Re: [ST] Code's Level 1 & Dragon GTSs

[kwh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Ken Haylock)]

> Somehow I don't think you'll have to worry about me . . . . yet ;-)! 
> Scraping my pegs on a corner I've been around a couple dozen times is a
> little different than doing it on a road I haven't been on before.  

[FX: Stands on soapbox...]

Do you mind if I comment on this a bit? It's the thing that I /don't/ like 
about the Code stuff when learnt in isolation, and IMHO it may be the thing 
that gets a rider hurt or worse. 

It's not just about whether you know the road or the corner ahead of you, 
it's the difference between a racetrack and the road. Scraping your pegs on 
a corner on a racetrack is one thing, as you say you get to try that corner 
every two minutes until you can get it 'just so'. But if somebody had 
fallen off their bike and was laying on the line you were going to take as 
you went round that particular corner with your pegs on the deck next time, 
then you'd have been shown a waved yellow flag before you ever got to your 
turn-in point, so you wouldn't have gone barrelling into the corner with 
your pegs on the deck. Which is good, because if you had, you'd have either 
hit the fallen rider or crashed while avoiding them. But even on your 
favourite back-road, the one where you know every inch of the tarmac and 
where every corner goes, there /won't/ be anybody to show you a red and 
yellow flag when there's diesel oil all over the apex or wave a yellow when 
there's a deer standing blocking the road at the corner exit.  And on a road 
you don't know, in addition to all the hazards of unseen obstructions and 
the like, if you are riding at a peg-scraping angles of lean and then find 
the corner you are on decreases in radius, then something extremely painful 
is probably about to happen.

> It's
> going to take a little while to put what I've learned to use on the
> street.  I'm also looking forward to learning more :-))!  I'm planning
> on gradually increasing my corner entry speeds as I feel comfortable. 

That's great on the track, where pushing ones personal limits and that of 
the motorcycle is as much fun as I've ever had with leathers on, but on the 
road there's really only one safe maximum speed to enter a corner, and 
that's the speed where you can reliably stop, under control, in the distance 
you can see to be clear on your own side of the road. Any faster than that 
is an act of faith, faith that the road is clear, the surface good and the 
corner doesn't tighten up. The ST will, as you've discovered, go round 
corners /way/ more quickly than road safety would suggest was sensible. 

> On the way back from the track on some familiar roads, I was hitting
> corners approximately 10 mph faster than before, and once I was in them,
> I felt I could have added another 10 mph without being stressed.  

The acid test is would you still have been unstressed if you had found an 
upturned car blocking the road as you came round the corner? If you would 
have stopped then you weren't going too fast, if you would have slammed into 
it still going 30 miles an hour, or vanished into the trees after grabbing a 
handful of brake mid-corner, then you were going too fast. It goes without 
saying, then, that the more you see, the faster you can safely go, so the 
best road lines are ones that wouldn't work on the track, but which give you 
a better view round the corners. 

See http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/011341143X for more on this, my 
favourite theme...

> Still,
> I ride with the philosophy that I would MUCH rather say I could have
> gone faster than to say (or not have the opportunity to say), I should
> have gone slower . . . . .

Absolutely!



- - --

Ken Haylock - Sprint ST + TT600 - MAG Life Member #93160

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