'Teq' talk: Beaches Blat

Doing a little bit of sitting, waiting for departure - so figured I'd at least do some sitting while I'm riding.

I wasn't 100% happy with my technique last weekend down Mac Pass, so I wanted to work on a couple of things.

Entries are the bottleneck of my technique. I exit well enough, but I generally feel slow mid-corner, and that's because I enter poorly - not because I'm not happy leaning. Even accounting for a sensible and conservative 'slow in fast out' approach, by mid-corner it is so often obvious I am travelling too slowly.

Part of the problem is that I usually run the brakes quite late. I am happy doing it, and still maintain that it is a useful technique to be comfortable with. But the SV doesn't handle the easing-off process that well - and neither do I frankly - and I don't deal that well with the busy process of entering and appropriately judging speed. I'm always conservative if I'm not concentrating appropriately on my line through the corner.

So, today I went about improving that. It was a little hard picking out some suitable roads, so I resolved to just ride to the beach, and managed to randomly generate some corners.

Without going particularly quickly, I was pretty happy with the smooth lines and effective approaches I made - given a largely suburban corner set. No breakthrough, but I felt good. No big changes to riding technique ('teq'), but a revision of focus and mindset had a huge impact on experience. And of course a noticeable difference in the corners.


Another realisation I had on the road today is that corners in the suburbs often aren't 'corners' at all. Intersections, dead-ends, roundabouts and other obstacles are all great opportunities to enjoy riding - and practice teq - and are often safer and more predictable contexts to do so than narrow, blind and unpredictable corners. So maybe the next ride I plan I won't be looking for the twisties at all.


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@JohnSBaxter
2009-traveldiary.blogspot.com
2009-motorcyclist.blogspot.com

MotoBlog developments - digression from the mean

Just a quicky - because I know none of you are crash hot on commitment - I think I have decided the direction for the blogs breakdown. All travel stuff - including the motorcycling aspect - will be posted on 2009-traveldiary.blogspot.com. Only stuff specifically of interest to motorcyclists will be posted here. That means:

Discussions on technique, technique introspectives, and other aspects of rides that will only really resonate with the bikers among us. Stuff on the MotoGP. General bike things. Anything about riding that I don't want my mum to read...


Included in all that technique talk is implicit the idea of developing my ability to help other people with their riding. I am by no means an expert or a pro, and really I'm not that fast or otherwise extraodinarily skilled. Anyone with the right attitude could get to a similar point to me with a year or two of experience. But I am proud of the skills that I have developed, the mature approach I take to riding, and the level of safety and confidence with which I ride. Ultimately, these things I have learnt not through excessive experience (I have gained them mainly through about two years worth of riding, over the last four years), and certainly not through innate ability, but through an introspective and analytical perspective and approach to developing my riding.

This background should make me suitable for helping other people to work on their riding. Should - to be honest, while I like to talk to people about their riding, I don't know much about actually helping them to ride, and can think of few instances of having a concrete impact on anyone's riding.

I had approached James Spence a year or two ago about getting involved in the rider training they do at their race schools - ultimately I didn't have the time, so I didn't really progress down that avenue. Being on the road, it is obviously difficult for me to do anything along those lines, though when I settle down anything that I can work around fulltime work could be a good option.

In the meantime, there will be this blog. I don't know how much help I can offer, but I can certainly think out loud, and we can see where to go from there.


In the news, you might also have heard a couple of details: firstly, I will be leaving Sydney next Thursday - it has gotten to the point where I may as well hang around in Sydney till my sister gets back from overseas. I have also been offered a job with the Victorian Auditor General's Office (VAGO), as a Performance Audit officer/analyst. Their GRAD Scheme starts in February next year, in Melbourne of course. I haven't said yes, but I will, and as long as my second reference doesn't stab me in the back I will be fine.
So this trip, really is a departure - my return home won't be to the home I am departing. And it really is a holiday! Not just an extension of an uncertain future.

Chin chin - don't forget to nod.


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@JohnSBaxter
2009-traveldiary.blogspot.com
2009-motorcyclist.blogspot.com
www.jsbaxter.com.au

Preparations; Update: GP, home

Well hello there, strangers. I hope we haven't grown too far apart in the millenia since we last met.

