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Shawn
5th April 2004, 15:03
:Oi: please arrange another ride. this satarday , even better Sunday (11-.4-04) ...PLS :2thumbsup

Motoracer
5th April 2004, 16:16
Hi Shaun (or do you spell it like "Sean"?)

Anyway, I am going for a quick ride through the Waitakere ranges on Saturday afternoon. If you haven't got someone else to go on a ride with somewhere else, you are more than welcome to join me. I will be on my ol TZR 250 this time. others are welcome to join but its not going to be a proper fancy ride, just a quick blat through the bush (approx 150-200kms). If not, I like going solo aswell so either way its cool :cool:

MR

Shawn
5th April 2004, 16:18
when exactly on Satarday??...I have to work from 6...otherwise I would absolutely love to

and it's Shawn :msn-wink:

Motoracer
5th April 2004, 16:27
I'll be ready to blast off at 15:00 hrs, we can be back by 17:00 hrs if we go for the approx 150km ride. That should leave you enough time to get back to work. I'll PM you to arrange for details. Again, if someone else comes up with a better ride, you are welcome to change your mind anytime. Its just that, I only have that time frame to work with this weekend.

Ciao :bye:

Shawn
5th April 2004, 16:32
yeap, sure...where is the meeting place?..u can text me too: 0274600700

erik
8th April 2004, 16:34
Anyway, I am going for a quick ride through the Waitakere ranges on Saturday afternoon. If you haven't got someone else to go on a ride with somewhere else, you are more than welcome to join me. I will be on my ol TZR 250 this time. others are welcome to join but its not going to be a proper fancy ride, just a quick blat through the bush (approx 150-200kms). If not, I like going solo aswell so either way its cool :cool:

MR

what roads are you going to be taking, motoracer?

Two Smoker
8th April 2004, 18:51
ofcouse this ride gets organised when i have a day off and when my bike has just gone into the shop:brick: :angry2:

Have a great time guys and dont crash like i did........:whistle:

6Chris6
8th April 2004, 20:55
:Oi: please arrange another ride. this satarday , even better Sunday (11-.4-04) ...PLS :2thumbsup
I'll be up for a ride if you guys want some more company. And i think Eric's keen to :ride:

What about tommorro to (friday)? Anyone up for it?

Motoracer
8th April 2004, 21:48
Oh crap, I completly forgot. As I was backing the TZR 250 from the driveway in the morning, it slipped out of my hands :brick:

No damage at all other than it cracked the gasket on the water pump cover. so the coolant leaked out. Thats me buggered for the easter weekend! Sorry guys, I'll try another time.

Oh and the GSXR has no chain and the ZXR is a track only bike and the TS185... well I hardly call it a motorcycle. Bro is away for the weekend but his bike has crapped out as well so can't even borrow that. I have 5 bikes in the garage right now and I can't use any of them on the road. :eek5:

But I am really happy cause this gives me an excuse to finally save some money!

erik
9th April 2004, 12:55
Aww man, that's bad luck, motoracer.

But it is kinda funny that you've got so many bikes and none of them available to ride on the road :rolleyes: ;)

Shawn
9th April 2004, 19:09
Hey Chris,
As we talked on the phone...tomorrow on 10:30 from Titarangi

6Chris6
9th April 2004, 19:13
Hey Chris,
As we talked on the phone...tomorrow on 10:30 from Titarangi

Yeah bud, there's a cafe on the left called hardware cafe it has carpark behind will be there at 10.30

erik
9th April 2004, 20:08
See you guys there :)

6Chris6
10th April 2004, 17:40
Well........
It started out well enough, 5 KB'ers meet in Titarangi for a nice ride out West, the plan being to ride up scenic drive to Bethells, through Kumeu to Waimauku around the back onto old north road and on to Helensville for lunch.

Unfortunately just past the Piha turnoff one of our number had a little low side experience (saw it all in mirrors) just a little too wide hit loose gravel you know how these go, luckily he dropped bike as it ended up wedged under barrier and seems to have only minor cuts to hands (not wearing gloves :doh: ).
Anyway star of the ride eric rings friends/parents (sorry bud not sure) who drive out to take our mate to A&E and then goes home gets trailer to pick up bike to take back to our mates house :not: Eric :not:
Rest of our crew carry on bit sheepishly.
Crew were Eric, Wonko, Thomas, Speed Demon and myself, and no I'm not gonna say who binned it!
Or anything about those chicken strips... oh er :Oops:

Ranzer
10th April 2004, 19:43
Is it the same bike? The same bin? Would've hoped so eh...

