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Topics - Ray916MN

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1
General Banter / Volunteering at STAR 2018
« on: June 04, 2018, 06:32:19 PM »
As local MSTA members to STAR 2018, it is customary for us to volunteer to staff STAR. After all, not only are we able to enjoy the roads around STAR much more readily than members coming from outside the area, we are also much more familiar with the area and better prepared to help visitors get the most out of their visit. If you haven't already, please volunteer to help at STAR 2018 in La Crosse, by providing  Dennis Villarose at ipnman2002@yahoo.com your contact information and letting him know that you'd like to help at STAR.

TIA for volunteering!

2
General Banter / Steve Christenson
« on: July 09, 2017, 09:23:48 PM »
Just got a call from Don Christenson. Unfortunately his brother Steve hit a deer while riding his bike this morning . He is stable at Gunderson Hospital in La Crosse with a number of broken bones. He will need surgery to address some of his injuries but they are letting things settle out a bit before they take action. Please keep him in your thoughts at this difficult time.

3
Routes / Rockton BBQ Short
« on: August 02, 2016, 05:32:24 PM »
Ride Start: Beth's Twin Bluffs Cafe

Length: ~270mi. (about 40 miles shorter than the most used version) Slightly shortened route goes through Arcadia, Ettrick, Mindoro, Coon Valley, Westby, Rockton, Wildcat. Mindoro and back

Ride End: Nelson Creamery

PDF file

GDB file

GPX file

4
Routes / Let's Start in Pepin II
« on: September 05, 2015, 02:34:27 AM »
Starts in Pepin at the Homemade Cafe

Ends in Nelson at the Creamery

~250 miles.

Goes to Arcadia. A higher number of named roads used as opposed to Alphabet of numbered roads.

PDF File

GPX File

GDB File

5
Routes / Let's Start in Pepin
« on: August 27, 2015, 09:38:01 AM »
~230 mi.

Start in Pepin at Homemade Cafe, 809 3rd St, Pepin, WI 54759 Lunch at La Tapatia in Arcadia. Runs to Durand and then to Arcadia and Blair before ending in Nelson for ice cream.

PDF Route Sheet

GPX Route File

GDB Route File

6
New Bridgestone Battlax Hypersport S20 120/70 Front, 190/55 Rear. Been mounted and dismounted, but never used.

$170 for the pair.

7
This year's MSTA raffle bike is a 2014 Yamaha FJR1300.

Raffle tickets for a chance to win the bike are $10 each, but they are available for $8 each if purchased by 3/31/15. You must an MSTA member to enter.

There are 3 ways to buy tickets:

Online at http://www.planetReg.com/MSTAraffle2015
–OR–
Revisit page 37 of STAReview Vol. 34 No.1 and follow instructions
–OR–
Fill out individual tickets on the attachment and mail in (follow instructions on attachment)

8
General Banter / Bell Star Carbon Airtrix Boogie Helmet - $279
« on: December 11, 2014, 03:03:34 PM »
Super deal from RidersDiscount off the Ducati.ms forum



Get yours from Riders Discount by calling extension 810 at 866.931.6644 today!

9
Mercedes-AMG confirms buying 25 percent share in MV Agusta

Wow, Audi owning Ducati, Mercedes-AMG coupled with MV, we could start seeing some really exotic stuff with these kinds of resources and pockets behind motorcycle brands. Be interesting to see if stuff from BMW, Honda and Kawasaki, the other deep pocket deep resource players step it up too. Is the new Kawasaki H2 just a harbinger of more exotic stuff to come?

10
General Banter / Ride Calendar Updated
« on: September 02, 2014, 07:00:49 PM »
Vince rescheduled his ride for 9/7. Twisty Way to Pie was added for 9/21.

11
General Banter / Sexy Motorcycle Seduces Bull
« on: September 09, 2013, 02:14:20 PM »
Bull Seduced By a Bike Gone Wrong

12
Originally published in Motorcyclist Magazine in 1991, The Pace, written by Nick Ienatsch is an article which has deeply influenced my motorcycle riding. When I first read the article, with 14 years of riding experience under my belt it codified and brought in sharper focus what I had come to think of as proficient street riding. Its’ focus on bike control over outright speed lays a foundation for speed. Without control, you'll never be fast and worse yet, without control, you are by definition a dangerous rider. It also creates a model for understanding when you are riding at or over the edge of your ability to control the bike. If you don't understand where you are with respect to your riding abilities and understand when you exceed your abilities, you'll never learn to be fast. To be fast you have to identify your riding weaknesses and then figure out how to correct them. With the preceding in mind, Pace riding is well suited as a foundation to building better bike control so you can become a better rider.

THE PACE

The Pace focuses on bike control and de-emphasizes outright speed. Full-throttle acceleration and last minute braking aren't part of the program, effectively eliminating the two most common single-bike accident scenarios in sport riding. Cornering momentum is the name of the game, stressing strong, forceful inputs at the handlebar to place the bike correctly at the entrance of the turn and get it flicked in with little wasted time and distance. Since the throttle wasn't slammed open at the exit of the last corner, the next corner doesn't require much, if any, braking. It isn't uncommon to ride with our group and not see a brake light flash all morning.

