Since I've started riding I've always been a road realist. I don't have the money for track gear and I've never felt comfortable doing the speeds on local twisties required to drag a knee, so I've always focused more on practicing slow speed maneuvering over corning technique. A funny thing I noticed as a by product of my slow speed turning practice is that my high speed cornering has improved without doing a whole lot of high speed cornering. Needless to say, a lot of guys focus on cornering and wheelie practice so much that they forget about the stuff that keeps you alive and is most useful in every day situations.
I've always been aware of this for my entire motorcycling career, so at this point not to brag but I'm pretty damn good at slow speed stuff. I practice almost exclusively on my Sportster since I can't bear to look at the temp and voltage gauges on my 1125r going that slow. This ends up working out better I think because anything I can do on my Harley, I could do on a sportbike better anyways. I can take a slalom so fast that I can lock the bars in either direction. I can do a u-turn in less than 2 parking spaces, and lately, since the back brake is so easy to lock up on my sportster, I've been practicing locking it up and drifting around corners as well as keeping it straight.
Here's the center of the shrubbery maze and why I typed this crap up. Today all those skills came into play in a situation that made me feel both completely badass and retarded at the same time. I was in stop and go traffic in the dark on my way home from work on the Sportster, just coasting along using the back brake and singing songs in my head. I looked either down or back for a few seconds and when I looked ahead the mini van in front of me was at a dead stop, while I was still doing 10-15mph. I didn't have my right hand on the front brake (this is me being retarded) inside my scooter logic cold weather handbags, so I locked up the back brake. Seeing that I was still going too fast I cocked the front wheel left and DRIFTED around the mini van, leaned the bars left just enough and ended up passing within INCHES of the back left of the van and out onto the shoulder of the road.
All of this happened in a time span of what I would guess to be about 3 seconds. It happened so fast my adrenaline didn't even trigger. Despite my stupidity in not paying attention to what is in front of me, the stuff that I practice in parking lots saved myself and my machine (and absolutely no doubt the man upstairs had a hand in it as well). So moral of the story: practice low speed stuff. I am so glad that my father instilled its importance into my head from day 1 and years in still go to parking lots at least once a week.
I've always been aware of this for my entire motorcycling career, so at this point not to brag but I'm pretty damn good at slow speed stuff. I practice almost exclusively on my Sportster since I can't bear to look at the temp and voltage gauges on my 1125r going that slow. This ends up working out better I think because anything I can do on my Harley, I could do on a sportbike better anyways. I can take a slalom so fast that I can lock the bars in either direction. I can do a u-turn in less than 2 parking spaces, and lately, since the back brake is so easy to lock up on my sportster, I've been practicing locking it up and drifting around corners as well as keeping it straight.
Here's the center of the shrubbery maze and why I typed this crap up. Today all those skills came into play in a situation that made me feel both completely badass and retarded at the same time. I was in stop and go traffic in the dark on my way home from work on the Sportster, just coasting along using the back brake and singing songs in my head. I looked either down or back for a few seconds and when I looked ahead the mini van in front of me was at a dead stop, while I was still doing 10-15mph. I didn't have my right hand on the front brake (this is me being retarded) inside my scooter logic cold weather handbags, so I locked up the back brake. Seeing that I was still going too fast I cocked the front wheel left and DRIFTED around the mini van, leaned the bars left just enough and ended up passing within INCHES of the back left of the van and out onto the shoulder of the road.
All of this happened in a time span of what I would guess to be about 3 seconds. It happened so fast my adrenaline didn't even trigger. Despite my stupidity in not paying attention to what is in front of me, the stuff that I practice in parking lots saved myself and my machine (and absolutely no doubt the man upstairs had a hand in it as well). So moral of the story: practice low speed stuff. I am so glad that my father instilled its importance into my head from day 1 and years in still go to parking lots at least once a week.
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