What would be your advice?

[The Spin Doctor]

Which (how to run group rides so that everyone gets there) is another thread. You ought to run an online seminar about it

Done last year.

Perhaps even use the script / content to create an e-book?

Done about ten years ago.

* top tip: ensure riders taking part have some basic idea of where they're going (eg which m-way junction to exit at) so you don't have some fuggwit deciding to mark a slip road, on the hard shoulder ...

I've talked about the need to plan routes to avoid towns, ring roads and awkward junctions including roundabout. And why take a motorway? I still remember a group ride in the S of France where the leader went 30 miles out of our way to ride 40 miles down a motorway because it must have been 1 minute faster on the GPS than the direct - and beautifully twisty - route.

I led back, on that road!

[The Spin Doctor]

Surprisingly, no. No-one has referred to the RTTL handbook either which clearly states 'any rider having issues with cornering must refer to one or more of the following:

a) tyre profile's wrong for that type of corner
b) dealer has messed up the suspension settings/haven't got the new Ohlins dialled in yet
c) need to change the oil weight in the forks/drop them an inch
d) the throttle's 'sticky'
e) I thought there was oil on the bend so I bailed
f) brake fade/can't get used to these new pads'

Add in:

g) OE steering damper is crap
h) standard wheels are too heavy
i) standard body work is too heavy

[The Spin Doctor]

PS I found out the hard way that not all place names in France are unique and places with the same name aren't usually close together.

We have a local attraction, Donnington Castle. It's 125 miles from Castle Donington. Not unknown for confusion to occur.

And there's Leeds in Yorkshire... and Leeds Castle... which is in Kent.

A regular courier f-ck up was Ashford. Maidstone and Maidenhead was another.

And in the pre GPS days when you had to rely on a map index, I got caught out by a place - can't recall the name - with an Ipswich postcode. Turned out there were two places with the same name, and the one I wanted was actually NOT the one near Ipswich.

[The Spin Doctor]

Interesting thread.

I had a stinker of a ride yesterday. Picked the wrong route for a start. But I couldn't change gear properly at all and came home early. Went out in a good frame of mind and came home in foul form feeling very sorry for myself.

I agree about practice being no good if you don't know what you're doing in the first place. I can relate that to a lot of my riding. I genuinely understand about corning, I can feel what the bike is doing, what makes it easier and safer for me, but the limits in my head are really low. My chicken strips can vouch for that.

Try the 'one gear game'.

A bike like yours has an engine that is flexible over a LONG rev range. Find a gear that you can sit in, then ignore the gearbox after that.

You'll find that you get better engine braking than if you're changing down approaching corners (you're already in a lower gear) and you can simply focus on finessing your approach speed with the brakes, you've one less thing to think about mid-corner and you're less likely to end up in the wrong gear, and finally you'll get better drive out of the bend once you're upright.

Chicken strips don't tell the whole story. If you use positive speed changes either side of the bend, you can carry less mid-corner speed, and that's almost always a good thing. You'll be able to change direction with less effort, change direction more quickly (which means you're back on the gas sooner) and you'll have more in hand than someone trying to use all the tread mid-corner if things go wrong.

Someone got really frustrated with me on a group ride in the Pyrenees claiming I was 'holding him up' in the bends. If I had been, he'd have been able to carry his speed into the corner and pass me on the next straight. In fact, he was rushing into corners trying to catch me up, so he came out of them far slower and with my slower mid-corner speed / quicker change of direction I was upright, on the gas and off and down the road before he'd got the bike turned.

[mangocrazy]

Try the 'one gear game'.

A bike like yours has an engine that is flexible over a LONG rev range. Find a gear that you can sit in, then ignore the gearbox after that.

You'll find that you get better engine braking than if you're changing down approaching corners (you're already in a lower gear) and you can simply focus on finessing your approach speed with the brakes, you've one less thing to think about mid-corner and you're less likely to end up in the wrong gear, and finally you'll get better drive out of the bend once you're upright.

On one of my favourite Peak District roads, there's a lovely twisty section with 2nd/3rd gear corners insterspersed with very short straights. On the Falco I just leave it in the same gear all the way up the hill (a mile or so) and hardly even need to touch the brakes much as engine braking slows me down enough (different story on the way down the hill, mind). Leaving the bike in one gear frees you to concentrate on the vagaries of the road, positioning etc. etc.

[Horse]

Which (how to run group rides so that everyone gets there) is another thread. You ought to run an online seminar about it

Done last year.

I know if you recall, I sent you a diagram and text to consider using

* top tip: ensure riders taking part have some basic idea of where they're going (eg which m-way junction to exit at) so you don't have some fuggwit deciding to mark a slip road, on the hard shoulder ...

And why take a motorway?

As it happens, I know where they were going, the destination was about a mile from the junction.

I don't know where they started from, but the alternatives were either 5 miles of urban 30 limit (and much less direct) or several miles of nadgery and not enjoyable cross country.

