California Superbike School Coach Series, Part 4: Johnny Haynes, Deputy Head of WW Coaching

In this special episode, Rick Rayner sits down with Johnny Haynes, a highly respected figure in the world of motorcycle coaching. A motorcycle riding instructor. With decades of experience, Johnny shares invaluable insights on rider technique, the evolution of training, and what it takes to master two wheels. Whether you’re a seasoned rider or just starting your motorcycle journey, this interview is packed with tips, wisdom, and inspiration. Don’t miss it!

00:00
Introduction to Johnny and His Journey

03:04
Early Motorcycle Experiences and Transition to Coaching

06:04
Coaching Journey and Global Experiences

09:06
Notable Trainees and Coaching Philosophy

11:56
Riding Style and Techniques

14:59
The Role of a Deputy Chief Ride Coach

17:56
Challenges and Rewards of Coaching

20:52
Personal Insights on Riding Style

24:03
Conclusion and Future Aspirations

37:32
Throttle Control and Smooth Riding

39:37
Marking Turn Points on the Track

42:21
Understanding Steering Points

44:58
Choosing When to Steer

46:30
The Importance of Line Selection

51:36
Learning the Track Line

55:32
Common Rider Errors

58:28
Adapting to New Motorcycles

01:01:03
Throttle Timing and Control

01:04:06
The Role of Traction Control

01:13:35
Caution with New Motorcycles

01:15:11
The Genetic Edge in Riding Skills

01:17:53
Cultural Differences in Riding Styles

01:19:22
The Plateau of Intuitive Riding

01:22:40
Deliberate Rider Inputs for Improvement

01:25:19
The Importance of Coaching and Feedback

01:30:09
Learning from Experience and Mistakes

01:34:05
The Balance of Risk and Control in Riding

01:39:35
Mastering the Line for Optimal Performance

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07.534)
Hey everyone, I'm really excited for our next guest. I interviewed Dylan Code, the son of the founder of the school, Keefe Code, and that was an amazing interview. now Dylan is carrying on that family legacy running the school. Rick, my partner in crime, has been interviewing some of the incredible coaches from that school. And today's guest is Johnny Haines. And Johnny is the deputy head

of worldwide rider coaching. So the coaches work for him. He's been with the school almost from the beginning. He's ridden in over 100 countries and about quarter of a million miles of track time. He's been through the 250 two stroke era to four stroke era to modern GP and world super bike era. He's seen some of the best riders in his schools, both at the amateur and professional level.

and he's learned a thing or two along the way. So if you have that learner's mindset and you want to keep learning, then I encourage you to tune into this interview of Rick and Johnny. Thanks again for supporting the channel.

Speaker 2 (01:25.294)
Hello everybody. Hey, we've got Johnny Haynes from the California Superbike School with us today. We know a lot of people enjoyed James Toohey and our conversation. So we talked Johnny into joining us for a session here. And man, I think it's going to be amazing.

So we want to talk to Johnny about his background, is unbelievable. his coaching experience, which is unbelievable. And, and then maybe we'll get some nuggets out of him. Also, I know we got some, some good nuggets out of, out of James. So, welcome Johnny Haynes. I'm really glad. It's good to see you too, man. Yeah. Thanks for, thanks for finding the time to do this. I know you're busy and you're, are you off now for a little bit or?

Yeah, you too, Rick. Thanks.

Speaker 1 (02:17.006)
Well, yeah, Thanksgiving and today and then weekend, yeah, back to work on Monday.

Okay, and when's your next school?

I have a private on Tuesday and Wednesday next week, but the next actual school will be in March in Vegas.

You're a full-time permanent guy at the school. So you gotta go to your job on Monday. know your resume man. It could be anybody all over the whole world

You guys are doing 9 to 5, man.

Speaker 1 (02:47.072)
Yeah, true. No, this is a relatively new student that he really wants to go places, you know, he's investing in his training and he doesn't seem to be hurting for money. So he wants to keep it going over the winter. So we're to go out the streets next week, do a couple of days with him.

That's great. That's great. Well, how about if we just, I don't even know and I'm super curious. How did you start out with motorcycles and how did you transition into, I'm assuming you transitioned at some point into super bikes like most of us did from something smaller or dirt bikes or MX or whatever.

I bought a car when I was 17, but before I passed my test, I had a pie at my house. Somebody smashed my car up. So that was the end of that. You know, when you're like 17, your folks go away on holiday, first time they trust you with a house. Yeah, yeah. I lost my car at that stage and had some insurance issues associated with that whole event. So I was forced into buying a small motorcycle.

