getting on your bike drunk or stoned, a run through the twisties with your friends is the single most hazardous thing you can do on a motorcycle. It is also the most rewarding.

I’ve been riding sportbikes for the last twelve years and I approach a group ride with anticipation or dread. There’s not a lot of ground in the middle. When I’m with people I know and (this is important) who know me, a group ride is a taste of motorcycle nirvana. The only thing better than arching perfectly through a corner with the horizon tilted at 45 degrees is doing it with friends. Passing one of them is great, but so is seeing their bike pull around yours. It is an intricate dance, poetry without words, earning your place among people you respect, and the feeling of being more alive than you’ve felt doing anything else-including sex. And let’s not forget the obvious: Wheelies only count when your friends can see them.

What brings on the dread is everything else-being with unfamiliar riders, on an unfamiliar road, on a bike I don’t know intimately, or the days when I can’t find the rhythm between myself, the bike and the road that makes the good rides so memorable. Sometimes it’s all of the above but one or all, the solution is always the same-back out of the throttle. Every crash I’ve seen on a group ride came down to someone riding over his head. You have to know your limits (they will grow if you give them a chance) and respect the difference between excitement and fear. Remember, you’re not just risking your life when you start to wing it. Playing bumper bikes at a buck-thirty is an efficient way to kill yourself and a couple of your friends.


The Fundamentals Of Being Mental

Before talking about group riding I need to review some sport riding fundamentals. About the only thing a public road has in common with a racetrack is the presence of asphalt. (And even that is different. Track pavement is composed to create the greatest grip where roads are composed for maximum wear and minimal cost. It is the same difference between the tires on your GSXR and your grandmother’s Buick.) With all the hazards no racer would submit himself to on a track, treating a road like a racetrack is a quick ticket to oblivion so don’t even pretend that you are racing. That yellow divider line in the middle? Imagine that it is a brick wall and don’t let any part of your bike cross it except to pass on straights when you have adequate room. It can be easy to forget that when you are cranked over your tires can be safely in your lane while your head is on a collision course for the bumper of the SUV coming at you.

You also have to adjust your lines between left and right turning corners to account for any oncoming traffic. In left corners you are drawn to the center and in right corners traffic coming at you can be pulled over the centerline. The narrowness of a bike gives you a lot of options and you have to use that to find best line for your safety and the safety of the people you are riding with. For a right corner take an early apex, “sweeping” through the inside of the corner to give you the most room against oncoming traffic, modulating your speed to keep from drifting to the center after you begin to get on the gas. In left turns the opposite is true. You want to stay to the outside of the corner on your approach, brake to your turning speed and roll the bike in for a quick turn-“squaring” the corner. Do not look for the fastest line through the corner-that’s something you do on a racetrack. The speed you get should come from how smoothly you transition through the stages of the turn. (If you focus on this you’ll be surprised how much there is.)

Your greatest performance improvements will come from how efficiently you can brake, turn and accelerate. What looks like violent transitions in races on Speedvision are in fact performed with a decisive, but hydraulic smoothness. Learn how to threshold brake, transition through the turn and accelerate out without upsetting the chassis, and then try to reduce how long it takes you to complete these steps without sacrificing your smoothness. This is absolutely essential for safety and performance. When you hammer the bike into the corner, slam it over, and jerk open the throttle you’re throwing the chassis and suspension into a flurry of motion that dilutes the messages you get from the tires, making it nearly impossible to manage the information you are getting from the road and making your ride impossible for anyone else to track and predict.

Finally, if something doesn’t feel right it’s not right. Even the best racers in the world pay a heavy price when they push themselves beyond their limits. If three-time world champion Wayne Rainey was paralyzed trying ride over his head it can happen to you, too. Manage the risk-don’t let it manage you.


Wanna Dance?

In case you missed the first fifty times I said it, a group sport ride is not a race. I think it is best compared to precision formation flying-like the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels-because your risk management has to include taking responsibility for the safety of your fellow riders and anyone who is in the area.

The first commandment is Thou Shalt Never Pass On The Inside. This is the quickest way to put you and your buddy in a world of hurt. If you carry too much speed into the corner and your bike drifts into his bad things will happen to you both. When you go inside you also take away the room he’ll need to tighten his line for an evasive maneuver. And if you’re good enough to make the pass you should be able to do it around the outside.

Also, don’t let the red mist of the pass make you oblivious to what lays beyond the corner. If the fast sweeper you make your move on dumps into a decreasing radius corner you can easily find yourself going into it carrying way too much speed. On many mountain roads, corners are also serve as crossings for water runoff. This, too, can ruin your whole day if you’re not prepared for it. Not knowing the road you are riding on is only a little better than trying to ride blindfolded. Until you have it down lay back and concentrate on committing the layout to memory.

