Going Wide (warning: rant)

[Ranzer]

Hi all,

I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately, and about all the newbie riders out there, and all the ZZR 250's in bike shops with "L plate friendly" on them...

I want to share some of the experience I've gathered in my relatively short time riding - hopefully it will be helpfull, or if it's incorrect at least I'll be able to replace it with better advice.

Ok, so here goes...

As a fairly inexperienced rider I tend to have difficulty with judging corners, especially with judging the speed I can enter them at. I learned the hard and fast way (the day after I got my bike) how I instinctively react when I enter a corner too fast - that is, by grabbing the front brake. Ok, I guess it seemed logical to my subconscious mind, "We're going too fast, the brake slows us down, grab it," and as I'm new to riding my subconscious mind hasn't yet registered the existence of the rear brake, so I grab the front break.
Provided you don't lock up the front wheel, this might actually have worked on some bikes. On my bike however (and other bikes I'm sure) it makes the bike want to stand up and go in a straight line, taking you even wider than you already were. After that it's only a split second or so before you hit gravel, pavement, barrier, or in the worst case oncoming traffic. I got really lucky and hit gravel.

My bike (but I'm sure it's not the only one this applies to) is a ZZR 250, and as I pointed out above they're sold as being L plate friendly.
Now don't get me wrong, it's my first bike, and I love it dearly, so it pains me to say anything against it, but... that bike is a deathtrap for newbies. The thing is, it looks (to the untrained eye) like a sports bike. It handles... less like a sports bike. I let my newbie friend (at the time an FZR 250 owner) ride it once, when he got off he said he didn't want to ride it again because it scared the shit out of him, said it felt like his head was floating all over the place and it didn't want to turn corners. Ok, so the FZR had probably spoiled him (that thing was just beautiful to ride), but still. The problem is, my bike just doesn't seem to intuitively lend itself to really leaning into a corner and taking it fairly hard. Ok, this shouldn't be a problem for newbies right, they don't corner hard anyway. Well, no, but newbies also don't judge corners very well (not to mention we have so many corners that just tighten up on us anyway), so when they find themselves in a corner that's tighter than they had anticipated if the bike doesn't intuitively lean further in then the next reaction would be to try and slow down, even though the bike probably still had a ton of clearance which just wasn't comfortable to use. And I already discovered what happens with the front break. If you find you have no option but to slow down in a corner, the rear break seems to be a better bet on this bike - there is of course the problem that it causes the back to skid really easily, especially if you're going downhill at all. Even so, I have never scraped the pegs on my bike, and I've only twice scraped my boots, and I don't really hang off my bike either so I'm probably leaning it harder than I need to aswell. Yeah, I know, not scraping my pegs probably just means I'm a really slow rider, but I'm just pointing out that the bike has plenty of clearance if you convince it to lean over.

Anyway, I'm losing track of the whole reason I started this thread.
The thing is I'm really worried about newbie riders, especially those that get a bike that behaves like mine. I've personally gone wide into gravel on a corner I could easily have taken if I had leaned into it a little harder, a second guy (on the same bike) I was on a ride with did the exact same thing, and a 3rd guy (yep, same bike) I was following went wide into the oncoming lane right in front of me (and I thank God there was no other traffic around at the time). Coincidence? Entirely possible, but I still think that some bikes just don't behave as intuitively as others.

So please learn from my and other peoples mistakes. Take your bike to a big carpark or a track or something and figure out how it reacts when braking and turning. If you find yourself in a corner that's tightening up more than you expected try to avoid the front brake and just force your bike down further, it will almost certainly have enough clearance. If you *have* to brake in a corner try to use the rear brake - but be very careful as it can cause the rear to skid easily.

Best of all follow this great quote (and damn, I can't remember who the quote is from) - "Better to enter a corner slow and exit it fast, than to enter it fast and not exit it at all."

Well, this has turned into way more of a rant than I was expecting, hopefully I haven't got too much of it horribly wrong. Guess I'll wait and see what suggestions/improvements are made.

Stay safe.

[FROSTY:Me]

If you *have* to brake in a corner try to use the rear brake - but be very careful as it can cause the rear to skid easily.

