so if you guys dont know, Ken Hill is a very well-known and respected rider coach. his coaching credentials are amazing and really, the first time he tries to explain something to u, u just want to listen. my first experience with him was a free classroom session at Miller last Summer. he talked with everyone for over an hour and i managed to cut 7s off my PR that weekend, partly because of stuff he said. he now coaches w/ Papa Rick and a great crew at Rickdiculous Racing which hosts a lot of events at Chuckwalla. Ken was awesome and managed to get me spot in early March.
March finally rolled around and of course I needed to do some last minute maintenance. Of course I find out a few days before that my head bearings are completely notched. So this is how the bike looked 2 days before I had to drive to the middle of the desert:
Obviously, I got it all together. I even changed the oil in my GPR damper. Loaded the bike, packed all my trackday stuff, and tried to leave early enough to get to Chuckwalla before the gate closed. Turns out the gate closes early on weekdays, so I was screwed anyway. Good thing i like sleeping outside in my tent:
But enough about non-riding stuff.
First, I'm going to say that the Rickdiculous Racing trackday was beyond worth it. I'm going to attend another as soon as I can swing it. The knowledge I was exposed to and learned is going to make me a better rider for the rest of my life. I have to separate "exposed to" and "learned" in that prev sentence because the whole day was A LOT to take in. I've always been addicted to learning every detail I can about riding, so it was right up my alley.
So how'd the day go? We started off with Ken driving a massive sprinter van at an insane pace around the track with a bunch of people in it. Ken lectured the majority of the time, first starting with some of the basics like "why we should listen to him" and "why he teaches this stuff", then moving onto using the van and the track to point out specifics. By the time I left the van, I already had an idea of what my main issue is with lines through a corner... turns out i was right, but more on that later. We then continued the lecture in the classroom. All the talking really setup the entire day, building a good foundation of information for all the riding to come.
Finally the riding started, and it didnt really stop. Another student and I were lucky enough to work with Ken. For our first "session", we went out and each spent 2 laps behind him, cruising around at a slow A group pace. We came in and he then identified what we'd be working on for the day. Notice that I didn't say he followed us to watch our riding. He identified the major issues with our riding watching through his mirrors :wow. Most of our "sessions", we'd talk about something, then we'd follow him for 2 laps, then he'd follow each of us for 2 laps. Repeat. It was a lot of riding.
My major issue was braking, both in application and when/how I trail it into the corner. I wasn't using the brakes to turn the bike effectively. You might be thinking :wtf, but bear with me. Braking while turning accomplishes one very effective thing... it decreases the radius of your turn. This makes the brakes a great tool for getting the bike pointed in the direction u want, towards the corner exit. After working on this for a bit, I literally found myself closer to every apex and inner curb with considerably less effort. Because it required less effort and my lines were better, I could go faster even though I was actually braking longer. And thats the point right... go faster while being safer all with less effort. A few other issues I worked on were vision, peg weighting, being patient with corner exits, and body position. Remember how i said it was A LOT of info.
One other very surprising thing we did that day was drive the school's Mistu Lancer Evo... ya, a car. I was shocked at how all the stuff we had been working on applied directly to the car. Braking technique, proper lines, waiting for corner exits, etc. One interesting thing the car did, esp while having Ken coaching you right then, was that it highlighted all of your mistakes. Brake improperly and try to the turn the steering wheel more... the car pushes. Get on the gas a little early... the car pushes and you run wide. Even adding a touch of throttle 1 second too early was enough to make the car shudder. Mistakes were obvious and that was very helpful in learning how important all these techniques are.
After the entire day, I was beat both physically and mentally. I took notes and Ken had video of me from the entire day, so I had a lot of information to study and digest. I've watched my videos countless times, looking for little details that I can improve further. With all this info, I found a ton more things to work on... which is exactly what I wanted. I no longer feel like I'm struggling to find improvement. Now I know exactly what I can and should improve. I just gotta do it.
continuing in my next post
). but its pretty lame to go into a corner slower than last year w/ better technique than last year and crash. as i get faster, i expect the tuning of my bike to keep up. there were def some things inherently wrong w/ my setup causing the bike to fall behind my skill level.
