Friday, May 29, 2009

Countersteering - Leaning to Turn

As I explained in my previous entry, the biggest misunderstanding about how to steer a motorcycle is a result of how we first learn to ride two-wheeled vehicles...at very slow speeds.

The art of balancing a motorcycle or any two-wheeled vehicle involves steering so that the wheels stay under the bike. At low speeds, (on a bicycle, for example) the rider is constantly steering in the direction that the bicycle is leaning, to prevent the bike from falling over.

There's nothing WRONG with this...that's exactly what a rider should be doing. The problem is that the rider doesn't realize how the turn was initiated in the first place. They assume that because they are steering in the direction that the bike is turning that it's their steering motion that causes the bike to turn. This is a half-truth at best.

Now this usually isn't a problem for most bicycle riders. At bicycle speeds, most people learn subconsciously that to steer the bike, it has to be leaned over first to initiate the steering motion. But the rider not realizing this consciously comes back to bite them when they move to a faster vehicle, such as a motorcycle.


Steering a Car - The Stability of Two Wheel-Tracks

In the previous post, I talked a little bit about the difference between cars and bikes. Now I'm going to talk a little more about those differences, specifically how a car steers differently from a bike.

Cars and bikes are both affected by Newton's First Law of Motion - mass going in a straight line wants to keep going in a straight line. Turning is "unnatural" for anything and requires force.

When you turn the wheels of your car, it's the force of the tires tracking to one side that pulls the rest of the vehicle (and its passenger) through a turn. When you turn your car hard to the right, for example, as the wheels start to track to the right, you will feel the rest of the car wanting to keep going straight. This manifests itself as the body of the car rolling to the outside. You feel it in your body as well, as a hard right turn will have you pressed against your driver-side door. (or the center-console, for those who drive in left-laned countries)

Think about what would happen if you tried to turn sharply at speed in a top-heavy box truck or van. As the tires turn one way, the body of the vehicle could actually ROLL the other way, tilting to the outside of the turn and eventually capsizing. (I almost did this with mom's minivan when learning to drive)

This is why sporty cars are designed low to the ground with wide wheelbases. When a vehicle has two wheel-tracks, one opposes the tendency of the other to lean to the outside when turning. The inside two wheels can't tilt to the outside because the outside wheels are bracing them. The outside wheels cannot tilt because the inside wheels are weighing them down.

So the inside wheel-track and outside wheel-track actually cancel each other out and prevent the car from tilting over as the wheels move in the direction they're turned. The chassis, being connected to the wheels, is dragged through the turn by sheer cornering force. This act of the inside and outside tires fighting each other results in the pronounced howling you hear when a 4-wheeled vehicle negotiates a hard corner.

Steering a Motorcycle - The Consequences of One Wheel-Track

When you steer a motorcycle, the process is different. There is no opposing track of wheels to stabilize a motorcycle. That means that when the front wheel starts to turn in one direction, the rest of the bike wants to continue in a straight line. Now there's no second set of wheels to help prevent this tilting motion and drag the rest of the bike through the turn like the car.

This means that when the front wheel of a motorcycle is turned, the wheels actually steer out from under the motorcycle. The bottom half of the bike goes in the direction that the wheels were steered, while the top half of the bike tries to keep going straight. The result is that the motorcycle leans.

For example, if you're moving at a decent clip on a motorcycle and you turn your handlebars to the right, the tires will steer out from under you to the right. Gravity starts to pull the top half of your bike downward, now that your wheels are out from under you. The end result is that the motorcycle will lean to the left.

"The Bike is Fighting Me!"

When an untrained motorcyclist tries to turn at speed for the first time, he will often complain about the motorcycle "fighting" against his turning motion. This is because when the motorcycle is moving at speed, the untrained rider will try to initiate a turn by turning the bars in the direction he wants to go.

What happens when he does this is that the tires of the bike instantly steer out from under the rider in the direction that the bars were turned, causing the bike to make a sudden tilt in the opposite direction. This actually ends up steering the bike in that opposite direction...but more on that later. The typical rider usually gets scared as soon as he feels that unfamiliar tilt and immediately straightens the bars. The result is that he thinks that the machine is "fighting him" for control.

I first experienced this on a 90cc scooter that my uncle had bought to get around-town prior to purchasing his Harley-Davidson. I had taken it out for a spin not even having ridden a bicycle in several years. I was doing all-right until I drifted slightly wide and ended up headed for a parked car. I tried to steer quickly to the left, but the result was that the scooter leaned to the right and directed me even closer to a certain crash. (I managed to brake before I hit the parked car, but it scared me enough to where I knew I didn't know what I was doing!!)

