Track school
Sep. 21st, 2004 07:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elizillaI spent Sunday and Monday at BeaveRun, a new racetrack north of Pittsbugh PA, riding my motorcycle on the track.
The track days were organized by a group called SportBikeTrackTime.com. They are one of the larger organizers of track days, and they use a lot of different tracks. One thing they do that's really neat, is they put all the new track riders in the Novice class, and they provide them with instruction. Their philosophy is that people will leave the Novice class eventually and go to Intermediate and they want them to have a solid grounding in the basics first. The instruction was well organized, well taught, and valuable.
They also divide the novice class into small groups that each have their own instructor. They rearrange the groups as needed over the course of the day, to keep them as closely matched as possible. The groups ride together and all the passing is controlled by the instructors; groups pass other groups as needed.
I brought my 1992 Yamaha TDM850, and my friend Mo brought his 1984 Honda Interceptor VF1000F. Last time I did a track school I took my 1984 Honda V65 Sabre, and it was like bringing a knife to a gunfight. The TDM850 was not anywhere near as bad a track bike as the Sabre, but it's not the horse for the course either. I think if I were to do this more frequently I would buy a sportier motorcycle. Mo's Interceptor, while still not in a league with the full-on sportbikes, was a little better, and Mo is already a pretty fast street rider, so he was always in a faster group than I was.
Mo and I carpooled from his place near Cleveland, and carried both bikes in the back of my truck. I'm not usually one to trailer a running motorcycle, but for the track it is better to trailer because you need fresh tires, and if you crash at the track your bike may not be in shape to carry you home. Also, you probably want to bring more stuff to the track than you would take on a tour: Extra gasoline, because there are no gas stations at the track. Tools, parts, and spares. A much more elaborate camping setup, because you will spend a lot of time in your camp in between sessions. Also, if you are going to spend two days at the track, you need a way to get out of the racetrack to go get dinner, and it would be a big pain to street the bike just for the evening. To ride the track you have to cover all the lights with tape, cover the speedometer with tape, remove the mirrors, replace the coolant with water, etc.
The classroom instruction covered a lot of things I was already familiar with. (Not that I can do all this stuff, but none of the theory was new to me.) Use the whole track. Memorize the track and choose markers you can use as cues to remember exactly when to get on the gas. Remember the track will be in the same place every time you go around. Don't worry about blind curves because the pavement doesn't move and the cornerworkers are there to wave flags to signal any hazards. Don't look at your speedometer. Put the balls of your feet on the pegs, not the heels. Counter steer. Look where you want to go. Set your corner entry speed so you can accellerate smoothly through the whole turn, which will keep your suspension settled. Throttle steering. Hanging off. Getting a knee down.
I'm not much of a peg dragger. I never dragged pegs at all until this year, when I started to occasionally drag the left peg on the V-Strom. The V-Strom has a reassuringly long peg feeler on the left, and the peg drag feels smooth and graceful as the aluminum grinds away and the peg folds up. I can do it at slow speeds, feeling totally in control, almost dreamy. But I had never touched anything down on the TDM until I took it to the track. I touched the right down, and the footpeg didn't fold, and the scrape felt harsh. I panicked, straightened up, and went off the outside of the track. I went off the pavement onto the grass, turned my bike back to the track quite easily, crossed back onto the pavement at a proper angle, and was back hanging on to the end of my group by the next turn.
I was stupid to let myself panic, but at least I got myself back under control to ride through the gravel and grass hummocks very calmly. That section of the outfield caught other people, too, and at least four of them fell over once they went off the pavement. The TDM may not be a good track bike, but it handles nicely on loose, bumpy surfaces, and I've ridden heavy streetbikes on enough gravel that I could keep my head out there. Still I feel kinda dumb, because I have never gone off the outside of a curve like that on the road!
