Mastery

Does anyone feel they have mastered their craft? Can ride out a flat in freeway traffic over broken pavement with diagonal seams as wide as our tires? Or near max lean accelerating a long decreaser sweeper elevated so drops off edge of pavement as half a section of plywood seen laying across path, so must sharpen turn harshly in nick of time to miss it and not surf on it off into space. Launching as hard as possible yet not flip right up over backwards. Car pulling out with seeming plenty of time before you arrive but they get excited and over power so just spining tires on THE Gravel so barely creeped across you lane sideways no where to avoid but NAIL breaks like ya life depended on it. Or following a HD crowd was back till out of sight around a blind to speed up some to enjoy the turn when postal truck pulls on to hwy from your side going ever so slowly so you count your tenths of seconds to decide to veer around front of them or hold steady and pass behind with a foot to spare of leaving knee cap on its license tag. Do ya know how to recognize a slow front leak that merely feels like slight wind gusts before so low it pulls stem out to instant blow out? How about hitting an few feet tall grass embankment like Daytona racer for the thrill of the turn Gs and ground gives ways so bike hi side tires over head and lands on tires but so unexpected not impacting at correct angle to just bounce off riding but splats in a heap with thought ringing I should work on that maneuver to perfect. Kenny Cummings has leaned too far over so pogo tires off peg but just presses knee down harder in time to lift back on tires then back racing again. Are ya put off to run up a severe steep to see the view from the top or out race gravity to bottom of ravine to keep some steering control and enough momentum to have a chance on the opposite stepper climb out, that must be taken diagonally not straight d/t rocks or trees in the way and any let off would leave ya hanging for an instant before ending up back where ya came but not on tires... I want to get this stuff down in my bones so stunting parking lots or gynkama is routine warm ups compared to real life. Its most more fear than fun for me but must lean it or go down broken bleeding again. So has anyone felt they have mastered their craft if not why not?

Hi Steve

I think I have, in the late 70s I put on a new K81 tyre on the back, fitted by the bike tyre shop, a week later i was riding over the Story bridge in Brisbane in the middle lane with a mate on the back doing about 50 MPH in heavy traffic when my back tyre blew out, ended up keeping control and get to the outside lane with out being hit by traffic, after that and getting it fixed I had more problems with this tyre, in 3 months of riding on this new tyre I had a flat with it nearly every week, the worse thing about it I could never fine anything wrong with the tyre or anything in the cube to cause the flat, one time it blew at 60 MPH in a corner, I got good at riding it out, but was so frustrated with having to replace cubes but I got good at fixing flats, I ended up taking the wheel and tyre back to the tyre shop to find out why this was happening and the trye was sent back to the supplier, they found the inside wall of the tyre had a vevy small slit that was not seen or feel it when the tyre was off the rim but when filled with air it opened up to cause it to pinch the cube, they supplied me with a new tyre and never had a flat with it again.

So yes I can ride out a blown tyre safely, just don't freak out when it does, keep your nerves, but its hard when in full traffic, I have also had a few flat tyres riding my high powered dirt bikes front and back over the years and in diffrent conditions and of course flats seem to happen when so far from home or from somewhere you can repair them.

Ashley

Ashley you made me caught my breath on each event. Its the level feedback I seek. I found nothing trains one for road racing limits than ride down a low tire or a blow out on and off. i am freaked by slow leaks wind gusts make me glance often. In 99 on the UK and Brit Iron list I heard tales of Triumph rider locking both brakes over 60 to drift around a stalled car and could not imagine me do that just SPLAT> If riding crashing is possible which threw me for a loop on decision to bail or fight it out with higher injury risk if not bailing NOW. So far the steer and brake and throttle jerk mania has saved me more than dropped me - though a few times like braking on very steep apporach to one lane bridge on THE Gravel a cattle trailer easing into it around the blind but does not stop so must veer into dtich slope on both feathered brakes to stop but then slope to far down to stop the topple over.

Back to not crashing mastery part, after the blow out saves develope bone memory reflexes, kicking rear out some is not so scary and practical to keep reflexes fresher. I want to learn the parking lot stunts on Peel and some the police and stage magicians that can nail throttle of laid down bike to spin around 180 hop on a ride off. I want to leave to do a bunny hop and spin around and roll backwards a ways. I have done the last one a few times on steep wet grass both brakes perfectly balanced to rear swaps ends and do drop it immediately but too soon after.

