http://www.nextmotochampion.com/nmc-news/announcing-the-new-yamaha-champions-riding-school
Awesome. Some of the guys on the Ninja 300 forum have been talking about these schools in California and I was wondering if we had one like this near here. Thanks for sharing, I definitely want to work up to doing track days on my 300 as well as partaking in things like this. Riding has become, I think, one of my greatest passions. I can’t wait to get back out there…this winter needs to end. SOON.
EDIT: Just saw the price. Damn. Looks like I might be saving for a while :lol
Yeah, I’ll wait till I’m in LA and just do the California super bike school 2.3k for two days is extreme to me. At least with CSBS you are on a BMW S1000RR, I love my R6 but that thing bone stock SUCKED and the R1 vs it’s counter parts in the superbike class is sorely lacking.
How much is the CSBS? I see they also have 2 day camps that are over 2k. But they one day sessions that are like $400 if you bring your own bike, etc.
I’d go one day and bring my own bike fuck paying 2k, For that I should have the option of a refund if I dont learn anything new.
Plenty of schools in NE, this would be a good addition. Any trackdays for Novice group will provide seminars on basic track riding.
Braking by Nick Ienatsch
Nick is one of our forum members on another forum I am a member of, he shared the following and I tought the members here might benefit from it.
“If you have to stop in a corner, one of two things will happen. One, you will stand the bike up and ride it off the shoulder and into whatever is over there. Or two, you will lay the bike down and slide off the shoulder of the road. Braking is done before, or after a corner. The best thing to do before taking a corner is to grind the thought “I’m going to turn this corner” into your mind.”
Hiya FZ1 lovers.
I’ve stewed for two days about the above quote taken from another FZ1OA thread…and finally decided to launch this thread. In past years I would have just rolled my eyes and muttered, “Whatever”…but not anymore. I want to tell you that there are measureable, explainable, repeatable, do-able reasons that make great riders great. And brake usage is at the very tippity-top of these reasons. It’ll save your life, it’ll make you a champion. It will save and grow our sport.
I’ll ask this one favor: Would you open your mind to what I’m about to write, then go out and mess around with it?
To begin: Realize that great motorcycle riding is more subtle in its inputs than most of us imagine. I bet you are moving your hand too quickly with initial throttle and brakes. Moving your right foot too quickly with initial rear brake. The difference between a lap record and a highside is minute, almost-immeasureable differences in throttle and lean angle. The difference between hitting the Camaro in your lane and missing it by a foot is the little things a rider can do with speed control at lean angle. Brakes at lean angle. Brakes in a corner.
Yes, a rider can brake in a corner. Yes. For sure. Guaranteed. I promise. Happens all the time. I do it on every ride, track or street. Yes, a rider can stop in a corner. In fact, any student who rides with the Yamaha Champions Riding School will tell you it’s possible. Complete stop, mid-corner…no drama. Newbies and experts alike.
There are some interesting processes to this sport, mostly revolving around racing. But as I thought about this thread, putting numbers on each thought made more sense because explaining these concepts relies on busting some myths and refining your inputs. Some things must be ingrained…like #1 below.
1)You never, ever, never stab at the brakes. Understand a tire’s grip this way: Front grip is divided between lean angle points and brake points, rear grip is lean angle points and acceleration points, lean angle points and brake points. Realize that the tire will take a great load, but it won’t take a sudden load…and so you practice this smooth loading at every moment in/on every vehicle. If you stab the brakes (um…or throttle…) in your pickup, you berate yourself because you know that the stab, at lean angle on your motorcycle (and bicycle, btw), will be a crash.
2)Let’s examine tire grip. If you’re leaned over at 95% (95 points in my book Sport Riding Techniques and fastersafer.com) of the tires’ available grip, you still have 5% of that grip available for braking (or accelerating). But maybe you only have 3%!!! You find out because you always add braking “points” in a smooth, linear manner. As the front tire reaches its limit, it will squirm and warn you…if that limit is reached in a linear manner.
It’s the grabbing of 30 points that hurts anyone leaned over more than 70 points. If you ride slowly with no lean angle, you will begin to believe that aggressiveness and grabbing the front brake lever is okay…and it is…until you carry more lean angle (or it’s raining, or you’re on a dirt road or your tire’s cold…pick your excuse). Do you have a new rider in your life? Get them thinking of never, ever, never grabbing the brakes. Throttle too…
3)If you STAB the front brake at lean angle, one of two things will happen. If the grip is good, the fork will collapse and the bike will stand up and run wide. If the grip is not-so-good, the front tire will lock and slide. The italicized advice at the beginning was written by a rider who aggressively goes after the front brake lever. His bike always stands up or lowsides. He’s inputting brake force too aggressively, too quickly…he isn’t smoothly loading the fork springs or loading the tire. He may not believe this, but the tire will handle the load he wants, but the load must be fed-in more smoothly…and his experience leads to written advice that will hurt/kill other riders. “Never touch the brakes at lean angle?” Wrong. “Never grab the brakes at lean angle?” Right!