The Simple Truth - Bikes Cannot Be Steered Like Cars

The bottom line is this: a motorcycle can't be steered like a car. Unless you want to put training wheels on your motorcycle, or you have both feet on the ground and are walking the bike around the garage, a motorcycle doesn't have the static balance a car does and cannot be turned by steering in the direction that you want to go.

The result of steering a bike in the direction you want to go is that the bike will lean in the opposite direction as your wheels steer out from under you.

This is a good thing for two reasons. The first is that this steering of the wheels independent of the mass of the bike is what allows your bike to stabilize itself at speed. Again, the previous article goes over the physics of the front wheel and how the front wheel keeps your bike upright by constantly steering in the direction the bike is leaned.

The second reason that this is a good thing is that by steering the wheels out from under you and back, you can use the handlebars to control the lean of the motorcycle.

How to REALLY Steer a Motorcycle

Now that the first two "Countersteering" articles have laid the groundwork for understanding how a motorcycle steers, the next "Countersteering" article can finally explain how to turn a motorcycle, hopefully in a way that the average rider can understand.

The short explanation, though, can be summed up like this:

1 - Motorcycles cannot be steered like cars...they will lean in the opposite direction.
2 - Given #1, motorcycle handlebars can't steer the motorcycle, only control its lean.
3 - Given #1 and #2, the only way to steer a motorcycle is by controlling its lean.

More later.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Countersteering - Stability Explained

Being raised and trained on cars and trucks, we sometimes take stability for granted.

If you're in your car and you come to a stop on a level piece of land, shut off the engine, and get out of the car, your car stays where you put it. Do the same thing with a motorcycle and it will immediately fall over to one side. (which is why motorcycles come with sidestands)

Statically speaking, bikes have no upright static stability. For a bike to be statically stable, you need at least three points of contact on the ground to prevent gravity from pulling the bike to the ground. That's why we slap training-wheels on our childrens' bicycles. When they first jump on, they're too nervous to get the bicycle moving at any speed, so we add a point of contact to keep the bike upright until they learn to ride.

The strangest thing happens, though, as we get the motorcycle moving. Once the bike gets up to a certain speed, it seems to stand upright on its own, without any input from the rider. In fact, we have to TRY to get the bike to fall over now.

While it's true that a two-wheeled vehicle has no static stability, as it gets moving, it acquires dynamic stability.


The Front Wheel - A Dynamic Stability Engine

I like to call a motorcycle's front wheel its "dynamic stability engine". It's the physics of the front wheel that stabilize a motorcycle once it gets moving. In fact, your motorcycle is constantly trying to "fall over", even when moving. It's the small corrections of the front wheel that prevent it from doing so.

The simplest way to explain this is that as the bike tries to fall over to one side, the physics of the bike's front end cause the front wheel to turn in the direction of the fall, essentially steering your wheels back under you.

This is happening all the time when you're riding in (what you think is) a straight line. The bike is actually performing a very mild weave, constantly correcting to keep the motorcycle stable and moving relatively straight.


A Little More on the Physics

Two elements are responsible for most of the front wheel's propensity to steer the motorcycle's wheels back underneath it. I'm not going to go too much into the physics, since talking too much about them seems to confuse more people than it enlightens.

The first has to do with the rake and trail of the front forks. The forks of a motorcycle are never straight up-and-down. Rather, they are angled forward. When a motorcycle's wheel starts to tilt to one side (i.e. the bike starts to fall over), the weight of the bike pushes down on its front end. Because of the shape of the tire, this pushing force causes the tire to turn in slightly so the motorcycle "settles" on a different part of the tire.

The second has to do with the spinning motion of the wheel. If you hold a spinning bicycle wheel by the axle and try to tilt it to one side, you'll feel the wheel wanting to turn in the direction it's being tilted. This is called gyroscopic precession. If you've ever sent some loose change rolling, you'll notice that as it loses momentum, when it falls over, it turns in the direction it's falling, causing it to roll in a tight circle. The concept is the same for motorcycles. As the bike falls over, the force of gravity pulling the front wheel over generates a 90-degree offset force that makes the wheel steer into the turn.

Fast vs. Slow Speeds

So basically, a motorcycle is dynamically stable because the physics of the front wheel cause it to turn in the direction that the motorcycle falls, essentially "keeping your wheels underneath you".

