I dropped a knee today!

[He Man]

Left knee went down after about 7 tries on an open field, and then my right knee after a bunch of tries.

I had a friend take a pic of me while was dragging. I was a bit crossed up on some of them, but the few that i had my head near the inside handlebars, i remember the bike being so low, if i didn't start to apply throttle i was gonna go down.

I managed to use up all the slider material on my stock suit on the edge and started to drag leathers. What kind of sliders can i get that have more life in them? i could destroy a set of my stock sliders pretty quickly.

Most of the turns were 1st gear 4,000rpm/5,000rpm (~25mph), not enough space to kick it up to 2nd gear. Hoping this will prep me well for the total control advance riding clinic. Over all pretty cool. I draged my knee, then my toe sliders and a bit of my peg on the turns where i went in a bit quicker. the new 999 showa shock feels much stiddier. even as a 150lbs rider, the stock S2R1000 shock was lacking. this new shock is muy bueno! the bike doenst feel like its sagged under its own weight when im turning.

[Mr Bread]

Congrats! Dragging knee is fun!! I've found the chicken hawk racing pucks "extra hard" pucks to last a pretty long time. A lot of people like the klucky pucks too.

[Xiphias]

 

[Spidey]

I managed to use up all the slider material on my stock suit on the edge and started to drag leathers. What kind of sliders can i get that have more life in them? i could destroy a set of my stock sliders pretty quickly.

Really?  You must have really been sticking that knee into the ground.

I've found leather sliders last a long time.  I've always used A&G or the stock plastic Vanson sliders.  The only downside to the leather A&G slidersis that they have a really strong bite.  Sometimes too much.  A good compromise is the A&G endurance.  They're a harder leather with a bit less bite.  A coupla of friends absolutely swear by ceramic sliders.  They don't have too much bite and they last forever. 

[He Man]

I had plastic nylon sliders, its just the material wore so quickly that half way through a turn i started draging hte leather on my suit. the threads on the soft side of the velcro got ripped off. so im going to need to rethread it. im pretty sure i can do it by hand since the holes are still there.

Regarding how hard i was pounding the knee into hte ground, i think i might of been using it to keep the bike up at some point lol, that and i was riding on concrete so it must of magnified the wear 10 fold.


Ive heard ceramic sliders were the way to go. but i never knew there were such a thing as leatehr sliders till you mentioned it.

[donzo]

I had some parking lot practice on the weekend too.  It was a huge parking lot, I pretty much made a track out of it.  I leaned in pretty deep in 2nd gear, no full knee dragging though.  I'm curious, what gear do riders on the track lean into turns in?  I know it's hard to say, but if I was in a lower gear, would I have been able to put my knee fully down?

[Mr Bread]

i've only been to the track 3 times, but at nhms for me its 2nd gear and up.

[El Matador]

Congrats! Proper suspension does wonders huh?

I miss the full ohlins of my 996...

I find that I like the feel of leather sliders more, but I've only tried leather and plastic

[Spidey]

I had some parking lot practice on the weekend too.  It was a huge parking lot, I pretty much made a track out of it.  I leaned in pretty deep in 2nd gear, no full knee dragging though.  I'm curious, what gear do riders on the track lean into turns in?  I know it's hard to say, but if I was in a lower gear, would I have been able to put my knee fully down?

It's not dependent on the gear you're in, but more on the track layout.  It's generally easier to get a knee down when you're going slower, so 2d and 3rd are where you get it down more often on the track.  I didn't include 1st because you're rarely down to 1st gear on the track unless its a REALLY tight and technical track.  On the track, people will almost never get their knee down in the top gear because that's pretty much reserved for straightaways.  Some tracks may have a 6th gear kink, but even then, you don't want to stick your knee out b/c it'll slow you down too much.  At 6th gear speed, having your leg out acts like a sail.  I'm pretty sure I've put I knee down in gears 1-5 on the track.  5th gear turns are pretty scary.    

If the point of practicing in a parking lot is to get your knee down, then don't focus on leaning the bike as much as focus on getting off the bike.   Start by having someone take pictures of you or film you while you're practicing.  That said, getting your knee down in a parking lot isn't good for anything other than to say that you've done it.  I don't mean to minimize that -- it's pretty fun to do for the first time.  And the second.  And the 10th.  

[EvilSteve]

You can get your knee down pretty easily if you stretch yourself to touch down. It's called newb form, I've been training myself out of that. Most racers get their knee down to tell them when they're nearly out of tire, check how much tire you're using. If you've got nothing left, make sure you don't lean any further. Whatever you have as unused on your tire is how far past knee down you can go before you're out of tire.

I love getting my knee down but lines and form are way more important.

[donzo]

My parking lot practice the other day was just that - practiceOK OK, it was to get rid of some chicken strips too.  The closest windy roads are a bit of a ride away and it wasn't going to be a full day affair.  So I did some figure eights, weaving, swerve maneouvers, emergency stops from 45mph, stopping on a curve etc..  The parking lot was big enough and had some aisleways and no cars so I started doing some track type maneouvers and looped around more aggressively each time.  I noticed I was starting to lean pretty tight but didn't know exactly how low I was leaning.  It did get so I was shifting my weight and riding position in the seat and I was pretty low, is that cheating, or do you have to be right at the sides of your rims?  It was pretty tight in 2nd gear and I wanted to know what speeds that knee dragging was typical of to see if the parking lot was at all comparable.

That said, does anybody have any good parking lot exercises to practice?  Track days are coming end of summer.

[EvilSteve]

You sound like you're doing the BRC stuff just at higher speeds & on your bike (so basically ERC).

I would suggest that you do some reading on proper form. Someone using poor form will use more tire than someone using good form.

Get yourself a book like "Total Control" or "Sport Riding Techniques" and learn the correct form.

ARC uses 40 foot circles, getting your knee down on that only requires like 20mph and it's pretty easy with noob form.

[He Man]

Evil, im planning on taking ARC 1 at DCC on june 14 provided i dont have a test on the 15th (mon), the roster only has 3 people on it as of now so hopefully it wont fill up. its only 24 people.

But yea, i was rocking noob form pretty hard core. there wasnt enough space to go faster than 20/25. I was at Floyd bennet field and this guy on a tricked out hyper (who rode dirt when he was younger, looked about 45-50s) showed us that we can use the old paint job on the field to form a small track which was pretty cool.

How are you suppose to know how much tire is left after droping the knee? just ride, drop a knee, remember that position and check your strips?

[EvilSteve]

The concept is basically that, yes. Your body position is meant to stay the same, when you lean over, you touch down at a certain point, pull the knee back up slightly (unless you're just doing it for laughs) and then you can tell how much tire you have left.

[redxblack]

I bought the Total Control book over the winter and my form still sucks. I suppose I should read it this summer.