After the session ended, I inspected the rear tire and found that the rubber was chewed up, with little melted chunks getting spun off, all the way to the very edge of the tire. If I can grind the rear tire to the very edge without dragging pegs, I think that's a sign that I've found the maximum lean angle already and I hadn't ought to be grinding hard bits. Best to focus on ways to increase my speed without increasing my lean angle any more.
I don't have knee pucks or toe sliders, and the TDM really isn't conducive to that sort of thing anyway, so I didn't try to get my knee down. I did try hanging off, and felt really unstable. I suppose it will feel more stable if I practice. Mainly I worked on throttle control, because when you're that far over, any choppiness in the throttle control will make the bike lean farther.
The instructors for the Novice class ride in the Advanced class. There was a fair bit of carnage in the Advanced class and by the end of the day we had lost some of the instructors. No one was hurt, but one of the Advanced riders broke his collarbone and went to the hospital, and one of the instructors went with him. So they had to do some rearrangements over the course of the afternoon. I ended up stuck with an instructor, that I just couldn't work with. It really wasn't his fault, I suppose. The other student in the group was this weird guy on a Triumph who was proud of the fact that he never goes over 70mph, and he wasn't going to go over 70mph even on the track. (What was this dude thinking? Why on earth would you go to track school then refuse to go over 70mph? But he seemed proud of how "safe" he rides.) Anyway, by that point in the day, the fastest groups were going extremely fast. Since the groups are held to the speed of the slowest rider, and this twit wouldn't go over 70mph, our group was being lapped repeatedly. And since in Novice, groups have to pass groups, we needed to stay close together. 70mph dude was bringing up the rear and wouldn't stay with us, and the instructor was riding erratically as he constantly looked over his shoulder and signaled for us to close up.
When we got off the track, the instructor gave BOTH of us holy hell for not staying close enough to him. I was mad because I couldn't stay close to him. I kept having to brake hard or I would pass him, and then my corner entries would be messed up and he'd get away from me on the corners, and then I'd be nailing it on the straights to catch up and then he'd bobble around all erratically making hand signals and whatnot, and it left me all herky jerky with my smoothness disrupted and my suspension shaken up. I told him this and he got all arrogant, and told me I couldn't pass him or hit him, that he was too good. Whatever, dude. I can't ride nose to tail with someone I can't trust, and whether that's his fault or mine, I wasn't going to ride any closer to him. Earlier in the day I was able to follow other instructors very closely without any trouble, but my trust had been pretty well demolished by his erratic riding.
By the end of that interaction I was mad as hell. So instead of going back to my camp, I rode down to the far end of the facility where there was a huge parking lot with a bunch of cones, and started riding around in circles down there, trying to calm down.
Mo followed me. I didn't want to talk to him. I wanted to be alone and calm down. But he obviously wanted to talk to me. So I stopped and talked to him. He had gotten a knee down in that session. He was so geeked. Poor Mo, I couldn't share in his joy properly because I was too upset. So I tried to do the happy dance for him and he tried to take my side in my little drama. It was a drag to be on such radically different wavelengths, since Mo and I usually click so well. I decided I had better do something about my situation.
So I went back to the main area and sought out the guy who was in charge. I told him I wanted to move to another group, that I needed to work with a different instructor, because I didn't trust the instructor I had and that trust was essential for me to function properly in a group. He said he would see what he could do, and he went off to talk to the other instructors.
He came back a little later to say he was sorry I'd had such trouble, that it wasn't even my fault it was the 70mph guy, and he could not move me to another group, because there weren't enough instructors, and they have to keep the groups together, someone has to take the 70mph guy, yadayadayada. I said they do what they have to do, and I do what I have to do, and I couldn't ride in that situation so I would just stop now. He said I was upset and he didn't want that, and that he would ride with me himself, would that be an acceptable solution? I said OK.
So when they called for our group again, I went out to the hot pit lane and waited for him, and he wasn't there. All the other groups went out and were flying around the track and I was just sitting there like a dumbass. The guy in charge of the hot pit called down to ask me what was going on, was my group out there without me? I said no, I was supposed to ride with Bob and Bob wasn't here. So he got on his radio and called him, and then told me Bob would be out right away.
