Looking where you want to go

[positivecarry]

So, I took the MSF ERC yesterday.  The course is basically the same drills done in the BRC, only on your own bike and faster.  What I took away from it, personally, is that I can still improve more on "looking where I want to go" and keeping my eyes/head up. 

When I was in college, I autocrossed a great deal and one of the things I learned there was the power of looking ahead.  I remember doing an autocross school where the instructors had us yell out where we were looking on the course as we drove it, to prove to them (and ourselves) that we were looking far enough ahead to the next corner.  They also had a drill where they'd put painters tape on the bottom half of your windshield, so you had no choice but to look ahead and couldn't focus on the space in front of your hood.  Basically, looking ahead and looking where you needed to place the car made you smoother and faster.

So, yesterday at the ERC, there were a series of 120 and 180 degree turns where the instructor and I realized I could look a lot deeper into the turns, and once I did so, everything felt smoother and faster.  The thing is, I struggled with looking ahead when I autocrossed and I feel like my tendency while riding a motorcycle is the same. 

How do you guys work on looking ahead and into the turn?  Does it just come naturally?

[DarkStaR]

For me:
It's easier to do on roads I'm REALLY familiar with.

When I'm not familiar with the roads I tend to not look far enough ahead due to me always wanting to see what I'm running over...bad me.

[somegirl]

Practice all the time, even when commuting in your car, or riding a bicycle. 

Go on a ride, take it nice and easy and focus just on looking ahead as the only new skill to work on.

[coarsegoldkid]

It's easier to look where you want to go with turns that allow you to see the road without trees or berms blocking the view.  Big sweepers make it simple. Where riders get into trouble is on the tight blind stuff.  A late apex will help in these cases.  Around here where I live sand on the surface in one's intended line can catch you off guard.  Rider looks at the sand, too much time passes, you can't get it back, now beyond the apex, and riders want to apply the brakes.  For sure speed maybe too high and slowing down is paramount but so is "looking where you want to go".  So how do you get it?  You must turn your head, exaggerate the motion, and pay attention to countersteering quickly.  This isn't new territory almost everyone has heard it before.  It takes practice.
What I found early in my riding days is that when I looked as far ahead as I could my brain would register the road surface, determine the proper lean angle and speed, program the turn and guide me to turn while I was looking for the next obstacle.  "The Pace" thread describes this process.

[pennyrobber]

I am usually wanting to go fast so, I usually look toward fast.  [moto]

[Slide Panda]

From a purely physical aspect of it - work on your flexibility and  core strength. IF your range of motion for turning your head is restricted you've (obviously) got less total potential to swivel your head and have to push out the the outer edges of your range of motion (ROM).

In conjunction with that, if you're not using your core to hold up your upper torso and, as a result, leaning your weight on the bars a lot - that will lock up your shoulders and make it harder to look around as needed.

[nicrosato]

Practice all the time, even when commuting in your car, or riding a bicycle.

+1

Where riders get into trouble is on the tight blind stuff.

Riding recently in Colorado (DITR 2010), I was confronted more times than I can remember with blind curves in the mountains where the inside of the curve was a  sheer rock wall. It was really an act of will to keep looking as far ahead as I could so as not to be surprised as I got into it. +1 on the late apex.

[clydesride]

I struggle with the dreaded looking too close to the front tire syndrome, I imagine if I trusted that there was no sand or debris in the corner I might relax and look farther ahead. I will try that programming idea and see how it works for me because once I finally relax and look way around the curve, I actually get through it fairly well, guess I gotta trust in the glance at it from a distance and program it in method?

[evocarti]

After seeing this thread earlier, I've really been paying attention to my head position going through corners. It's paying off

It's too easy to neglect all the good stuff you learned in the BRC after you get a bit of experience. Getting back to the fundamentals!

[Ddan]

You can scan the road in front of you for hazards and still keep your focus on looking through the turn.   

[clydesride]

I gotta work on scanning briefly not fixating on the "holy crap is there sand or stones or whatever there??" I have much work to do before I can become a Jedi.

[Duc796canada]

After seeing this thread earlier, I've really been paying attention to my head position going through corners. It's paying off

It's too easy to neglect all the good stuff you learned in the BRC after you get a bit of experience. Getting back to the fundamentals!

Well said, back to fundamentals. We should have "check rides" every so often to relearn the basics. Great points all around, since I have started riding, I try to drive the same way, looking up and farther, I scan back and forth, between far and close making far my priority! I'm also a lot more vigilant in looking out for motorcycles!!

[Ahks]

become a Jedi.

Oddly enough. When my dad and I took the MSF course a few years ago the "Jedi" bit was mentioned more than once :p

[WarrenJ]

I've only been riding for 3 years so some of this may be obvious  to many but to me, part of looking where you want to go is a way to avoid target fixation.  I practice it by seeing a spot on the road ahead and looking through the route around that spot.  It trains me not to lock onto an obstruction or patch of gravel, etc.  This morning that practice paid off in spades.  I was clipping along at an admittedly  high rate of speed down an empty rural road.  I was heading East and the sun was in the Southeast casting shadows from the trees across the road in strips - kind of like a strobe affect.  I was projecting well down the road when suddenly in one of the shadow bands 30 yards ahead of me was at least half a dozen wild turkeys.  At the speed I was going, 30 yards doesn't take long, but my eyes went automatically for the path between the birds instead of locking on the big tom in the lead.  I remember seeing black feathers on both sides in my periphery for a very short amount of time and I came out unscathed.  Could have been a real bad morning, but instead it was a relatively painless learning experience. 

Yes, I was going too fast, and in this case, I was looking too far ahead strategically, and not enough at the closer, tactial issues.  Learned some stuff.....

[Fresh Pants]

This thread reminded of a time when I was doing some training for DH mountain biking (or mtn biking in general). We did some parking lot drills where we would initiate a turn in one direction (with a pretty extreme lean) and try to turn as tight a circle as we could without falling over. The trick was to basically crank your neck and body around to look at your back tire. Sort of like a dog chasing its own tail. Very weird feeling, but it worked.