Roadstergal
04-30-2005, 10:56 PM
MUCH faster.
I was just hoping to learn a little about riding today. I wasn't expecting to scrape pegs or hang off the seat on my first outing. Certainly not when it was raining steadily in the morning.
Well, I'm often wrong.
Yep, it was wet. It had been raining all night long, so there was plenty of standing water on the track; it was raining lightly, just a little more than a drizzle, so it wasn't drying up. But NESBA said the day would go ahead, so I pulled the lights and taped up those and the signals. We had a meeting for the beginners while the advanced group went out - and during that, a Duc lowsided not too far from us. Little cautionary note. So I went out just hoping not to drop the dang thing. I didn't, and certainly pushed my comfort level exceedingly in the wet. It was certainly humbling to take a corner faster than I ever have before - and then have one of the control riders go past me like I'm standing still.
Oh, the control riders. I have to say, this was one of the best-run track events of any kind I've attended. Groups of 4 or 5 (in the beginner group) would be taken out by an experienced rider in an orange shirt. That rider would watch us, give up simple instructions via hand signals, and give us more extensive feedback later. They would pull a slower rider to the side to let faster ones go by on the straight. Good stuff.
The second session, it had stopped raining. The track was beginning to dry out. I was beginning to push it. And I was abysmally slow in corners. WTF?! The control rider (Rachel) pulled me over at the end of the session and asked me if I used to race cars. Well, I used to track them here... Ja, that explains it, she says. I'm riding the car line, and the car line is really slow on a bike. Next time, follow me!
Next time, I followed her. Much better. She gave me instruction afterward in how to properly lean - get the butt out of the seat, one knee out, feet here and look there.
Next session smoked. Absolutely rockin'. The new line fell into place with the leaning and the looking through. My only oopsie was scraping a peg in 3b - afterwards, Rachel chided me, "Get yer butt out of the seat!"
The next session, I worked more on leaning and looking. Good stuff. But I was getting sore and tired, and with a long ride home awaiting, I bagged the rest of the sessions. Well worth the $180 for what I had gotten already!
Next time, I need to work on that bus stop that they put in just before Turn 9. I kept blowing that one.
Man. I thought car tracking was fun. It's nothing compared to this. Bike tracking is so much more physically and mentally intense; you have no space in your mind to think about anything other than what you're doing. Utterly focused. I won't say it's better than sex, but a day of it for $160 (if you register early) guaranteed - it's a close runner-up.
And on the subject of bikes - it blows me away how competent they are. With the exception of the vertically-challenged adaptations (longer dogbones, slid-down forks, cut seat), my SV is bone-stock. I was not kind to it today, and it performed like a trooper. Incredible. I don't know what I was hitting on the front straight - I was a little preoccupied - but I was regularly getting over 100 on the back straight (if you've never been to 2.3mile PR, the back straight ain't shit).
And the "horrible" track mileage was just under 50mpg.
I was just hoping to learn a little about riding today. I wasn't expecting to scrape pegs or hang off the seat on my first outing. Certainly not when it was raining steadily in the morning.
Well, I'm often wrong.
Yep, it was wet. It had been raining all night long, so there was plenty of standing water on the track; it was raining lightly, just a little more than a drizzle, so it wasn't drying up. But NESBA said the day would go ahead, so I pulled the lights and taped up those and the signals. We had a meeting for the beginners while the advanced group went out - and during that, a Duc lowsided not too far from us. Little cautionary note. So I went out just hoping not to drop the dang thing. I didn't, and certainly pushed my comfort level exceedingly in the wet. It was certainly humbling to take a corner faster than I ever have before - and then have one of the control riders go past me like I'm standing still.
Oh, the control riders. I have to say, this was one of the best-run track events of any kind I've attended. Groups of 4 or 5 (in the beginner group) would be taken out by an experienced rider in an orange shirt. That rider would watch us, give up simple instructions via hand signals, and give us more extensive feedback later. They would pull a slower rider to the side to let faster ones go by on the straight. Good stuff.
The second session, it had stopped raining. The track was beginning to dry out. I was beginning to push it. And I was abysmally slow in corners. WTF?! The control rider (Rachel) pulled me over at the end of the session and asked me if I used to race cars. Well, I used to track them here... Ja, that explains it, she says. I'm riding the car line, and the car line is really slow on a bike. Next time, follow me!
Next time, I followed her. Much better. She gave me instruction afterward in how to properly lean - get the butt out of the seat, one knee out, feet here and look there.
Next session smoked. Absolutely rockin'. The new line fell into place with the leaning and the looking through. My only oopsie was scraping a peg in 3b - afterwards, Rachel chided me, "Get yer butt out of the seat!"
The next session, I worked more on leaning and looking. Good stuff. But I was getting sore and tired, and with a long ride home awaiting, I bagged the rest of the sessions. Well worth the $180 for what I had gotten already!
Next time, I need to work on that bus stop that they put in just before Turn 9. I kept blowing that one.
Man. I thought car tracking was fun. It's nothing compared to this. Bike tracking is so much more physically and mentally intense; you have no space in your mind to think about anything other than what you're doing. Utterly focused. I won't say it's better than sex, but a day of it for $160 (if you register early) guaranteed - it's a close runner-up.
And on the subject of bikes - it blows me away how competent they are. With the exception of the vertically-challenged adaptations (longer dogbones, slid-down forks, cut seat), my SV is bone-stock. I was not kind to it today, and it performed like a trooper. Incredible. I don't know what I was hitting on the front straight - I was a little preoccupied - but I was regularly getting over 100 on the back straight (if you've never been to 2.3mile PR, the back straight ain't shit).
And the "horrible" track mileage was just under 50mpg.