Same bloody corner. Same bike (well, make/model at least).

Not sure exactly, but around 13~14 months ago...

Sad thing is, I was on this ride too (yeah, that's my ZZR on the right, half hidden in the first pic 6Chris6 posted).

Personally I think two things contribute to this weird coincidence...

One - Scenic Drive is horrible. Don't get me wrong, I love riding it - but the moss on the road, the bumpy seal, the roadside gravel that can be hard to see where it starts, all mixed into a string of blind corners... I guess my point is, be very careful until you've been through it a few times and know which parts are likely to catch you out.

Two - as much as I love my bike (and I do), there's something about the way the ZZR 250 handles that (to quote a friend who had been broken in on an FZR 250) "scares the shit out of you". Ok, it's not that bad really, but it does have a certain reluctance to really drop into a corner.
As far as I can make out, it's some combination of that it's fairly heavy for a 250, and your head tends to be pretty high up when you're sitting on it. The head position seems to be the major factor, since if you try to move with the bike your head wags around too much and makes you feel disoriented. My best advise (and amazingly I only figured this out recently, even though I've had the bike about 13~14 months) is to keep your head and even your upper body upright when cornering, and just bank the bike down as low as it needs to go, bending yourself at the waist... I think this style is similar to what's used on dirt bikes? At any rate it seems to make cornering a lot easier/more comfortable on this bike.

Yargh... seems a little long for 2 cents worth, but there it is.

Other than the bin, it was a pretty good ride... but man I'm exhausted now.
Even after riding to and from Auckland Uni for the last 6 weeks, longer rides still seem to hit me hard :disapint:
Oh well, practice practice practice hehehe...

Ranzer

XRNR
10th April 2004, 21:30
Excuses Excuses ...

Your unlucky or lucky, I don't know which !

What happened to the gloves? They come in quite handy when your smoothing out the tarmac with your hands.

You never know when your going to loose it, best to be prepared for it.

Ranzer
10th April 2004, 23:31
Excuses Excuses ...

Your unlucky or lucky, I don't know which !

More explanation than excuse... if you can explain it, you can learn from it - and I'd rather learn from my mistakes and try not to make them again rather than leave my next off entirely to luck. :mellow:

wkid_one
10th April 2004, 23:31
My best advise is to keep your head and even your upper body upright when cornering, and just bank the bike down as low as it needs to go, bending yourself at the waist... I think this style is similar to what's used on dirt bikes? At any rate it seems to make cornering a lot easier/more comfortable on this bike.

Advice I'd avoid like the plaque. You are effectively pushing the bike down under you and removing the directional forces on the tyres and replacing them with lateral ones. If anything - you want to be lent in FURTHER than you bike - hence getting off the seat.....

You tactic will make you ride a wider line than you need to

FROSTY
11th April 2004, 00:07
For me riding scenic drive is a two way affair.Ride up it once checking out the gravel patches then ride back with a bit of pace on.
it seems to be one road that changes every time you ride it

Motoracer
11th April 2004, 09:43
Hey dudes, Sorry I missed the ride. Sad and sorry to hear about the bin too man. You have considered the enviroment and the bike but have you considered the rider as a factor as well? Not meaning to sound nasty or anything but if you think about it, the rider factor is something you can work on and maybe avoid future missfortunes. I am just trying to give helpfull advise so please don't take it the wrong way.