NOOOOOOO--
Here is a perfect example of well meant but ill informed advice
Where is the advanced rider training to catch guys like this???
Ok For a start dude -ANY motorcycle is a pair of gyroscopes joined together by the frame. Gyroscopes want to stand up -thats what they do
doesnt matter if you're name happens to be Rossi or joe blogs --the same rule applies.
Using the back brake is the wrong thing to do -
Ok So who wants to tell mr Ranzor what he should do ??

[GSVR]

http://www.ketchum.org/toohot.shtml

Here's an old link I found a while back that has some good tips in it.

[pritch]

First, I think you are going to have to slow down so that you can stay upright long enough to learn how to judge corner speed.

Your question /rant raises a lot of issues.

There is what the UK Police call the "Limit Point" which is perhaps referred to hereabout as the vanishing point. A bit difficult to explain without a picture, but if the point where the two edges of the road appear to meet is coming closer you should be slowing down, as the point moves away you can accelerate.

You didn't mention countersteering, are you aware of that?

Trail braking is a useful skill but you shouldn't be doing that routinely on the road. The racers have a thing where they use the back brake and the throttle at the same time to adjust their line in a bend but that's a track technique not relevant to road riding.

As you say, if nothing is scraping you can lean the bike over further, but you need to learn to make these adjustments smoothly. The nearer you get to the limit, the smoother you will need to be.

The old racers used to have a saying "If in doubt gas it". Generally anything you do to slow the bike once into a corner will make the situation worse, from reducing the ground clearance as a minimum to a high side at the extreme end.

Read "Sport Riding Techniques" by Nick Ienatsch. Better to buy it than get it from the library because it can be used as a reference book. You can get it from Amazon if you can't get it anywhere locally.

And make haste slowly...

[FROSTY:Me]

wohooo--pretty damb good advice gary
Note --he talks about --all that practice paying off !!!!!!!!!

[FROSTY:Me]

dunno if I entirely agree pritch. I think he will find WITH PRACTICE he will be able to brake later in a corner when he really needs to.

[speedpro]

Finding someone else to ride with wouldn't hurt. It sounds like the current riding mates might not be setting too good an example, probably due to inexperiance or lack of training.

Track time and training have to be high on the agenda.

idea - someone in Wellington should drag this guy to a bucket meeting and lend him a bucket. Best way in the world to learn what to do after going into a corner too hot, and all sorts of other good stuff.

[SlashWylde]

I hope this dosen't sound too disjointed, it's early Sunday morn after a late night out I think there is merit to what Ranzer is saying. In the last week I have been on two KB rides and both times new riders on 250cc sports bikes have come off. One on a corner, one during an over-taking move. It seems to me that some new riders are trying to run before they can walk. They have bought a 250cc sports-style bike which looks the part but they don't give them selves the time to learn the skills to handle the thing smoothly and confidently before heading out on the 'exciting' country roads and 100km/hr+ KB rides. Maybe they also have certain expectations of being able to ride at speed because of the type of bike it is i.e. because it's a sports bike it will handle the corners or accellerate well enough to pass that truck.

On any bike one needs to learn how to lean.
One needs to learn how to judge entry speed to each corner.
One needs to learn that a bike will go in the direction of your gaze.
And hence one needs to learn to look through a corner to where one wants to go , rather than just the patch of ashphalt directly ahead of the front tyre.


The BRONZ "Ride Right Ride Safe" training course is an excellent way to begin to learn these skills from experienced tutors. I can't emphasise enough to new riders how beneficial such a course is.

Go to http://www.bronz.org.nz/events.htm and find out when the next course is. Call Finn or Peggy and get an enrolment form. It only cost $45 (at last count) and the course takes a day.

Also the CBTA course teaches imparts a lot of good information to new riders.

To put this into context, I'd consider myself an intermediate rider. During the first few months of riding I regularly spent a few hours each week practicing figure eights, quick stops, roundabouts etc to build up skills and confidence as well as all the road riding I was doing. Since starting to ride last October I've put over 8000kms on the clock of my bike, half on the open road, half in suburban/city zones. The SH22 ride I went on yesterday was great. I was able to ride fast (for my 250 Virago ) and corner smoothly, always leaving myself a little 'head room' incase I missjuged a corner or encountered something unexpected. I felt like I had reached a new level of confidence, but I know that I still have a lot to learn about riding and will continue to do so till I'm too old to stay upright on a motorcycle.

