Survival reactions

I learned first hand about Keith Code's survival reactions on my trip to the Izu Peninsula.

Survival reactions encountered : entering a turn whose radius was sharper than expected.  Misjudging my speed as 'too fast', looking a little towards to edge of the road panicking about gravel (which wasn't actual gravel but just a different color road), and giving the brakes a light squeeze.

Was out on Nishi Izu Skyline and hit the brakes lightly while leaned over pretty far.  Felt the front stutter and slide a bit, but was able to remember all the advice I've read and seen videos about.

So I let go of the brakes, looked further into the turn, leaned over more, and gave it throttle.  You'll be surprised what a bike can do.

A scary moment, but learning safe riding even while off the road has really paid off in helping my decision making.

Yamanshi Sly and late night brake maintenance

Before heading to the track I stopped my Pete's place and he showed me how to:

Clean the brake callipers and pistons
Bleed the brake fluid
Change the brake pads

We were there until about 3am, when I finally finished in time to get a bit of rest before the next day's track sessions.

I was really able to improve my speed and get my knee down a couple more times. Only the right knee though since my left side is still a bit lacking and there is only one real left turn on the course.

I got tons of advice from Kawaguchi-san, Sam, Keith, and Pete.

A really fun weekend, and I learned a lot.

[Video coming soon]

I was really tired but took the long way home rather than the highway and hit up the mountain twisties in the dark.  Not the smartest idea and I sure did regret it a little bit when I got home exhausted.

Sodegaura took my virgin knee

At Sodegaura I managed to get my knee down for the first time.  It's an exhilarating feeling to have your knee slide across the pavement at 20-40mph, because at my level of skill I'm obviously not looking at how fast I'm going in a hairpin.

[Video coming soon]

I talked to an older gentleman on the track who gave me some pointers for getting my knee down.

Some of the things he told me, if I recall correctly (might be mixed with other advice I have received before):

-Stand on the balls of your feet on the very edge of the peg, for both feet.
-Outside leg, heel pressed hard against the rear-set plate.
-Inside leg, heel pressed against rear-set plate.
-Slide forward a little bit when shifting your butt
-Keep your leg wide open.

AND TOUCHDOWN!

馬刺

初めて馬刺を食べた！　なんか、普通の刺身って味だったけど、珍しいからもっと美味しく感じたかな〜

どっちみち、これはおすすめです。

文化の違い：パーティーの払い方

今日合コンがいっぱいしてる同僚が他の人にいじめられて、合コンの面白いことをはじめて知った。

合コンと限らないけど、合コンや友達の飲み会などで男が女の人よりお金を払う。アメリカではそういうことは信じられないと思うけど、日本では普通だそうだ。

それを聞くと、タイガーって言う友達のバイバイ飲み会のことを思い出した。その時には女の人の値段が安かった。何でだろうと思ったけど、「たぶん男が女の人より食べたり、飲んだり、するから食べ飲み放題だとレストランがそういう値段の違いあるかな」と思ったけど、そういうことじゃなかった。みんなは同じ値段だったけど、ただ文化的に、たぶん昔の「男が女より偉い」とかのことのせいで、男がもっと払うってことだった。

なるほどです。。。

Third track day: Yamanashi Sportsland adventure

On Saturday morning (May 25th) went in to service my bike to get it ready for the track day.  Got my chain tightened a little bit and everything else looked okay.

As usual I got lost on the way back and made an illegal right turn when it was a forward+left arrow (oops).  Somehow my brain lapsed and I thought it was a green circle so I went to the middle of the intersection to get ready to turn right.  However there was a cop sitting directly in front of me just waiting.  He pulled me over and saw my international license and then quickly gave up on giving me a ticket, instead warning me that I should take care of my passenger, Mako.... true.

Then... I find out the track session is a morning 9am-12pm 3 hour "flex time" so I decided to start the 1.5-2.5hr drive to Yamanashi.

So we head to the inner tokyo highway（首都高速）and try to get on, but get stopped by the gate guys and told to pull over.  We completely forgot that riding with a passenger is forbidden on the inner city highway!

Sign we overlooked at the entrance

It's all because of some law from the 90's to prevent Bosozoku from causing mayhem, even though they could do it without a passenger.... but whatever, it's the law and we broke it.

It ended up turning into a big ordeal where we waited for 2 highway officials to show up and ask for my name, license, and plate number; only then to have 2 cops show up and do the same!  It was officially a big waste of time and it's a stupid law, but what are you going to do.  We got back on the road and headed to Yamanashi, now with an expected arrival quite a bit later into the night.

..........a couple hours later we arrive, it's dark, no streetlights and a very lonely city.  With a bit of luck we found the hotel （旅館）and the old man in charge helped us find a ramen place and kept the hotel bathhouse open late for us to use when we got back.   At the ramen place I think we got stared at pretty intensely, either do the the fact that I'm black or the fact that we are an interracial couple, but it was a little strange to say the least.  The room at the hotel was a traditional Japanese style, which might have been the first time I stayed at a hotel like this, and as excited as I was for the day ahead I tried to get a good night sleep.

Made it to the track nice and early, got my bike ready and met up with my new friend Pete, who I met at Gaijin Riders (handle AntKiller).

I'm still pretty slow, but I think I did alright for my first time on this track.

Sam giving me some tips

Pete, Sam, and Souchi gave me lots of tips on riding position, breaking, etc and helped me increase my time by a second each time I went out.  That's obviously because I'm slow to begin with, but I'll take progress in any shape it comes.












The track may be small but it was an amazing 3hr session, which I rode about 1.5hrs.  The smallness of the track actually helps you with quick transitions and dealing with bumps, cracks, etc.

I think Mako enjoyed seeing me out there, but it was probably a bit long for her, so we made sure to end the day with something interested for her.  We stopped at a local soba shop and had a late lunch.

Last turn before the straight

Taping up the bike

When you go for track days on a street bike you have to tape up all the things that would smash and explode over the ground in a crash, i.e. lights and mirrors.  This time around my friend advised I just remove my mirrors and zip-tie the holes to hold my fairing to the front stay the VFR has; smart idea.

The yellow device on the right side of the bike, attached to the passenger rear sets is a lap timer.  This course has lap timing with 4 sections laid out on the track, so here I can get nice accurate data on my improvement~ (Track sheet 1, Track sheet 2)



On the way home we stopped at a rest stop, the mecca of motorcycle rest stops, where at least 100 bikes were parked.

There were choppers, cruisers, sport bikes, touring, dual sport, you name it....wish I got a picture of it...

Resting up a bit and headed back to Tokyo.  At the beginning of the day I was a bit worried that the thread on my tires was getting low, but we made it home in one piece and my tires weren't slicks yet (phew).  Having that sort of worry on your mind, worrying that you might not be able to get back home because of tire thread or crashing, while at a track is not cool and that's why I need to get myself a track bike :-D

Second track day at Sodegaura Forest Raceway

Japanese version of this post

So this time I went to the circuit alone and improved my time by a couple seconds.  I don't have an actual lap timer so I just used the video to estimate my lap times.  This time around I got about 1'36" but that's probably off by a second or two, but still not too bad.

So far my videos are still pretty boring and I'm going super slow, but hopefully someday soon people will actually think watching my videos is interesting, but until then I'll use these boring videos as a indication of where I came from when I get to wherever I'm going.

It's still only my second time out on a circuit so I barely know what I'm doing.  I'm sure I'll get much better with time and experience, or at least I really hope so.