That was all I could afford to run and ensure at the time. Quickly fell in love and that was that. A TS50ER Suzuki dirt bike. TS.

Okay, well what did you buy?

Speaker 2 (04:03.79)
a 50, a TS50.

Yeah, 50cc. I was only 17, right? And it was a basket case, I had to actually put new main bearings in it and rebuild the whole thing. I had to learn all that at the same time, but got it running, got it set up and rode it around for a little bit. It was a piece of shit. So I upgraded it fairly quickly after that, but that's what got me started.

All right, okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (04:30.734)
We may need to get everybody up to speed. You're not, you were not born in this country, obviously. So where are you, where are you from? Let's hear where you're from. Give us a city name. Kind of get that, get that perspective going for us.

I'm from the UK, England, from a town called Luton, L-U-T-O-N, which is just on the northern side of London. So it's just outside North London. Industrial town, no real fond memories of that place, honestly. But it was there through until 2000 and then moved slightly further north in the UK. Then moved to the States in 2012.

And how did you pull that off? Like what instigated that?

I think my predecessor as DCRC, Pete, he was trying to get as many three-star coaches, which is a level of qualification within the Superbikes school. He was trying to get as many three-stars working at the US branch as he could, so he asked me if I would be willing to come and work full-time over here.

Okay, wow. So we jumped, we just jumped across the pond and then we jumped right into the California Superbike School in the US. So maybe we should go back and take it from the 50cc little piece of shit bike.

Speaker 1 (05:46.589)
I ended up buying a lot of motorcycles, all mostly two-stroke, in fact all two-strokes. I had dirt bikes, had TZRs, 350LCs, MTX 125s, RD12s, like I had basically all two-strokes and it was somewhat of a hooligan on the street, really neat.

RD the RD without a two cylinder or four three

350cc parallel twin two-stroke. Yeah, well they all are. There's nothing going on below 7000 rpm back then, all carbureted, know, like not fuel injection or anything. yeah, I I got a thrill out of that. I loved it. But I wanted to go to the track. Eventually I managed to borrow a bike and all the associated paraphernalia and went racing. That's kind of how I came across the Superbike School. The guy who started up the UK branch was a

Screamer

Speaker 1 (06:37.858)
buddy that we sort of pitched with when we were racing. There's three of us that used to park up together and hang out together over the race weekend. And that led me into the Superbike School.

Okay. So into the super bike school in the UK first. All right. So they trained you up as a, as a new coach and,

Yeah, well, I mean, this is 1997. So it's a little while ago now. The training was a little bit looser. We've come quite a long way with the coach training. I was one of three guys that got trained up to be coaches from the UK in basically the inception of the UK Superbikes School. So we were the first guys basically when Andy decided to bring the school to the UK. We were part of that whole

thing, know, like to try and build up the UK brands and have our own in-house coaches. I was part of that. Okay. Push that initiative.

Wow, I have so many questions now. that was, was that under some sort of a licensing agreement with, with Keith code here?

Speaker 1 (07:38.958)
We had to import most of the yanks. Keith came over, did the classrooms, bunch of the coaches that were currently in the US at the time came out. And then there's a couple of us that would supplement that as UK coaches and get our training going and stuff.

Okay. And approximately what year did you start coaching? 98. So that forces us to consider this is that we, as you know, have billed Mr. Tooey as the guy with the most track time in the U.S. So if we take off the U.S. part, you've got to be heavily in contention for the guy with the most track time. Maybe we just say between the U.K. and the U.S.

But yeah, I don't know. I don't know if we could say Europe or whatever. That's why we restricted it to the US with James, because I don't know squat about who's doing what over there in Europe. We think about that. Like you've got to have thousands of hours, thousands of miles on race tracks.

Yeah, about quarter a million, think, is a rough estimate now. 100 different racetracks. 27 countries, I think, so far. So I've been around a bit.

Okay.

Speaker 2 (08:52.472)
So that's a lot different than the US coaches. I know James has gotten around to a couple, three or four other countries. But how in the world did you get to around almost 30 different countries? That's amazing.

Well, I credit most of that to Andy Ibbott. I he's not so much around anymore, but he was the driving force behind the expansion of the UK branch. Our designated contracted area was the UK, Europe, South Africa and the Middle East. And we went all over it.

Dude, that is a cool job. That is the job of all jobs for a super biker.

