Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125890
throwing dirt . The guys who are busy racing and staying down o n th e track are gaining as much as a half-second righ t there at that jump. The pushaway movement Whether you go high or low is determined by what you do the instant yo u are airborne off a jump. As soon as the rear tire is in the air, do what I call the pushaway. Push the handlebars forward and down away from you. Move your body back so your arms arc fully extended and your bo ttom is stretched back clear over the rear fender. That will rotate the motorcycle so it is nearly .horizo n tal, with the fran tend still a little bit higher than the back. Instead of. shooting for the moon, the pushaway movernen t will put yo u on a low trajectory and also get you in good shape to touch down again. Jumping is an art and it gives you a free and easy feeling like a bird flying through the air. When you make a graceful takeoff, glide thro ugh the air, and then make a gra ceful landing, it 's a great feeling. In bowling, you know whether you have made a good roll or not the instant you tum loose the ball. When jumping you know if it will be a good one or not the instant you rar e in the air. When you are going through the air, keeping as low as possible, you can have the front end a little bit high . as mentioned above , or level. Midway through a jump, your front wheel may even be a little bit lower th an th e rear because you will bring the rear down just before landing. When you are getting ready to land. you move your body up over the pegs. which automatically lifts the front end a little bit and puts the rear end down. You also open the throttle just before to uchdown an d this will snap the rear tire do wn onto the ground. The main thi ng that gives you a good lan ding, ifthe attitude of the bike is right while yo u are flying. is that quic k opening of th e thro t tle just before the tire to uches the ground. Sometime y ou may get in to bad trouble and see that yo u arc ma king a no se dive into th e ground. I didn 't believe this un til I saw it happen and then had a co up le o f experiences d oing it: Get your throttle wide op en . This will rotate .th e b ik e in the air and h elp yo u get down rear wheel first. tr aveling downhill when yo u go ove r it , th e tr ac k may st ill be goi ng d own h ill where yo u land. If yo u hold the motorcycle in the air at the attitude you would normally hold it to land on level ground you will land with the front wheel more than a foot or so above the track. This doesn't hurt much and it's not really hazardous. It is better to touchdown with the front tire only about a foot above the surface and with practice you will be able to adjust your takeoff power on the ramp, and your pushaway movement, so you land properly on a downhill slope. mo ving the front en d down so it is no longer standing on its ta il. Yo u should not go more than about three feet in the air over this kind of a jump. If yo u go higher, you didn't slow down enough at the bottom or you used too much power on the ramp. Because you are low, you just have time to complete the pushaway before the rear tire gets down on the track. Just before rear-end touchdown, get the throttle wide open and get your weight up on the bars. At this point it is just like the starting line. Get it on and go away. Uphill jump The thing we ca ll bo dy English is difficult to explain on paper because it's something you feci and do rather than think about. We've had a couple of simple examples and I will try to give you a couple more. Sometimes ther e is a h ill on the track and it's flat on top . There is a lip at the top of the hill which kicks up your rear wheel when you go over it . If you charge up the hill you will get airborne There are two kinds of these also, one where you land on level ground but higher t han the track was coming into the jump. Another where the jump is on the side of a hill , going up. and where you land is slop ing up the h ill. In the case where the track goes uphill where you are going to land. th e hazard is making a front-wheel touchdown. To avoid it. hold the front Body English Just before you get to the jump you should be throu!tl braking and ready to apply moderate power. As you start up the slope. use about half throttle. Assoon as you come over the top. do the pushaway to get the front end down. Just before the touchdown. get the throttle wide open and go! Horizo ntal jumps Le t 's go over th e techniq ue for each of those th ree kinds of jumps. There are a few differe nces. On the ho rizo ntal jump. or a m oun d of dirt on the track. the sequence is thi s: Go up the ra mp with power on. Keep power on un til the rear wheel leaves the ram p. Close the throttle part way an d simultaneously do the pushaway movement. Just before to uchdown, open the throttle. On touchdown, get your weight forward and scoot. Downhill jumps This is going down over a ledge or a "waterfall" or any kin d of d rop-off, If there is a takeoff ramp at the to p, use it an d ju mp exactly as descri b ed ab ove. Sometimes th e track is flat an d level righ t up to th e edge of th e drop-off, If you just ride over the edge a t constant speed you are likely to get in to th e air a little nose-down because the fro nt wheel started dropping through the air be fore th e rear wheel got over th e edge. It is better 10 usc a lit tle burs t of power and pull up on the bars just as the fron t whe el leaves th e ed ge. This will lift the wheel up. Ho ld th at am ount o f po wer until th e re ar wheel leaves the edge o f the drop , th en th ro tt le down and usc yo ur normal ju mp ing procedure afte r that . Sometim es th e ground will not be level wh er e you land. If the jump is actu aliy on the side of a hill a nd yo u arc end a lit tle higher when you are in the air. The other kind is really troublesome to many riders, so let's spend a little time