One really wild weird thing I discovered on SuVee in snow felld is if rear spun up enough ONLY gravity affects it so will always point bike up hill till stalled, A few places on THE Gravel hooks at points of bluff faces front light from both the steepness off angle bend but also by the rear thrust needed spin rear some to climb, heading off the far edge just nailed rear to weather vane back inward and stay like that till back more level and straight. Nothing to loss as was sliding to crash anyway which gets back to a type of anger state to do this and makes me question my intermittent cycle hobby.

This is level I want to try on a Commando and pretty much did for a few season on past Peel which is why her first tires are essentially knobbies as pavement too secure predicable unexciting boring and dangerous d/t public hazards. I learned hard way to handle foot deep snow on pasture grass semi solid base, to slightly over power rear to stay hooked accelerating while straight steering which wants to hi side the bike at same time rear wants to low side out so end up forks levering most mass on rear and pointed the way ya want so could accelerate right down into a snow angle crash pivoting on peg/stand snag trip down > soft landing. No paved decreasing radius turns that sharp and applies to THE Gravel as well though not as sharp a spiral ending SPLAT as the higher traction dry snow, ugh. If too often doing it by accident why not on purpose till subconscious reflexes eventually learns to avoid the painful oversights. Brakes are my bane to master not going around fast. A snake made me learn that rally car heel toe throttle/brake stabbing applies to crisis cycle handling. Note the sport bike making the rest of the methods look like corner cripples because they can not hook up loose enough to straight steer but its still a rigid fat tire corner cripple as if demos in nice flat hi grip conditions, pashaw.


[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTqcAoLuTnc[/video]

I narrowed down to only 3 things to pay attention to going fast, lean fouling limits, sharpness/quickness of fork turning and how much power before break free doing the above. Not good practice in public so track or special places only. Time to time I force myself going 30s to zigzag in my straight ahead lane a tighter and tighter with a bit of throttle hit at the apexes. At some point the HInge begins to learn what that feels like and reflexes to resist it as well as tame down. If really pressing luck front or rear tire will hop off surface. Low air or front to rear air balance off will aggravated the crazy reaction doing zigzags. ZigZags can speed up tire heating before the better Mt twisties one wants pretty grippy heated tires. Alawys ends up scaring me to pissed off mood on how easy cycles are for me to lose control and how freaking close to out of control they are when pressing up near limits that feel so secure otherwise.

Got my SuVee fuel valve and electric quirks solved to about immediately regret not being good off road or stunt pilot, almost lost it to strained muscles reflex reactions, 1st 3 miles out decending to KingsRiver under heavy shade saw 2-3f t high ocean swells chop scale of loose sand rock undulations all the way diagaonally across path and so steep no way to slow so just semi screamed NAILING to still have front to weighted d/t race rear mostly spinning than gripping to have front rear skiing for a couple seconds w/o me controliing it both tires got back in line a few bike lengths past and then serious brakes feathering to slow up for tight blind bend at bottom and did. Next hit a few bike length long semi mud rutted section that grabbed one end as it let go the other so no control but not let off power to drag rear down nor speed up any to spin right out but grit teeth locked on bars butt gripping sadde and monkey toes on pegs got back in line fine. Got to muddy section next to a over flowing creek and again screaming cussing for couple seconds twice in a row then fine but winded. About same thing happenedon return but wiser to hit em going faster so both over with quicker and more ballistic to just fly through it before forces have time to flip or jerk too much. That was 2 wks ago and rationize its too hot to ride but part of me knows too scared unskilled for a while. Wesley has many times broken my PTSD by invites here and there I let him lead to clear the path but last time a month ago were on 100 cc kids cycles that beat the snot out of butt to jaws. I treat a good number of older farts that tell me how they once loved the hobby and why they no longer ride motorcycles and I have agree how mature and disciplined their reasoning is. When to ride this week but SuVee just spun to no then quite even turning over yet so far everything checks out, ugh, just as well eh.