Yooperbikemike's 2013 MotoGP Thread

Speaking to Oxley about the days when he was just getting started with racing motorcycles, Spencer recalls, ‘I’d be out in the rain, using the slick Louisiana clay, trying to learn to change direction at any lean angle. I could judge when the bike would stop sliding. Right at the apex I’d pick it up so it’s pivoting around the front and the front’s not pushing anymore, then I could just drift turn. Think how important that is in a 130mph sweeper, when you’ve got the bike on its side and you know exactly where it’s going to end up.’ ‘When I was on top of my game, I could go through that 130mph corner on a four-inch wide line, lap after lap,’ adds Spencer.

Back in the day my bro' and I saw Freddie on the old Erv K TZ750 and were mighty impressed. Later, Freddie started doing this regularly (he won this race by the way and yes, that is an intentional front end slide)



I used to race Supermoto and there was an Argentinian fast guy I would try to follow and he would slide the front regularly. After chatting with him he explained the trick is to overload the front so it pushes in a controlled manner. The idea is not to do it on the brakes because you're going to crash and you're not really controlling the motorcycle, just getting lucky.

The trick is to enter a turn and find where the front loses grip and completes the arc to the apex where you regain grip and can complete the turn. Think of it as a form of managing understeer. The front is following the arc you'd ideally like if it had the grip. Slow down to get the grip and lose time. Push the front and gain time.

Probably best learned on something like an XR100 on dirt and just push the front against the throttle. You can do it all day long in sloppy clay.

Then you can try it on the road



Yes, he crashed.

Cool, finally, how and why, thanks.

So basically it is not a techniqe for corners where you need to use heavy front brake, but for fast sweepers that you just kinda smoothly " cruise " trough.

I don't see that happening in moto gp however, maybe modern tyres/bikes work differently. More power on the modern bikes to get rear wide after apex.
What i see happening in moto gp is riders sliding the rear in and out of corners. Sliding the rear trough a fast sweeper would imo have same effect/result than what Spencer did. But that was long time ago.

Ok, maybe it is/was a technique, but i think i keep the front grippy. I have never seen any current moto gp rider do this.

cruise isn't the word I would use. And smooth is everywhere. I think it's closer to being on or over the limit of grip and when you shut the throttle (or after you've released the brakes) this pushes the front.

It may or may not be used exactly the same way as Freddie in MotoGP today but I'm sure at some point we've seen all the fast guys push the front.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1ac4Ak8EfxA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VpD64QdpmJY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I've seen front slides like those, but consider those as: "oh shit, did i just save that" kinda slides. Not intentional slides.

Graeme Crosby in his superbike days before he went to GP's regularly intentionally slid the front end of his superbike [ late 70's ] , there is picture of him doing it but I can't find it. He was partnered with Tony Hatton in an endurance race., Tony could not figure out how Graeme got around some corners so quick until Graeme told him to slide the front. Tony tried it ,admitted it worked but it was too close to the ragged edge for him. I guess that's the difference between a top international rider & a top national rider

I've been looking got that too! My recollection of his technique was that when he got in deep he would flick the bars all the way to the lock and whack the throttle. Remember thinking at the time, how big do your balls have to be to try that just to see what happens ..?

Franticly re-reading Croz' biography to find any of his comments on cornering.... not too optimistic but I had to laugh at this: from his first attempt at the Isle of Mann, 1979 on a Moriwaki 1000?

"I had only one frightening moment. When I came around Kates corner on the last practice lap, the left handlebar broke clean off in my hand. I was left holding a clip on with the clutch lever and cable still attached. It was rather difficult steering it back to the pit area one handed".

Different planet to us mortals.

Drif and JNRobert have done a good job describing the technique. And yes, a mere mortal (painfully mortal) like me can do it. Best to practice in the dirt.

As you hopefully know, if you are not actively braking or actively having the throttle at least cracked open in a turn, you are going to crash. On a dirt bike, you brake early and get on the throttle early. So try getting off the brakes as you enter a turn, give a little throttle as you normally would, and then simply roll the throttle closed and this will induce the front end to slide. You will want to snatch the throttle open again pretty quickly so you don't eat dirt, but as you get more and more comfortable, you can milk the slides to be longer and more lurid.

The technique is pretty much the same on pavement. I have only done it on a supermoto bike, never a sport bike, which I gave up about 10 years ago. You can do it without cracking the throttle and simply by releasing the front brake where you might normally still be trail braking. You have to be pushing hard enough that you might feel you are into the turn too hot.

Using the front end slide to scrub off the excess speed and then using the throttle to right the bike will open your eyes to getting through the corner faster and tidier than you ever imagined. It will also give you a big thrill because you will now be in possession of an over the top, very advanced technique.

For me, it is a very subtle thing and probably all but undetectable from a bystander, but you will know it when the front starts to slide.

What starts as a panic move to stop a sure crash turns out to be a very useful and effective technique.

I had not done this consistently for a few years on the supermoto track, but this past summer started doing it again, very sparingly. I use it mostly through a third gear (65 MPH) left hander that is slightly more than 90 degrees that needs to be finished tight so that you can straighten out a chicane which follows it.

I practice my supermoto skills in the dirt first.

I have not raced for many years, so the skills I like to learn are purely for cheap thrills and for having them at my disposal should I need them.

I look at track riding as an artistic expression; slides, wheelies, excessive and unnecessary lean angles are all part of that expression.

Croz's bio didn't give up too many cornering / sliding secrets but I have an excellent list of pubs near english race tracks, priorities!


