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Yamaha Jog (CE50, CG50, CY50)
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eternal05Participant
Ear plugs are essential, both for the preservation of your hearing and for comfort while you’re riding, especially once you get going faster (e.g., highway speeds) and wind noise really picks up.
As far as thinking about countersteering actively, I would actually disagree with my fine colleague above and say that, yes, at least for a while, you should be thinking consciously about what your hands are doing. Do I think about it now? Absolutely not. But I don’t think about it the same way that I don’t think about slipping the clutch for a blipped downshift or squeezing on the brakes instinctively when I sense a hazard ahead. A more experienced rider doesn’t need to think about things that have been practiced to the point of turning into instinct.
The problem is that a lot of riders find that they don’t have to think about turns in the common case: nice, leisurely, large-radius turns that are anticipated well in advance. If they look where they want to go, the natural movement of their shoulders, head, and arms is enough to get the bike going where it needs to. Yet when, all of a sudden, they need to make a sudden knee-jerk reaction to, say, being cut-off in traffic, or being confronted by a deer running into the road, they find that they don’t actually know what input they make that turns the bike most quickly and efficiently. Countersteering is THE way to get the bike to change directions fast. Other techniques work, but in terms of the single most effective, most predictable, and most immediate technique, countersteering is the way to go.
Now I can understand saying that maybe while you’re riding, you shouldn’t be thinking about what you need to do and how it works because you’ll be too distracted to do it. I probably agree with that. However, I think that, especially if you feel like your recollection of beginner course material is a bit rusty, you should consider heading to the nearest parking lot to practice for at least a half hour before you ride the rest of the way home. While you’re in the parking lot, really concentrate on what Gary was saying: push right to go right, push left to go left. Focus on turning your head and pointing your eyes as far through every turn as you can (I mean, really crank your head around in turns). Learn how much force produces a given response at a given speed.
Pay your dues in a parking lot and with careful rides around town and you’ll be surprised by how quickly it all becomes second nature. Then again, until it is second nature, work hard to bring your skills up to the level you want.
eternal05ParticipantA Ninja 250R will haul you just fine, and at 6′ you should find it right at the limit of comfort (I’m 6’4″ and just barely made it work).
eternal05ParticipantI’m 6’4″ and about 190 lbs. Trust me; your extra 30 lbs make virtually no difference. Once you’ve been riding for a while, you should be able to notice a 30 lb weight loss in you or your bike, but at first, you won’t have a clue. Either way, the difference is subtle, and your riding experience will be much the same.
My first bike was a Ninja 250, and while I had to make a few simple modifications to make it comfortable for my long legs, I loved it enough to keep it to this day. I now have two other bikes: a supermoto project bike and a 600cc supersport track bike. That Ninja 250R is still a great city bike even with my much more powerful alternatives as perspective.
Power, suspension, etc. will not be an issue for your size. The ONLY issue is comfort, and even that can be overcome. With the older Ninjas, you’ll have no problem. However, if you, like me, want one of those sweet new generation Ninja 250Rs, you MAY run into the problem that your knees don’t fit well in the spaces created for them in sides of the tank. I have a 35″ inseam, and ended up having to buy adjustable foot pegs that could be lowered about an inch to give me more clearance. Now it works great, and I have no comfort qualms whatsoever. Highly recommended.
eternal05ParticipantMy last set of bodywork was so shitty that the pointy-side-bits on the upper fairing (i.e., where the fairing gets closest to your knees) didn’t even attach to the rubber grommets they were supposed to. I had to zip-tie them to the chassis. I also tried to use duct-tape to “fix” the kickstand sensor after I thoughtlessly removed my kickstand mid-trackday. Worked great! Until 3/4 of the way down the 0.9 mile front straight at PIR the duct tape stretched out, the sensor’s piston got loose, and my engine cut out at 150mph
Ahhh, the lessons learned.
eternal05ParticipantDude, looks are the reason that everybody prematurely jumps to supersports. That’s the reason I almost did. I know that other bikes just don’t look the same, but trust me, it’s better to tolerate a less-sexy bike and really get good than it is to have a formerly beautiful bike lying in pieces in a parking lot.
eternal05ParticipantI wasn’t so “lucky” my first time. Hence the tip
Then again, luck ain’t got nothin’ to do with it.
eternal05ParticipantYes, yes indeed
eternal05ParticipantThe power issue with the GSX-Rs and the R6s (ever so slightly better with the YZF-R600) is secondary to the ergonomic, handling, weight distribution, etc. issues you’ll run into. They’re just not first-timer bikes. Period.
