Practice Skills on a Harley. Find the time!

What is going on to the world over on YouTube? I hope you're having a great day. I have a question. Are you taking the time to practice your riding skills? Because no matter how long you've been riding for, practicing your fundamentals and skills is crucial. You know, and I've said it before, I've been through some pretty serious situations out on the road and I attribute the success rate or the success factor on the fact that I go out and take some time for dedicated practice on my Road Glide Special. It's a big bike and I think it's important. You can still have some fun while practicing and today we're out in the twisties getting a little practicing. All right, so obviously slow speed maneuvering is something that you should be working on in parking lots and, you know, it's so important to understand how to emergency brake and do your figure eights and get all that stuff in order. But out in the twisties I'm spending dedicated time working on two things and I only pick two things so that I don't try to pile on a whole bunch of stuff. So today I'm working on nothing but entry and exit points and trail braking with a bike that has linked brakes. And for you guys that don't know, linked brakes basically means that when I apply the front or the rear brake independently a percentage is transferred to the other braking system. So if I were to use my rear brake right now my front brake would have a little bit of pressure applied as well. And it's a little trickier with these synchronized or linked brake systems to trail brake. So I thought today we'd take advantage here in San Diego. We are on SR 94 which has got some, you know, fun twisty areas and start working on entry and exit points. My idea here is to not turn in too early into the turns. So for example, here we're going to come out here, we're going to go outside, inside, and work our way back outside. When I'm practicing I'm typically starting it off at a very, very slow leisurely pace just to try to get that muscle memory and that thought process. Because when you're in the moment and you're traveling at a funner pace, we should say, it is something that, you know, you're going to resort to your muscle memory. Trail braking is something that has been introduced for a long time. It's obviously used, you know, out on the racetrack. And essentially I'm not, I will tell you right now, I'm not an expert at trail braking. I'm not an instructor for any type of riding class. These are just things that I focus and work on. So take that for what it's worth. But trail braking is entering into a corner using slight pressure on your front brake and then trailing that. So you're basically putting pressure on that front brake, compressing that suspension down. And it's not a jerky movement. Everything is done very smoothly. So you enter in, you find that speed that you want to take that turn. If you need to apply a little bit more pressure to slow down, you can. And as you're exiting that turn midway through, you're going to start slightly rolling off your brake. This gives you more control in the corner. There's so many different safety benefits to it. As far as once, you know, jerking on the brakes we know is going to lead to a very, very bad day. But if you already have brakes applied when you go into it and it's just slight pressure, when I say slight pressure, it's like, you know, we'll call it in a percentage realm, probably 10% pressure. And then sometimes you even have to give it a little bit of throttle while trail braking to maintain that speed in the corner. So that's what I'm focusing on today. Like I said, I'm not an expert at it. That's why I'm out here practicing. And even if I was an expert, I'd probably still be out here practicing. So I'd be curious to see if you guys are practicing and what are your methods that you're doing. Me being on, you know, this bagger with linked brakes, the trail braking is a little bit different, but that's what we're going to be focusing on. And I'll kind of show it to you. Not sure how well you can see it. I might be able to just maybe talk you through it and walk you through my thought processes. And as far as a, you know, my ignorance is concerned, I know it was an old school train of thought that you, you head towards a corner, you let off the throttle, you get a, you know, all your braking done out of the way. Then you, for example, in this turn, you push left, lean left, go left. And then when you get your exit point, you pretty much will be able to accelerate out of it. I thought for the longest time, especially when I'm following people through the twisties that are definitely more experienced than I, you know, I would see them with their brakes on, or let's say I didn't even know their experience level. I would see them with their brakes on like through the turn. I'm like, man, this, this person's riding their brakes going through this turn. You know, they must not be experienced. Well, jokes on me because they were well more advanced than I am when it comes to cornering and twisties and all that kind of stuff. So it's just something that we are always continuing to grow and evolve and learn new