Just for the sliding / cornering discussion, from Peter Cliffords 1982 book "The art & science of motorcycle racing" (Clifford was a technical journalist and road racer, engineer and editor of Motorcourse in the eighties).
A quote about the difficulties of describing handling techniqiues...

"There is no established language to convey the exact feeling that the handlebars give as the front wheel begins to slide and turn in, the timing required to gently ease on the throttle so that the rear wheel begins to slide in harmony and the weight is transferred from the front to back wheel, the front wheel being hauled into the inside of the corner by the pull of the chain."

Essentially this style has been around from the 1980's and is a well established method of aligning the bike in the direction you want it to go, Mamola was good at it.

Just another quote to set the cat amongst the pigeons regarding learning on the dirt...
"It has often been suggested that American riders are able to control a sliding motorcycle because of their dirt track racing experience. Roberts (KR senior) disagrees: "I don't think that riding a dirt tracker teaches you anything very much that you can't learn on a road racer, but I think I learnt to be more agressive and determined because of dirt track racing in the States. When you are on the start line on your Yamaha among eighteen other guys on Harleys, and all the Harley fans in the crowd are throwing their beer cans at you, then that teaches you to go fast.""

Amazing what you can learn from the past,what's that saying? Standing on your grandfathers shoulders?

I should take this shit to The Perfect line, I could have a feeding frenzy

[

Just another quote to set the cat amongst the pigeons regarding learning on the dirt...
"It has often been suggested that American riders are able to control a sliding motorcycle because of their dirt track racing experience. Roberts (KR senior) disagrees: "I don't think that riding a dirt tracker teaches you anything very much that you can't learn on a road racer, but I think I learnt to be more agressive and determined because of dirt track racing in the States. When you are on the start line on your Yamaha among eighteen other guys on Harleys, and all the Harley fans in the crowd are throwing their beer cans at you, then that teaches you to go fast.""

Amazing what you can learn from the past,what's that saying? Standing on your grandfathers shoulders?

I should take this shit to The Perfect line, I could have a feeding frenzy [/QUOTE]

If that was the case why did they give J Lo to KR snr when he kept falling off. He got taken to a ranch in Modesto where a fat balding has been racer gave him the learn on dirt bikes.
KR is being a little disingenuous. Pretty much all the americans started off on flat track, so did Stoner. Aggresive & determined ,but also got them used to a bike being loose & moving around under you.
Nobody does Stoner corner at PI like Stoner, I'd suggest that is dirt track coming through.

There's some slow mo video of Stoner heading through some corner. You can see the front tire is aimed at the inside of the corner, over the curb, on corner entry. When he gets to the apex, he's slid both front & rear so his front tire is right at the apex, right on the edge of the track. Pedrosa can do it too, but isn't as clean and consistent about it.

Don't forget that quote was from 30 years ago Paul.

We tend to take a snippet of conversation and build a world of explanantion and reason around it when in reality it was simply an off the cuff remark, The Perfect Line is a great example of how to extrapolate anything into a world calamity.

If it's any help, I agree that the dirt bike training is hugely beneficial to road racing, learning to control at the margins of traction are where riding is at.

.......it's going to be a LONG summer, huh?............

I guess you're not from the same hemisphere as me. Shovelled the walk 4 times in the last 24 hrs.

I'm not complaining, just re-sprung the 450EXC ready for a ride on sunday, just need to repair the low side damage to my sons race bike and all bike preps are done, had a great ride yesterday afternoon around the local hills.... what's too complain about?

Are you visiting our shores this summer for the classic festival?

Ok. Thanks for the details. Starting to sound like a cool party trick... I will give it a go next summer... just for fun.

Still sounds like a cool way to have a DNF, than a reliable technique. But, gotta try.

As far as putting out the fastest possible lap time goes that is still a ridiculous way to do it with a much easier way around it (the way Moto GP racers do) to scrub speed.

Carrying maximum corner speed involves having the tightest turning radius that traction allows for (maximum lean angle). How do you reach maximum lean angle? By evenly loading both the front and rear tires or slightly favoring the rear. If your sliding the front tire than your not at max lean angle which is reason #1 why that technique would only make your lap times slower. Reason #2 is sliding in general isn't a very effective way of slowing down. For example try skidding the rear tire under braking compared to modulating it to maintain traction.... which stopping distance ends up being shorter? On a correct corner entry the front will be fully loaded and only slipping slightly, at this point the rear usually has a lot of traction left to give. So if you want to scrub just a little speed why not simply use the rear brake? (which is what Moto GP riders do by the way). This way there's no sliding involved or weird on/off throttle chopping. Sliding the front is very risky and doesn't have any benefit to lap times what so ever.

There's plenty more reasons why purposely sliding the front would make your lap times slower but I'm not going into all of that. Just for an example think about this one. At 80mph your traveling at 117 feet per second. In the time it takes you to make your throttle blip (maybe 0.5 seconds) you've traveled about 50ft. Now imagine what would happen to your lap time if you simply adjusted your racing line to be either on the throttle and accelerating or at maximum lean angle for that 50ft instead of sliding the front tire and pushing wide.

Great, you've solved it.

We get to talk about something else now. Cool.

The sliding that i am talking about is not a deliberate front wheel lock up but a slide none the less from being on the edge of traction.I guess it wolud also have its own speed scrubbing action,so in my mind during the trail braking into the apex they sliding plenty
are there any more tests?I wanna see how dovi goes on that Duc.I am pickin he wont be No 4 after next year.He is my favourite at the moment tho