Don’t let a pass made on you bait you into riding over your head. If a rider comes around you like you are pushing your bike, don’t try to show him who’s boss. Chances are he’s better than you, so take the opportunity to watch his lines and see how it’s done. Remember, no one is born knowing how to ride a sport bike at speed. If you want to show you have No Fear, start by not being afraid to learn how to do it right.

This is a basic rule for all riding situations, but on a group sport ride you absolutely have to look as far ahead as you can at all times. If you don’t you are reacting instead of planning, and that is a bad, bad way to fly.

Take into account how the relative speed of the bikes in your group will affect the space you need to pull off a pass. Your Yamaha R1 may be able to squeeze off a pass on a car like a bullet coming out of a gun. But against your buddies your acceleration advantage disappears. To make it worse, more speed means you are covering more ground every second and requires you tap into the top end power, which takes the longest to build. In English, when you need power the most you’ll have less on tap and a shorter space to use it in. If you get into a pass and realize it’s not going to stick-back out right now. You can prove your manhood later by punching a wall or something else that doesn’t make stupidity a capital offense.

Don’t Be A Moron

Riding a sportbike will have some convinced you are no matter what you do. But don’t confuse that with believing anything you do is okay-even we have our standards. What do you call someone who bounces their bike through the corners like a rodeo bull rider and then cranks it up to a buck fifty on the straight to prove he’s got the right stuff? Idiot is the word that comes to my mind. Brian’s First Law of Sport Riding states that, “any moron can pull the trigger when the bike is pointed in a straight line-and will.” Your grandmother could crank out a 160mph flyby on a ZX9R so you’re not impressing anyone. Save your stuff for the curves.

See those signs on the side of the road with numbers on them? If the needle on your speedometer is pointing to a larger number than those on the signs, what you are doing is illegal. If you get caught, pull over and take your punishment like a man. If you don’t have the sack for that you don’t belong on a run in the first place. (If you need another reason, remember this simple formula: Speeding=Ticket. Evading=Jail and possibly the seizure of your bike-if you don’t get killed. Again, this is never a race and there is never a valid reason to make it one.)

This should be obvious, but if you have a passenger turn it down no matter how much she enjoys it. While sportbikes are acceptable for carrying a friend in town or on the highway, the extra weight and change of balance creates havoc with the geometry and suspension at speed, and greatly reduces the level of available grip in the corners. You don’t have to tell her you’re going slower-just do it.

Buy good protective gear and use it. So there is no misunderstanding I mean race-quality leather, boots, gloves, helmet-the works. If you don’t take protecting yourself seriously how can you expect anyone to take you seriously as a rider? If you just want to look cool and cruise around, go get a Harley. (Aside note-In more than a decade of sport riding I have never seen a bare-skinned bozo who could ride worth a damn. Coincidence? Maybe, but I don’t think so.)

The same applies to keeping your bike in excellent mechanical condition. There are no unimportant parts on a bike when you’re making a run through the curves, and the most commonly overlooked maintenance items, like tire pressure, can cause tragedy at speed.


Final Thoughts

If there is a way to justify or explain sport riding to someone who doesn’t get it, I don’t know what it is. And frankly, I got sick of trying a long time ago. To my mind it is no different than flying, using a gun or taking on a high-risk sport like rock climbing. I wouldn’t force anyone to do it, but there are things you learn about yourself that make all of them worthwhile and valuable for those who hear the call.

But if you do ride a sport bike you already get that. Just remember that the rewards you get out of the ride are equal to the effort you put into it. Sport riding has given me some of the best moments of my life and I wouldn’t trade a second of it for anything. I wish you the same for you.

Brian Igo

[ninjabrewer]

[Banzai]

Originally Posted by ninjabrewer

+1

[gogoKawi]

Great read. I don't like that it's geared towards sportbike riders. It should apply to riders on all types of bikes. But I understand that the issue of speed is mainly for the sportbikes.

[kkim]

geez... common sense. who woulda thunk it?

great read CC.

[rustler753]

[backinthesaddleagain]

Great points. I went on a 7 person ride this past sunday and was happily at the back of the pack while some others blasted ahead. Lots of wicked cool corners that I had never seen before. I rode them at my pace and had a blast.

[JeffM]

Good stuff.

[bud_44]

Really good read. Thanks much. I have much to learn about sport bikes and sport bike riding but I will learn it. Ride safe my friend.