Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

; Gary Bailey's IlG : How to win ~MOTOCROSS* Cil Part seven: Riding technique cont 'd.. Turns Mo to cross racing is a spectacle . It attracts a lot o f photographers and they tend to phot ograph the most spectacular parts of racing: bi kes up in the air , silhouetted against the s ky and preferably with the fron t wheel turned , bikes doing wheelies and bikes laying ov er on a berm. Beginning riders naturally 10 0 k in th e magazines and a t the pictures for tips on how to really get it on lik e Joe Speedfast, and that's what th ey sec. So th ey begin to think MX is some kind o f stylized art form where th e racers go from one photographic po se to the next. And they think ra ces are won th at way . This has led to the development of the famous Speedfast formu la for success . It says this: At all times yo u must be up in th e air as h igh as po ssibl e, or else you must have yo ur front wheel off the ground, or else you are laying it over on a berm as horizon tal as you can get. That's j u s t my litt le joke. Unfortunately you can see people o n th e trac k who don 't know it's a joke. They actually try to fo llow that rule and the rule is mainly wrong. When you are jumping y o u want to be as low as possible . You nev er lift th e front tire off the ground unless you have a good reason for doing it . The berms are not necessarily the fast est way around a corner. So m uch for the Speedfast Syndrome. So let's decide we are not going to worry about ho w we lo ok o ut on the track or Utile photographers are taking pictures of us - except at one pla ce: the finish lin ':. It loo ks mighty nice to be first at the finis h. So mebody will ta ke your picture. You can even pop a wheelie when you are taking the checkered flag if you want to, as a kind of victory celebration . I've done it a few times myself. We are going to discuss different kinds of turns in cluding the stylish berm shot. Types of turns 22 There is no good reason to classify the various types of turns in racing. You just take the tum that is in front of yo u, using a technique which will work for tha t tum - and then you rid e on to the next one. In learning the te chniq ues it does help to classify turns just be cau se that organizes our thin king and our practicing. Then when y ou have an assortment of well-developed skills, you can go racing and' use them. So let 's make some simple clas sificat ions . There are tight turns, medium turns, and wid e turns which are sometimes called swee pers or carousels. Any of these can be banked by th e sid e o f a hill and the banking may be the direction that helps you. They can also be banked the other way , which we call an off-camb er turn. Any of these can be ro ugh or rutted and can have good traction or poor traction. The turns can climb a hill or descend a hill as they turn or there may even be a jump in the middle of a tum . There can be a berm on the outside. A berm is a ridge or mound of dirt which follows the co nto ur of the tum and is usually made These are man-made whoop-dee-dos. Because they are spaced farth er apart than those made by bikes, it is easier to see the riding technique. It 's about th e same whe n the whoo ps are closer togeth er. by the tires of the motorcycles making that tum. You can have two o r th ree kinds of turns at the same location . If the re is a big sweeper with a berm all aro un d th e ou tside, most riders w ill go o u t and use the berm. But there is also a medium tum in that comer and maybe even a tight tum in th e same co m er. You use the one that suits the occasion best and it will not necessarily be the o ne that everybody else is using. We ge t more into this sort of thing later, in the section on racing tec hnique. Th e classification of turns didn't turn ou t to be so simple, did it? You know that one tum can be co nnec ted to anothe r and the surface can ch an ge through a tu rn . It isn't possible to give instruction in making every co nceivab le kind of turn considering all the variations men tioned earlier. What we will do is break it up into pie ces and work on the individual techniques. Then you can connect th e techniques together to build your riding skill in the same way th at sec t io ns of a track are tied together to make th e entire course. For ex ample, the first thing you do for so me comers is slow down quic kly using maximum braking. We have alre ad y worked o n that so th er e is o ne of the pieces of riding tech nique yo u alre ady h ave fo r making turns. Tight Turns This is th e mo st diffi cu lt tu m to do and therefore many rac ers avoid it . Th ey will rid e wid e if th ey have a cho ice an d leave the good inside terri to ry o pen to y ou . In the first corner afte r the start that isn 't necessarily true be cause the riders are bu nched up and the y are everywhere o n the tr ack. Some of t hem will be using th e tight insid e even if th ey are d oing it wrong. But after the pa ck ge ts spre ad o ut on the co urse riders co me int o the turns alone o r with o nly o ne or two o thers nea rb y. That is wh en it pays o ff to know how to get in t igh t and go aro und the turn. These o th er riders are likel y to prefer the wide lin e so th ey won 't even argue with you about it. . Let's keep this dis cussion stric tly o n making a hard , tight tum , with out worrying abou t lines thro ugh th e co m er o r r aci ng s t ra te gy o r an ything extra neo us to the ridin g technique. You know th at it is