At faster speeds, this provides enough stability that you can essentially cruise down the street without your hands on the handlebars. (except to give the bike gas to keep it moving) At slower speeds, however, you may notice that the bike is more likely to fall over. That's because your "dynamic stability engine", your front wheel, is no longer moving fast enough to provide a positive steering action or gyroscopic force.

What a lot of riders do to make up for this loss of stability is to turn the bars in the direction that the bike is falling. Essentially, when their "dynamic stability engine" is not running at full-steam, they take over its responsibilities manually. If you've ever watch children ride a bicycle at slow speed, this motion is obvious to spot.

Here's the problem...most people who learn to ride a bicycle, motorcycle, or other tandem 2-wheeled vehicle learn to ride at slow speeds before they ride faster. Because of this, they start believing that the motion that they're doing with the front wheel to help balance the bike is a steering motion, rather than a balancing one.

So many of them arrive at a mistaken idea that they are turning the bike by steering into the turn. And if they never understand what's going on, this can lead to trouble later on, when they need to steer the machine quickly at high-speed.

to be continued...

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Fashion Statement

I've noticed an encouraging trend. So far this year, I've seen relatively few squiddies riding around in flapping T-shirts. All the sportbike riders I've seen so far have been geared up in riding jackets.

Only a few years ago, riding gear was considered somewhat "uncool" by the masses. Literally. Most of the options out there were leather jackets and once summer rolled around, riders just couldn't get comfortable. With the advent of textiles and mesh jackets, I think the attitude is starting to change.

It's even become a bit of a fashion statement. As I mentioned in my post about selling bikes, many people are now buying jackets specifically to match their bikes and their wild paint schemes. A friend of mine bought an orange tribal-flame CBR600RR about the same time I got my new bike. The seller threw in an orange-and-black jacket that matches the bike perfectly.

It's a good thing. Road rash is a real pain and my jacket has saved my arms and back plenty of times. Even if people are wearing the jacket just to "look cool", at least they're wearing it.

Now if riders would only give up riding in loafers or tennis shoes. Some at least have the sense to put on a good pair of Timberland work boots. Work boots offer a minimum of protection, but aren't really going to protect you from snapping an ankle like a good pair of race-boots would.

Riding apparel companies need to start being more sensitive to the look of their riding boots and offer something that doesn't have styling ripped off from an old MegaMan game.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Ten Days of Rain Finally Ends

That's Baltimore for you...it only rains when you want to go outside. After ten solid days of rain, we finally got a break this weekend.

They actually changed the forecast on me...it was supposed to thunderstorm all day, so I stayed up late Friday and slept in. Saturday morning, I wake up at 10AM and there isn't a cloud in the sky.

After running some errands, I went up to the Squid Tank and saddled up my R1 for her first ride since the oil change. I still short-shift the hell out of it, though...I don't need all that power where I'm riding.

Checking Out your Driving Skills

The hardest thing to do when riding on the street, and what's driving me more and more toward some days at the racetrack, is getting a good pass down one of these local roads without running up into the back of a stack of cars.

There's always that old guy in the Buick who is going for a weekend cruise and really has nowhere to be. That must be a nice life, but they don't take into account that other people are on the road.

They must think I'm weird...I'll back off the gas and start putting along at a startling 20MPH down the road, giving them plenty of time to get ahead of me...then when I have two or three cars stacked up behind ME, as I come up on a nice set of corners, I take off and am right back up in Grampa's rear-view again in no time. Then I disappear again...30 seconds later, there I am.

The other thing I like to do is cruise along behind drivers and evaluate their driving skills.

The biggest thing I watch is where they're using the brakes. The better drivers will get their braking done early. The clueless ones grind 'em on halfway through the turn when they suddenly realize that things are tighter than they had distractedly anticipated.

As far as "lines" through a corner, it's hard to tell with a car. With bikes it's a little easier. I was behind a cruiser the other day and didn't feel like making an enemy by trying to pass him, so I sat behind him and watched. Maybe he was going slow because he had his girl on the back, but damned if he wasn't taking some good line through the turns...lines that showed he not only knew the road, but had an intimate knowledge of the corners he was riding.

Double Yellows

One thing I've gotten into the bad habit of doing is apexing turns very close to the lines. Now this is great for right-handers as long as you've got good pavement all the way to the white. The yellows are another story. If you put your wheel a couple inches from the yellow, chances are your helmet's hanging over into the oncoming lane. Also, you never know when a driver coming the other way is gonna be a little wide.

