The Mentor - Newbie Training Update - Lissa

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Yungatart and Steam were your selectors and they each chose Rosie and BuckBuckNo1 respectively. Thank you for participating in this weekly riding awareness thread.

My choice this week is Rosie!
Well done for riding in less than ideal conditions, whilst still maintaining your focus on being smooth and relaxed., and being aware of your surroundings.
Don't worry about trying to increase your speed, that will come naturally when you are more comfortable.

On Saturday evening I rode to Taupo. Concentrated on riding to the conditions - it was a little windy, was getting dark, and there were a few passing showers. Nothing too bad, but not conditions I've been riding in for a while, so I was trying to be relaxed and smooth, and keeping an eye out for what was going on around me.

Bright and early Sunday morning I headed out to do a lap of Lake Taupo. Focussing on keeping my speed up to 100-110ish on the main highway sections, and, keeping an eye on the conditions.

Pretty good ride down SH 1 to Turangi. SH1 isn't a terribly exciting road, but didn't see much traffic. The rumble strips on the road verge scare the hell out of me. Are they ok to ride over? (Say if I wanted to slow down and pull over and let someone past).

Past Turangi it got windy and clouded over. The road was wet most of the way along the lake, and I had a few brief showers. The wind was tiring at first, but it was fairly steady, so I settled into it fairly well.

I was still tending to ride at 95 ish along the straighter highway sections, I'm working on riding a little bit faster than I'm comfortable with, aiming to be able to sit at a similar speed to other road users, rather than being a little bit slower than average. It may be psychological - my speedo reads 140 when I'm doing a little under 110, which makes it seem quite fast, but is about the same speed I'd drive my car on the same roads.

I choose you BB, because you are da thinking man.

Ride on Saturday:
A beautiful morning up and over the Rimutaka Hill and down to the twin bridges at the bottom and return.

The V Strom has a long wheel base and you do sit fairly high up. My focus was smooth cornering from very slow in crawling traffic going down the RH. Fuel tanker and truck pulled over to let traffic move on. And then cornering, while coming back up the hill maintaining good throttle and gear selection.

The other aspect was recognising current gear selection, correlating speedo reading with tachometer, finding 80kph at 5000rpm tells me 4th gear is selected. Over the RH I found 3rd and 4th used most often and the occasional downshift to 2nd for some tight hairpins.

Sunday:
A great day and turn up for the newbie ride, a pleasure to lead the cruisie newbie crew over the hill and down to Featherston where the local hotel had been alerted, thanks to Mr and Mrs Kendog, a fine lunch was enjoyed by all. After lunch it was a small loop ride out towards Martinborough and turn off to loop back to Greytown SH1 over the RH and home. Focus on this run was down shifting, accelerating and upshift, here the torque of the engine was readily apparent.

Heads Up and Enjoy

I look forward to reviewing the Ride and Practice thread each week, and in particular, to seeing the training and practice approach taken now that we are moving into the winter conditions.

Heads Up and Enjoy

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By Rosie:
I chose Mrs Kendog, for taking the time to make sure her suspension is set up properly, and for mastering the non-peg-scraping cornering technique. And having fun, of course.

Originally Posted by Mrs Kendog
Washed the hubby's bike and mine too yesterday, so no ride. Today spent the morning arseing about with tyre pressures, chain adjustments and suspension, so took the bikes for a spin to the top of the hill and back. I had to stop several times to 'Tweek' my suspension a little until I got it feeling right.
Practiced: keeping relaxed arms and bent, especially under brakes, weighting outside peg and outside knee firmly pressed into tank upon cornering, coupled with bent arms and shifting my newly clad in leather arse off my seat to lean me and not my bike into corners to avoid scraping pegs.
Mission accomplished, had fun!!

By BuckBuckNo1:
My choice this week is Daza, he is out there working on it and asking the questions and thanks for the feed back to him.

From his posts this week I extracted the following:

Originally Posted by Daza
I then went for a tiki tour practicing cornering and stopping at intersections everywhere. I even ventured further out, getting more confident and feeling more natural riding. I'm changing gears better i think, not letting it rev too high before changing since i'm just cruising around at 50k.


Heads Up and Enjoy