Up at the New York Safety Track, taking the Cornering Skills Track Day Class.
















I highly recommend this class to anyone wanting to learn to ride faster and harder, without the drama speed of a true track day.

In a nut shell, it's a small class of less than 25 students, broken into two groups. You ride the track single file with on passing except on the straight aways. Makes for calmness and serenity, so you can focus on your own riding.

Each group is brought in from the track for a small ~15 minute lesson on something, then back out onto the track to work on that particular skill set. About every 45 minutes you're flagged in for a new small lesson. So basically, you're on the track, riding as hard and as fast as you are comfortable with. Since the class is small, there really is quite a bit of room between riders. So you can indeed corner about as hard and as fast as you wish.

On the track itself are riding coaches. They have the nifty safety green belts and harnesses so you can identify them. Their job is to follow you for a bit, then pass you in a straight away and get in front so you can observe them. They will demonstrate what they see you needing to work on. Then did a great job of making it clear through exaggeration what they wanted you to do. They would also talk to you during a pit stop. For me, the big thing was to move my body enough on the bike. It felt like I was hanging off like a monkey, but as the pictures clearly show, I wasn't movign all that much. That said, most of these pictures seem to have been taken early on in the day. I was moving over a lot better later on. At least that's what they said.

There was some drama, namely two crashes. I wasn't one of them! A BMW rider lost it in the deceptively tricky turn 3&4 and went tumbling. A coach got to horsing around in the wet afternoon and low sided in turn 12 (think it was 12). Both bikes were out, and the BMW rider suffered a little rash, but no real injuries.

I did not embarrass myself. Never went off course or off track, never crashed. Nor did I apparently do anything stupid and cause others any serious problems. Happily, I was not the slowest person on the track either. By no means was I the fastest either.

I got what I wanted. More practice and a lot more comfort at throwing that bike far harder into turns far faster than I'd been doing. Nope, never masters drifting it, never slid anywhere. Only threw sparks once that I know of. But I think I'm a lot more comfortable at pushing harder in fast turns than I've ever been.

Some of you may be a little curious about what I did to the bike to make it capable of this adventure. In a nut shell, very little, and most of that was tuning. It's stock shocks and stock springs up front. I just tuned with oils until I got it where I was happy. No gee-gaws connected to my swing arm, I simply fixed the oem slop between the shaft and the inner swing arm bushings with shim stock. Michelin Commander II tires and EBS scintered brake pads. The bike was rock steady the whole day on the track. Nary a wiggle a wobble or any troubles. Not even in the tricky sections of the track. In fact in a few areas I was one of the fastest riders.

So, all in all, a wonderful experience and one I highly recommend to anyone looking to ride better at higher speeds. By no means is this a Motorcycle Safety Foundation course. Though interestingly, I did get a discount from my insurance for having completed the course.

 

I would love to do this too! I don't think any of the tracks in my region ( southeast) do this. Looks like a great experience.

 

I would love to do that on someone else's bike. :-) I have been on the track with my CBR. The Harley never entered my mind but I bet it was a really good learning experience. Thanks for sharing.

 

A coach Horsing around then crashing wouldn't give me a warm and fuzzy! Glad you took something productive away from the course.

 

F'ing awesome!!!!

 

 

Have you looked into this one any? https://www.n2td.org/track-days/rider-classes/

 

Awesome! Would love to do this. ..

 

Yeah, my eyebrows raised when I read that part too...... prior to that, I was thinking this would be a good training opprotunity.

An instructor horsing around is unprofessional and inappropriate when involved in training where there is risk of injury. It reflects poorly on the course and the rest of the staff.

Prior to retirement, I was involved in high level training that was risky by it's very nature. Luckily it never happened to me, but if one of my assistant instructors where to "horse around", even if it didn't result in a mishap, they would have been removed on the spot.

Sounds like in this case that coach could have been the exception. In spite of him, sounds like you had a great learning experience...

Thanks for sharing...

 

Sounds like an interesting and worthwhile experience, thanks for the heads up.