Riding a motorcycle is a complicated physical and mental task. It is a very three-dimensional experience physically and not like driving a car where you turn the steering wheel and the car (usually) goes where you point it.

There really isn't enough space here for any of us to even begin to list all the skills and factors that go into riding a bike. But please all you new riders give yourselves time to learn and grow. Don't bite off more than you can chew by trying to attempt long advanced rides. And for heavens sake buy a full set of armoured protective gear: Jacket, pants, gloves, boots minimum. If you spend a few thousand (or a few tens of thousands) of dollars on a bike, spend at least a thousand on preserving your own well being.

Take care out there all.

[Ranzer]

You didn't mention countersteering, are you aware of that?

Yep, I'm aware of countersteering, but not through any legally required source,
which is another thing that concerns me - when I first started riding the only experience on a motorbike I had (besides riding a friends mini dirt bike when I was in preschool) was from the learner licence practical skills test. Thinking back to it it seems like a bit of a joke - they made us ride in a big oval around some cones, then made us weave through the cones, then repeat while standing on the pegs, all at about 5~15km/h. To cap it off we had to speed up to a whopping 20km/h and then stop within a pretty lenient box. After that I get my nice piece of paper that says I can go and ride a 250cc bike in heavy traffic or twisty country roads at anywhere up to 70km/h. I don't think they even mentioned countersteering (which isn't really surprisingly, since it doesn't really even work at <20km/h). I first learned about countersteering and a bunch of other skills and ideas I now take for granted from a book that the guys at Red Baron were giving away with new bikes when I bought mine. The book was "The Biker's Bible" by Graham Allardice, and while I don't doubt people can find faults with it, it's definitely a starting point for a completely inexperienced rider. Sadly in my case I was a little too keen and got myself into trouble before I'd even read the book.

Anyway back to my point, the standard of preparation for new riders is totally pathetic (unless its changed a lot since I got my learners). When I bought my bike I basically went straight from doing <20km/h in a carpark to doing >50km/h on a busy road not even able to hillstart properly or anything. And of course, being the cocky idiot I am, I thought I would have a go on Scenic Drive shortly after since it was so much fun as a pillion. I wish I could say my case was extreme (and maybe my lack of experience was) but I'm still hearing about people who have been riding for a week or less attempting rides like Scenic Drive and SH22 etc. It just seems to me like it's asking for trouble, and it seems like people are being allowed to learn the hard way when they shouldn't need to. I know there are courses like BRONZ "Ride Right Ride Safe" (which I have done and would also recommend) but they're completely voluntary, and I don't recall even hearing about it until well after I'd started riding. I mean, at least with a learner licence in a car you are required to have a qualified driver in the front passenger seat at all times, so they can keep an eye on things and tell you when you're messing up. Now, I know this isn't possible with a motorbike, but there's gotta be some alternative we can use to ensure new riders aren't as clueless as I was when I started out, and try to reduce the number of riders that wind up learning how not to ride the hard way.

Anyway I'm ranting again, peace.

[FROSTY:Me]

Well dude maybee by having the open mind you clearly do have you may have a good chance of doing well in the motorbicycling thing.
Yep the rider training sucks -so what are YOU going to do about it??
You are the center of Your universe so why not work through the stuff you know you are doing not so well and practice em till you do em well.
One thing would be --see how hard you can brake before entering a corner.
Find a quiet bit of road -straight -no traffic plenty of runoff if ya stuffup.
mark a point you want to stop by and then change brakeing methods to see which is the most effective.
Try increasing the amount of front brake you use.
Theres 100s of books written about this very subject but personally I think you need to pracice -preferably in a controlled enviroment.

[justsomeguy]

Good point Ranzer.

That's why I posted that the ride down Scenic drive was not for newbies.

About going wide mate I reckon it's not something to do with our R's but us.

Cos Erik rode my bike and was fine and so was MR.

[Sutage]

While I agree with some points that have been made at the end of the day the learner rider chooses his bike, I had to choose between a GSXR250 which the guy said you could redline in first gear.. or an SR250 which goes like 120k full go. I chose the SR250 because its not as fast, i can learn the basics and then get a fast bike, instead of getting a fast bike straight off

prob gonna get caned for this but, riding a scooter pre-riding a motorbike helped me to an amount i probably cant even imagine. learning how to ride and having no road sense is a lethal combination, i had been riding a scooter so i learnt my road sense on a 50cc engine, not a 250 tuned sportsbike.

