drifting question

[TwoSeven]

Fairy Nuff then.

I have hurt myself, and quite badly once. I make no apologies for anything though. Hard won advice that is spurned by those who are 10ft tall and bullet proof, when they asked for it, is faintly insulting.

You and Jack are indeed talking about different bikes and styles to a sport bike which is what Tigger is riding. The chassis flex that used help with smoothly controlling a power slide is all but absent on a sporting 250, so they have a surfeit of traction over power. Good luck to him, but if he practices this stuff on the road he will be hurt. There's too little margin for error as it is, without provoking a potential loss of control deliberately. Falling off at 40km/hr in the dirt hurts a bit, but falling off on the road at 100km/hr with other traffic around is really going to hurt.

I can understand where you are coming from, but I think there is a slight mis-assumption that you are making. It seems to me that you think dirt bikes only do 40km/hr on track and that being on a road bike you automatically do 100km/hr. I also do not know where you got the other traffic around bit as well - I suspect you have added that to your perception model - maybe as an assumption to something I might have implied - but I dont remember ever saying that practicing drifting is something I do in traffic - and even here I may differ because my perception of what 'traffic' is will be different from yours as well. Perhaps you may envision traffic as central city stuff or busy motorway - where I might see it as the street outside my house that is very wide and maybe gets 1 car every 10-15 mins.

I'd suggest that it would be possible to change those values around. In fact, I maybe do 100km/hr about once per month when I go over to akaroa or any other trip. My average speed in town is about 40km/hr (very seldom go quicker than that for normal commuting).

Perhaps you never do any stunting stuff - but the whole idea is technique over speed. An example is breaking the tire loose - which involves lean angle over high speed. And I suspect that the problem is with people who do racing will be more prone to having it happen at a high speed than at a low speed although in my opinion they are more likely to spin a tire up on the hairpin at ruapuna at low speed than on any other corner on that track (although there are a couple where you can put the weight on the rear and feel for traction for a long period of time)

The chaps down at the skateboard parks on their pushbikes are more likely to get hurt than I am (and I was watching some kid do some pretty mean jumps the other week - just with a plastic hat and elbow guards).

As for the flex thing - one of the reason why I like honda cibbies is that they traditionally have a lot of flex in the chassis - as compared with other bikes say from suzuki or yamaha (i'm told kwakas also have flex but I've never ridden enough of em to see). I find rigid bikes too wooden and neutral and lacking in corner ability - but then I guess thats just preference.

[Hitcher]

I can understand where you are coming from, but I think there is a slight mis-assumption that you are making.

No, it is you that is having the "mis-assumption".

What Jim2 (and others) are saying is "if you fall off you will get hurt". They are also saying "if you fall off on the road you stand a greater chance of getting hurt than if you were doing the same nongsville stuff on dirt or in a carpark". These are irrefutable truths. Ignore them at your peril.

The rest of your treatise is just a flimsy attempt at rationalising (to yourself) why it's OK to do dumb shit on a motorbike. What you do on your bike to yourself is your responsibility. Just don't look for endorsement from people who have a more reasoned view of personal accountability than you appear to have.

[Blakamin]

The chaps down at the skateboard parks on their pushbikes are more likely to get hurt than I am

and they're where??? ooohhh skateboard park

why dont you practice on a race track???

Anyone wonder why bike riders get a bad name???

ok, 1 car every 15mins... are they timed like busses?
"one went passed, have time to stunt"...bugga theres another one... he wasnt scheduled, why am I in hospital??


traffic is on any public road! it just might be quiet this second.

[Posh Tourer :P]

Perhaps you never do any stunting stuff - but the whole idea is technique over speed. An example is breaking the tire loose - which involves lean angle over high speed.

Yes and where are you going to find a large number of 15kmh corners (that you can take at 50 to get it "drifting") with good visibility and road surface? Physics dictate that you need to be doing a higher speed if you are doing a higher lean angle, otherwise you fall over. So given that you need to be doing a relatively high speed for a particular corner, you will be riding dangerously, even if you are only doing 50-60kmh. Its not about absolute speed, its about relative speed....

[Motu]

There are some good back streets around Hillsborough that'd be choice.I once did a huge full lock slide and subsequent high side in Carlton St once....I wonder if any little boys were watching at their gate? Probably not - they would never have got on a bike after seeing something as scary as that.

[enigma51]

Im not sure dude - but heres my 2c...

I Thought, and still often THINK im sliding the Viffer 400 during races coming out of the hairpin @ pukekohe and previously out of castrol... However im not sure and i doubt it more and more i talk to more experienced riders... I feel the bike shake/squigle and the suspension starts bouncing like up and down on the back end, but its always exiting the corner as i gas it full and i have always tilted the bike up more upright hten the max lean my balls allow me to do. Except once, when i gassed it way too early heading into the apex of castrol and the back end swung, it was slower then i would have imagined a lowside would of been but i was still far from capable of being able to control it.
my thought process was "sweet its starting to get lower, and the back is going further away" and i didnt want to smack off the gas as people say thats how u highside, yet at hte same time i thought it would just ride out... but it just kept on falling and getting closer to the ground as the rear end swung out to overtake me... was pretty graceful i thought and we just went for a slide down the backstraight... but it made me start to think how hard that slide shit really was and that chances are what i feel exiting some corners is just some sort of suspension malfunction.

