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The Motorcycle Thread

Discussion in 'Permanent Threads' started by Nettdata, Oct 23, 2009.

  1. Dude

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    Finally picked up a bike about three weeks ago. 2008 zx6r.

    Went for a "short" trip to a friends house this weekend, planned to make it my first go at riding the freeway. Ended up getting lost and spending a total of 4.5 hours attempting to make a 2 hour trip. In heavy traffic. In the pouring rain.

    Hell of an adventure but I'm loving the shit out of this thing.
     
  2. iczorro

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    Just got the old girl out of storage yesterday, to put her on the Budget Rent-a truck and drive her home. Riding up the ramp onto the truck scared me enough that I know I'll never be a stuntman/motocross rider. Can't wait to get to MN, update the plates, and go for a ride.
     

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  3. toddamus

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    Anyone get caught in an electric storm on their bike? Because my trucks down I thought I'd head out in-between storms to grab groceries and beer, I ended up getting chased home by lightning. That fucking sucked. By the time I was safe the lightning was on top of me, like I literally saw a flash than a half second later boom, not cool.
     
  4. wexton

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    Longest ride ever. Was coming around a corner and another motorcycle coming the other way motioned that there was a cop. I slowed down and sure enough there was right around the corner. He was sitting on the side of the road soon as I passed him he followed me. So there went 30km ish of doing the speed limit with a cop right behind me and a huge line up of cars. Funny seeing a nice road chain of vehicles with a super sport bike leading.
     
  5. wexton

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    Should say that i was on the highway, and there is only one road in and out of town.
     
  6. Nettdata

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    Yeah, some of the most beautiful and twisty roads in BC are single-lane, and it's not like the cops are stupid.

    When I was touring with the Porsche Club, we'd pick roads that were phenomenally twisty, but the cops would see 8 of us go by and then follow us, knowing we were off looking for trouble.

    I have to think every time they see a sport bike anywhere on those roads, they think the same thing.
     
  7. wexton

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    Yup. They know why people buy them. Worst thing was, was the old traffic cop used to have one, and would speed. Then turn around and give someone on a super sport a ticket for speeding. It took years of complaining but he finally got told to sell the bike. Fucking jackass.

    That is why i love my bike, 12-16 thousand dollars (600/750/1000/1300) and you need to spend 100K on a car to go as quick.
     
  8. toddamus

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    At the same time thats another drawback of sport bikes, they are cheap and ridiculously fast, so any asshole with a wad of cash can buy a bike and get themselves into trouble real fast. I always cringe when I see a guy on a sport bike in a fucking tank top and shorts. Nothing says I know what I'm doing like that.
     
  9. Nettdata

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    Same can be said for the idiot that buys the $150k sports car... skill doesn't come with the vehicle.

    I can't tell you how many idiots we had show up at a track day with their brand new 500hp car that Uncle Hello Kitty bought them, and thought that mere ownership made them a driver. Seriously... they thought they were suddenly great drivers because they just bought the car. We'd usually put them out with our best Civic race drivers and watch them get schooled by a car with 1/4 the horsepower.

    "Oh look... there's more to driving than just stomping on the gas pedal down the front straight... who knew?"

    Half of them would get embarrassed and never come back, the other half treated it like a wake-up call and dove into driver education to learn more.
     
  10. wexton

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    Yea, but a super sport bike is in everyones price range. I do wish I lived near a big city so I could take my bike to the track and actually learn how to ride in the corners properly. I can take right hand turns no problem, but I still have major never issues taking left hand corners at any sort of speeds.

    Seeing people in shorts and t-shirts on a bike make me cringe too. Even riding to work I have my riding jacket on. I always were jeans. If I am going out for fun, it is my riding boots and gloves.
     
  11. Nettdata

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    Oh, for sure... you'll see more $12k crotch rockets on the road vs. $100k sports cars, but the skill levels are no different.
     
  12. wexton

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    And I will be the first too admit that my skill on either is nowhere where I would like it to be, but I will probably never own a 100K+ sports car so that doesn't that doesn't bother me too much. Only problem is on my bike, all the track courses are each weekend for 4 or 5 weeks and I live something like 1600km away from the nearest one, so that really isn't too much of an option. I would take a week off and do one, but with travel and everything 4-5 weekends that far away isn't an option.
     
  13. Nettdata

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    If you want some serious advice on how to improve your skills, here it is unsolicited.

    1) Pick up a motorcycle high performance training manual. In the car world, the de facto standard is called Going Faster, which is the Skip Barber race car school manual, easily available from Amazon. Read it, and become familiar with at least the theories and concepts that they present. Call it ground school, if you will, but it's the first step in learning anything like flying or driving... learn the basic concepts, and then go and learn and practice them on the bike.

    2) If you can't make it to a track, then just go out and practice locally somewhere. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, but even just practice threshold braking, collision avoidance, etc., at slower speeds, paying attention to the theory outlined in the training manual. Imagine various scenarios you might find yourself in, and what you'd have to do to get out of them. Eventually you'll get better/faster at it, and your skill will improve.

