Hello :)
 

Hey gang....

Sorry I have been MIA for a while. Work has been kicking my ass, plus riding as much as possible - every weekend has been full from wake up to pass out on the bike. Add 4th of july week and vacation, a few poker games and otherwise drunken excitement... before you know it - the world is passing you by.

So... first thing's first - thanks all for the BoTM nomination. Very much appreciate it, and am happy to see that the hard work the last few years of keeping the antique pig going and looking good plus minor mods has not gone un-noticed. Especially as I rarely wash the bike during the summertime. I figure if it is nice enough outside to wash it - then it is nice enough out to ride it. Hence why I already have way over 10k on for the year, and managed to break 50k on the bike almost a couple months ago. :)

Further updates... our local bike nights were cresting over 50 bikes this summer, and at one point we had 72. Lots of new riders this year, and when we would go do the routes and weekend rides and whatnot - this would bring along some problems. Mainly - newbs parking it in the turns.

See - here in Chicagoland - all the roads are straight and boring... gridlike. Even out in the far suburbs, because they used to all be farmlands. So - the curves are few and far between with a few special routes which are considered "local" (read: meaning less than 250 miles round trip for the day). As such - the veteran riders drool for the routes and when noobs go rocketing by the group and then park it in the turns, cut people off, run off the road, or what have you - it tends to cause some tension.

In an effort to fix some of this - I got a few trusted vets together and we put together a curves and corners class. Reasoning behind this is that since it is all gridwork out here - the only time you spend in a curve is the 2 to 4 seconds it takes you to get through and intersection while making a turn. You can't learn how to corner 2 to 4 seconds at a time.

So - we took some material from Twist of the Wrist books, and a couple others, along with some videos, pictures and graphics and put together 2 hours of classroom time, followed by 6 hours of lot time, and drug the newer riders into class. The lots were used to get people used to the feeling of being in constant arcs and learning how their bike behaves and gaining confidence in their tires, while putting together other aspects of cornering. The lots were about 1/4 mile long and 300 feet wide at recently finished warehouses. The size allowed for plenty of simultaneous practice and drills, and eventually converting into enormous pads for giant circles, and a rather large high-speed & sweeping turns course.

We worked them through target fixation, looking through turns, body positioning, etc, and had them do constant radius circles while modulating speed to learn throttle control, increase lean angles etc... then moved on to figure 8's, slaloms, huge circles with extreme leans, and eventually a giant sweeping curves course. It turned out really well - no one wrecked or had a problem - and while we didn't make track stars out of anyone - everyone had fun, everyone learned, and as people's confidence levels in their tires and themselves increased, so did the speeds, leans, and fluidity in their cornering.

Here are some pix from that event...

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This is my favorite shot though... a split second after this was taken - we scraped the rest of the way... this was in 3rd gear at about 55mph on the huge sweeps course. Maggie (pictured elsewhere on the F4i) - one of 3 girls in attendance - was cutting all the corners on the sweeps and not getting the effect... so I brought her on board to show her how to do it and where to look at the "exits"... Afterwards - she went back and killed the sweeps and had a ball.

http://www.robak.net/images/bikes/IMG_0654crop.jpg

It reminded me a lot of this old ad... :)

http://www.robak.net/images/bikes/ZXR_poster-sm.jpg


Anyhow - the class was a huge success, and people are begging us to throw another one, as well as an advanced one to take the skills learned to the street.

Another story and more pix in the next post...

For 4th of July week, I rode the 9 up to my dad's again in northern Michigan. What was supposed to be a week of riding the curviest, hilliest roads in Michigan was cut abruptly short when 2 days into the visit - someone decided my bike looked better laying on it's side in the mall parking lot than it did leaning on the kickstand.

This resulted in a snapped right foot peg bracket, shattered windscreen, broken center fairing, other scratched plastics, and a thrashed helmet which was sitting on the mirror, also leaving the bike un-ridable. This happened on Friday before 4th of July, and I managed to limp it a few miles back to the Kawi shop I used to work at when I was a kid. It remains there, being repaired under insurance, and I caught a ride home and will go back in a couple weeks go pick it up.

$1600 in damage, plus the helmet, and somehow neither the exhaust nor the tail section got so much as a scratch. While I know it can be easily repaired and overall it is pretty minor damage - I am sad that my now 12 year old, all original bike has officially been "down". :(

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Looks like class was a success, and sorry to hear about your bike,, some people just dont care about other peoples chit. grrrrr

sucks about the bike but the bike night looks killer. i wish we had stuff like that around here

Good idea with the course, looks like fun. Sorry about the bike, people are assholes :(

Sux bout the sled Sro!

Sweetness on the class. Did you charge for it? Looks like the turn out was pretty good....Nice seat cover on the last pic :-)

Nah, didn't charge. Used my office, and just suggested to the "students" that they buy lunch for the other coaches who were helping out. It was a good time.

right on sro! nice of you to help out the newer riders. sorry about the scoot tho.

Well first of all why do bad things always happen to good people? I mean really....:( You go above and beyond because you really care about people and the sport, and then this happens. Sorry about the bike man, I'm glad you have insurance. Is it possible that the kickstand sunk into the blacktop? Mine did that a couple of years ago at a friends house. I was so mad, even though it didn't put a scratch anywhere on the bike. I hope the event didn't ruin your visit with family. I know it would have with me. Take care Sro, and keep up the great work. It's guys like you that keep the sport alive and safe. ;)

hahaha, but normally the kickstand is on the other side of the bike deej.

good thinking sro, yeah we generally have a bs session prior to a ride to check out the bikes similar to tech prior to track time.