Riding the twisties after attending race school

sid_for_speed

sid_for_speed

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Can I reasonably assume my riding experience on the street will be much more fun after attending a race course? I plan on doing some trips to the states and far east in search of some nice twisty roads and am wondering if taking a race course is worth it. I can ride on the street and control the bike pretty well. But I hear that seat time riding the 401 is not enough for those kinda roads.
 
Brian is correct. Skill investment is probably the best investment you can make. You will own many bikes, but skill will stay with you forever, track or street. Two old adages come to mind:

1.) You'll learn more in one day at the track than you will a year on the street
2.) "but I've been riding for 20 years". No, you've been riding for 1 year, 20 times.

Both FAST and Racer 5 are excellent. You get a bit more track time with racer5 for your money though. It's a ton of fun and quite addictive!

As far as going to the fun roads in the US, there are some fantastic ones. Views, mountains, food, roads etc. The dragon is a popular spot, as well as PA and WV. We've been going with a group for about 10 years now to deals gap, and we've seen everything. Some of it good, lots of it ugly. The lack of skill and awareness down there is downright impressive. Some advice to those thinking of going:

- For us, we will only take track riders or extremely experienced street riders. Mistakes down there can be very costly. It's not a place for inexperienced riders.
- You need to ride with your head, but have the training to react quickly if there is an unexpected event. The corners are often blind
- You are not riding the racing line. You are riding the line that gives you the furthest view ahead. Often this means squaring off blind corners.
- Leave enough margin for the unexpected, 7/10 is more than enough.
- Not panicking. This is where the track training comes in. It's usually buddy in his new vette that doesn't fit in the lane down there, now there is a car half way in your lane around a blind corner. Can you respond?
- Knowing how much brake/lean you can apply at a given time and how much grip your tires have
- Never guess when passing, be assertive but be sure
- Never cross the yellow line, bike or body

Most important... the bbq is excellent :)
 
smergy said:
- Not panicking. This is where the track training comes in. It's usually buddy in his new vette that doesn't fit in the lane down there, now there is a car half way in your lane around a blind corner. Can you respond?
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I am unaware of what I would do in this scenario....It's happened here as well with quite a few cars crossing their lines... Usually, in most cases , the driver is usually able to pull over, but I fail to understand what to do when I'm leaning full tilt ( as far as my comfort level goes) and the driver decides to leave his lane... how can track improve this aspect of my riding?
 
You will learn that you can lean it in a lot more than you thought.

Though, track riding makes most road riding boring...in some regards. For cranking it over, nothing beats the track. Senic twisties, you won't want to be at 10/10th anyways.
 
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Riding on track drives home "you go where you look" time and time again. When someone else is errant, you are conditioned to look for the open space. Applying the right amount of braking and turning to get through the corner despite being on a messed up line. No panic. That's what riding on track helps with.

Our usual Deals Gap group all have track experience. It's just better.
 
just keep in mind when you are better able to corner at speed, the run out areas on the twisty roads are usually after you clear the 4ft ditch and you still need to keep your leaning head on your own side of the centerline.
 
Learning the limits of traction,
couldn't hurt.
 
sid_for_speed said:
but I fail to understand what to do when I'm leaning full tilt ( as far as my comfort level goes) and the driver decides to leave his lane... how can track improve this aspect of my riding?
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The good advice Smergy gave you was to ride at 7/10's of your max to provide you with some kind of margin for nasty mid corner surprises. If you're riding at the limit of your comfort you're leaving yourself with little to no margin, but maybe track experience will give you the ability or muscle memory to push harder and tighten up your line so that you miss the idiot running wide.

FWIW I can tell you in 10+ years, a few dozen trips to southern OH and WV like areas and many thousands of kms that 100% of spills / accidents in the group were the result from rider error, nothing to do with other vehicles. A rider would run wide on a turn and riders following indicated that they seemed to be target fixated and there was plenty of traction and lean angle still available. Most of the riders who crashed had less than 2 years experience on their ST type bike and minimal experience on the very twisty roads you find south of the border. All riders were wearing full ATGATT and while most accidents resulted in bruises and scrapes + a banged up, but rideable bike, the whole experience of seeing this happen, then dragging a 750 lb bike uphill out of the ditch is a huge downer for everyone involved and well worth avoiding.
 
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In my case street riding became much more boring post track school.

In the past 3yrs I've been riding more track, and less street.
So much less that I considered selling my street bike this year.

School made me a more proficient, and safer rider, but the thrill of pushing limits of yourself and your machine just isn't found, or safe to do on the street.
 
sid_for_speed said:
I am unaware of what I would do in this scenario....It's happened here as well with quite a few cars crossing their lines... Usually, in most cases , the driver is usually able to pull over, but I fail to understand what to do when I'm leaning full tilt ( as far as my comfort level goes) and the driver decides to leave his lane... how can track improve this aspect of my riding?
Click to expand...