Two Smoker
11th April 2004, 09:59
Yep you definately learn from crashes, from the looks of your chicken strips do you counter steer?? your not winding the bike over very far at all, although it your new riding technique feels better i think it might result in another bin due to what Wkid One said, try getting off the seat :niceone: glad to hear you didnt get majorily hurt and the bike looks pretty fixable (just a lick of paint by the looks of it)

6Chris6
11th April 2004, 10:42
Yep you definately learn from crashes, from the looks of your chicken strips do you counter steer?? your not winding the bike over very far at all, although it your new riding technique feels better i think it might result in another bin due to what Wkid One said, try getting off the seat :niceone: glad to hear you didnt get majorily hurt and the bike looks pretty fixable (just a lick of paint by the looks of it)
It wasn't Ranzer that binned it this time although he did on same corner, same model bike 1 year ago

wkid_one
11th April 2004, 11:01
For me riding scenic drive is a two way affair.Ride up it once checking out the gravel patches then ride back with a bit of pace on.
it seems to be one road that changes every time you ride it
Very prudent approach.....

I should have done that on the Rimutakas. Oh - wait - I did ride over it twice that day before binning it. The lesson I learned is the road can change between the first and last time you went over it......regardless of how soon the last time you went over it was.....cars can pick up gravel, drop shit etc etc....make sure you save 10% to evade.

erik
11th April 2004, 11:07
You are effectively pushing the bike down under you and removing the directional forces on the tyres and replacing them with lateral ones.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.
As far as I can tell, all you are doing by keeping your body more upright is moving your centre of mass a bit to the outer side of the bike which means you have to lean the bike over a little further in the corner for a particular speed/cornering force.
Provided you haven't used up all of the bike's available lean angle, I don't understand how there could be any benefit from leaning in further than the bike and getting your knee down.

I took some measurements on my brother's zzr250 to try to figure out what sort of a difference in lean angle it would make shifting your weight to the inside of the corner, or shifting it in the other direction. If I've got things right, then if you can move your centre of mass 250mm to one side or the other (for an 85kg rider on the zzr250), the difference in angle is about 17 degrees. But if you're not leaning over so far that you're scraping the pegs, it doesn't really matter, does it?

FROSTY
11th April 2004, 11:26
To quote an instructor at superbike school (many years ago)
Dont worry about your riding style cos style is all about looks not about going fast.
My go fast mode style is to use HUGE amounts of body english -ie i hang waaay off the bike and pull the bike down onto me. That feels comfortable to me. A mate of mine prefers to keep his bum glued to the seat and lean with the bike. Whos quicker--well my ego demands i say ME but reality we're about evenly matched.
Watch a vid of a gp race and see all the different styles -yet they are all going just as fast.
I'd be more concerned about the lack of gloves issue. I still have scars from an off at pukie over 10 years ago--and i was wearing race gloves too

wkid_one
11th April 2004, 12:36
Just saying - you shouldn't be leaning against your bike....that is not the way road bikes are designed to corner. You should be shifting your CoG further towards the centre of the corner - not away from it. At worst - you should stay perfectly aligned to the rear wheel of the bike - at best - off the inside of the bike.

Leaning the opposite way or staying upright is a life threatening habit that you want to get away from. If you are in the habit of doing this - you response to a threat is to accentuate this and lean further away - which grossly upsets the balance of the bike. A road bike is not like a dirt bike when cornering........believe me - I have fallen off dirties every weekend for the last 2 months trying to ride it like a road bike.

Hanging off the opposite side of the bike it NOT an adviseable way to corner - esp if you want speed. Check the very vids you posted and see how many lean the opposite way to the bike.

Posh Tourer :P
11th April 2004, 13:05
To quote an instructor at superbike school (many years ago)
Dont worry about your riding style cos style is all about looks not about going fast.
My go fast mode style is to use HUGE amounts of body english -ie i hang waaay off the bike and pull the bike down onto me. That feels comfortable to me. A mate of mine prefers to keep his bum glued to the seat and lean with the bike. Whos quicker--well my ego demands i say ME but reality we're about evenly matched.
Watch a vid of a gp race and see all the different styles -yet they are all going just as fast.
I'd be more concerned about the lack of gloves issue. I still have scars from an off at pukie over 10 years ago--and i was wearing race gloves too

Absolutely agree.... why would you risk your hands for the price of $100 for a pair of decent gloves? Its not worth it....
Also, while sitting upright on a bike is ok, dont lean outside.... it'll slow you down. On the plus side, you have plenty of opportunity to lean the bike over less and you more if you suddenly slip..However, leaning the bike less, and therefore getting more grip should be the aim of the game, not keeping your body upright. Having 17 degrees of extra lean should make quite a big difference to your grip stakes when you are a long way over

Ranzer
11th April 2004, 16:52
My best advise ... is to keep your head and even your upper body upright when cornering, and just bank the bike down as low as it needs to go, bending yourself at the waist...