But what about the racers on TV who lose the front in the braking zone? Pay attention to when they lose grip. If it’s immediately, it’s because they stabbed the brake at lean angle. If it’s late in the braking zone, it’s because they finally exceeded 100 points of grip deep in the braking zone…if you’re adding lean angle, you’ve got to be “trailing off” the brakes as the tire nears its limit.
- Radius equals MPH. Realize that speed affects the bike’s radius at a given lean angle. If the corner is tighter than expected, continue to bring your speed down. What’s the best way to bring your speed down? Roll off the throttle and hope you slow down? Or roll off the throttle and squeeze on a little brake? Please don’t answer off the top of your head…answer after you’ve experimented in the real world.
Do this: Ride in a circle in a parking lot at a given lean angle. That’s your radius. Run a circle or two and then slowly sneak on more throttle at the same lean angle and watch what your radius does. Now ride in the circle again, and roll off the throttle…at the same lean angle. You are learning Radius equals MPH. You are learning what throttle and off-throttle does to your radius through steering geometry changes and speed changes. You are learning something on your own, rather than asking for advice on subjects that affect your health and life. (You will also learn why I get so upset when new riders are told to push on the inside bar and pick up the throttle if they get in the corner too fast. Exactly the opposite of what the best riders do. But don’t believe me…try it.)
Let me rant for a moment: Almost every bit of riding advice works when the pace is low and the grip is high. It’s when the corner tightens or the sleet falls or the lap record is within reach…then everything counts.
“Get all your braking done before the turn,” is good riding advice. But what if you don’t? What if the corner goes the other way and is tighter and there’s gravel? It’s then that you don’t need advice, you need riding technique. Theory goes out the window and if you don’t perform the exact action, you will be lying in the dirt, or worse. Know that these techniques are not only understandable, but do-able by you. Yes you! I’m motivated to motivate you due to what I’ve seen working at Freddie’s school and now the Champ school…
I’m telling you this: If you can smoothly, gently pick-up your front brake lever and load the tire, you can brake at any lean angle on and FZ1. Why? Because our footpegs drag before our tires lose grip when things are warm and dry. It might be only 3 points, but missing the bus bumper by a foot is still missing the bumper! If it’s raining, you simply take these same actions and reduce them…you can still mix lean angle and brake pressure, but with considerably less of each. Rainy and cold? Lower still, but still combine-able.
5)So you’re into a right-hand corner and you must stop your bike for whatever reason. You close the throttle and sneak on the brakes lightly, balancing lean angle points against brake points. As you slow down, your radius continues to tighten. You don’t want to run off the inside of the corner, so you take away lean angle. What can you do with the brakes when you take away lean angle? Yes! Squeeze more. Stay with it and you will stop your bike mid-corner completely upright. No drama. But don’t just believe me…go prove it to yourself.
6)Let’s examine the final sentence in the italicized quote. The best thing to do before taking a corner is to grind the thought “I’m going to turn this corner” into your mind.
No, that’s not the best thing. It’s not the worst thing and I’m all for positive thinking, but we all need to see the difference between riding advice and riding techniques. This advice works until you enter a corner truly beyond your mental, physical or mechanical limits. I would change this to: The best thing to do before taking a corner is to scan with your eyes, use your brakes until you’re happy with your speed and direction, sneak open your throttle to maintain your chosen speed and radius, don’t accelerate until you can see your exit and can take away lean angle.
7)Do you think I’m being over-dramatic by claiming this will save our sport? Are we crashing because we’re going too slowly in the corners or too fast? Yes, too fast. What component reduces speed? Brakes. What component calms your brain? Brakes. What component, when massaged skillfully, helps the bike turn? Brakes. If riders are being told that they can’t use the brakes at lean angle, you begin to see the reason for my drama level. When I have a new rider in my life, my third priority is to have them, “Turn into the corner with the brake-light on.”
I’ve said it before: This is the only bike forum I’m a member of. I like it, I like the peeps, I like the info, I love the bike. Could we begin to change the information we pass along regarding brakes and lean angle? Could we control our sport by actually controlling our motorcycles? If we don’t control our sport, someone else will try. Closed throttle, no brakes is “out of the controls”. Get out there and master the brakes.
Thanks, I feel better.
Nick Ienatsch
Yamaha Champions Riding School
Fastersafer.com
posted here
Nick posted this on FS.com and I can’t emphasis how important this topic is. The example below came directly from a forum on riding…
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Imperfect Practice: The Wrong Control at the Wrong Time…Crash.
The forum entry below appeared on a riding school’s forum page (not YCRS) and was sent to me by a friend. Please read it through and then continue down the page for my comments and our lessons. *An important note: We never laugh at or make fun of another’s crash, but we certainly can learn from them. Secondly, this rider had good gear on and that’s fantastic.
The forum entry:
“Rode dirt bikes for 10 years and went down about 7 or 8 times in those 10 years. But this was my first time [crash] on a street bike in the one year I been riding and it’s definitely much different.