If the brakes are required, the front lever gets squeezed smoothly, quickly and with a good deal of force to set entrance speed in minimum time. Running in on the brakes is tantamount to running off the road, a confession that you're pushing too hard and not getting your entrance speed set early enough because you stayed on the gas too long. Running The Pace decreases your reliance on the throttle and brakes, the two easiest controls to abuse, and hones your ability to judge cornering speed, which is the most thrilling aspect of performance street riding.

Read more: http://mn-msta.com/index.php/page,10.html


The Pace focuses on developing your ability to read turns at a distance so you can set an appropriate speed for a turn in advance of the turn and at developing the steering skills to enable you stay within your lane in turns. It focuses on developing steering and cornering skills to go fast as opposed to using gas and/or brakes to go fast, or more commonly to make up for a lack of cornering and steering prowess.

To use The Pace as a foundation for learning, all a rider needs to do is to set a very disciplined idea of where exactly they want to be in a turn and then to ride The Pace and keep track of how well they do at steering to where they wanted to be in a turn. By a disciplined idea, what I mean is whether a rider wants to ride a single tire track (follow the center line), outside/inside (late apex) line, outside/inside/outside (racing) line, or inside/outside (early apex) line in a turn. To minimize risk while determining the limits of your steering and cornering abilities you want to either want to ride a single tire track line or an outside/inside (late apex) line, as both these lines are the most forgiving of errors. This approach to Pace riding further simplifies riding by removing the options of using the racing line or an inside/outside (early apex) line and puts these lines in the categories of riding mistakes, as opposed to being acceptable ways to corner on the street. Riding on the street is indeed riskier than on a track, so focusing on and developing the skill to hit lines with lower risk is a valuable skill to develop. With fewer line options it also becomes easier to focus on and understand how to read a turn and see the apex.

Similar to the reduction in line choice, by eliminating the reliance on the brakes to make it through corners Pace riding, makes it easier to figure out what you could be doing better to get through a corner since there are fewer possible reasons for not doing a good job on a corner. Riding The Pace, if you blow a corner you either entered too fast, didn’t correctly see the line you were after or you did a poor job steering to the line you wanted. By limiting the number of potential issues, The Pace makes it easy to practice going through turns focusing on these skills and figuring what you can do to improve them to build skill. If 3 things are too much for a rider to effectively manage, the number of potential issues can be reduced by dropping entrance speeds and/or riding a single tire track line.

Using The Pace as a foundation for street riding simplifies riding. Simplification enables riders to better identify weaknesses and work on the cornering skills necessary to proficiently and safely ride turns on the street.

13
Late apexing is staying on the outside of a turn longer and turning in later than you would if you were taking the racing line (racing line minimizes the sharpness of a turn).



Late apexing makes sense on the street because:

  • it gives you a fuller view around a corner before you commit to a line, which gives more opportunity to select a line to avoid things that may be hidden around a corner
  • it provides a larger margin of safety if you go into a turn too fast and end up going wider at the turn exit than you planned
  • in a series of switchback turns, a really late apex (outside inside) correctly positions you to take the next turn in series
  • with a fuller view around a corner, it makes it easier to be on the gas while turning which provides more steering stability and cornering clearance

If you always try to late apex turns on the street, the signs are everywhere when you begin to run out of cornering reserve. If your plan is to late apex, you're running out of cornering reserve if
  • you can't avoid exiting near the center line as shown in the diagram or shoulder on left turns
  • you can't apply the gas while turning
  • you have to use the brakes or let off the gas to maintain your lane past the turn apex
  • you find it difficult to maintain or increase your pace going through a series of consistent switchbacks
  • you fail to exit a turn on the inside (away from the center line on right turns or the shoulder on left turns) with positive or at least neutral throttle

Ignore the signs at your own peril.

14
Over the years one of the things I've noticed is that many new riders have a tough time riding a motorcycle around a turn at speeds that they would consider moderate and have no problems with in a car. It strikes me that the notion that motorcycles should use the entire lane to turn quickly and/or that an outside inside outside (aka race line) line is needed to rapidly negotiate a turn might over complicate turns for new riders as well as enabling them to make up for poor steering skills by using all the lane width possible. New riders not only have to learn to steer, but also need to learn to select a line through a turn. I also realized that the same might be true for me too, that using an outside inside outside line might be masking some of my own poor steering. With preceding in mind, a stupid game I play when riding is to see how fast I can go while maintaining a foot off the center line, basically riding as if my bike were as wide as my entire lane, like a car. Doing this eliminates the need to select a line and giving a rider less to think about. Rather than the short sharp steering input and line selection associated with an outside inside outside line, riding like this is an exercise in steering precision and adjustment, forcing you to constantly adjust your line. The game is simple, see how fast you can go while maintaining a constant distance from the center line. You lose if your distance varies, you win the more precisely you maintain a constant distance and the faster you go.

Lastly, given that the safest line through a gravel strewn corner is often to ride a tire track, the speed at which you can go through a turn and maintain a constant distance from the center line is a pretty good approximation of how fast you can go through a corner and ride within a tire track.



When your cornering speeds get significantly higher than this speed you start to lose the ability to use the riding a tire track approach to dealing with gravel and implicitly lose some of your safety margin. When you are unsure of what lays around a corner taking a generic line allows you to peer around a corner until you see whether the turn and road conditions are appropriate for turning more sharply with a positive throttle to get a late apex line.

15
For Sale/Wanted to Buy / Free Stands
« on: May 26, 2013, 11:48:38 AM »


Must take all 3

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