techniques to keep us safer out here on the road, where you still can have a lot of fun out here in the twisties, even practicing. I have a lot of fun, but it's, it's really slowing it down and understanding what you're doing and getting that muscle memory so that when the time comes and you are at a quicker pace, you'll resort back to that, that muscle memory, because no matter how you, you look at it, when you've, when you've picked up the pace throughout the twisties, your adrenaline goes up. Whether you notice it or not, your heart rate gets elevated. That is a natural human physiological effect that happens where your, your, your blood is, is starting to flow through your body a little quicker because it knows that there is an inherent danger to what you're doing. A lot of people that are maybe not, I guess, an experienced rider, they look, and there are still people that are probably experienced that do this too, they literally think that you're not a good rider unless you are leaning that thing all the way over and, and scraping your pegs and scraping your bags and, and doing everything you just don't really know how to ride. You know, I'm, I'm leaned all the way over and, you know, there have been, it's a whole bunch of nonsense because technically, the more experienced rider is the one that can get through that turn at a good pace without leaning that bike all the way over. Because when your bike is actually leaned, you're taking away from the suspension and what it is that the suspension is being used for because suspensions don't travel like this, they travel like this. A lot of different factors come into play when you're doing stuff like that including your body position and I'll talk to you a little bit more about my body position and what I do as far as like my head being on the side of the fairing. Sometimes I stay neutral but it's all to try to eliminate more lean than I actually need inside of that turn. I remember back when I was riding sport bikes and even on track days, I just, I could not wait to get my knee to the ground, right? And everybody who's ever come from the sport bike world, you remember that first time that you touched your puck to the ground. It was an awesome, awesome feeling. You know, I just kept on thinking, you know, I'm just not leaning my bike far enough and truth be told, I should have been focusing more on these fundamentals and when it did happen, it just happened versus focusing like, hey, I need to, I need to push that bike to its absolute limit because when you are leaning, leaning equals risk. I actually, now that I'm out here on this road, it's kind of funny. My first motorcycle accident was on this road out here through the twisties where I basically got focal point fixation which is where you're not staring through the turn. You're pretty much worried about that obstacle and you think staring at it, it's going to help you avoid it which is not the case at all. In the motorcycle culture, you know that your eyes are the barrel and the bike is the bullet. So wherever your eyes are looking, that's pretty much where your bike's going to go and I had focal point fixation on a turn up here coming down the grade which led me to lay down the bike. Thank goodness there wasn't a car coming in the other direction or I wouldn't be here having this discussion with you today. So even when there's traffic on the road like this, you can still practice. You can practice your entry and exit points and keeping that and maintaining that line that you want to have. A lot of the times if I'm doing a self-assessment just for my own personal growth, I realize that sometimes I enter into corners too early and so that's why the focus is to go here which is starting the outside, going to come around, work our way to the inside, work our way to the outside and now we're set up for an outside movement again on this turn inside. But like I said, you got traffic on the road, not a big deal. You can still be mentally focused on this and I'd be curious, you guys can leave me a comment. Are you guys constantly thinking about this and practicing because there was a good stretch of my riding career where I just didn't, I just thought, just getting out on two wheels and rolling that nothing beats the experience. But if you're not really specifically focusing on your techniques, it's just not going to be as beneficial. But I'd be curious if you guys are doing it. If not, is it something you're going to be looking into because it is so important to work on these fundamentals to keep us all safe and help newer riders especially to focus on these fundamentals so they stay safe and we can continue to grow this industry. Obviously when you're, things that you would do out on a track and I would love to get this bike, not to necessarily start shredding it up on a track like sport bike days, but just to see how this bike, you know, does and looking at my limitations when I don't have to worry about any type of cross traffic. Because when you're out here practicing and doing these types of things, you have to realize, yeah, it would be beneficial to be all the way, you know, get a left-hand turn. Let's get all the way to the outside. But