Category Archives for Riding Advice
RIDING ADVICE
Here you’ll find a selection of motorcycle riding tips that I have put together from my own personal experience, study and training I’ve had that I hope will help you start to take steps in the right direction to improve your riding skills. While I would never call these articles definitive guides, there is a lot of good information here that I am sure will help you understand a little more of what we can and should be doing as riders when looking at the different aspects of riding a motorcycle on the track.
A common goal among the vast majority of track day riders is to improve their riding in some way, and by taking the time to study and read up on the different aspects of motorcycle riding you will only serve to help yourself get closer to your goal.
Check out the latest articles below…
How to Tackle Hairpin Corners on the Track
As I spoke about in my video on why slow corners are difficult, they aren’t the favoured type of corners for many riders for all the reasons I mentioned. However, in certain corners, like hairpins, they can be the source of a fair bit of time if you approach them in the right way. In […]
Continue readingBody Position: What the Bike Wants From You As a Rider
If you jump off a bike at speed with the throttle jammed in position it will quite happily travel along in a straight line until it runs out of fuel, or it hits something. Left on its own, a bike is a pretty stable machine. It’s only once we jump on board and start operating it […]
Continue readingHow Much Lean Angle Should We Use When Cornering?
We often hear riders, teachers, coaches and commentators alike using terms like “full” or “maximum” lean angle, but what exactly does that mean? How far can we lean a bike? Is there a point you shouldn’t go past? In this article I want to touch on how far we should be leaning our bikes on […]
Continue readingHow Close Should We Sit to the Tank? Different Approaches & Their Benefits
Seating position can be a nuanced affair for each and every rider, with big differences being observable even from the best riders in the world. In this article I wanted to touch on one particular facet of seating position and how that can help or hinder your ability to do a good job on the […]
Continue readingThrottle Control Timing: When to Open the Throttle Mid-Corner
Most riders that have taken some time to learn about track riding technique will know that we want to be getting back to the throttle in the middle section of the corner to stabilise the bike, stop it slowing down and eventually begin our exit drive. However, what they often won’t understand is the timing […]
Continue readingWhy Slower Corners Are Generally Harder, and How to Make them Easier
While I’m sure they’re out there somewhere, in my 10 years of riding on the track I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say they like very slow corners. As motorcycle riders we tend to prefer faster, flowing circuits rather than tracks with a more ‘stop-start’ nature. There’ll be a few reasons why that is, […]
Continue readingSports Bike VS Naked (or Similar) Body Position: What Changes?
A sports bike is the standard bike in the track riding world for obvious reasons. As such, the vast majority of teaching is done from the perspective that you also have a sports bike. This isn’t a problem for most of the core skills of riding a motorcycle quickly, but with their altered geometry and […]
Continue readingWhere and How to Practice Getting Your Knee Down at the Track
It took me a long time to get my knee down on a track day. My speed was coming along nicely and I was doing well from a fundamental standpoint, but my knee just wouldn’t hit the deck, even though I could see that most rider’s knees around me were (many of whom I was […]
Continue readingMove Inside, Not Down: How Hunkering Down Creates Body Position Issues
“I still need to get a little bit lower on the bike…” This is something I hear quite a lot. Typically from riders who are already displaying a perfectly good body position in a fundamental sense. By that I mean they are not only getting into a good neutral position visually, but they’re able to […]
Continue readingThe “In Too Fast” Feeling: What Causes it and How to Reduce it
It’s a horrible feeling. That sudden moment when your stomach turns over with the thought that you’re not going to make the corner which sends you down the path of being over cautious, making mistakes, or possibly falling into full-blown panic. The thing is, for most riders going through that experience they will very often […]
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