Gymkhana

[dredman]

GP8 this Saturday in Birmingham @ 4pm

http://amgrass.com/forum/alabama/gp8...m-setp-22-4pm/

A free, timed event, you will improve dramatically in an hour or two.

Perfect weather - partly cloudy - 82deg. - come on over and give it a shot

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[Motogymkhanaman]

Originally Posted by GI_JO_NATHAN

On another note, watching these video's, how the heck do these guys remember where to freaking turn. Some of the courses look really confusing.

All thanks to the wonderful Mr Minoru Adachi who thought that a sea of pylons all the same colour was terribly confusing so he came up with the system of pylon colours that tell you what to do and where to go next. Red = Leave to your right and turn right. Blue = Leave to your left and turn left. Yellow (usually in pairs) represents a gate so you pass between them. Yellow stripe on a red or blue - all the way round (rotation turn). Black/Yellow pylon or hurdle = out of bounds or limit of obstacle.

Just to make it easier, everybody is issued with a diagram of the course before the competition and they spend about 40 minutes walking and memorising the course. Once you get the hang of it it's really dead easy.

[Harvey Krumpet]

Had a bit of practice on the DT last night, t'was spur of the moment so no vid. My focus was getting to full lock ASAP & harder acceleration out of the turn. Which leads to harder braking into the next one.............
Bugger me, it's a relentless learning curve, I was chirping tires front & back, popping little wheelies & really struggling to put it all together at speed, going in too fast or too slow, turning to late or to early, to grabby on the brakes, pogoing the forks. Phew!
On the bright side my G/F reckons it was the best effort yet, to the point of turning round the cone in 1.5 mtrs.... We shall see when I take the camera next time. Will try & time it too, to give us a point of reference.
A word of caution, do not try & flick the bike right to left or vice versa when your giving it a big handful with the forks unloaded, it drops like a sack of tatties.... I'm sure you all know this already.

Anybody noticing how hard it is on front tires, all this braking? They are wearing faster than rears. It is cool not having chicken strips on the front, though. My sprot bike mates are quiet impressed!!!!

[Harvey Krumpet]

Originally Posted by Motogymkhanaman

All thanks to the wonderful Mr Minoru Adachi who thought that a sea of pylons all the same colour was terribly confusing so he came up with the system of pylon colours that tell you what to do and where to go next. Red = Leave to your right and turn right. Blue = Leave to your left and turn left. Yellow (usually in pairs) represents a gate so you pass between them. Yellow stripe on a red or blue - all the way round (rotation turn). Black/Yellow pylon or hurdle = out of bounds or limit of obstacle.

Just to make it easier, everybody is issued with a diagram of the course before the competition and they spend about 40 minutes walking and memorising the course. Once you get the hang of it it's really dead easy.

Any vids of your good self in action?

[Vulfy]

Originally Posted by Harvey Krumpet

Had a bit of practice on the DT last night, t'was spur of the moment so no vid. My focus was getting to full lock ASAP & harder acceleration out of the turn. Which leads to harder braking into the next one.............
Bugger me, it's a relentless learning curve, I was chirping tires front & back, popping little wheelies & really struggling to put it all together at speed, going in too fast or too slow, turning to late or to early, to grabby on the brakes, pogoing the forks. Phew!
On the bright side my G/F reckons it was the best effort yet, to the point of turning round the cone in 1.5 mtrs.... We shall see when I take the camera next time. Will try & time it too, to give us a point of reference.
A word of caution, do not try & flick the bike right to left or vice versa when your giving it a big handful with the forks unloaded, it drops like a sack of tatties.... I'm sure you all know this already.

Anybody noticing how hard it is on front tires, all this braking? They are wearing faster than rears. It is cool not having chicken strips on the front, though. My sprot bike mates are quiet impressed!!!!

Yes front tires get a lot of abuse, mine are worn down all the way to the edge, while I still get about a centimeter of chicken strip on the rear.

Holly crap 1.5mtrs is pretty impressive, can't wait to see your vid and times.

As for the flicking... its insane how fast Japanese riders flick their bike into the turn. I'm amazed by it.




I REALLY want to learn this though.

[TheWall]

Originally Posted by Harvey Krumpet

A word of caution, do not try & flick the bike right to left or vice versa when your giving it a big handful with the forks unloaded, it drops like a sack of tatties.... I'm sure you all know this already.

'Scuse us Yanks -- we don't always follow your accent :) Do you mean a big handful of brakes, or throttle? If you mean brakes, I did that once on my mountain bike, and that was quite exciting enough. The front suspension dove, causing the bike to tuck into the turn, which caused the suspension to tuck even more...it just about threw me over the handlebars. I've given the Strom a lot more caution on the brakes when turning as a result of that learning experience on the bicycle (see, my dad was wrong -- I *CAN* be taught as long as the lesson is memorable enough )

OTOH, if you mean a handful of throttle, I'm curious what happens. Did the front tire wash out from under you due to too little traction?

[Harvey Krumpet]

I'm taking the 1.5mtrs with a pinch of salt, I lie to my girlfriend about length & distance.