A few minutes later a lone rider came out into the hot pit and started onto the track. Not a Novice; the Novice riders don't have numbers and they don't go out there alone, but not a regular instructor either, because he didn't have one of the instructor vests on. He didn't say anything to me, just went out on the track. I thought it was Bob so I followed him, but he quickly ditched me. I don't know who he was or what he was doing. No one rides alone during the Novice class. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. So I just rode alone. I would ride my own pace, work on smooth. I was tired of the intructors with their inscrutable hand signals, and having to concentrate on following another rider instead of thinking for myself. So I just kept going.
A few laps later, a rider wearing a vest cut in front of me and started with the hand signals again. It was Bob, it had to be. He immediately took the lead and started with the hand signlaing. He was easy to follow and his signals were clear and easy to follow. It's amazing how some people can project such energy and focus and good cheer, using hand signals while riding a motorcycle around a track at such a high speed. I learned a lot from him in the half session we had together, almost enough to overcome my unhappiness from the previous horrible session.
When we came in, I learned that Mo had tossed his bike. I'd seen the bike way off the edge, but hadn't been able to identify it in the short glimpses I got while flying past it. He had gone into turn 10 really hot, dragged his peg and his knee. Then something upset the bike, maybe a little ripple in the track. The rear wheel levered off the ground and the bike started to drift. He fought it back down and thought he was going to save it, but it came up again and he couldn't save it. The bike slid on its side, right off the track. All Mo could do was let go and lift his other leg to step off it. He wasn't hurt, but the bike was rashed up pretty bad. A hole was ground in the clutch cover and all the oil came out, fortunately off the track. We had one more session to go, but Mo's track day was over.
A few minutes later, Bob came over to commiserate with Mo, and to tell me he needed to ride with another student in the last session, and he was going to move me to another group, with a different instructor, and was this OK? As long as it wasn't the same one, I said was fine with it.
It didn't turn out to matter. Some guy in the advanced group grenaded his motor. He didn't crash; it was a mechanical failure. A spectacular mechanical failure that spewed oil all over the front straight on the track. The cleanup would take longer than we had left in the day, so the last session was canceled.
Mo and I loaded the bikes up and drove back to his house, and listened to a good Greg Brown CD on the way. We had pizza with his wife, then I drove on back to Michigan. I got home around midnight, which is earlier than usual for a motorcycling weekend. But I felt as tired as if it was 3am.
Oh! One other thing. They have a special session for ten minutes after lunch each day, where the only folks allowed out there are women riders, and people riding two up. On the first day I carried a passenger, the mother of one of the other riders who was in my group. He was carrying his wife on his bike, and since they both wanted to go I volunteered to take his mom. On the second day, I was the only one on the track for a little while. I had the whole track to myself. It was cool! How often does anyone get to be alone on the racetrack? Woohoo!
I only rode 191 miles over the two days, but I am very sore today. It's hard work to carry your weight on your toes and toss your body back and forth on a moving motorcycle, and the five hours in the car coming home added even more stiffness.
The track day was good and worthwhile. I will do this again sometime. (In fact I have another one scheduled already!) Next time I think I will go in the Intermediate class. Now that I've done the Novice thing, I will have that option and I think I am ready for it. Intermediates don't have to ride in groups. There are passing rules but other than that they are free to ride their own pace.
The track days were organized by a group called SportBikeTrackTime.com. They are one of the larger organizers of track days, and they use a lot of different tracks. One thing they do that's really neat, is they put all the new track riders in the Novice class, and they provide them with instruction. Their philosophy is that people will leave the Novice class eventually and go to Intermediate and they want them to have a solid grounding in the basics first. The instruction was well organized, well taught, and valuable.
They also divide the novice class into small groups that each have their own instructor. They rearrange the groups as needed over the course of the day, to keep them as closely matched as possible. The groups ride together and all the passing is controlled by the instructors; groups pass other groups as needed.
