Three inmates get done by Cornerspin

Story goes like this: A while back a few inmates were talking about taking Cornerspin. We weren't thinking about the road racing application, mostly we were interested in being better dirt road riders. We all ride pigs, GS's, GSA's, KTM 990's, Tigers, et al. What we wanted to do was ride them better... faster... keep up with our buddies with the thumpers on our forays into the GW forest.

For me, life happened. My wife decided it was time to have a baby, time to remodel our upstairs bathroom, and time to buy a minivan. All costly endeavors. I quickly had to bow out of the Cornerspin commitment. Unbeknownst to me, macorell24, best man at my wedding and friend for well over 15 years, took it upon himself to get together with a group of inmates and pitch in to buy my ticket to cornerspin. I can't say enough about what he and the rest of the SMARs, BWDRs, CatHerders, and SMIBs did for me.



I got something in my eye.


The date was set, it was to be the weekend of November 10-11. Life happened once more, but this time is was other participants that were affected: http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=830324

Blaster, aka Bruce had quite the mishap in the end of September, just a month and half prior to the class. He, his wife Dorito (Dana) and joints4sale (Erik) decided to hold off until Spring when Bruce has fully recovered.



So the participants would be myself, macorell24 (Matt) and littlelionmonster (Paul), along with 9 other dudes whom we had never met.

Matt:



Paul:



More to follow.

So Matt had done the dirty work of procuring permission from my wife for me to attend the class. He came down from his place in DC Friday to load up the adventure mobile, aka the wife's Camry.



Then my lovely wife and 3 month old daughter saw us off:



GPS said it would be a 5 hour drive to Spencer, NC. We pulled off sometime around 3:00, hoping to be there before 9:00. The trip was down was uneventful. Matt and I had enough driving misadventures in college, so something a bit more mundane was well received (by me at least). We did stop for gas... and this:



A number of years ago and Matt and I would have happily detoured in to whatever dive this was. Sadly there is no story to accompany the picture.

We met up with Paul at the hotel at around 8:30 where we promptly encountered toilet problems:



A fitful night sleep would see us all waking around 6:00, anxious to get to class. It was just north of freezing when we left the hotel and we arrived about 45 minutes early. The instructors opened the gates... and the trailer. Our steeds:



After meeting the instructors, Aaron Stevenson, Jamie Ray, Tim Matter, Joe, and Jamie's seven year old son Tristan, it was time for debriefing.

Tristan's ride:



Aaron reminded us that we were here to learn how to go fast around a track... a paved track... on a road bike... specifically a race bike. We would be doing this be going around a dirt track... that was at times muddy, at times silty, and at times just right... on 7hp dirt bikes... with street tires... and drum brakes. I was confused.

We met up with Paul at the hotel at around 8:30 where we promptly encountered toilet problems:



Whoo wait a minute....there was no "we". You woke in the morning took your morning constitutional and came out to call for room service to deliver a plunger.

Nice start to the RR.... whenever you step out of line I'll set everyone straight.

Oh yeah....great start....

this ought to be good

We are , God Willing, about 6 weeks out from joining the newborn ranks and all it entails....can you guess what name my wife wants for our daughter?

Chris,

I'm less than 4 months and it's already the best ride I've ever taken. I can't wait to see pics of your little girl when she gets here.

G.

It's looking good but don't pull a J4S and just stop writing!

Must be homesick on day 1 & missing that diaper changing feeling, eh?

Great weekend! Can't wait to see the rest of the pics!

Lakota want more

Got the baby to take a nap... sorta. I'll try to get another post in with a few more pics.

Sink or swim.

We started by riding a few laps on the track. Aaron says that they use about 24 different configurations when teaching the class. I fell on all of them. To start there were twelve students and 2 instructors on a 35 second loop. Well, 35 seconds for the instructors and fast guys. Probably closer to 50 for me. That's if I stayed upright... which I didn't. In fact, I spent so much time on my knees that I thought maybe I was actually pledging a sorority and not learning motorcycle skills.