I have analyzed what I might have done [wrong] over and over again. I narrowed it down to early entry, too much speed and target fixation in that exact order. Everything I learned at the school on what not to do, I did. One thing I did not do, which I been training myself not to do after reading XXXX [Not Sport Riding Techniques or fastersafer.com] and watching the video is to not chop the throttle in the turn. I stayed on the throttle until about 2 seconds of running wide and into the ditch where I crashed. Here is a few pics of the turn. I crashed riding up the hill not down. My bike is facing the opposite way because I came back down the hill to take pics. I took a panorama pic and a couple of regular ones. I thought I have been doing much better, I started teaching myself body position in the turns and decided to run a little hotter than usual yesterday. I am very humbled right now.”
Let’s examine:
1- “I narrowed it down to early entry, too much speed and target fixation in that exact order.”
For members who have soaked in the articles and videos of fs.com, you realize that radius=MPH, so if you have an early or low entry, you’ve got to bring your mph down, all things being equal (like lean angle). The best way to bring your mph down is with the brakes, so you use them earlier, harder and further into the corner when you notice your entry is early/low. You might trail the brakes all the way into the corner or ‘until you’re happy with your speed and direction’. And think of one more lesson from this site: An ‘early’ entry might actually be traced back to turning your bike ‘too quickly’, adding lean angle too quickly, too suddenly…flicking, throwing, tossing.
Target fixation is certainly a tough one, especially when you’re rushing into a corner beyond your comfort level. One thing you’ll read on this site is: ‘Target fixation is good when you pick the right target!’ The ‘right target’ is the apex of the corner when entering, so constantly train yourself to look into the corner.
2- “One thing I did not do, which I been training myself not to do after reading XXXX and watching the video is to not chop the throttle in the turn. I stayed on the throttle until about 2 seconds of running wide and into the ditch where I crashed.”
Now we are at the heart of the matter, the place where bad practice in low-pressure situations completely falls apart as ‘the pace is up or the grip is down’. The rider had been training himself to never close the throttle in a corner…but fs.com members have been asked to get in a parking lot and run circles to experiment with Radius=MPH and how on- and off-throttle effects steering geometry. Um…you’ve done that, right? Had this rider experimented in the parking lot, he would know that opening the throttle extends the forks, increases speed, and the bike will run wider. Increasing throttle opens the radius. Closed throttle tightens the radius. Steady throttle holds the radius. This rider had taken-for-gospel what he had heard at a school and on a video and read in a book, and it hurt him when he entered too low and too fast. There’s some real crap being taught out there and that’s what prompted Ken and me to start this site and lead the Yamaha Champions Riding School.
3- “…and decided to run a little hotter than usual yesterday.” Yes, that’s what we A-personality motorcycle lovers are going to do! We’re going to push occasionally. And as we push, we’ve got to scan our eyes back and forth sooner and more frequently. We’ve got to mumble in our helmets, ‘More speed, more brakes.’ We’ve got to go hyper on our focus levels, ‘focusing relentlessly’. We’ve got to know that rushing the entry of a corner is one of the five reasons we crash, and that ‘corner entries serve to get the bike ready to exit’.
4- “I am very humbled right now.” Humility in motorcyclists…always good. I penned a story back in the Sport Rider magazine days: Kick-Ass, Ass-Kicked Syndrome. It came from my experiences with fantastic highs leading to overconfidence and a severe bringing-down in this two-wheeled world. If you’re doing well and having a great time…celebrate that, but don’t let your focus and concentration drop. Ever. Kick ass and keep kicking ass.
5-The Corner…an uphill 180.
If you attended our IMS presentations, you heard Ken tell the audience, “Everything being taught in new-rider schools is for a 90-degree corner. Are all corners 90-degrees?” In a 90-degree corner, you can pick up the throttle early because the bike is in and out. This rider picked up the throttle early…the bike began to run wide (or at least hold its radius)…but that didn’t match the corner!
Ken will go on to say, “You want techniques that match the corner, not just hope the corner matches your techniques.” So…members…when do you accelerate? ‘When you can see the exit and take away lean angle.’
Ken and I hesitate to jump in during crash discussions at the risk of sounding like ‘know it alls’…but this site is different. You are here because of your desire to improve your riding…and we’re here to tell you that this sport is within your grasp, but certain non-negotiable aspects must be right. The faster you go, the more this site’s information counts.
Last thought: Remember the ‘Crusade’ button on the front page of fastersafer.com? Our Crusade to improve rider training is stronger than ever and is about to take a huge step as we announce YCRS at New Jersey Motorsports Park in 2014. Riders are being taught complete rubbish from people who are just ‘making a living teaching motorcycle riding’. Ken and I want to make a living, but more importantly: We want to save and grow our sport. Keeping riders alive and healthy does wonders for bike sales.
If this real-world example had happened in a right-hand corner with traffic coming, the rider would be dead. The rider didn’t need more miles or more laps or a better bike…he needed the Champions Habits you are learning here.
-Nick Ienatsch
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