I brought my 1992 Yamaha TDM850, and my friend Mo brought his 1984 Honda Interceptor VF1000F. Last time I did a track school I took my 1984 Honda V65 Sabre, and it was like bringing a knife to a gunfight. The TDM850 was not anywhere near as bad a track bike as the Sabre, but it's not the horse for the course either. I think if I were to do this more frequently I would buy a sportier motorcycle. Mo's Interceptor, while still not in a league with the full-on sportbikes, was a little better, and Mo is already a pretty fast street rider, so he was always in a faster group than I was.
Mo and I carpooled from his place near Cleveland, and carried both bikes in the back of my truck. I'm not usually one to trailer a running motorcycle, but for the track it is better to trailer because you need fresh tires, and if you crash at the track your bike may not be in shape to carry you home. Also, you probably want to bring more stuff to the track than you would take on a tour: Extra gasoline, because there are no gas stations at the track. Tools, parts, and spares. A much more elaborate camping setup, because you will spend a lot of time in your camp in between sessions. Also, if you are going to spend two days at the track, you need a way to get out of the racetrack to go get dinner, and it would be a big pain to street the bike just for the evening. To ride the track you have to cover all the lights with tape, cover the speedometer with tape, remove the mirrors, replace the coolant with water, etc.
The classroom instruction covered a lot of things I was already familiar with. (Not that I can do all this stuff, but none of the theory was new to me.) Use the whole track. Memorize the track and choose markers you can use as cues to remember exactly when to get on the gas. Remember the track will be in the same place every time you go around. Don't worry about blind curves because the pavement doesn't move and the cornerworkers are there to wave flags to signal any hazards. Don't look at your speedometer. Put the balls of your feet on the pegs, not the heels. Counter steer. Look where you want to go. Set your corner entry speed so you can accellerate smoothly through the whole turn, which will keep your suspension settled. Throttle steering. Hanging off. Getting a knee down.
I'm not much of a peg dragger. I never dragged pegs at all until this year, when I started to occasionally drag the left peg on the V-Strom. The V-Strom has a reassuringly long peg feeler on the left, and the peg drag feels smooth and graceful as the aluminum grinds away and the peg folds up. I can do it at slow speeds, feeling totally in control, almost dreamy. But I had never touched anything down on the TDM until I took it to the track. I touched the right down, and the footpeg didn't fold, and the scrape felt harsh. I panicked, straightened up, and went off the outside of the track. I went off the pavement onto the grass, turned my bike back to the track quite easily, crossed back onto the pavement at a proper angle, and was back hanging on to the end of my group by the next turn.
I was stupid to let myself panic, but at least I got myself back under control to ride through the gravel and grass hummocks very calmly. That section of the outfield caught other people, too, and at least four of them fell over once they went off the pavement. The TDM may not be a good track bike, but it handles nicely on loose, bumpy surfaces, and I've ridden heavy streetbikes on enough gravel that I could keep my head out there. Still I feel kinda dumb, because I have never gone off the outside of a curve like that on the road!
After the session ended, I inspected the rear tire and found that the rubber was chewed up, with little melted chunks getting spun off, all the way to the very edge of the tire. If I can grind the rear tire to the very edge without dragging pegs, I think that's a sign that I've found the maximum lean angle already and I hadn't ought to be grinding hard bits. Best to focus on ways to increase my speed without increasing my lean angle any more.
I don't have knee pucks or toe sliders, and the TDM really isn't conducive to that sort of thing anyway, so I didn't try to get my knee down. I did try hanging off, and felt really unstable. I suppose it will feel more stable if I practice. Mainly I worked on throttle control, because when you're that far over, any choppiness in the throttle control will make the bike lean farther.