I had a scary corner Saturday...blind left-hander. Just as I was turning into it, I saw a line of oncoming vehicles, so I widened my line a little to let the first one past and then tightened up. Problem was the turn was straightening out already, so I ran right up on the yellows. I was kind of embarassed, because the next truck in line felt that he had to jink out of my way. I'm pretty sure I would've cleared him just fine, but the idea that I was close enough that he felt like he had to move...I don't want anyone else to have to do that. I shouldn't. So I guess I need to keep some more space from the yellows on those left-handers.

Man in the Stone House

I feel bad for the poor guy in the stone house right on the best corner on my favorite road. Apparently, there are enough people doing "spirited" riding on that road that he's taken a dislike to us sport-bikers. He flipped off my buddy Chris the other day, and Chris was stuck between a couple of those aforementioned Buick drivers, so he wasn't even "hauling ass". I've also heard that he was out watering his garden when a couple of bikes came by and they almost got a spray from the garden-hose.

That's one of the reasons I don't have any intention of getting an aftermarket exhaust. With 180-or-so horsepower, the R1 doesn't need any help. They say "loud pipes save lives", but I think that's just an excuse. All they do is piss people off.

I imagine I'd get upset after a week or two if bikes with modified pipes (cruisers too, not just the sportbikes) were constantly roaring by my house. It's a beautiful house, too...a nice stone house back in the woods just off the creek. I've often said I'd love to own that house. But it's RIGHT on the road. I guess if you're gonna live there, you have to put up with some noise.

I don't think he's enough of an asshole to "accidentally" drop some gravel out front, but I'm gonna sight that corner out before I get frisky in it from now on. I thought about giving the guy a fruit-basket or some Ravens tix or something just to see if I can change his attitude.

That IS the best corner in that series, though. I can't deny myself a run at it as long as it's clean. I can be patient and take my time through any other turn on that road, but that one I just MUST have.

...and the Rest

Roy got his bike back on Tuesday. We dragged it home in the back of his Dodge in the driving rain. He's scared to death of it now. He lost the front wheel braking too hard at like 10MPH over some slick pavement and now he thinks the brakes are going to kill him. Just as well...too much brake is a dangerous mistake. But it seems like he can't find a happy medium of respect for the bike. Either he feels like he has to dominate it, or he has to live in fear of it.

He and Chris went out for a night ride a little while after I got in. I don't like the idea of riding the R1 at night, when I can't see the road. I've been thinking about buying an FZ6 for night-rides, cruising, and long trips.

Don't get me wrong. I'm comfortable on the R1, but only when I'm moving...hanging off the bike or tucking and putting on speed. Cruising on a sportbike is an exercise in patience...I don't know why all these urban riders do it. Maybe they're small enough to where they're comfortable. If I'm gonna go for a long cruise though, Skyline Drive or something, I'm not doing it on an R1. Balls to that.

I'm trying to get Chris to do a track-day. (I know Roy isn't going to do one until he stops having his hyperbolic attitude toward his bike)

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Don't Be an Ass when you Sell your Bike

I've been poking around the last day or two, looking for a second bike. Possibly a 600 supersport that I can use as a "backup", track mule, or just for a change of pace. Possibly a sport-tourer.

What I've noticed is that many people are delusional when selling their bikes. I've noticed a couple of patterns cropping up. Patterns that make the seller look like a total ass. Here's a few tips for you if you're going to sell your bike.

Bikes Depreciate

Not even dealers can sell a bike for MSRP, except to a new rider who doesn't know any better. That means you're not gonna be able to sell yours for $500 less than you bought it for.

Motorcycles drop in value about $1000-$2000 as soon as you drive them off the lot. They're not vehicles, they're toys. People are willing to pay a premium for buying new because they know no one else has played with their toy yet.

It's OK to ask a pretty penny, but be willing to compromise. If you stick to a price that's too high, don't be surprised if no one answers your listing...or if the people who do try to talk you down, despite your ad saying, "FIRM!!"

Performance Modifications Don't Increase the Bike's Value

Again, modifications to a bike are a sunk cost at best. Too many people try to recoup the value of their bike mods. The changes you made to that bike generally aren't worth anything to anyone but you.

Sometimes they can even warn a potential buyer off. If you have a full exhaust and ECU programmer, chances are you ride that bike HARD. Got a -1 front/+2 rear sprocket set? You've been doing lots of wheelies. New engine case covers and fairings? You've crashed it.