What do you have against a GS500, Ninja 500R, 650R, SV650, etc.? If you’re in a part of the world that makes R125s available, you have even more great low-displacement options than we do here in the US.
eternal05ParticipantOtherwise you can gunk up your carbs by pulling the dregs of the fuel tank for many miles on end.
eternal05ParticipantLike Mega said–and this is probably even more true in Washington than in California–at the club level the difference between the top runners and the last expert racers in the pack is astronomical. Remember back when I posted that I was in the expert group running race pace? Well if I ran my personal best every lap (which I more or less do, because I never really push) and didn’t get flustered, make a mistake, or let other dudes pass, I’d finish in the middle of the expert racer pack at Pacific Raceways. But like I said in that post, the gap from my times (mid-1:30s) to the top-runners (low-1:20s) is HUGE. That 10-12 seconds is somewhere between a 10-15mph gap in average speed. If you were to watch us going around the track, it would look like I was getting passed standing still. Especially with the guys at the back of the pack, they may even be running low 1:40s, in which case the perceived difference in speed would be even greater.
At higher levels the difference is less exaggerated, but even in MotoGP, the difference between the pole position qualifying lap time and the last guy on the grid can be as much as 3-6 seconds. Even that smaller difference spells lights out for the slower rider. If the average speed of one guy is 100mph, being one second a lap behind that guy means you’re losing 1 second at 100mph => ~150 ft PER LAP. After a 32-lap race, you’re about a mile behind. And that’s a ONE SECOND gap.
eternal05ParticipantThis (i.e., where the camera is) is the turn-in point for turn 1. Current speed: 160mph+ (depending on bike), full throttle. Direction change: ~35 degrees. Visibility: none.
This is the view from mid-corner. The edge of that concrete wall on the right-hand side is roughly the apex of the turn.
While we’re at it, I took these screenshots from a 750 supersport race video which is mindblowing. Mega, you should definitely watch the first few minutes. Three bikes come together at turn 1 (luckily it was just after the start, so they were probably only going 100mph ), the guy with the camera gets knocked into the grass, gets back on the road in 23rd place (out of 24) and rails through the pack to finish 5th.
750 Supersport Race, Pacific Raceways June 12,2010 from andrew brackett on Vimeo.
eternal05ParticipantCongrats dude. Keep on trucking!
August 19, 2010 at 7:36 pm in reply to: question on sport bikes for Eternal, Mega, or anyone who can help. #28169eternal05ParticipantYou don’t want to lose contact with the seat on a sportbike, not even when hanging off at the track and switching from side to side. At higher lean angles (we’re not talking Rossi at Mugello lean angles here, just what you get when riding the twisties), your legs will work hard enough just to keep you on the seat. If you’re also expending leg strength lifting your ass up, you’re going to get tired REAL fast.
August 19, 2010 at 7:32 pm in reply to: question on sport bikes for Eternal, Mega, or anyone who can help. #28168eternal05ParticipantUsing your lower body to hang on to the bike (usually by gripping the tank with your knees, like Mega said) and your core muscles (lower back, obliques, abs, hip stabilizing muscles, etc.) to support the weight of your upper body is the key to taking weight off your arms. You will work your back muscles, and they will get sore initially if they are weak. Try to keep your back straight (not just for posture, but to avoid the back pain caused by long-term slouching), and really work to lift your upper body with that back rather than with your hands/arms. Once you figure this out you’ll find that you can get all the weight off your hands and make much more articulate inputs on the controls.
eternal05ParticipantIn track terms a blind corner is one in which you cannot see where you’re going at the time of turn-in, i.e., you have to turn in on “faith” that you’ve ridden the track enough, have picked an appropriate turn-in marker, and that you’ll be able to turn in at the right rate and carrying the right amount of speed to get where the apex is without being able to see it. In the case of T-Hill or Laguna Seca, that blindness usually comes from elevation change (textbook example: the Corkscrew at Laguna), not from having an object blocking your view of the corner. Maybe that doesn’t sound that scary, but when you’re trying to find the limit of speed for the track, not being able to see where you’re going can be plenty terrifying. That’s especially true in faster corners where you know that a second’s delay in turning in will put you into the track barrier at 100mph.
You’re right, however, that there are quite a few “blind” track corners in which you could still probably see riders going through the corner, even if you couldn’t see the road they were riding on. In that sense, you do have “ample visibility” in some of them. You just have to remember that the concern on the track is primarily staying on the asphalt, not necessarily hitting another rider.
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