This is a thread from the R1-Forum.com - Starts out with a guy asking for people to comment on his body positioning at his first few track days and evolves into a great discussion mainly between Misti Hurst (AMA racer), Lars Remsen (CCS Expert Unlimited Supersport Champion), and, his emminance, Keith Code. A lot of jabbing back and forth but tons of great insight especially once the thread gets going past the first few pages.

http://www.r1-forum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=227167

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Holy Shit, that was a lot of reading but definitely worth it. I haven't been to the R1 forum much lately because of all of the "jabbing back and forth" that goes on there but it looks like maybe I should stop by more often.

unfortunately that is the exception rather than the rule....
but damn, when Code crawls out from under his rock to post all that stuff it's an "event" lol.

actually surprising for how many people are there how dead the track/racing board it. There are probably 1/10th the members at triumph675.net and the track forum is 5x more active.

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That's cool to see Keith Code getting involved at that level though. Maybe he'll notice the big ole "Trackwhores" tag in your sig and scoot over here for a discussion.

There are too many folks at the R1 forum who probably shouldn't even own a liter bike to begin with. Guys who are more concerned with the image and bragging rights of riding a big bad ass bike and looking cool at their local kickstand party than wringing that things neck through the twisties and showing some real skills instead. Most of them are nowhere near outriding a 600 much less have a real need for a 1000. Half of them probably couldn't keep up on our weekly rips much less make it around a track at a respectable time. There's just too much childish BS over there sometimes to weed through to find the good stuff. That's the problem with having a board as large and popular as it is, you get all kinds in there.

sort of the point behind creating this place

that said, there are stupid fast and really good guys over there like fiveo, danq, meister, immortal, solidus, skeeter, etc.

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oh, no doubt. that site has helped me out on many occassions with various questions or problems. there are lots of great folks there as well that posess a tremendous amount of knowledge with riding skills and the R1 in particular. there is a wealth of great info there if you're willing to sort through the BS to find it. I just haven't had the time or desire to deal with it lately. I like our small and to the point boards.

Some interesting points, but a lot of BS to wade through to dig them out. I'm sure Lars is super fast, but he does come off as if he has a bit of an attitude. I didn't read the entire post, but from what I did, he makes the following good points; #1 You don't have to hang off to be fast #2 Many riders may spend too much time worrying about hanging off and not enough worrying about lines, braking, visual skills, etc. #3 He makes an argument that there's an advantage of being more connected to the bike by not hanging off. For all of his ramblings, that's all I can see that he says of any value. His arguments also seem to have an adversarial tone that's probably not conducive to a meaningful exchange of information.

Here’s my take on the subject. I agree that you do not have to hang off a bunch to be fast. Bayliss, Pegram, Hodgson, Polen, and Lars are all proof of that. Also, what works for one rider will not necessarily work for the other. I’d say that the guys listed above are the exception, not the rule. In other words, just because Rossi keeps his head down more than the other riders in MotoGP, I don’t think it’s something that I should emulate. Nor will I be hanging my inside leg off in corner entries anytime soon. Different things will work for riders of different ability, size, weight, strength, flexibility, etc.

I would also agree that many riders spend too much time worrying about hanging off and not enough about the other stuff. This doesn’t change the fact that there are real advantages to hanging off.

Lars probably also has somewhat of a point regarding being connected to the bike. Code is big on being “one with the bike”. He talks a lot about what you have to do to stay connected to the bike while you move around to hang off etc. Can you stay as connected while hanging off as you could while sitting on top, probably not. I believe that Code would say that the benefits of hanging off outweigh what is lost in the “connection dept” (and I agree).

One of the arguments that Lars makes that I really think is silly is his whole “what good is reserve lean angle if you don’t use it”. Pretty simple really. The less the bike is leaned over, the more grip that’s available and the larger your margin for error (both good things). Also, whoever said that you wouldn’t use the additional lean angle? There’s a limit to how far you can lean a bike over in a turn. At some point you start to drag hard parts, run out of tire, whatever. So let’s say the limit is 60 degrees. So I can sit in the middle of the bike and go through turn #1 at 70 mph with the bike leaned over to 60 degrees. I can’t go any faster than 70 mph while I’m sitting in the middle of the seat or I’ll run wide or crash. Now if I hang off I can go through the same corner at 70 mph with the bike leaned over at 58 degrees. To which Lars would argue “who cares if you’re at 60 or 58 degrees?” The problem with his argument is that by hanging off I can through the same corner at 72 mph with 60 degrees of lean angle. The goal isn’t to use as little lean angle as possible as much as it is to go as fast as possible.

So those are my thoughts, what do you guys think?

Lars is a bit caustic at times in there but if you read the whole thing he, Misti and Code actually end up at a sort of an agreement in the end. I think he was getting off on trying to be overly anal retentive about the nature of the original question at hand at times rather than allowing the discussion to meander to a greater overall scope.
He's point of view is purely corner speed. He's whole thing about maximum lean angle is that if you are not using it you're not going as fast as you could be. He also tries to illustrate that at times you don't really have anywhere to go "off" the bike, like in his pic. But his biggest bone of contention, which applies to me as well, is that people learn to hang off BEFORE learning how far they can actually lean the bike.
The thing that he concedes at the end is that you are at max lean angle for a very small part of any given turn. Code sort of beats him into begrudgingly agreeing with him about the point of leaning the bike and when it's best not to.
If I can call it a "style" I'm a lot closer to where Misti and Code are than Lars. I am simply uncomfortable not being off the bike. I also know that I over do it and that in places like say T7 at Beaver it slows me down.
It's sort of hard to argue with results. Lars is certainly stupid fast but so is Misti (likely faster than Lars) and Code has a hell of a resume. There are a lot of great tidbits in there about the little things such as arm position, weighing the pegs, trail braking, when to apply throttle/brakes, etc. in that thread. Once you get past Lars' need to be "right" it is a great read.

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At times it seemed like an argument for the sake of arguing.

He doesn’t have far to go in his pic, but he has somewhere to go. Until he’s dragging his elbow and shoulder, he’s got room to move. I agree that lots of riders are hanging way off before they can really lean the bike over. Probably stretching out to try to get a knee down. If I’m honest, I’d probably have to day I was that guy once. One may still be able to make an argument that I hang off a bit too much. Actually, that’s pretty much what my instructor at Code’s School told me. I’m probably now about halfway between where I used to be and where he wanted me to be.

Funny you mention T7 as I don’t hang off much there. It just feels better to stay with the bike. Don’t hang off much on T8 either. I need to move off the bike and get set earlier as well. These are the kind of things I try to really work on during street rides when everything is slowed down and there’s lots of time to think.

Misti is quick for sure. She was coaching the fast guys at the first Code class I did. I also watched her in the AMA race that weekend. Funny story, my buddy Kenny had Misti as his instructor during a code class years ago (she must have just started coaching). They went out for the first session and Kenny put the hammer down and when the session was over she told him he was too fast for her and got him a different instructor (Cobie). He didn’t do the school again until 2 or 3 years later and got assigned to Misti once again. He said “We didn’t have that problem again the second time”. They did approach him about becoming an instructor when that day was over.

Dude if you like reading this stuff you need to read Twist of the Wrist 2 and you need to take Code’s class.

it's currently my toilet reading

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