How far does this thing lean?

[banjoboy]

Bless Rick's heart for walking me through how to post a picture. I did this two weeks at a closed track. As I've said before, the license plate has blue duct tape on it and each time I was 'coached' I got a blue dot put on. At the end of the day, I'm sure I had the most 'dots.' Almost always the coaching was lean harder. I was pretty impressed how far this leans. I'll be back for more training in September, along with Seattle Jim, and I'll learn how to lean farther. Gulp.

Terry

 

[Warren]

Bless Rick's heart for walking me through how to post a picture. I did this two weeks at a closed track. As I've said before, the license plate has blue duct tape on it and each time I was 'coached' I got a blue dot put on. At the end of the day, I'm sure I had the most 'dots.' Almost always the coaching was lean harder. I was pretty impressed how far this leans. I'll be back for more training in September, along with Seattle Jim, and I'll learn how to lean farther. Gulp.

Terry

And you never even took off the top box

 

[Lorien]

It leans far enough that I am scraping shoe leather anytime I want. And usually I really don't want to. OEm Bridgestones or the of late Dunlops Roadsmarts.

Lorien

 

[banjoboy]

Here's an

other one. I'm working on the white socks. Terry

 

[SeattleJim]

Did they take the pictures or did you have someone taking them for you?

My wife will be there but she is taking the class on her Burgman 650 so she won't have time to take pictures. Hope she learns how to lean and use more than 1/3rd of the throttle. But as she says: "I ride like an old lady because I plan on being an even OLDER old lady."

I'm really looking forward to this!

 

[banjoboy]

Jim, they have a professional photography there and I think do a great job. Once they sort through their set (last time about 3400 shots for the day), they post them on their website--Perfect-Shotz.com. They sort the pictures also by type of motorcycles--Ducatis, Honda, BMWs, etc., etc. Once in your group you can pick the one(s) you want and order them on line. In about a day they've been posted to your email address and you can down load them to your computer. Make copies of the download as in a week or so, their postings of your pictures go away. They are about $3 a picture--cheap I think. See you in September.

Terry

 

[banjoboy]

Jim,

P.S., you may want to go to their website and look for the event of May 22, 2011 and just check out the shots. Fairly impressive.

Terry

 

[charlie b]

I always wondered why I only hit the pegs once. Seems the NT has more cornering clearance than I thought!

 

[Mattb]

Good pictures and I am sure you leaned a lot.
Paul

I fixed it for you

 

[Phil Tarman]

Bless Rick's heart for walking me through how to post a picture. I did this two weeks at a closed track. As I've said before, the license plate has blue duct tape on it and each time I was 'coached' I got a blue dot put on. At the end of the day, I'm sure I had the most 'dots.' Almost always the coaching was lean harder. I was pretty impressed how far this leans. I'll be back for more training in September, along with Seattle Jim, and I'll learn how to lean farther. Gulp.

Terry

Terry, It doesn't look to me as if you've got very much farther you can lean. I'm impressed!

You asked how far it can lean...the guy who wrote "The Upper Half of the Motorcycle" says that most human beings have a real aversion to leaning more than 20 degrees from the vertical. I know that's been true of me on a motorcycle. I have to work up to it.

I don't think I've leaned the NT quite as far as you're leaning in this picture. I've got MC Larry's peg lowerers on and I have dragged both pegs and my toes a few times, but I'd guess that you're leaning farther.

I need a track day!

 

[banjoboy]

Phil, yes you do. I was going into that turn and had to leaned more, dragging the boot and then an instant latter turning the other way and dragging the boot on the other side. These bikes are fairly 'flippable.' Matt, I'm not quite sure how you do those things but I love my helmet that way.

Terry

 

[spacetiger]

There are 14 pics of you riding + 1 of the bike in the Misc section. They show 22 Jun (not 22 May), great selection of [Honda] bikes. They must have had a ton of bikes there. Do they offer this course to other locations? How do you find them?

Jerry

 

[banjoboy]

It was June 22. This is a Seattle area based group called Puget Sound Safety. I think you can google them and find their number and call and find out what is perhaps in your area. It's a good day when doing this and I was completely whipped at the end of the day.

Terry

 

[elizilla]

Here is a site with a list of track day organizers. I don't think there's anyone who does them everywhere, so you have to find one that operates on the tracks that are in your area. Every organization has its own style, so you might look for reviews from riders who have ridden with the groups you are interested in.

I've ridden a few times with sportbiketracktime.com. They do a pretty decent job. I've heard that some of these organizations try to crowd too many bikes onto the track at once - that's something to watch out for. STT limits the numbers, and divides us into three groups, Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced, and each gets the track for 20 minutes out of every hour. Novice is anyone who hasn't been before, and anyone who chooses to stay there - it has a lot of strict rules, instructions for what you are supposed to do in every session, and a classroom session in between track sessions where they teach you stuff. Intermediate is for anyone who has been on the track before and chooses to go there - it's the carnage class, lots fewer rules, more aggression. Advanced is invitation only, it's mostly guys with racing licenses, and guys who were invited up from Intermediate due to their mad skillz. I have always stayed in Novice.

Whoever you ride with, it's probably best to go for a weekday session if you can. The weekend sessions are way more crowded.

 

[RedLdr1]

Before you hit the track check your insurance policies. Most vehicle policies do not cover any accident that occurs on a track. I watched a guy in my Corvette club do about $35K worth of damage to his new Corvette at Atlanta Motor Speedway and he got to pay all of that out of his pocket. I guy I worked with wrecked his Ducati at Road Atlanta and also got to cover all the damages out of his pocket.

There is also a pretty good chance your health insurance, especially employer based policies, won't cover any injuries that occur at a track event so check that out very carefully as well...

Some events are billed as Driver Improvement Classes to attempt to get around the insurance issues. But that usually means one vehicle at a time or at least major separation and no passing! I always get stuck behind a slow poke when I do one of those events! :rolleyes1:

 

[banjoboy]

Sam, I'm not quite there yet. I'll be interested in what I learn at the next class in September and I'll post pictures of that training, now that I know the rudimentary parts of posting pictures.

Terry

 

[mntsansea_girl]

I just took the level one Total Control class and they teach how to lean... Step by step, just like you learned how to ride in the basic class.
I want to take the level two class in Sept.
It is really a blast once you get in that zone and your body just relaxes as you let the bike do its thing...

 

[Chuck 500]

Been thinking about Total Control as my next training class. Can you post a review?

Formal training so far is BRC, ERC, Ride Like a Pro.

Chuck

 

[TheO.Z.]

Honestly, that was one of my questions. I find the bike pretty flickable in general, but one of the first things I ran into when I "took it out" on the highways near my area was that I quite literally erased my chicken strips. To the edge. I am not normally one to be worried about a little tire scrubbing, but I wasn't running it that hard. This kinda made me question the stock tire profile a lot, because it doesn't seem I should be able to do that (and I get off the bike a lot) without leaning pretty aggressively.

kudos on the lean with the top box. I have had some fun with that top box on and found its lateral movement a bit obnoxious...

 

[banjoboy]

OZ, when out there and trying to lean as hard as I could, the last thing on my mind was the tank box shifting or not. I actually didn't notice it at all.

Terry