    I'm no longer surprised at the large number of people that show up to the track without ever having experienced threshold/ABS braking. They get freaked out by the vibrating pedal, and you have to explain to them why it's doing that. You want to experience that for the first time in normal, controlled situations rather than in an emergency situation.

    In the end, high performance driving is all about learning how to handle the vehicle at the edge of your abilities and the vehicle's capabilities, and by approaching that edge slowly, methodologically, and becoming familiar with how that is, you'll get better. You'll also learn muscle memory, and learn to react instinctively rather than having to think about it. The next time a deer jumps out in front of you, you'll instinctively look to where you want to go and counter-steer into it, rather than stare at the deer and lock up the front brake.

    It's exactly the same concept that Chris Hadfield talks about here: <a class="postlink" href="https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_hadfield_what_i_learned_from_going_blind_in_space" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_hadfiel ... d_in_space</a>


    $0.02
     
  14. Whatthe...

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    Wait, don't you ride a pretty large SS (750 or 1000CC) and you have problems turning left......this doesn't seem like a major issue to you. You also post on here about how fast you like riding (+120km/hr, you're in BC, so you're riding at least 20km/hr above the posted speed limit), and you only wear jeans! At 50km/hr your jeans will be torn off of you almost immediately.

    I don't know you, nor have I ridden with you, and I'm just some guy on an internet forum, but based on what you've written here, you sound like a scary rider, and I hate hearing about guys who smear themselves all over the road. Go get more rider training, or at the very least practice these skills in a parking lot. Practice like an hour a week in an empty lot at speeds under 20km/hr. Figure 8's, 6-8ft tight circles, the box, etc. All the fundamentals are the same (body position, how to look through the turn, bike lean, and throttle control) at slow speed as they are at faster speeds, and if you dump the bike you only hurt your ego a bit.

    Be safe out there.
     
  15. wexton

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    I was more talking about I can do a right hand turn at 200km/h but I can only do it left going 140. And I limit my speeding activities to when there isn't a whole lot of traffic on the road. I try and be as smart as I can about it.


    Thanks.
     
  16. Whatthe...

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    Nettdata has some really good points there. Pay attention to what he has written, and he has lots of race experience.

    If you ever go to a road course track for a motorcycle, I think you might be surprised at what you find. The tracks I've been to and have ridden at, you won't be taking corners at anywhere near the speeds you wrote above. On some of the straights you can get the bike up to 200km/hr, then you have to haul it down to 80-100km/hr for the corner, and usually 60-80km/hr.

    Also don't go 200km/hr on the highway. That's just asking for trouble, I know it's tempting, and I've done it in the past. The track is a controlled area, that's been swept of debris, has similar minded people on it (going fast and in the same direction), and hopefully doesn't have large mammals wandering around on it(I've seen a deer hop a fence and run across a track once).

    Trust me in you don't want to be going around a corner at those speeds, hit a patch of gravel and have the back tire step out on you. When the back tire hooks up again (whether you chop the throttle or you're off the gravel), it's going to snap back in line with the front tire and if you're lucky just shake the living hell out of you. If you're not lucky, you'll high side.

    As well at those speeds you're covering the just over the distance of a football field every 2 seconds. The biggest issue is your reaction time, and people in cars. You always read about that damn cager who turned onto the highway in front of the motorcyclist. I'd like to think I could read the situation, decide on what to do, and move my hands appropriately, all in 0.75 - 1 second. Realistically I'm probably more like 1.25-1.75 seconds for me to see the car move, think what's that guy doing, oh shit, and brakes, brakes, brakes. That's about 60 - 75% a football field before I'm mechanically applying the brakes. Go stand on a football field and appreciate how far you're going to travel in that time.

    People also have a really hard time judging how far away you are and fast you're closing on them because bikes only have a single headlight rather than two. So you look like you're a lot further away and travelling slower than you actually are. They see you, think you're a safe distance away, turn their head to check the other direction, decide to go, and pull out in front of you. All while you've been chewing up the space between you at 182 ft/sec.

    That's just my opinion, and you can take what you want with it, but as I wrote earlier I really hate reading about bikers who got smeared across the road.
     
  17. Danger Boy

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  18. zzr

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    i just read on another forum about a guy who has decided not to check his valve clearance anymore. he has a suzuki v-strom 1000 and in 338,000 miles he has been checking it regularly but it has never needed a valve adjustment. that's a real testament to japanese engineering.
     
  19. Puffman

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    the v-strom 1000 has been manufactured since 2012. if you take 338,000 and divide by 12 years you come up with about 28,000 miles a year that he is riding that bike. i am pretty skeptical that anyone who works for a living is putting that many miles on the bike for that many years straight. if you meant he has ridden 33,800 miles, then i am not so certain that he should not quit checking the valves quite yet.
     
  20. wexton

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    i am sure you meant 2002. but yea that is 45,000 kms a year, not a fucking chance he could put that much time on it with a job. that is something like 175km a day 5 days week, unless he works 87 km from home and drives it every day.