sometimes you're going to have gravel, maybe some oil, some things that you just don't want to be around. So staying in that, I would say, cage right side tire mark is enough for the outside. It's like right here we have some gravel. I wouldn't want to be all the way to the outside. But I'm also out here on the street and I don't want to feel like I'm pushing the limit. Same thing with like your lean angle, lean equals risk. And we want to eliminate that, especially out here when we're on the road. But okay, so we got no traffic in front of us. I'll kind of just walk you guys quickly through my thought process, get to a comfortable gear. I'm going to be in third gear, probably going down between third and second throughout this, but really just focusing on my lines right now. We'll go over the trail braking later. Obviously, you know, blind making sure we got a corner. We're at a comfortable speed. I'm on the outside coming to that apex to the inside, working my way back outside, but now we have a right-hand turn. So coming around right here, start at the outside, trail braking, braking, and off the brakes. And with those linked brakes, it's, it is definitely, it does work. It's just a different feel. And it's really important to trust your bike and your suspension. That's why I highly recommend upgrading your Harley suspension. It does make the world of difference. Here's a nice sweeping turn. I'll show you what we're going to be doing. So we're here, entering quick. I'm on the brakes, holding now neutral. I got a little bit still on the brakes just in case something pops out. I'm here. I can see the exit and now I'm accelerating through, you know, the suspension plays a key component to riding a motorcycle and having that trust, both in your tires and your suspension and your capabilities. And you can get a lot more confidence by upgrading that suspension because it just feels that much more stable. I have ProAction suspension all the way around here. ProAction, if you guys don't know, they came from the dirt bike realm. And if you guys watch dirt bike racing and things like that, I mean, that suspension gets worked and they developed several years ago, a street package. And I've been extremely happy with them. I'll put the link to the description down below. A great group of guys, they're out in Pennsylvania. If you guys want to check them out, if you are looking, you can let them know that Full Throttle Hog sent you over that way. So I'm looking here, we got road work, but I'm looking here. I'm going to go outside, not too far outside because the gravel, keeping maintaining this. I'm good at this speed. Like this is, this is fine here. Just maintain that line. Then we go outside, come back inside, working our way back to the outside. And now we're going to be prepared to stop. So another good point, if I have my on my brakes here, it says keep right and we're stopping. So let's say that they didn't have those signs and this was an obstacle. You're able to stop because you were already prepared for it. So again, it is not abrupt movements. If you're going to down it in the corner, low side in the corner, chances are you came into this corner too hot. And then you grabbed a handful of front brake. That is not what you want to do. You want to be entering and understanding how your brakes work, how much stopping time that you need, and then start messing around with the pressures on what it does. And with trail braking, sometimes it doesn't feel like anything, but it is working. And you can actually practice this several times over and over on just a straight line. We're in an incline right now, but in a straight line, gain some speed. I go to off throttle and I just put, I can feel that right there. That's 10%. I can feel that that's off. It is very slight pressure, but once you have that front brake engaged, you are able to apply slightly more pressure. I should say softly more pressure or less pressure as you see fit. So I'm on the brake and I'm off the brake and it's just really slow, even movements so that you're able to complete those turns. And it does take a lot of practice. You got to get out there and work on this for several hours. You know, sometimes you don't even need it, right? There are some times it's not necessary, but let's take this one hot. So we're here, I'm on the brake and I'm off the brake and just sweeping back around real slight. So maybe you guys should give it a try. There's a lot of other videos of people that do this that have a whole lot more experience than I do. You can check out those videos and hopefully they'll help you out. I just have wanted to kind of share my training strategy with you that I do go out here and I do practice. I have no intentions on doing anything else. Obviously I'm filming this video today, but I'm doing anything else but working on, you know, these fundamentals. So I'm going to get to doing that right now and just start working on my entry and exit points over and over and over again. But that's going to do it for today's video you guys. If you haven't already hit subscribe down below and until next time you guys ride safe, you be safe and we'll catch you on the next one.