I'm not suggesting this style for racing, or for use on pure sports bikes.

If you're racing then yes you do want to move your CG as far to the inside of the curve as you can to make the most of your bikes lean and traction. But for most of the on-road riding I do I find it much more valuable to keep my head high and level so I can judge the road better, since (feel free to call me a slow rider :p) I don't tend to take corners at speeds which are anywhere near exceeding my bikes traction (especially blind or hard to see through corners). Generally on wide open curves that I can see through I won't use this style as much. Also leaning to the inside of the curve on blind corners tends to make me take wider lines, since I like to keep my head away from on-coming traffic - I can actually take tighter lines with my head up and away from the center line.

Also so far the only road bike (and I've only ridden a couple) I've found this style useful on is the ZZR 250. Sports bikes I've ridden (FZR, CBR) have no trouble cornering if you stay in line with the bike, and the seating style doesn't leave your head feeling like it's too far to the inside when cornering - but the ZZR is a sports-tourer, and in my opinion it just doesn't corner or seat quite like a pure sports bike (if this is due to rider error please let me know :D I'm always keen to improve my riding).

Anyway, sorry for not making this clearer in my first post.

Ranzer

Two Smoker
11th April 2004, 17:53
It wasn't Ranzer that binned it this time although he did on same corner, same model bike 1 year ago
Cheers Chris, yeah that is what i assumed when Ranzar was talking, it was more aimed at the pictures. Hope the owner is alright :niceone:

Posh Tourer :P
11th April 2004, 18:26
I'm not suggesting this style for racing, or for use on pure sports bikes.

If you're racing then yes you do want to move your CG as far to the inside of the curve as you can to make the most of your bikes lean and traction. But for most of the on-road riding I do I find it much more valuable to keep my head high and level so I can judge the road better, since (feel free to call me a slow rider :p) I don't tend to take corners at speeds which are anywhere near exceeding my bikes traction (especially blind or hard to see through corners). Generally on wide open curves that I can see through I won't use this style as much. Also leaning to the inside of the curve on blind corners tends to make me take wider lines, since I like to keep my head away from on-coming traffic - I can actually take tighter lines with my head up and away from the center line.

Also so far the only road bike (and I've only ridden a couple) I've found this style useful on is the ZZR 250. Sports bikes I've ridden (FZR, CBR) have no trouble cornering if you stay in line with the bike, and the seating style doesn't leave your head feeling like it's too far to the inside when cornering - but the ZZR is a sports-tourer, and in my opinion it just doesn't corner or seat quite like a pure sports bike (if this is due to rider error please let me know :D I'm always keen to improve my riding).

Anyway, sorry for not making this clearer in my first post.

Ranzer


Well justified....I think almost everyone tries to keep their eyes level, by bending at the neck. I know I have used your style occasionally on the CB125T, because I didnt feel comfortable hanging off/being in line with a bike that was that much smaller than me :wacko: . It certainly didnt help my cornering speed though. I felt much better when I realised I was doing it, and tried to get used to being in a more conventional pose. I am not trying to get you to change, you obviously understand the reasons behind your choice, and the other options also. Just a point of view....

FROSTY
11th April 2004, 23:22
Just saying - you shouldn't be leaning against your bike....that is not the way road bikes are designed to corner. You should be shifting your CoG further towards the centre of the corner - not away from it. At worst - you should stay perfectly aligned to the rear wheel of the bike - at best - off the inside of the bike.

Leaning the opposite way or staying upright is a life threatening habit that you want to get away from. If you are in the habit of doing this - you response to a threat is to accentuate this and lean further away - which grossly upsets the balance of the bike. A road bike is not like a dirt bike when cornering........believe me - I have fallen off dirties every weekend for the last 2 months trying to ride it like a road bike.

Hanging off the opposite side of the bike it NOT an adviseable way to corner - esp if you want speed. Check the very vids you posted and see how many lean the opposite way to the bike.
Yep I agree with not leaning out of a corner. On the road i couldnt imagine any situation you would want to do that.