Oz Superbike School benefits

Well, I wasn't much of a rider to begin with, but after doing Oz Superbike
School on Friday, I went to a track day at Eastern Creek today and lowered
my personal best from 2:31 to 2:12.

OK, so a factory ride doesn't seem likely anytime soon, but I was still damn
happy. The $369 for ASBS was money well spent, IMHO.

Manning

 

ok that's a good improvement lap time wise. Did the course actually open
your eyes to anything specific or obvious you can put you finger on?

 

Hell yeah!

1 - Stop doing things. Eg: once the bike is leant over, leave it alone, you
don't need to manhandle it (I thought corners had to be wrestled from start
to finish). Also lots of other related handling ideas.
2 - Respect the throttle - it's not an on-off switch, it's more like a
violin bow that must be mastered to bring out the full range of
possibilities (not that I've mastered it, but I've learnt to appreciate it
much more).
3 - You can shave a lot of time off your lap speed when off the track by
using your head and making a plan.

There's heaps more, and those aus.motians who've attended ASBS to higher
levels can no doubt express it better. But that's some of what I got from
ASBS.

Manning

 

Sounds good. ill have to seriously consider doing it.

 

Good to hear it was value..

Better spent on that then performance mods, huggers, different
underseat things, 4-1's, shit that people spend money on!

 

What is ASBS?

 

A ustralian S uper B ike S chool

 

(Derek) wrote in

Speaking 'o' superbike school, a few days ago, someone
mentioned something about correcting the "oh shit I'm
entering too fast, brake, wobble, blah" method of
cornering by taking a "wide view" or "world view" and
avoiding the tunnel vision thing.

Would someone please elaborate on that a bit. I find
myself using that cornering technique occasionally,
and I'd really like to stop doing it!

Thanks,

Bob

 

In a nutshell, rather than trying to scrub off substantial amounts of speed
between entry and apex, if you find yourself going in too fast, simply tip
in harder... a big element of that is forcing yourself (at least until you
get used to it) to ignore the onrushing dropoff on the outside the corner,
and consciously turning your head to look through the corner. Where your
chin points, the bike'll follow.

Also, the idea is to not just concentrate on the road. By taking note of
everything in your field of vision on approach to a corner, you'll get a
better idea of when to start scrubbing off speed, how thight the corner's
likely to be... takes time.

 

Kinda sounds like what I do. Get off the brakes, drop the thing on it's ear
and hope for the best. Has worked so far...

Aaron
ZX6R

 

In a nutshell, rather than trying to scrub off substantial amounts of speed between entry and apex, if you find yourself going in too fast, simply tip n harder...

Also MINOR use of back brake can help pull the front around faster....

 

speed between entry and apex, if you find yourself going in too fast, simply
tip n harder...

Yes, I have heard of this technique, but have yet to (*ahem*) master it. So
far I've only managed to lock the rear, straightline turn-nine and go for a
brief lawn jaunt (on 3 occasions no less). Haven't put the bike down at
least.

Manning

 

Can I interest you in some tantric sex lessons now?

Hammo

 

First one free?

 

....by actually kicking the back wheel out further.

I seem to have found this only works if the bike's setup reasonably soft and
without too much weight over the front wheel.

For example, it used to work a treat on my heavy old ZX9, and this old ZX6 I
got doesn't mind it, either, but my good ZX6, with the rear ride height
wound up to max and the suspension set up really stiff to keep it level on
the brakes and to get it oversteering on the gas, hates it. It used to be
the same story on the R1, but, on that thing, I could barely get my foot to
the rear brake level when hanging off the side through a corner, anyway, so
it was somewhat academic.

I'm very much of the slow-in, not-quite-as-slow-out school... lean, then
breathe on the throttle to get the bike turning in towards the apex, then
progressively wind it on between apex and exit, using the
tipped-onto-its-nose geometry of the bike to get the thrust from the back
wheel pushing the mass of the bike around... which is basically what sbk
school teach, anyway.

 

In aus.motorcycles on Wed, 21 Jan 2004 12:27:53 +1100

Hmm.. I wonder if that's why they didn't like my high corner speed
habit. As none of my bikes have much in the way of either brakes or
throttle, it's not slow-in, it's
fast-as-you-can-get-away-with-which-isn't-much.

Zebee

 

It's also a matter of suspension. A bike with a stiff setup and a high
centre of gravity will understeer if you pile into a corner at speed, as
well as baulk if you dial in lean and ask it to stay there, while a bike
with a soft setup and a low CoG won't.

 

I resemble that , way to fast in , way to fast out , sigh of relief as
you make it.

 

Not for this guy......

Hammo

 

Yeah that was me, probably the most important thing I got out of SBK school (and
yeah I'm the only I know to say that- everyone else says level 1 - gotta be
different I guess*)

In short human eye is always "on" while your eyelids are open, but how much of
the available vision you process depends on your situation and choice. When you
are in danger your body focuses in on the danger and everything peripheral to
that gets mentally blocked out - you only see the tiger about to pounce on you
or whatever it was a couple of million years ago that created automatic survival
response.

Much of SBK school is about managing survival reactions (like not shutting the
throttle at the wrong time).

When you have tunnel vision on the corner appears to approach more quickly than
when you have "wide screen" (which is what Brouggy calls it). This means you
feel like you're approaching the corner more quickly and hence you overestimate
your actual speed and hence your capability to cope with going through the
corner at the speed. Because you feel like you're entering too fast survival
reactions like tensing up tend to kick in and reduce your ability to get through
the corner at that speed (self fulfilling prophecy)

"wide screen" means allowing yourself to process and see everything in your
field of vision from peripheral edge to edge. Focus on a point directly ahead of
you, don't move your eyes and become aware of everything, scan from side to side
without moving your eyes.

The other benefit is that it's quicker to move your attention focus than it is
to physically move your head or even your eyes, you can thus have a lot more
information available about what's going on around you, constantly available. If
you're processing that the car ahead of you is braking hard *at the same time*
as noting that the parked car is pulling out into the left hand lane you can
swap into the right lane instead of going oh shit gotta brake or dodge, dodge
left, BANG, earth sky earth sky ambulance.

JL
* Level 1 for me mostly went "yeah Dad taught me that at 10, yeah Dad taught me
that at 16, yeah dad....etc" and puzzled frowns while he deliberately misled the
class into giving him the wrong answers which he then explained why they were
wrong. It's probably why the old bugger is still reasonably quick even on his
crappy old meriden trumpy.