Yeah, I mean, there's compromises, obviously, like, but yeah, I got to go ride Catalonia, Jerez, Almeria in Spain, know, Fekisa, Kailami in South Africa, Dubai Autodrome, was in fact the first motorcyclist ever to ride on that racetrack. Dubai Autodrome. Okay. We did a night school in Abu Dhabi around that crazy hotel on the Formula One track, you know, done like schools in this dust bowl.

What's what's

Speaker 1 (10:03.886)
dirt track in Turkey just outside Istanbul with CB500s as the coach bikes that came on Bridgestone BT57s. They're not really great on track and they were grey and like, like it took us, I don't know, half the day trying to get all the like rotten rubber off the tyres so we could actually lean over and then you start dragging the side stand and the centre stand and the footrest. But yeah, I've had the opportunity to travel.

a lot.

That's insane story. I'm sure there's been some interesting, I don't know. Do you have some notorious trainees you can throw out?

travel to lot of racetracks.

Speaker 1 (10:46.35)
I'm notorious, we mentioned that before.

Whatever you want to call it. Interesting.

Members of royalty from a couple of different countries, a bunch of world and national champions at various points. Not saying that they got those championships courtesy of me, but I've interacted with them along the way. Leon Kamiya is one that I particularly like. He's such a good dude, always willing to listen and learn and try stuff. Very impressive and super talented. Leon Kamiya.

Who's that again?

So he won VSB 2008 or nine, something like that. Went on to world super bike, rode for Aprilia, did pretty well. He won some races out there at that level. Always very impressive to see him ride and to see how he interacts and listens, you know, good guy.

Speaker 2 (11:38.056)
Interesting. So you're you're appreciating a good student there is what you're really saying. He's fun to coach.

Yeah, well, it can be a bit frustrating because he's fast as fuck. We don't normally have to worry about that, but when he shows up, know, that's a whole different level.

Yeah, maybe maybe a little less beer the night before or get up early. Yeah, get yourself prepared. That's great. That's really good. But I am curious when you know that's coming down the pike, when you know this guy is coming down the pike and you're going to have to keep up with them so that you're going to have to observe. Right. You got to be back there. You got to do some observing and then you got to do some coaching. How do you prepare yourself for that?

I mean, are you do you just go whatever, man? It's we're going to make it happen. Are you thinking ahead and make sure you have new tires and make sure you're

equipment you know like I wouldn't ride on a bald set of slicks that I've used for three days already so for sure we'd make sure the bike was optimized in that regard but honestly I mean it's not realistic that I'm gonna be out of ride with somebody of that caliber continuously so you set up a few little hand signals or whatever you know just say to me if you get through

Speaker 1 (12:58.978)
you sneak through traffic, this is where they kill us because they'll take a pass. As a coach, can't follow through and that would be too tight. We're going around and carving people up. So once they get a gap, guys like that, you can't get it back.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

For a little while, you know, can see enough, know, and it's deviations from what I consider to be the ideal I'm looking for or things that happen. They're like, okay And if I make a little bit of ground somewhere on the guy like that, then they definitely that's a weak spot for them, right? so you're looking for all of those things But you make sure when you're on the straight, don't just pin it and like down the straight roll out Look back see if I'm there like give me a chance. So and guys like Leon are great about stuff like that You get to ride with them

the whole time and if they get a big gap they'll have a little loop, know, a couple of points around the track and they'll hold out and wait for you and give you a chance. And as long as you can give them some solid feedback that they can apply then that works really good.

Yeah, that's great. And you're being so modest right now by talking about a guy that you can't keep up with in traffic because so let me just set this straight. I how long have we known each other? Years, maybe a decade. And maybe a little less than 100 days on track. I have never seen anyone. I'm just going to just because I know you're talking about a guy that you can't keep up with. And that's great. It's really interesting for me to hear that.

Speaker 1 (14:11.778)
Many years, yeah, probably.

Speaker 2 (14:25.016)
But what I've witnessed with my own eyeballs is there is no one that you can't keep up with or pass whenever you feel like it. So I know that it's mostly schools or whatever, but I just wanted to give you that back because you're being so modest. I mean, I don't know who the man is, this person is you're talking about, and now I'm going to have to go check and see who that is. But that's pretty cool. It's also really good to know that somebody can do that to you,

Well, I'm usually on an inferior motorcycle as well, so

Hey, throw it out there. I totally

You can go a long way with good technique, but these guys have got something, you know, a little bit special I used to have it when I was younger. It's kind of a carefree, know, wherever it takes kind of approach I don't know but yeah, I mean in my day-to-day job doesn't happen very often. Yeah, you you get somebody who's a quality racer then they're gonna give me a workout for sure

Yeah, but that's fun too.