on it. Visualize a drop-off on a level track which would be a down-ju mp if you came at it from above. It is three or four feet high. nearly vertical. and extends all the way across the track. Now turn around an d charge at it from the bottom. It's scary. You know if you hit that vertical wall wi th any speed it will th row yo u high into the air with the mo torcycl e nearl y vertical, rear wheel down. Lo ts of ri ders land that way and go ove r backwards. On this type of j u mp, th e p ush a way movem en t is absolutely critical. The seq ue nce is this: Charge toward th e up -jump an d then apply m ax imum braking j ust before yo ur fron t wheel gets on the bo tt om of th e jump. Yo u ha ve to use j udgemen t and ex pe rience h ere , b ut leave enough ro om fo r braking so y ou can get slo wed down abou t as mu ch as if you were diving into a very tigh t tu m. T hen op en the th r ot tle about halfway and go ' up th e j ump with med ium po wer. J ust as your rear tire reaches the top o f the jump , close the throttle and do a quick pushaway. The push away will rotate the motorcycle, at the top. Yo u kn ow about the pushaway motion and landing o n the rear wheel. On th is particular h ill yo ur line takes you up it at an angle or maybe you are even turning some as you run up the slope. At the top, the lip kicks your back tire to one side and you go up in the air with the rear part of the motorcycle moving sid eways. That calls for body English. If you let the bike move ou i from under you, when you land you won't be over the balance point of the motorcycle and you will take a tumble. What you do is swing yo ur hi ps in the same direction that the rear wheel is moving. This is really do ing two thi ngs at the same time . You can't move your hips without pushing or p ulling o n something. When yo u are in the air an d move your hip s to th e lef t , you arc actually pu lling on the mo to rcy cle , moving it to the righ t wi th yo ur legs . The re su lt is y ou land wi th th e mo torcy cle under yo u rath er th an out to one side. Th is is a ca se wh ere the body English photos you see are ab solutely honest. If a guy is fly ing aroun d up there and t he rear wh eel is moving out from under him, he has to use body English to get back over the m otorcycle so he can survive the landing. As another example. sometimes wh en you are tu rning wh ile running up a slo pe yo u will get in the air at the top . In the air yo u will continue tu rning an d when you land the b ike will be at an angle with respect to the surface and also at an angle in respect to the direction you were traveling in the air. If the traction is very good where I am' landing I will stay in a no rmal po sit io n on the motorcycle. I will be up on the pegs, naturaliy, and my seat will be directly over the seat on the bike. If the traction is not good I will b~ worried about the wheels sliding out when I land. This is similar to an off-camber tum or riding on the side of the hill. I will move my body weigh t in the direction the wheels migh t slide so if they do they will be sliding under m e rather than away from me. If you have watched top motocross racers p erfo rm , you have seen them turn the bike in mid-air. This see ms impossible but those guys do it ali the time. It's do ne with body English bu t it's the hardest trick of all to te ll somebody how to do. The idea of it, and the ree ling of it, is just this: You have the motorcycle between your legs and you can m ove it to the side when you want to. Over a jump or over the top of a hill, the motorcycle ' will be in the air and you may want to be going in a different direction when you land. You can just move the rear end over so the bike is pointing the way you want to go and also so it is leaning in the proper direction for the turn you will be making. The best thing is to watch somebody do it and then work your way into it gradually. The o ~ strai~t Like pearls on a string, these jumps an d turn s on the race track are connected together by straights of some kind. In every tum there is a starting line and fr om there you blast out o nto th e straight as hard as yo u ca n. Th e same rul es ap ply at every start . When th e fr on t en d wants to lift, push it back do wn . The limit of acceleration is when th e fron t en d is lifting up. If yo u are acc elerati ng an d th e front end is not tr y ing to get off the ground , then y ou don 't need as mu ch weigh t up ther e. Put more on the back an d go faster. Sometime s you see a racer all stretche d out on his m otorcy cle, h is re ar ' draped over the back fender. Wha t he is trying to d o is get as mu ch weight as po ssible on that rear tire, so it can get th e most bite and just a little bi t more acceleration. He wants to go down that straight as q uic kly as possible an d delay brakin g un til the last instant before too late. What he very sincerely wants to do out on that straight is . .. pass you! Go practice now Those are most of the basic skills involved in racing motocross. You can learn them one at a ti me , but usually you don't use them singly or in any isolated way . You connect them together and sometimes do more than one at the same time when you are racing. Even is y o u have the be st intentions, yo u cannot learn, or practice, or develop yo ur skills while you are out there raci ng. Yo u ca n't learn an d race at the same ti me . I've said that before , haven ' t I? Don 't follow. Stand up over th e j umps . I know; I said th at before too . But I'm serio us abo ut it an d you are also. Now is th e time to pr actice . Don 't try to do it at d azzling speeds. I know .. . T ak e a b ud dy wi th y ou so you ca n help each o ther . And pic k each oth er up if you start racing inst ead of learning to ra ce. Go do it . Then we will get into racing tech niq ue, strategy, p icking lines, and not following. I know .. . Next week - Part X Tuning for the track 43 .....