The instructors for the Novice class ride in the Advanced class. There was a fair bit of carnage in the Advanced class and by the end of the day we had lost some of the instructors. No one was hurt, but one of the Advanced riders broke his collarbone and went to the hospital, and one of the instructors went with him. So they had to do some rearrangements over the course of the afternoon. I ended up stuck with an instructor, that I just couldn't work with. It really wasn't his fault, I suppose. The other student in the group was this weird guy on a Triumph who was proud of the fact that he never goes over 70mph, and he wasn't going to go over 70mph even on the track. (What was this dude thinking? Why on earth would you go to track school then refuse to go over 70mph? But he seemed proud of how "safe" he rides.) Anyway, by that point in the day, the fastest groups were going extremely fast. Since the groups are held to the speed of the slowest rider, and this twit wouldn't go over 70mph, our group was being lapped repeatedly. And since in Novice, groups have to pass groups, we needed to stay close together. 70mph dude was bringing up the rear and wouldn't stay with us, and the instructor was riding erratically as he constantly looked over his shoulder and signaled for us to close up.
When we got off the track, the instructor gave BOTH of us holy hell for not staying close enough to him. I was mad because I couldn't stay close to him. I kept having to brake hard or I would pass him, and then my corner entries would be messed up and he'd get away from me on the corners, and then I'd be nailing it on the straights to catch up and then he'd bobble around all erratically making hand signals and whatnot, and it left me all herky jerky with my smoothness disrupted and my suspension shaken up. I told him this and he got all arrogant, and told me I couldn't pass him or hit him, that he was too good. Whatever, dude. I can't ride nose to tail with someone I can't trust, and whether that's his fault or mine, I wasn't going to ride any closer to him. Earlier in the day I was able to follow other instructors very closely without any trouble, but my trust had been pretty well demolished by his erratic riding.
By the end of that interaction I was mad as hell. So instead of going back to my camp, I rode down to the far end of the facility where there was a huge parking lot with a bunch of cones, and started riding around in circles down there, trying to calm down.
Mo followed me. I didn't want to talk to him. I wanted to be alone and calm down. But he obviously wanted to talk to me. So I stopped and talked to him. He had gotten a knee down in that session. He was so geeked. Poor Mo, I couldn't share in his joy properly because I was too upset. So I tried to do the happy dance for him and he tried to take my side in my little drama. It was a drag to be on such radically different wavelengths, since Mo and I usually click so well. I decided I had better do something about my situation.
So I went back to the main area and sought out the guy who was in charge. I told him I wanted to move to another group, that I needed to work with a different instructor, because I didn't trust the instructor I had and that trust was essential for me to function properly in a group. He said he would see what he could do, and he went off to talk to the other instructors.
He came back a little later to say he was sorry I'd had such trouble, that it wasn't even my fault it was the 70mph guy, and he could not move me to another group, because there weren't enough instructors, and they have to keep the groups together, someone has to take the 70mph guy, yadayadayada. I said they do what they have to do, and I do what I have to do, and I couldn't ride in that situation so I would just stop now. He said I was upset and he didn't want that, and that he would ride with me himself, would that be an acceptable solution? I said OK.
So when they called for our group again, I went out to the hot pit lane and waited for him, and he wasn't there. All the other groups went out and were flying around the track and I was just sitting there like a dumbass. The guy in charge of the hot pit called down to ask me what was going on, was my group out there without me? I said no, I was supposed to ride with Bob and Bob wasn't here. So he got on his radio and called him, and then told me Bob would be out right away.
A few minutes later a lone rider came out into the hot pit and started onto the track. Not a Novice; the Novice riders don't have numbers and they don't go out there alone, but not a regular instructor either, because he didn't have one of the instructor vests on. He didn't say anything to me, just went out on the track. I thought it was Bob so I followed him, but he quickly ditched me. I don't know who he was or what he was doing. No one rides alone during the Novice class. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. So I just rode alone. I would ride my own pace, work on smooth. I was tired of the intructors with their inscrutable hand signals, and having to concentrate on following another rider instead of thinking for myself. So I just kept going.