Speaker 1 (15:21.518)
Yeah. I I learned a whole bunch of shit about my own riding in that environment, right? You know, when a good example I worked with is Robie. Not this year, last year. Demon on the brakes. I had a little edge here and there, slightly better lines, maybe slightly better accuracy in a couple of places, but damn, he brake late and hard. And that was tough for me. You like I'm used to.

Yeah, that's fun stuff.

Speaker 1 (15:51.182)
being pretty chill in that area. So I had to really step up. It helped me push through a barrier there and like go later and deeper, which is something I wasn't particularly fond of, know, I like it dancing around on the brakes. yeah, riding with him, you know, I had to.

and

Back in the early days when we used to go, so this is with the UK branch, would go, you know, we built a school in Greece, we built schools in South Africa, we got local agents. But a lot of the guys that were interested in bringing us out and taking advantage of our services were centered around the racing scene. So we show up in Greece is the one I remember it's 40 degrees C, which is 120, 115, 120 degrees.

no buildings at this racetrack, just a pop-up tent and a whole bunch of racers showed up, right? It was me, my buddy Paul, Andy, Chris, Sherin, and we had to like go to this brand new track we'd never seen before. All these Greek national racers that are racing it every weekend, there's only like two tracks in Greece and this was the best one. And we got to figure out how to put down term points, you know how that works, right? So in three sessions of chasing these loonies around this racetrack, and it was the grippiest racetrack.

in existence at the time. I mean, I've dragged the neon slicks in the rain on that racetrack. It's like mega abrasive. Yeah, we got to get up to speed and then start to show these guys something. I mean, that used to be challenging back in the day. We're still kind of learning that trade a little bit. Yeah, we some tough ones there. When you just show up and you are going all out all day, like right on the edge. Like, fuck, I'm supposed to be watching these guys. Goddamn.

Speaker 2 (17:42.734)
Hey man, that just sounds good. It's what it does. It sounds like it's good. And you're still alive. You're alive to talk about it, That's pretty cool.

I'm still loving it, Rick, honestly. know, little bit less mobile and a little bit older and little bit wiser and a little bit more careful in some ways, but.

That's good. That's really really good. I did have in the back of my mind to talk to you about Placing those turn points. I call them steering points. I don't know if we want to hit that now because that's gonna segue into other stuff I know but Help me remember to ask you about that Because it's part of a bigger question. I want to ask you about What you think is important? It's gonna take you out of your normal

routine of breaking everything down into separate little skills and maybe a little bit more broader view. It's a personal interest of mine to ask you that question, but I just want to make sure we finish. you getting into the Superbike school over here. then when I first saw you at the school, I thought you were just another coach. I remember having... but...

Hahaha.

Speaker 2 (19:03.438)
But it didn't take very long. I do remember having dinner with Kobe. I'm like, who's the dude? Like all the other coaches are asking questions of the new guy. Like, I don't even understand that. you know, that didn't seem right, right? It would be, it was a little weird. And so obviously I didn't know that you came over from another school with a lot of information in your head. I didn't know that. So he explained all that to me, but that was interesting. That was the first time I really saw you.

And you were like this magnet of like, Hey, Johnny, you know, what do you think? What do you think about tires today? And this is a very respected coach that I knew asking you. So I'm like, Kobe, like, who's this guy?

Just showed up with a weird accent. Who the fuck's that? I've been to the US on a regular basis throughout my tenure in the UK, right? So I was the chief ride coach in the UK for nine years. responsible for the training of all the coaches over there. High level of interaction with the US branch throughout that. used to come over for training, my own training. Most years I was out here for a month or more to get further trained and you know, like

knows all the stuff

Speaker 1 (20:15.982)
catch up to the mothership, know, see what's going on here. So I wasn't as new to those guys as maybe to some of the regular students, you know, and I showed up on a more regular basis. I used to go to the East Coast a lot, which like, I know you guys don't go over there very much, right? You're more West Coast. So I didn't really show up on the West Coast very often until I moved out here and started, you know, working on a more regular basis.

Gotcha. Okay. So you were doing like a back and forth thing. There's all this stuff going on behind the scenes, man, that nobody really, nobody really knows. It's like, it's a big, that's a big institution now. And even was back then.

I've spent three, so the winter season in the US or the UK, like our season is very similar, but in Australia, their summer starts when our winter comes in. So when you're working as a full-time coach, by that I mean doing all the school days. I wasn't working as a member of the office staff at that time in the US. So when Atheetan ended, I'd fly out to Australia and go and work their season through till February, March, and then come back and carry on with our season.

Yeah.