I got my G/F to work a bit harder last night too, er, accelerating & braking. She tends to sit at an appropriate speed for whatever she is doing, cones or on the road & I'm trying to get her to "ride" the bike. Brake for the corner, set up your apex & on the gas, you know, the best bit, why we ride.
Poor wee soul had the same problems as me, going a bit quicker, a bit more physics coming into play & trying to co-ordinate the brain & body at the same time. She did very well, though. I'm proud of her. Even when she locked the front in a turn, epic save on her part...........

[Harvey Krumpet]

Originally Posted by TheWall

'Scuse us Yanks -- we don't always follow your accent :) Do you mean a big handful of brakes, or throttle? If you mean brakes, I did that once on my mountain bike, and that was quite exciting enough. The front suspension dove, causing the bike to tuck into the turn, which caused the suspension to tuck even more...it just about threw me over the handlebars. I've given the Strom a lot more caution on the brakes when turning as a result of that learning experience on the bicycle (see, my dad was wrong -- I *CAN* be taught as long as the lesson is memorable enough )

OTOH, if you mean a handful of throttle, I'm curious what happens. Did the front tire wash out from under you due to too little traction?

It was throttle... The wee 2t lifts the front real easy in first & second. I was trying to emulate the pros & really get on the gas hard & early but ended up tipping the bike into the next turn with the front & rear brake on & the front wheel coming back to terra firma which tucked the moment the forks loaded, I had the presence of mind to release the front brake when the bars tucked, stick my size 12 out & get on the gas. I did manage to keep my head up!! Needless to say I went, er, off course. The bike just dropped. EEEEK! I'm sure the bike would have made it but I couldn't. I would not get away with it on Tubby. I did not have time to think so this is a bloody good instinct to have developed.
Getting into the turn with the front brake on is hard, I'm getting better but again with both brakes on the bike turns really hard. Releasing the front, maintaining good revs & keeping the rear brake on is another art I have to master. Once the bike starts too turn & you release the front brake it runs wide unless you give it more back brake at which point it wants to dive for pearls & I'm waiting for the back tire to lock up. Bare in mind I'm running dual purpose rear & semi knobblie 21" front. My faith is being sorely tested.
As much as my head is screaming Nooooooo! motogymkhanaman is right, the bikes will corner ridiculously hard & fast, way beyond my abilities. I don't mind admitting I'm right out of my comfort zone & at times scaring myself silly.
I may well be wrong but I don't think my technique will improve unless I go faster, the braking & accelerating transition & the rate of turn seem to be exponential. For not a lot more speed everything happens far quicker & more violently and it becomes a heap more physical. The old bad habits come back too.
Practicing correct braking in a straight line as a warm up shows just hard you can brake & helps a lot on the 8's.

Yeah, cheap thrills

[Harvey Krumpet]

Something else I noticed which I'm sure Vulfy is finding. On the wee trailies with long soft forks going into the turn with the front brake on really decreases the radius. That's what happened with my throttle faux pas, it did not lock but came around hard enough to kiss the back tire. I would guess that's the first time I've hit the stop.

[Storm Shadow]

Well you only have so much traction use to much n u slide. I love the diagram of coeffecient of traction from a very old book the racing driver gosh i read that when i learnt to drive 20 years ago

send on a small touch screen by a guy with fat fingers

[Vulfy]

This is one little snippet of Takashi Tominaga riding, just blows my mind.
Look at the absolutely INSANE way he changes his bike direction.

[liquid_ice]

They also made a movie from my gymkhana run:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui-ZEcDWdWw&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

All tips and comments are welcome.

[Storm Shadow]

Originally Posted by liquid_ice

They also made a movie from my gymkhana run:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui-ZEcDWdWw&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

All tips and comments are welcome.

Thats pretty cool n smooth iceman

send on a small touch screen by a guy with fat fingers

[Motogymkhanaman]

Any vids of your good self in action?

Ha! That would be interesting to see, but sadly I don't ride anywhere near as often as I should. My lofty position in the Moto Gymkhana Association means I am always running round being a general dogsbody at most competitions delivering safety lectures and timing GP8 attacks, so much so that I go home having not touched a bike all day.

One day, some enterprising cove might catch some footage of me actually riding the mighty Fazer and post it up onto Youtube, but I would think you might have to wait some time.

[GISdood]

I just stumbled across this thread... wow! Great work putting all this material together in one spot, Vulfy! (and of course thanks to everyone else that's contributed as well)

I'm definitely going to be scooping some cones from the rider's training school I teach with and will be heading out to the parking lot for some GP8 action!

This may even become something we can work into riding clinics and perhaps even novice rider training (to a slightly lesser extent, of course). Anyway... just wanted to chime in and say thanks, and that I'll definitely be posting up some video and time results when I get a chance.

In the meantime, here's a little clip my wife took while we (the riding school) were running a tight little skills challenge at a local bike show & shine a few years ago.



Looking forward to trying this out... we'll have to see whether my DR650 or my wife's DRZ-SM is the better tool for the job. I'm infinitely more comfortable in tight turns and counterbalancing with the DR, but there's no denying the quick turn-in and sheer fun factor of 17" sport tires on the SM. We shall see....