"You go where you look", and looking towards the remaining opening, are drilled into your mind.

For a well-experienced rider, riding at the aforementioned 7/10 is leaving room for error and yet it's faster than what an inexperienced rider is doing. The latter panics and jams on the rear brake and goes over the edge, while the experienced rider smoothly applies the front brake, looks through the corner, simultaneously rolls off the brake while turning in and keeps going with no drama.

For the opposing-traffic scenario ... Most of the time in the mountain roads, this will happen when you are going into a left turn, and the other vehicle blows their right and goes across the center line. (If they blow their left / your right, they're going over the right edge and it's not your problem.) If your lane position is correct going into that left turn, you are already starting out on the right side, you just need to stay out on the right edge. If I see opposing traffic coming, smergy's 7/10ths gets backed down a little further to buy some more wiggle room, even without the opposing traffic misbehaving, just in case it might misbehave. Situational awareness.

Obviously there are limits to what is physically possible, but knowing how to handle your bike lets you make the most of what you are dealt.
 
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miggs said:
In my case street riding became much more boring post track school.

In the past 3yrs I've been riding more track, and less street.
So much less that I considered selling my street bike this year.

School made me a more proficient, and safer rider, but the thrill of pushing limits of yourself and your machine just isn't found, or safe to do on the street.
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^ this...after a few trackdays even the twistiest ontario roads will seem like the 401 between windsor and london.
 
Just remember the race track and the road are very different. On the track you can expect decent traction, no oil or coolant spills, little gravel or detritus, everyone's going the same way and everyone is there focused on what they're doing. You can learn to lean to the hard parts and drag your knee in a pretty safe environment free of trucks loosing their load or hydraulic oil, Sally soccer-moms looking back and yelling at their kids, princesses taking selfies and self-absorbed texters.

On those twisties you might find a semi going wide, deer dashing across the road, sand or gravel from rain runoff around the next blind corner or any of a million other hazards.

I'm just saying that you can go to school to learn the mechanics of race control and that the limits of adhesion are further than you think but you need to be in road-riding mode even on those nice twisties down there. Going to a race school expecting to have "fun" in the twisties conjures images of meatheads on YT doing stupid things on public roads...
 
Dr. Luxurious said:
^ this...after a few trackdays even the twistiest ontario roads will seem like the 401 between windsor and london.
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That's because it IS as flat as _____ from windsor to london :rolleyes:
 
Lightcycle said:
Trust me. Your definition of "leaning full tilt" is going to change after the track.
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To add to this:

I'm fairly reckless, but I can't do full tilt on the street due to knowing having no buffer = crashing. Depending on how much you push on your race school days, you may view the street differently. Chances are you'll appear more reckless on twisties to the untrained eye, but have a lot more control and lean buffer in the case of bad situations. Also, spatial awareness goes up dramatically.
 
miggs said:
In my case street riding became much more boring post track school.

In the past 3yrs I've been riding more track, and less street.
So much less that I considered selling my street bike this year.

School made me a more proficient, and safer rider, but the thrill of pushing limits of yourself and your machine just isn't found, or safe to do on the street.
Click to expand...

This is true.

Conversely, there are times when pre-FAST I would have thought I cooked a corner, or would be surprised by a decreasing radius turn, and panicked. Post FAST, they are no biggie
 
miggs said:
School made me a more proficient, and safer rider, but the thrill of pushing limits of yourself and your machine just isn't found, or safe to do on the street.
Click to expand...

Don't sell your street bike lol

I converted my street into a track bike. Track riding was enjoyable, but never calm or meditative like street riding. Also track riding is all about preparation. Street riding can be very ad hoc/impulsive. I admit I dun goofed by not listening to everyone who told me to get a track bike rather than convert my street bike.
 
I think the greatest skill you learn on track that you can then transfer to the street is not panicking and knowing how the bike will react to inputs when in an awkward position. Often times, especially in my first couple of track days, I would think I am coming in way too hot into a corner when in reality the bike was more than capable to make the corner. It's kind of cool how it happens; you get that "holy **** I'm in to hot" feeling but then something in the back of your mind clicks and mentally forces you to go thru the motions, look thru the turn etc. to help you make the turn. You multiply that by multiple turns at the track with multiple track days and you have a solid way to build corner entry confidence. Also in terms of not panicking is if someone crashes out in front of you, you learn pretty quick to simply acknowledge the crash but then force your attention on committing to the turn. While doing all this, you are sometimes forced to get hard on the brakes while leaned over or to have to make some other weird input at an awkward time. You will get a much better feel of the bike under you and how it will react.

It's also then scary to get out on the street, it really puts it in perspective having trees and guardrails as your run off.
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