After 20 minutes of that punishment we were pulled off the course. The instructors had a baseline, they knew where to go from there. We were broken down into 3 groups of 4. Group one was the repeat takers and fast guys, and groups 2 and 3 were both new and slow.

The learning curve was steep. Aaron talked to us about remaining neutral on the bike and allowing the bike to move underneath us. The focus would be using our core and lower body to manipulate the bike. The class was reminded that we had handlebar skills, what we needed were skills that would properly allow us to use the bars.

Typical scenario went like this: One or two of the instructors would model some aspect of the course. Could be body position, braking, transitions. Then the students would try to replicate.

Instructor Tim. Guy is a fucking animal. Notice how he's got his foot off the pegs. Apparently it was kosher for the instructors to do this, but if we the students tried it we got beat... with a stick... by a seven year old. I'm not making this up.



Paul on the same corner. Notice his motard style foot... he was beaten for this. The pictures of the beatings were confiscated before we were allowed to leave.



Matt's turn. Notice his foot... and the instructors ganging up on him. It was a brutal beat down.





After a few laps working on staying neutral we set to working on crisp, heavy braking. First using rear only, then front only, then both. Locate a reference point, apply brake (coming into a turn) and stop where the instructors indicated. The rear was no problem, but they also wanted us to lock up the front tire at the end of each station so we could begin to get used to that happening. 'Twas a bit harrowing but no major get offs. It was amazing to discover how much front braking force you could apply in a fairly low traction environment and still maintain control.

Baby is screaming at me. More later.

Nice Y'all!!! looks like too much fun!!!

Lookin' good Gastone; looking forward to seeing the rest as this is something I've thought about doing for a while now. I may have to sign up for a spring class.

Garrett, your mentioning the beat downs and get-offs brings back plenty of memories. That braking lesson was one of the best ones for me. I went into that class with a fear of the front brake. Feeling comfortable using plenty of front brake made me a better rider than before I went to the class. Glad you all felt it was worthwhile.

Did you let them see you cry? I'm pretty sure they would give you a beat down for that too.

Seven year old keeping you in line.......hilarious. Good stuff GS

Shane Watts does a similar exercise in his class. Although he doesn't beat you if you get it wrong... he doesn't have to, the riding does that for him. I was so sore I could barely walk for several days after 2 days of riding with him. :huh

Cornerspin sounds awesome. I'll have to make a trip out to one of their classes sometime.

Bahahahaa, I was getting the beat downs for elbows. Elbows up! Almost every picture of me is with 'em down. The class definitely helped me riding in gravel. I knew y'all would love it.

I'm finally getting to the point where I can walk normally, turn my head more the 15 deg and don't audibly groan every time I stand up. It was pretty funny watching everyone drag themselves to their cars at the end of the day.

Really hard to say how good the class was because there was so much information thrown at you in a short time and its still sinking in. It was the hardest thing I've done in awhile, but one of the most rewarding experiences I have.

Just something about hauling ass into a corner, having the backend start to drift around on you and have complete confidence that your going to make the corning and then actually make the corner.

And the beatings weren't that bad... Garrett got the worse because he kept smarting off to the 7yr old drill Sargent.

You have great friends! I did CornerSpeed and then the CornerSpin class. What a hoot! Besides all of the great skills they teach you, I learned how much fitness, conditioning and, more importantly, fatigue play when riding around technical trails which require fast and good judgement, even on a little CRF100! My first, of many, falls was after lunch! I found myself making stupid errors that I would never do during the morning sessions while my body and brain were still fresh. This is why to this day I still skip the last 4:00 PM-ish track day session no matter how good I think I feel.

So far so good right?

All of us, to this point, felt pretty good about the progress and improvements we're making. We're taking turns faster with controled slides, learning to use both front and rear brakes, being patient and staying on the throttle...and then. Aaron tells us we're going to do the same thing at the same speed except this time one handed...

This is the look of fear:



Here we go in the circle first:



The point of the exercise is getting used to shifting your body weight to the opposite side of the turn. This more than any other helped me "get it". It was the light bulb that went off in my head. Of course my memory isn't what it used to be...