My apologies for abandoning the posts on wagering - upon receiving a little feedback I had to consider whether my audience actually had any interest in them... There is no use after all in regularly posting if the posts are regularly unread! So I concluded that frankly, there was little use keeping them up. If I was going to take blogging more seriously (as I have half-arsedly considered in the past), I will keep that idea as an option - an option to develop a niche audience, of course, not to alienate the friends I already have.

I will update briefly, though, while I am here. My return so far this year has exceeded expectations (and goals). Partly I am getting more used to it, but primarily I have revised my assessment of the risks of wagering. I realised that a significant risk at any given round is mitigated by the averaging of similar risks over a ten-eighteen round season - short term risk is distinct from long-term. Net average returns is a much more dominant variable - and so far that has proven the case.

I have also looked into alternative agents and have been informed that a few international transaction companies (e.g. Moneybookers and Neteller) provide means to fund overseas betting agents. I have opened a Neteller account though I am yet to use it.

In news closer to home, both the bikes have been painted. No photos of Jill yet (still haven't put her together), but of Jesus I've taken a few - tiny.cc/PhoJes . The experience was as laborious as expected, though considerably slower. The 'painting two is only a little more difficult than painting one' rationale completely ignored the glaring fact that sanding is the primary component of a paintjob. The result was largely better than expected, except that the last batch bubbled - I still don't know why. But I do know that there was no way at that stage that I was redoing any, so that was that. Sort of a shame, but still quite happy with the result. Not a perfectly smooth surface, but a good gloss and overall positive appearance - no excessive peel like the last job, and no strong demand for polishing.

So, with that done, the racebike is for sale. BUY IT! NOW! HURRY, SO I CAN LEAVE THIS TOWN FOR FINER LOCALES.

The plan is to have headed North within the week. By North I really do mean North - until the roads run out, and the dirt track which winds its way into the distance proves too much of a challenge for the SV and my nerves.

You know about my plans for the rest of the year, right? Good. And I'm glad to hear you're still jealous.


As a result, the diary will be changing back to its original self - the motodiary of an intrepid adventurer. It WILL BE AN ADVENTURE, and you will be able to read about it. No guarantee on regularity - but there are a range of options these days should that be a problem for you.

Until then.


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@JohnSBaxter
2009-traveldiary.blogspot.com
2009-motorcyclist.blogspot.com

Domestic Bliss

Yet to leave Sydney, but the masses are breying (right?), so I'll write about the 'domestic scene'.

Like everyone, it seems, I don't ride enough, so I've made sure to hit up some of the local tarmac over the last couple of days before I leave. I can't even remember the last time I did any real riding: RNP a few months ago would have been the closest, but I was scrubbing in new tyres.

The Mindset: Got it or you don't. (Or in between.)

Yesterday I wasn't riding so well. I don't know what it was - I blamed rust - I just didn't feel comfortable, and I sure as hell didn't go quickly. I was boring myself! It was a lovely route we took: some excellent, tight and twisty stuff, if a little suburban (I might get around to posting maps of some of the roads up here on the Beaches - I will do it sooner if somebody asks about it). But it didn't click. It may have felt slow, but it didn't feel like I could go faster... - I lacked confidence in my ability to go faster that next step down the road, I think. In short, I was riding like a nanna.

I left a friend's place at 2am the next morning and - voila! Everything was great! There wasn't a great deal of nice road between there and home, but I milked it and finally enjoyed myself. The difference, I think, was that at two, whilst not overly tired, I was relaxed enough that I could want to go forward, without really worrying about how average I may have been riding now.

I don't really know how to articulate this, but the one stand-out aspect of riding well is that the focus of attention is the need to go forward. Sometimes it comes with a lust to get to the other side (not the same thing as trying to go fast, which is focussed on the present-state rather than the future), sometimes just with a relaxed confidence and clear, midnight mind.
I refuse to call this 'the zone', but you may: I don't think it is a helpful vocabulary.

And today? Well, I don't know. Any 'lust' was tempered by a conservative approach to the conditions, the 60kph speed limit and thinking about my riding partners. I certainly had no midnight mind. But it wasn't trashy, just in between...

There are no solid conclusions in this world of motorcycling.


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@JohnSBaxter
2009-traveldiary.blogspot.com
2009-motorcyclist.blogspot.com
jsbaxter.com.au (coming soon!)