Practice sessions with my Strom

[Lemonwizard]

In this thread I'll be posting practice sessions. Please let me know what you think (inb4 remove the beak). And feel free to post your own practice videos too.


Description: Spontaneously decided to record a bit of today's practice. Good thing I did because it felt like I was at maximum lean already, but looking at the video I'd say I wasn't even close.
The circles had a diameter of around 8 meter (around 26 ft).
(Potato video quality because I didn't have enough space on my phone.)

[SimonD]

Brave move! Start of the vid you are leaning your upper body away from the corner, which isn't good. This improves through the vid though. Good that your are looking where you want to go.

[Lemonwizard]

I understood that leaning the body away from the corner is the point of counterbalancing (aka counterweight) when doing slow speed maneuvers. Did I get it wrong?

[Mr Nick]

Moving your body out means the bike leans further: if you have an issue, the bike will be harder to recover to upright and more likely to drop if you're already hanging off it away from the direction of fall.
You are better keeping the bike more upright as the gyroscopic effect of the engine will then work better to keep it from falling over when moving slowly, and being in line with it means you are closer to the centre of gravity and able to feel changes better.

[Rixington43]

I've seen counter balancing mentioned with regards slow speed turns and certainly trials riders use it all the time but that's usually for riders who are standing up. I had a day out with a bloke who trains police outriders and he was showing off how tight it was possible to turn by using counter balance and lean but again he stood up. He suggested it was a technique to practice once you could no longer get the turn any tighter just with the steering I.e You're constantly on the lock stops and still wanting more.
Still, it's good you're trying different techniques and practising slow speed control, most people pass their test and then spend the rest of their riding life 'going round the block' to avoid U-Turns

* Just watched some videos of tuition for it whilst seated, might give it a go next time I'm out. Keep up the good work, practice makes perfect after all.

[Lemonwizard]

Practicing these skills is great fun and quite rewarding. And yeah, I'm one of those "going 'round the block" gu...blokes. I also waddle around a lot.
For now.

My source of inspiration, motivation and all sorts of words that end with "ation":
MotoJitsu https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0FFFneMi9GwRHUsuBjM0jA

This fellow stromer is very impressive too

[Rixington43]

Almost Donnie Williams levels of bike handling, but without the soundtrack 🤣

[Lemonwizard]

Took my orange duck to buy a few second-hand traffic cones and a bunch of halved tennis balls today. Way too windy for the cones, but the tennis ball halves worked just perfectly.
Now, I'm not sure if there are any situations in traffic where I might need this maneuver, but it was a fun challenge and I can feel my handling skills have improved a whole lot already.
I'm starting to get the hang of really pushing the handle bar to initiate countersteering.




Description:
Messed up the first round right after setting up the cam, but afterwards it went alright.
For reference: the MotoJitsu offset weave Blue Belt places the cones as follows:
4.6m x 1.5m / 15ft x 5ft
My next goal is the Brown Belt which places the cones as follows:
4.6m x 2.1m / 15ft x 7ft

[SimonD]

Thanks Lemonwizard. As a result of your question I went looking for other ways of U-turns (slow speed tight turns) and found a different way of doing it that I hadn't considered that I will try out later this week.

This method has you moving your bum off the site to the highside and rotating your knees (feet still on pegs) to free you up to turn and counterbalance without much lean. A nice thigh workout if you are doing slow figure of eights.

If I'm going really slow and the grip is poor or variable I engage the clutch with about 2k revs and use the rear brake to control the speed. There's no transmission lag, or delay when you want to feed forward movement. Do it for more than 20 seconds repeatedly and you will fry your clutch.

[Lemonwizard]

Practicing motorcycle skills is extremely addictive.


Description:
Much harder than the cone placements from two days ago. I instinctively put my foot down once or twice and a few times I wasn't able to shift the weight and instead of going to the next cone I did a very tight fully locked handlebars u-turn. Those moments were pretty scary, not going to lie. Still, better to experience this in a safe environment than out on the road. Anyway, I'm quite happy because without the practice I had done before I would have dropped the bike at these moments for sure.

[Lemonwizard]

The other day on the road I had the footpegs scraping (mostly because of bad body position, not due to speed) and I almost crapped my pants. So my goal yesterday was to get the pegs scraping some more so that I don't freak out next time it happens out on the road. I managed to do it maybe once or twice very shortly. My next goal is to do it more consistently and in a less wobbly, more controlled manner. I'll also have to find some exercise where I can practice using more body position to keep the bike more upright.



By the way, some time ago I came across some comment recommending against foot peg lowering kits because the pegs will scrape earlier. I don't agree with that. You can get down to quite a significant lean angle on the Glee even with the lowered footpegs. And quite frankly, out on the public road I don't think you should go at speeds that require massive lean angles anyway; that's what the track is for.