Either way as hard as it is to believe you do this on your 250 on GPR70SP's (correct?) with enough lean angle to the point that your rolling off the tyre - so minimal tyre is touching, the physics and theory is there to say its possible on ANY machine... However i reckon if youve gotten this far come join the ranks of F3 even on that machine and show us n00bs how its done. I will honestly put half your entry fee up to come do it in the hope that i can follow and possibly learn something.

Mate the sliding of the back tiry you are doing is because you got those shitty tires on. You know that ones that have dual compound ie rubber and wire. :spudwave:

[TwoSeven]

and they're where??? ooohhh skateboard park

why dont you practice on a race track???

I would - but its fookin expensive and a car park and quiet road are free.

[Paul in NZ]

I stand by my original post.

I have raced grasstrack on a dope burning, Hagon framed grasstracker (500cc speedway bike with a gearbox and rear suspension)

Ridden a speedway bike (fookin' scared the shit out of me)

Owned 500cc 350lb pommie scramblers that we raced on the beach (mudflats at brooklands out side ChCh was ACE) where we would map out a mile oval and you would feet up drift BOTH wheels for 200 ft at both bends no sweat!

I won the one and only ChCh Classic Bike club dirt road sprint / rally on an unregistered, unwarrented Rickman Metisse (OK I was second to Big Mike's Commando but only cos hes freakin mental)

I've ridden my crappy old Triumph over every dirt road on the Port hills and slid things all over.


Before you go calling people wankers, perhaps you better read you first minimal post and then the vital supporting detail added later.

I still say. If you can regularly drift a 600 you should take up racing because you are going to hurt yourself on the road.

I could also explain to you how you could build a pipe bomb, but I wouldn't for the same reasons, it's a bloody stupid thing to do and you will hurt yourself.

Your problem is, you did not get the answer you wanted so you called people names? I'd suggest if you are that temperamental, give up bikes, you will hurt yourself and others!

As for HOW to slide a Grasstracker... Ride it faster and faster, power slide out of the corners earlier and earlier until you are going so frigging fast (trust me, we are talking FAST) that you just know you are not going to make the next bend unless you drift into it (no brakes remember).

fall off!

Vow never to do that again

try again

Eventually, something clicks, you shift your weight just right, load the stirrup on the outside just right, trail your inside (left) leg untill you get the guts to leave it up front and give it death.

The ultimate feeling on a bike I have ever had was powering that thing out of a bend, sliding like a bandit and standing it up, getting more traction, nailing the throttle and holding the front wheel about 3 inches above the deck (still sliding sideways) as you lined it up for the straights.... Phroaar!

Put a horn on a jelly fish...

Paul N

A wanker and an arsehole (apparently)

[Kwaka-Kid]

Oh my God!

Paul in NZ (and no im not being sarcastic) Your my new idle.

I want in on some of what youve done!

k i know nothing about this grasstrack bike stuff, but i have JUST gotten my XR500 running about 1 hour ago - no exhaust on yet as its waiting to be welded in a few hours when my old man arrives home...

but would this old 1980 beast be anything like a grasstracker? would it be capable of the things you speak of? I am so dead keen on giving it my best shot to master or at least learn some wiiicked stuff on the dirt/sand/grass - anything but legal roads!
that sounds so hardout..:spudwhat: will i ever be capable? Who knows but like i said im really happy to be young and broken bones will hopefully only fix themselves better at this age so i want to do it! now!! like right now!.. ahh the impatience of youth. Also easily excited (though i think your last post would have even excited the most staunch and experienced less-excited people around here)

I think its about the only whole post ive read on KB! (haha my bad!)

[Two Smoker]

Paul, your a legend.....

[merv]

k i know nothing about this grasstrack bike stuff, but i have JUST gotten my XR500 running about 1 hour ago - no exhaust on yet as its waiting to be welded in a few hours when my old man arrives home...

but would this old 1980 beast be anything like a grasstracker? would it be capable of the things you speak of? I am so dead keen on giving it my best shot to master or at least learn some wiiicked stuff on the dirt/sand/grass - anything but legal roads!

Just about any sort of dirt bike will do the stuff Paul was talking about, but depending on how its set up it will be good in different ways. Tyres are the main thing - for sliding you've got to be able to have the back end break away, and there are different tyres for different surfaces from hard to mud. If the surface is slippery enough you'll slide no matter what tyres you've got on, but if you want to be fast you've got to have the right balance between sliding and getting enough grip for forward drive.

The amount of wrap around and the block pattern on the knobs makes a difference too. Motu mentioned trials tyres and he is right they are awesome in most conditions especially the soft 2 ply type, but probably only let you down in the thickest of mud when a deep knob does the trick. Tyre pressure is the real deal when it comes to getting a dirt bike right and I always err towards soft as it helps traction on slippery surfaces.

Your XR500 will be great if you play around with it and practice your riding style and set it up to suit mainly fiddling with tyre pressures.