Id go as far to suggest that first two months of L plate bike riding you have a scooter, maybe not make it compulsory but seriously consider it

just my 2c

-Richard

[Zapf]

when I started riding last year I had a few rules as well... like
- slow entry and fast exit
- brake all you want before the corner but once you enter the corner it should be very light gentle front brake (only if you have to) and then on the gas once pass the apex.
- learn to ride smooth and get your groove. Smooth = faster in the end
- look at the road ahead of you and keep your head up. not at the bike ahead.
- AND DO NOT ride on Dunlop GP501 Arrowmax tires if you can.....

if your ZZR don't like tipping in then yes its a learner friendly bike. cause you will be amazed how how little input and effort it is to get like a modern Gixxer to tip in.... it is friendly because you have to purposely give it large input before it'll do something where as with sports bikes very little input might get you into big trouble. (and it also makes the ZZR more relax to ride)

So, if you know that you can't judge corner speed well yet. (Specially on likes of SH22 where it tricks you) you just have to go in slow and then slowly increase your speed as you get into the groove and train you mental focuse.

to get a bike that is more incline on standing up, you can learn to use the foot pegs to shift your weight to assist turn in / drop your sholder towards the inside of the corner / put more weight on the seat towards the inside of the corner / hang off the bike more (towards the inside of the corner) (for the record Aff-man can tell you how far I was hanging off my VTR250, he said I can almost pick the flowers as I ride pass them)

At the bronz course, they taught you that rear brakes should really only be applied once you have applied the front 1st, and that is because the weight will be transfered to the front and if you had the rear at the limit of slipping then your rear will let go.

Re counter steering.... do a search on this site about it. I posted a thread about it when I was learning and was given lots and lots of advice.

[Ranzer]

Well dude maybee by having the open mind you clearly do have you may have a good chance of doing well in the motorbicycling thing.

That takes care of me, but I'm also worried about all the other new riders that are potentially gonna learn the hard way. As much as people hate stricter/harder testing, I seriously wonder whether it wouldn't be a good idea to raise the bar a bit for learner bike licences, more/better training and testing etc...

About going wide mate I reckon it's not something to do with our R's but us.

Cos Erik rode my bike and was fine and so was MR.

Yeah it's entirely possible that it's just us, but even erik agreed that the ZZR seems to want to stand up more than his bike when you use the front brake in a corner.
And I'm not sure whether MR even touched the brakes, least of all in a corner ;-p
But if he did I would be keen to hear what he thought, or if he noticed anything.

... at the end of the day the learner rider chooses his bike, I had to choose between a GSXR250 which the guy said you could redline in first gear.. or an SR250 which goes like 120k full go. I chose the SR250 because its not as fast, i can learn the basics and then get a fast bike, instead of getting a fast bike straight off

I did exactly the same thing, when I got the ZZR the guy said the power delivery was smoother than a lot of other 250s, and that it was a bit slower. I still got myself into trouble though - even if it takes a few more seconds to get up to speed it will still go fast enough to hurt.

prob gonna get caned for this but, riding a scooter pre-riding a motorbike helped me to an amount i probably cant even imagine. learning how to ride and having no road sense is a lethal combination, i had been riding a scooter so i learnt my road sense on a 50cc engine, not a 250 tuned sportsbike.

Id go as far to suggest that first two months of L plate bike riding you have a scooter, maybe not make it compulsory but seriously consider it

I'm not sure I agree with this. I would almost go so far as to suggest (and I'm caning myself for this) that it would be good to get your restricted car licence before you get your learner bike licence. That way you learn your road sense with a qualified driver sitting next to you pointing everything out.
As far as 50cc scooters go, well, if you have a little trouble with self-control I guess it could be good to restrict how fast you can go or accelerate... but on the other hand I think it's actually necessary to have enough power to get out of a dangerous situation in a hurry, the example that springs to mind is when a cage nearly changed lanes right into me. Ok, I had probably stupidly gotten into their blind spot, but I was still thankfull that I was able to accelerate out of there. I was pretty much level with the front door (left side) with a car behind me when they started to pull into my lane, so braking to avoid them seemed rather less appealing. Anyway, I guess it could be argued either way.

[pritch]

And then there was this:

http://www.rideforever.co.nz/ride_sm...cornering.html