Even if all your modifications are tasteful, a potential buyer sees this kind of thing and knows that an amateur has probably been turning wrenches on this bike. Did you use the proper torque specs for everything? Don't know. Is it worth the hassle?

Unless your potential buyer is looking for a race-bike and you have a nice set of Ohlins forks and Marchesini wheels, you're not getting anything for your mods.

No One Wants your Sweaty Gear

My biggest pet peeve when shopping for a used bike is the number of people who think that "throwing in" a helmet or a jacket is worth anything to a potential buyer.

Let's get one thing straight first of all...no one "throws in" anything. If you're offering to give away your helmet and gloves to the buyer of your bike "free", it's not really "free", you've just used that as an excuse to jack up the price of the bike.

So you're not doing me a favor by throwing in gear. I'd be doing YOU a favor by taking that stuff off of your hands. Gear is disposable. You'd be better off trying to scalp it on eBay than throwing it in with your bike...the truth is that you don't care to waste effort selling it, but you think you can throw it in with the bike and get a little extra money. Don't advertise it as "$1,000 worth of extras" when what you really means is, "If you pay me $750 more for this bike, I'll let you take my garbage with you".

Helmets are the most disposable item out there. A buyer doesn't want a helmet that your sweaty, dandruffy head has been inside of...that's just nasty. Not to mention that he doesn't know how you treated that helmet. Did you drop it? Did you bump your head in it? Is the EPS liner still good? It's a safety hazard to buy a used helmet.

Another thing most people forget is that their gear is not going to fit at least 4 out of 5 people who come to look at their bike. Even if the jacket matches the bike, if the buyer can't cram himself into it, then it's a no-sale.

Please...keep your gear. Sell it on eBay. But don't act like you can make more money on a "package deal". Most people just want the bike.


That's all for now. If I keep looking and find any more bike-selling ass-moves, I'll post up.

Monday, May 4, 2009

What did I do wrong? What DIDNT I do wrong??

The following is something I posted on an Internet forum following my accident at Deals Gap last year, where I totalled the R1 you see me on in the title image of this blog. Hopefully you'll take something from it.

Everyone who rides long enough will eventually have a "get-off" (the term used by motorcyclists too superstitious to say "accident" or "crash"). When that day comes, riders will inevitably sit home that evening and ask themselves the common question: "What did I do wrong?"

Such is the case with my latest get-off. I slid my R1 into the dirt on US 129, the infamous "Dragon", just below Deals Gap. The bike is borderline-totalled, and as I wait for the word from my "good neighbors" at StateFarm, I've been asking myself constantly what I did wrong to cause this accident.

As I think about it, the question becomes more like, "What DIDN'T I do wrong??" The Chernobyl-esque series of mistakes leading up to the accident incorporates about every mistake one could make in that situation. One of these factors alone may have caused me to slow down and take it easy. A couple may have induced a panic but could have been saveable. But with all of these mistakes together, I was WAY overdrawn and was doomed to end up in the side of the mountain.

So let's have a look at what I did wrong. Hopefully, other riders can use this as a guide for what NOT to do.

1) RIDING IN THE WRONG PHYSICAL/MENTAL STATE

We had been riding up and down through the Dragon all day. Riding HARD. I had been trying to incorporate a lot of the things that the faster riders had been trying to teach me. On my last run down, though, everything finally "connected". I felt the so-called "rhythm" of the ride and found myself moving smoothly from corner to corner at speeds I had been afraid of only yesterday. I had found "the zone" and had the best ride of the day.When we stopped at Deals Gap, I could tell that being in "the zone" had taken its toll. After that ride, my entire body felt like Jell-o. I was giddy, the adrenaline surging through my veins. We sat down and took a 15 minute break, then decided to head home. I knew I was beat. But instead of just putting home like I SHOULD have, I decided to challenge the road again, not wanting to "waste" the rhythm I had found. Unfortunately, that rhythm had already left me and I was completely exhausted. When I tried to force myself back into that rhythm, my mind and body just shut down on me. I'm almost certain that riding in this state led to all the other errors I committed leading up to this get-off.

2) NOT KNOWING THE ROAD

We had been riding Deals Gap for four days now. We had made numerous passes along the stretch of 129 between the Gap and the Overlook. By now I was starting to develop a rudimentary recognition of the area. I had a feel for what each corner was going to look like and what was "coming next" through each of them.The problem is that the Dragon extends for about a mile and a half both above the Overlook and below the Gap. We had come to the Dragon mostly from the north and only came down past the Gap twice in our time there, both times to head home and at a much slower pace. Had I known that the right-hander I was coming out of was the first half of a switchback, I probably wouldn't have gassed it as much exiting, which would've given me more time to react. But I was...

