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Me and my LT at a Motorcycle Skills Day

3063 Views 19 Replies 14 Participants Last post by  johnbaker15
Here's a few snippits of me and a few friends doing some cone challenges at a Motorcycle Skills Day. Me on a '99 K1200LT and others on an H-D Ultra Classic, BMW GSA, BMW R-TP, and a Ducati Multistrada. Anyway...it was quite fun and challenging.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDCqWNN8o8E&feature=youtu.be
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Good job!

Never tipped over even once!

:bmw:
The Beemopotamus is ready for some serious after church Resturant parking lot manuevers... :histerica

Seriously, great job...was the motor officer on duty or was he just a participant?
Looks to me like you seriously need to improve your aim. You couldn't even knock over one single lousy cone! Don't be discouraged. You CAN improve your aim with practice :histerica.

Loren
edmann said:
Yes, the LT is nimble!
I haven't ridden mine yet but hope to develoope the skills with mine also. Right now it seems impossible to make sharp manuvers with such a heavy bike. I guess it's about the speed. Slow and dump it or a lttle faster and weave like a loom! LoL
wrmoss said:
Seriously, great job...was the motor officer on duty or was he just a participant?
He was in HOT PURSUIT! :D
The motor officer was actually on duty. He and his partner were there last year, but only him this year. Their division is encouraged to participate in this sort of event so they were grateful to be "off the beat" and doing something fun like this, but still getting paid!

RonHolly...I wasn't nearly as "nimble"at last year's skilled day. I've only had the LT for about 18 months. This sort of thing has severely impacted my comfort level at slow speeds. The trick for me was coming to the conclusion I will likely dump her in this sort of event, and being okay with that in order to improve my skills (the parts are fairly cheap to replace, plus those parts on mine were already beat up when I bought her). Practice does not make perfect, but it sure helps!

BTW, I'd be glad to send anyone the map and dimensions of the event if you wanted to set this up for yourself. Thanks!
Nice job. Was this put on by your riding group?

Garry
Well done! Do any of the participants ever try the course with a pillion passenger?
I recently participated in this same kind of slow speed skills class with the Arizona Precision Team and it was very beneficial for me. Great way to learn. I let one of the precision team (wing rider) try my LT and he was not impressed with the slow speed handling :rotf: I informed him that i care more about the high speed handling :bmw:
Great with clinical conditions!
Wonder what the perspective would be like if the same lot was filled with more obstacles like moving cars, shopping carts and don't forget innocent shoppers like with the police shot course. Great fun it seemed like.
ride safe :bmw:
Garry...I belong to my church's FAITH Riders ministry and am also the director http://www.eastpickens.org/ministries/faith-riders. Me and a buddy decided this sort of thing would be beneficial to a lot of bikers so we planned it all for the first time last year. We took almost all of the pointers and exercises from Jerry "Motorman"Paladino's "Ride Like a Pro" DVD set. It proved to be very beneficial to everyone involved so we scheduled it again this year, with a few modifications that didn't work last year. We had a slow race, 16' and 12' cone weaves, the offset cone weave, a 24' circle, 24' figure eight, emergency braking, 90 degree turn from a stop, 24' 22' and 18' U-turns. All were great this year. We also had the motor officer change a few things up on the more advanced riders at the end of the day. His exercises were the most fun! We'll do it again next year in April or May.

We plan on modifying the event to be sort of like the Goldwing riders association's Top Gun event...which will be most of these exercises plus some...and in a timed point system. This will be a competition, whereas the skills day was just individual events at your own pace to get better.

Pickerbiker...I couldn't get my wife to try it with me, but we did have one or two to do it with passengers. One in particular said it changed a lot of what he was doing solo...like a quicker reaction time necessary. But not many took advantage of that.

Foiler...last year was about 8 months after buying the LT so I was still pretty green at the low speed handling. Over the past year, I'd try different things in parking lots and stuff and then at this year's event, I was much more comfortable from the beginning. By the end of the day, even the motor officer told me he was impressed with how I handled the big bike (he tried it too and talked about how heavy she was). I found by the end of the day I felt very little intimidation at the slower speeds.

Amazing what practice can do! For confidence as much as actual skill.

Thanks for all the comments!
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:bmw: :bmw: For some reason i circle better to the left then to the right
1worshipguy said:
The motor officer was actually on duty. He and his partner were there last year, but only him this year. Their division is encouraged to participate in this sort of event so they were grateful to be "off the beat" and doing something fun like this, but still getting paid!

RonHolly...I wasn't nearly as "nimble"at last year's skilled day. I've only had the LT for about 18 months. This sort of thing has severely impacted my comfort level at slow speeds. The trick for me was coming to the conclusion I will likely dump her in this sort of event, and being okay with that in order to improve my skills (the parts are fairly cheap to replace, plus those parts on mine were already beat up when I bought her). Practice does not make perfect, but it sure helps!

BTW, I'd be glad to send anyone the map and dimensions of the event if you wanted to set this up for yourself. Thanks!
Bobby, Can you send me a copy of the layout? Maybe they can set something up at CCR like this?

Garry
Those three obstacles are the same setup as when I took the old MSF Experienced Rider course.

Maybe a rider coach can share the setup for CCR for you?
keep up the good work. this provides a great safe riding evironment for new riders. i just started participating and would recommend anyone considering it.
Foiler said:
:bmw: :bmw: For some reason i circle better to the left then to the right
That is usually because you are right handed..I circle better to the right. Yup lefty. :)

I found the same thing to be true when I played hockey, took lots of practice to get comfortable turning both left and right equally well.
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