a good idea to go int o a turn wide and come a u t wide because th is o pe ns up th e turn . That's line finding. You also kn ow ab o ut rid ing wid e and then tu cking inside an other racer in the tum. That's st rategy. Things like that are covered in th e section o n co mp eti tio n so let 's not confuse the issu e by considering th em now. What we want to do now is just learn to ma ke a tight t urn no matter what line takes y o u into it or for what reas o n. Imag ine you are cha rging down a straigh t and there is a tu m up ah ead that y o u intend to take tigh t. Delay braking as long as possibl e. Th is is where is won in the corners!''' ~~MX yo ur steady pract ice o n brak ing pays off. You may p ass o ne o r two o th er bikes jus t by goi ng fa rther in to th e turn before you have to use the brak es. While learning, lea ve enough ro om fo r bra king so yo u can do it all while the bike is still verti cal and going in a straigh t lin e. If you are doing it right, yo u are finished braking just a t th e i n st a n t you b e gin turning the motorcycle. As yo u reduce spe ed pull in the clutch and shift d own to the gear yo u will use go ing out the other side o f the turn. If it is really tigh t you will go all the way down to first gear. You are not using a berm and the ground is fair ly flat in the tigh t turn so yo ur problem is to keep the fro nt end from slid ing o u t ward - washing o u t in th e tu m . When yo u were braking hard go ing in , you had y o ur weight forward for fro nt-wh eel tr action. T o keep from wash ing out , y o u still want go od tr action at the front so you still want your weight up there driving the fro nt tire down into th e ground. If yo u were standing, sit down, slide forw ard o n the sca t . . . righ t up to the edge of the gas tan k. So me racers actually get up a t! the tank. Pu t your insid e foo t fo rw ard and down on t he ground . Lcan the bike and turn the handlebars in to the tum. Pivo t that motorcy cle as tigh tly as you can around you r fo o t o n the gro und, kee pi ng you r weight f orward and on the fro nt w he el. A t no ti me when the bike is leaning over will yo u use hard braking o r power. You m ust have already finish ed yo ur bra king for the turn. Hold th e clu tch in all the way aro und the tum is ne cessary . Th is depen d s o n yo ur bike. You can pull so me d own to a slo w speed and then get good accel er ati on ou t o f the tu m. Oth ers won't h ave much guts at lo w RPM o r they m ay even st all under hard braking so yo u pull in th e clu tch , make the co rner and then mak e a ne w start looking down the stra igh t. The size of the eng ine fly wh eels has a gre at effe ct on this a nd you just have to do it the way y our motorcycl e requires. As yo u get pointed toward the exit and lined up with the tra ck going o ut of the tum, ge t th e bi ke vertical as quickly as p ossibl e. When it is vertical you know wh at to do . You make ano the r star t ... just like yo u did at the starti ng line. Think for a m inu te abo u t where your weight was during th e three parts of ma king th a t tight turn. When you were stopping going in, your weigh twas forward for front-wh ee l traction. In the tum while yo u were pivoting, your weight was forwar d to keep the front end fro m washing out. Coming out under hard acc elera ti on , your weight .was fo rward to ge t th e rear tire broken loose and keep from doing a wheelie . Your weight was forwa rd during the entir e maneuver. How man y gu ys do yo u see doing th at ? Not man y, right? When y ou see somebody in a tight turn sitting back co m fo rtab ly o n the seat , arms stretched forward to the bars and maybe even using engine power, you know o ne thing for su re. You can beat him! "T he re 's a starting line in every turn ." Mental im ages are sometimes helpful and I use a me ntal picture in m y schools to help get acro ss the idea of a tight tum . There is a traffic signal in the turn. When you are com ing toward the turn th e ligh t is red. The light su ddenly turned red' and yo u don 't have much roo m to get sto pped . Use your braking to th e maximum and get the machine st opped . Make yo u r piv ot and the light turns to green . Accelerate away. Keep that little idea in yo ur mind while you are ou t practicing tigh t tu rns. Hey th ere, you are racing! I'm gonna get mad if yo u don 't stop doing th at . We ha ve worked on three th ings so far. Making st arts, hard braking, and tigh t turns. For the first two you have to do it as hard as you can becau se th at 's wh at we ar e trying to learn. We are tryi ng to learn to get o ff the line as quickl y as possible and to get st opped as quic kly as possible. You have been do ing th at and it's OK . Now on th is tigh t tum I have not ever as ked y ou to show how quickly you ca n get aro u nd it. I want y o u to show th at yo u ca n get around it properly and that me ans you do no t have to go fast. You ca n 't race and learn at th e sa me time . Slow down . When learn ing most thi ngs you do n ' t have to go ver y fast. What happens at ten mile s ·an hour is ex actly the same thing that happens at 60 miles an hour. If you fall off a t ten miles an ho u r you just roll on th e ground an d y ou do n ' t get hurt. Things happened slowly en ough that you had a ch anc e to see what it was th at went wrong. Then you know how to co rr ec t the problem and you can go ahead and learn. If yo u fall off at 60 miles per h o ur

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