3) TRYING TO FOLLOW A FASTER RIDER, INSTEAD OF THE ROAD

The "fast guy" was leading the way home. I knew that normally there was no way I could hold with him, and hadn't tried to chase him for the whole trip. This time, though, I knew he was riding off-pace, and with the adrenaline running, I was anxious to challenge myself to keep up with him. I actually DID keep up with him through the first few corners.Even at a reduced pace, though, I wasn't at the skill level or in the mental state to be following his lines through the corner. I should've rode my ow ride, selected my own line, but instead I fixated on him until he just "disappeared" into the corner. By the time I looked through the corner (like I should've been doing from the beginning), I had no time to develop a site-picture. This was probably compounded by....

4) FAILING TO ADJUST TO THE ENVIRONMENT

When coming to help me with my bike, one of my fellow riders almost ran off the road in the same place I did. It wasn't a hard turn, and this guy was on a cruiser taking his time. The problem was that the sun had shifted so that the line of shade from the trees was right at the corner entrance, causing him to lose vision just for a split second. This, combined with target fixation, was surely enough to throw me off, in my fatigued mental state and adrenaline-fueled keep-up mindset. He, of course, made it through the turn, because he wasn't....

5) TRYING TO USE GAS TO COMPENSATE FOR SKILL

Yeah, I got caught with that one as well. Less-skilled riders (read: me) have a tendency to brake HARD before the turn, then flick the bike over quick and get HARD on the gas after the turn to pick up speed. Since I didn't know the road, I was probably winding on pretty hard to keep behind the lead bike out of the right hander, forcing me to carry way too much speed into the left-hander. And of course the R1, with its 1000cc engine, is only too happy to give me the gas I asked for. This extra speed led me into the big mistake of....

6) BRAKING HARD THROUGH THE TURN

I had been practicing light "trail-braking" that day, since I discovered it would let me carry more speed into the corner. I was being extra-careful earlier in the day to make sure I was out of the brakes before I reached any significant lean-angle and definitely before I reached the corner apex. And it WAS working...I was carrying more speed making a smooth transition from brake to gas instead of relying on the bike's abundance of torque to clear the corner.The reason it bit me here is that I was physically and psychologically drained. I'm not completely certain, but I'm very suspicious that when I came hot into the left-hander, I attempted to scrub off the speed and didn't have the presence of mind to release the front brake as I leaned the bike. I noticed the bike simply FALLING OVER, instead of leaning in as it had in previous corners all day. My best guess is that the front wheel tucked under heavy braking. All this is a result of...

7) INSUFFICIENT OR POORLY FOCUSED ATTENTION

Even now, I can't get a clear picture of what happened. I remember seeing the lead rider get off the bike and disappear into the curve...then my sight picture goes blank. I remember the bike falling over, then I remember tucking and relaxing so I didn't break any bones. If I had focused my attention through the turn, I probably could have cleared that corner. I didn't know WHERE I was going. I fixated on the lead rider. Everyone knows this is a bad idea, since if that rider goes off, you're likely to follow him. Well this time, the rider in front cleared the corner with ease. But as a result, as soon as he disappeared into that corner, I was completely lost. I should've been looking through the turn. What I should NOT have been doing was...

8) TRYING TO TEST LIMITS ON A PUBLIC ROAD

The guys I was riding with, they've been riding for 20+ years. They've done multiple track days, and the pace that I think is "fast" that they run, they run with relative ease.On the street is no place to be trying to run with track-bred riders. They don't ride FAST, they ride SMOOTH, and speed comes naturally. Yes, they preach the "ride your own ride" line and are always fine with waiting at the next gas-stop, but my ego wouldn't let me take advantage of that generosity. I wanted to be with the pack, and that kind of mentality, especially on a public road, is a recipe for disaster.

The result of this day was that my 2007 R1 was totalled. It wasn't actually even beat up that bad. If your frame is scratched in an accident, though, the bike shop typically estimates what it'd take to take everything off of your old frame and put it on a new one. Labor for that usually totals the bike. (And you thought it was the plastics that were expensive!)

I took the rest of the season off. It gave me some time to think. So far, I seem to be learning my lessons well. The same group of riders is travelling to the Dragon again this May, but I'm not going with them this year. I'd rather wait for a track-day.