However, it was an annual event, so highly likely that many riders would know the route anyway, so they probably didn't really need to manage the group.

[Trinity765]

Try the 'one gear game'.

A bike like yours has an engine that is flexible over a LONG rev range. Find a gear that you can sit in, then ignore the gearbox after that.

You'll find that you get better engine braking than if you're changing down approaching corners (you're already in a lower gear) and you can simply focus on finessing your approach speed with the brakes, you've one less thing to think about mid-corner and you're less likely to end up in the wrong gear, and finally you'll get better drive out of the bend once you're upright.

On one of my favourite Peak District roads, there's a lovely twisty section with 2nd/3rd gear corners insterspersed with very short straights. On the Falco I just leave it in the same gear all the way up the hill (a mile or so) and hardly even need to touch the brakes much as engine braking slows me down enough (different story on the way down the hill, mind). Leaving the bike in one gear frees you to concentrate on the vagaries of the road, positioning etc. etc.

On my IAM pre-test ride with a senior instructor he told me that I should be in 2nd for 20, 3rd for 30, 4th for 40 etc. I argued saying "This is a CB1000R and 2nd does everything". None the less, I adopted the habit of using more gears. I'm still in the process of unlearning this.

[Dodgy69]

Riding corners should be easy, fun and enjoyable

Absolutely agree on that, and it does as long as I'm within my limits. I can't go fast in a straight line because I'm sh1te at shifting.

I preferred to explain my chicken strips as being a result of better cornering lines, meaning I wasn't leaning so far

I'm using that from now on.

Your day at Pembrey will sort out many of the issues you mention, that, I have no doubt. Proper grippy see through corners with plenty of experience on hand with advice if needed.

Not me BTW.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

And in the pre GPS days when you had to rely on a map index, I got caught out by a place - can't recall the name - with an Ipswich postcode. Turned out there were two places with the same name, and the one I wanted was actually NOT the one near Ipswich.

We do it just to confuse foreigners (anyone from outside Suffolk)

I'm guessing it was Tuddenham St Martin and Tuddenham, the first is near Ipswich, the second is near Bury St Edmunds, but there are quite a few others, we also like to send people looking for Thorpe Morieaux

[The Spin Doctor]

On my IAM pre-test ride with a senior instructor he told me that I should be in 2nd for 20, 3rd for 30, 4th for 40 etc. I argued saying "This is a CB1000R and 2nd does everything". None the less, I adopted the habit of using more gears. I'm still in the process of unlearning this.

Gordon Bennett. There are times being in a higher gear makes sense (like trying not to annoy the locals too much in a 30 on a Sunday morning) but it's this kind of thinking that does my head in.

I had the opposite on a BikeSafe: "I've been watching you and you're in the wrong gear for a 600 on these roads, you should be in second".

I tried explaining that the XJ is NOT your average 600 supersport. It may have an old R6 motor as the basis for the powerplant, but it's been seriousl y modified for flexibility.

To keep it reasonably sprightly, first gear runs out at 45, second at 60-ish, and since the engine's bump of the torque curve is almost flat from less than 4000 rpm to 9, it's happier in 3rd and 4th at twisty B road speeds.

Nope, not convinced. So I revved the nuts off the bike for the next 15 mins just to keep PC Plod happy. "There, wasn't that better?" No, actually, it wasn't.

[Taipan]

Best advice I was ever given, "ride your own race". Which means don't try and keep up with others. There was no training when I started riding though, but now you have plenty of options and even a Bikesafe course run by the Police is supposedly very good and free I believe?

The following is an article I read years ago and it helped me tremendously. It's how I ride when I'm out for a spin and also the main reason I only ride solo. Even today I think it's well worth a read and I believe stands the test of time. Just remember it's American and you'll need to flip the lane descriptions!

https://www.motorcyclistonline.com/pace/

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

On my IAM pre-test ride with a senior instructor he told me that I should be in 2nd for 20, 3rd for 30, 4th for 40 etc. I argued saying "This is a CB1000R and 2nd does everything". None the less, I adopted the habit of using more gears. I'm still in the process of unlearning this.

Gordon Bennett. There are times being in a higher gear makes sense (like trying not to annoy the locals too much in a 30 on a Sunday morning) but it's this kind of thinking that does my head in.

I had the opposite on a BikeSafe: "I've been watching you and you're in the wrong gear for a 600 on these roads, you should be in second".

I tried explaining that the XJ is NOT your average 600 supersport. It may have an old R6 motor as the basis for the powerplant, but it's been seriousl y modified for flexibility.

To keep it reasonably sprightly, first gear runs out at 45, second at 60-ish, and since the engine's bump of the torque curve is almost flat from less than 4000 rpm to 9, it's happier in 3rd and 4th at twisty B road speeds.

Nope, not convinced. So I revved the nuts off the bike for the next 15 mins just to keep PC Plod happy. "There, wasn't that better?" No, actually, it wasn't.