A few laps later, a rider wearing a vest cut in front of me and started with the hand signals again. It was Bob, it had to be. He immediately took the lead and started with the hand signlaing. He was easy to follow and his signals were clear and easy to follow. It's amazing how some people can project such energy and focus and good cheer, using hand signals while riding a motorcycle around a track at such a high speed. I learned a lot from him in the half session we had together, almost enough to overcome my unhappiness from the previous horrible session.
When we came in, I learned that Mo had tossed his bike. I'd seen the bike way off the edge, but hadn't been able to identify it in the short glimpses I got while flying past it. He had gone into turn 10 really hot, dragged his peg and his knee. Then something upset the bike, maybe a little ripple in the track. The rear wheel levered off the ground and the bike started to drift. He fought it back down and thought he was going to save it, but it came up again and he couldn't save it. The bike slid on its side, right off the track. All Mo could do was let go and lift his other leg to step off it. He wasn't hurt, but the bike was rashed up pretty bad. A hole was ground in the clutch cover and all the oil came out, fortunately off the track. We had one more session to go, but Mo's track day was over.
A few minutes later, Bob came over to commiserate with Mo, and to tell me he needed to ride with another student in the last session, and he was going to move me to another group, with a different instructor, and was this OK? As long as it wasn't the same one, I said was fine with it.
It didn't turn out to matter. Some guy in the advanced group grenaded his motor. He didn't crash; it was a mechanical failure. A spectacular mechanical failure that spewed oil all over the front straight on the track. The cleanup would take longer than we had left in the day, so the last session was canceled.
Mo and I loaded the bikes up and drove back to his house, and listened to a good Greg Brown CD on the way. We had pizza with his wife, then I drove on back to Michigan. I got home around midnight, which is earlier than usual for a motorcycling weekend. But I felt as tired as if it was 3am.
Oh! One other thing. They have a special session for ten minutes after lunch each day, where the only folks allowed out there are women riders, and people riding two up. On the first day I carried a passenger, the mother of one of the other riders who was in my group. He was carrying his wife on his bike, and since they both wanted to go I volunteered to take his mom. On the second day, I was the only one on the track for a little while. I had the whole track to myself. It was cool! How often does anyone get to be alone on the racetrack? Woohoo!
I only rode 191 miles over the two days, but I am very sore today. It's hard work to carry your weight on your toes and toss your body back and forth on a moving motorcycle, and the five hours in the car coming home added even more stiffness.
The track day was good and worthwhile. I will do this again sometime. (In fact I have another one scheduled already!) Next time I think I will go in the Intermediate class. Now that I've done the Novice thing, I will have that option and I think I am ready for it. Intermediates don't have to ride in groups. There are passing rules but other than that they are free to ride their own pace.
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-22 01:21 am (UTC)You know, if I got a credit card, I could buy the stuff I need....
no subject
Date: 2004-09-22 03:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-22 03:43 am (UTC)When's the next day you're signed up for?
no subject
Date: 2004-09-22 03:57 am (UTC)You can always have tires delivered to Erik's shop and install them there. You should be able to get a good set of tires for under $200 that way.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-22 04:18 am (UTC)I've applied for a credit card. Fiscal responsibility be damned! I want to learn how to be a better rider!
no subject
Date: 2004-09-23 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-09 03:31 am (UTC)elizilla wrote:
" On the second day, I was the only one on the track for a little while. I had the whole track to myself. It was cool! How often does anyone get to be alone on the racetrack? Woohoo!"
... and ...
"I am ready for it. Intermediates don't have to ride in groups. There are passing rules but other than that they are free to ride their own pace."
Those statements so clearly say what you're about.
Many people go to the racetrack so that they have someone to race against. Not you. And so many of us measure ourselves against each other, against the group we ride or hang out with. Again not you.
It must be nice to be free of testosterone poisoning and all its side effects. :--) I admire and envy your ability to ride your own ride.