I'm a short arse so I have my dirt bikes set up with the handlebars tipped forward a bit so I can sit closer to the front when I need to, to make the back lighter. If you throw the bike into a slide start off sitting forward and when it hangs out as you need more drive, shift your weight back a bit. On the beach on sand you have pretty good grip so you probably need to keep your weight forward throughout. All the time foot out of course for serious sliding except as below about gravel roads and fast tracks.

On gravel roads I ride almost sitting on the tank except when you hit straight sections of deep gravel you move your weight back again to stop it kind of tank slapping as in wobbling back and forth. That happens if there's too much weight on the front wheel and it digs in. My DR250 was bad at that snaking along at about 120km/hr as it seemed quite front heavy, the XRs weren't and nor is my WR (which is bloody light all together).

I've said before on the old gravel road thread a while back once my speed gets up a bit there is no more fun than sliding feet up. Toss it into the corner and straighten the bike up almost vertically as quick as you can once the back wheel hangs out, keep your weight inside on the curve - not knee down as you aint leaning but move your arse over a bit - gas the engine hard, weight back a bit on the seat to get drive and I reckon there is no more fun than that knowing you are getting corner to corner as quick as you can. Don't slide out too much or else you'll lose drive. If you put your foot down at speed on gravel roads I reckon it will slow you down and bugger your style.

I did srambling and mini-TT racing (mini-TT being as close as I got to flat-track racing) in the old days (Hawkes Bay and Canterbury), never actually got to a beach race, but as Paul says you can end up doing foot up slides and that's like I was saying about gravel roads - once your speed gets up on fast tracks, if the corners aren't extra tight you'll do it quicker feet up and most of you have probably seen photos of the Yanks on their big mile ovals riding like that.

Get the bike going KK and just get out and try it and try it again and again until you feel good doing it and by then we won't be able to wipe the smile off your face. Even after 10 years with my VFR I will not give up on dirt bikes they are just so much fun. Slide all you like and the risk of highsiding is so much less - less chance of the tyres gripping so much to flick you and much less weight to manhandle with the bike and wider bars for leverage so you flick it back the other way if it kicks you. Pure heaven!!!

I'm searching my records for a few pics and so far have only found this one of my Bro' on his DR350 at White Rock, not in action but you can see the result - the nice marks on the sand - can't remember if those were his or mine - but hard sand is fun. Then a pic on the beach at Castlepoint - I'm going to have to make a point of getting action shots, but mainly I get the camera out when we have stopped - can't ride taking pics eh!

[Paul in NZ]

I'm no legend! (except in the bedroom but this is a family show) Merv and Motu got it all pretty spot on!

The thing is. Speedway (and to a limited extent) grasstrack is on a relatively consistent surface in a controlled environment. The road and car parks are NOT!

This is all pretty cool and before I get labeled a blowhard as well as a wanker AND an arsehole (man, am I building up a personality or what?)

Here is some proof.

Can't find pictures of the grasstracker but! 500cc BSA engine running methanol, (massive porting / valves, goldstar race cams, 13:1 compression etc etc.)Triumph 4 speed box (1st and 2nd locked out) in a Alf Hagon (yes, THE ALF Hagon that now makes shocks was world Grass track champ) chassis, Some odd speedway front end and girlings at back.

One person could pick the whole bike up. Also came with a Wal Phillips fuel injector (look it up)

I wanted a 40's speedway sidecar rig (HD Castle forks, JAP 8/80 motor (on dope) so i sold the tracker for $800 but the sidecar fell through! No sweat 'cos i sucked at riding it! No Bollocks!

Attached are!

Rickman (green bike with racing plates)

Norton engined, Ariel framed scrambler (as raced built / raced by the famous Brown Brothers out of Rangiora in the early 60's in the open NZ TT etc). I had it hooked to a Moto Cross Sidecar for a bit... Untill I rode it through our fence (ah hem)

Paul drifts cars! (Austin A40 with doors welded and.. Oh who cares)

What happens when you TRY to drift a BSA on the road

People that I grew up with getting ready to teach you about sliding... And before you get too excited! Thats Brighton Beach in Christchurch and it is a scan of an original photo that I own! Wait 'till you see the rest!

[merv]

Beautiful Paul, especially that last pic.

[Motu]

That's too close to home Paul (I'm a Paul too no less) my Rickman was painted the same green,but was a unit 500,red was a better colour,I just never got around to changing it.Big slides on the beach is about the best you can get I reckon,they can go huge and so out of shape,but you never fall off...much.One day I was charging down the beach at Port Waikato and saw some people sitting up by the dunes....as I got closer I saw what they were doing - surfcasting! The lines were chest high in front of me - I dropped the bike in the sand at speed and fell on my arse,felt like I ripped it in two,rything around on the sand with my ring piece on fire.My XR200 was a bit of fun in sand,it didn't really have enough guts to maintain a slide - I would blast along in 3rd and then slam it down hard on full throttle into a big full locker...but I kept the slide going it would gradualy turn into a two wheel drift and finally a big front wheel slide,hard case going from a rear to front wheel slide on the one turn.

[enigma51]

Paul in NZ how old are you? (All respect though)