What Motarding has been doing to Colin Edwards

[merv]

Interesting story from Colin here http://www.ceracing.com/phpBB2/viewt...3a2b9680201057 and here http://www.ceracing.com/phpBB2/viewt...3a2b9680201057 on how he now realises motarding has been stuffing up his style on the RC211V.

[k14]

Very interesting. The styles are so different i can see how motarding would stuff up normal racing.

He must be a pretty good guy to stop and post on a forum.

[Motu]

Yeah,that's interseting stuff - I always thought flattracking helped with the modern riding style,it's where Kenny Roberts and all the great Yanks after him came at it from.Maybe Motard is different again,with flattrack they definatly really load that front,you can see the forks bottomed out,even with no front brake,motard must be much more rear wheel biased as he says.Here's Nicky Hayden on the best flattracker of them all....the RS750.

[Ghost Lemur]

Very interesting. The styles are so different i can see how motarding would stuff up normal racing.

He must be a pretty good guy to stop and post on a forum.

It's his forum, c(Colin)e(Edwards)racing.com.

It is nice to see him fess up to his poor performance being solely his fault, and not the bikes. Makes a change from the common "It's the bike" line that so many use in public (even if they do admit in private that it's them).

[Motu]

Just looking at Hayden in that photo you can see his throttle is shut,you can see his forks are compressed and check out the front tyre,that's really squashed too.Now to check out some motard photos to see how they load the front.

[Motu]

Looking at the Motards no way do I see that front loaded on corner entry,sliding the rear takes the weight off the front - flattrack is much more a two wheeled drift and heavy loading of the front.My riding style is defiantly motard,but have ridden flattrack.Looks like Colin is right,motard is stuffing him up - bizarre eh?

[merv]

Yeah having been the WSB champion I had been expecting big things from him. It was interesting to see the electronic data he says was confirming the problem too.

Now I'm no racer these days but what I find weird is I can ride my VFR a bit and then jump on the WR and go like hell. Change back to the VFR though and man is it a weird ride then. Going from the upright riding position to the lean forward just feels so wrong until you've been at it an hour or too. Going the other way as I say though, no worries.

p.s. I have always liked Colin so have regularly read his forum and I post occasionally over there.

[vifferman]

It's a little odd that he finds he isn't adjusting back immediately when going from motarding to MotoGP, but has no problems with going from motocross to GP. And that other motard/GP riders don't have problems.
Maybe motarding is retarding Colin.

[FROSTY:Me]

Ya know reading that sorta explains some of my getting in the groove problems.I was having a heck of a job making the transition from the ol GTR to the zxr. Totally different way of riding.
Maybee we could name it as a condition--edwardism

[F5 Dave]

When they first got onto this supermotard thing with any seriousness it was to try to determine the crossover riding champ, who was the best out of the dirt & the road guys & had a bit of a mix of the 2 formats. Someone who went good (like won a lot) straight out of the box was Eddie Lawson, who of course had been on the GP scene for years & before that what passed for superbikes back then. Didn’t slow him down from winning more GP world championships.

Methinks some people are just brilliant at swapping from bike to bike & getting on with it.

[Motu]

Lawson and Spencer were the first Supermotarders,everyone else learnt from them - and they were flattrackers before they were road racers.

I think you're right Merv - I never feel at home on a modern bike and just set all my bikes up with a dirt setup,sit upright with wide bars - I just can't be bothered adjusting.....and dirt ''feels'' right.

oh...ps - Colin's a creep.

[NordieBoy]

oh...ps - Colin's a creep.

And an American.

Oops sorry - Texan.

[merv]

I think you're right Merv - I never feel at home on a modern bike and just set all my bikes up with a dirt setup,sit upright with wide bars - I just can't be bothered adjusting.....and dirt ''feels'' right.

That's why it didn't take me long to fit Heli-bars to my VFR. Partly because I'm a bit short and unlike a car I can't pull the seat forward. Leaning too far forward just didn't feel right when I had only had dirt bikes for about 20 years before I bought the VFR. I was too used to weight on the back wheel and tail steering to be leaning too hard on the front which always felt like I would low-side with insufficient control. The road purists would probably say I'm crazy but I softened the rear suspension and stiffened the front up on the VFR to lessen the diving under brakes too making it sit back more like a dirt bike. Works for me and it is an easy bike to ride any number of kms in a day. Even with heli-bars I've gotta go about 120km/hr (true officer) to have enough wind on me to lighten the load on my wrists. How you road buggers ride with clip-ons attached under the triple clamp us dirt bikers can't understand.

I guess I would never ride an RC211V to its potential either, unless perhaps I was 30 years younger and it was set up for dirt tracking.

[Eddieb]

oh...ps - Colin's a creep.

I meet him at the Isle of Man TT in 2002 and found him quite the opposite, really down to earth, friendly and relaxed.