I do hate the you need to be in this gear for that speed type advice, what's needed is the appropriate gear for the circumstances, I've no idea how you teach that one, and I don't know if everyone can learn it by experience as I know car drivers who are terrible at being in the right gear. As an example I had a 98 R1, it would break every speed limit in 1st, it would also happily sit at 30mph in 6th and would pull from 30 to 180 without changing gear.

[Horse]

How?

Ask the trainee, questions such as 'if you open the throttle will it accelerate, close it will it slow?'

But even then it needs to be appropriate.

[War story]
Guy booked himself onto an advanced course, really needed something far more basic.

I positioned myself so that I could see his rev counter. 2k, going around a roundabout.

It was a Ducati 600SS.

Pulled him in. Quick chat.

"Does it feel lumpy?"
Yes
"At what revs does it smooth out?"
Whatever he said
"Ok, keep the revs above that, I want to hear you play tunes."

He was much happier the next time we stopped.

Don't think that's in Roadcraft

[The Spin Doctor]

Best advice I was ever given, "ride your own race". Which means don't try and keep up with others. There was no training when I started riding though, but now you have plenty of options and even a Bikesafe course run by the Police is supposedly very good and free I believe?

The following is an article I read years ago and it helped me tremendously. It's how I ride when I'm out for a spin and also the main reason I only ride solo. Even today I think it's well worth a read and I believe stands the test of time. Just remember it's American and you'll need to flip the lane descriptions!

https://www.motorcyclistonline.com/pace/

Nick Ienastch is one of the clearest thinkers about street riding, IMO.

Another many would do well to read is Pat Hahn. I had an email correspondence with him some years back and we both think the appropriate starting point for road riding is to start from not the "how to do it better" angle but from the rather different position of "how do I stop things going wrong?"

[The Spin Doctor]

I do hate the you need to be in this gear for that speed type advice, what's needed is the appropriate gear for the circumstances, I've no idea how you teach that one, and I don't know if everyone can learn it by experience as I know car drivers who are terrible at being in the right gear. As an example I had a 98 R1, it would break every speed limit in 1st, it would also happily sit at 30mph in 6th and would pull from 30 to 180 without changing gear.

It's usually a good clue that the person offering the advice hasn't thought about what it is they are doing, and why they are doing it.

Sometimes it IS necessary to start with a 'do / don't do' kind of instruction - for example, the 125s CBT is taken on can be ridden at tick over, but try that on some of the twins used for DAS (the GS500 was probably the worst) and the bike would simply stall. It wasn't unknown for riders to slow down in the car park, forget to slip the clutch to make a tight turn, and for the engine to cut out and stop the bike dead, at which point it would topple over.

Obviously enough, we didn't want riders doing this on the road (we didn't really want them doing it in the carpark either, but at least it was a relatively safe environment for them to learn that the bikes were different) so we TOLD them, "don't let the revs drop below about 3000 rpm without slipping the clutch", and we told them the clue to look for - that the bike would start 'chugging'. Many took a bit of persuading - particularly those who'd been racketing around on a 125 on L plates, but we usually got there.

For the 'right gear', my usual advice is to make sure that you can both accelerate AND decelerate without being forced to change gear. That means somewhere roughly in the middle 1/3rd of the rev counter isn't too far off - down towards the bottom of that segment if you're in town, maybe towards the top if you're on the open road.

1000cc bike with a 180 mph top speed? Please yourself. Most of the revs in most of the gears are totally redundant for ordinary riding

[Yorick]

1000cc bike with a 180 mph top speed? Please yourself. Most of the revs in most of the gears are totally redundant for ordinary riding

Mine pulls hard from 30 in top. On trackdays I used to do the sighting laps in top for a giggle. Hairpins and Mountain no problems and still 160 on straights

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

1000cc bike with a 180 mph top speed? Please yourself. Most of the revs in most of the gears are totally redundant for ordinary riding

It was 22 years ago, I was younger and stupider, it was fantastic along the A50 from Ross on Wye to Abergavenny, I think I went through a tankful of petrol in under 80 miles.

[Bigyin]

but now you have plenty of options and even a Bikesafe course run by the Police is supposedly very good and free I believe?

I think it now depends on your force area as some are now charging for it …… 50quid for Norfolk and Suffolk last time I looked and the Met charge 65 quid for theirs

[Yorick]

but now you have plenty of options and even a Bikesafe course run by the Police is supposedly very good and free I believe?

I think it now depends on your force area as some are now charging for it …… 50quid for Norfolk and Suffolk last time I looked and the Met charge 65 quid for theirs

I'd hate to be "taught" by traffic police. Patronising knobbers the lot of them.

[Rockburner]

PS I found out the hard way that not all place names in France are unique and places with the same name aren't usually close together.

We have a local attraction, Donnington Castle. It's 125 miles from Castle Donington. Not unknown for confusion to occur.

Went past it yesterday.

And the Donnington that's just north of Burford

And the Donnington i live in....