I got kind of well known around all of the branches because I'd go and hang out and work at every school that was going, know, I'd go to everything as much as I could.

Speaker 2 (21:31.694)
So did you end up staying with the US branch because you liked it better or because they needed you? like, why would you choose to, I'm getting the impression that you, all these worldwide travels sort of like went down a little bit and then you kind of focused on the US. Is that accurate or no?

Yeah, you can actually survive as a full-time coach in the US. That was pretty challenging in the UK. Just cost of living, like amount of output versus reward, it was proven to be difficult. I needed a change of scenery at that time. Plus the weather is much better over here. The people are much friendlier. I mean, at that time, the standard of living was noticeably better.

It all clicked into place for me, you it was the right move at that time.

So can you explain what exactly is your, do you have a title? What are you doing at the school? Because we don't want to leave people with the impression that you're just like this one dimensional really awesome coach. Like you're doing other stuff, right?

You can leave people with that idea if you like.

Speaker 2 (22:47.182)
It wouldn't be correct. It wouldn't be responsible, man. We gotta be responsible.

So my title is Deputy Chief Ride Coach worldwide. So my direct senior is Kobi, the Chief Ride Coach of the world. We work very closely together. mean, basically our key roles are production of the event and quality control. So under that umbrella comes the training of the coaches, the somewhat monitoring and managing of the overseas branches as well, making sure that the CSS product is

uniform around the world that people have been trained properly, doing their job properly. You know, we have the final say on some of the qualifications that people need to get to progress through the training as a coach. So we look after all of that. I'm also keeper of the tech. So I work quite closely with Keith on updates, refinement, evolution of the technical materials that we've got, which is, you know, what we use for coaching, but a lot of it to do with training the coaches.

There's a lot of material and a long process to become a really highly qualified CSS coach. So I manage a lot of that, mostly for the US branch now, but still looking on the UK branch and do stuff for them as well.

Wow, dude.

Speaker 1 (24:05.422)
It has a lot to think about sometimes, but I mean, it's all the same thing, Rick, you know, it's like figuring out how to get everybody to ride better, coach better. It's kind of cool.

It is cool. It is cool, man. It seems daunting though. Because I've seen it in action, man. You're really good at your job. Impressive.

Well, thank you. mean, what makes it really quite easy is I love my job. It's not a grind. mean, all right, if it's pissing down with rain at Cadwell Park and it's like three degrees above freezing, that can be a grind. I mean, mostly I'm working with really cool guys and girls and students and at racetracks riding cool motorcycles. It's not that bad.

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:47.054)
correctly included the female gender in that comment briefly. How's Misty and when are we going to see her back?

She's been having some visa issues as I understand it, which I believe she's resolved so I actually had a little bit of communication with her a couple of weeks ago about getting some new letters for her and hopefully we'll see her in 25

Yeah, man, she's such a great coach. It's really fun. Really fun.

They're sleeping around forever as well, eh?

Yeah, we might have to do I think Angus already interviewed her but I might have to take a I might have to take a shot at one of those. Yeah interviews. I'd like to get her on here and maybe Kobe. Hey, man. I had my doubts about you. But here we are, baby.

Speaker 1 (25:31.148)
I am definitely stepping out of my comfort zone here.

It's It's fun because we're learning man. We're all learning stuff. mean if yeah already it's been really interesting. It's been really interesting. So well anything else to add to the CSS stuff? Like I said in the last one, this isn't meant to be a CSS commercial. It's just really hard to not talk about it because you guys are there doing your thing and you're really good at it. It's just you know we got to lay it down.

way it defines me, mean, no two ways about it. I mean, that's what underpins everything I've done. it's unavoidable.

Hey, one thing I did want to ask you about that's just curious, how would you describe your writing style? Because I have an image in my own less educated brain, but I was really curious to know how you would describe it yourself.

I mean, define a style, what exactly are you asking here?

Speaker 2 (26:31.586)
Well, I mean, like if you, mean, do we need to go to GP just so everybody knows what we're talking about? Like I could describe Valentino Rossi versus Lorenzo versus Marquez versus Bagnaia. I mean, I could describe how they, how they look different to me on the race, not just simple things, but I mean, they, have different ways of writing. Do you know what I mean? and so I see that in you when I follow you around the track, I see something different.

And I don't want to say what it is because I want to hear how you would describe yourself because you see yourself on video all the time, right? I'm sure.

I like it low-line.

Okay, yeah, okay

I mean, I grew up... Check! Racing two strokes, right? And, I mean, you just got a bonsai in. now I did all my racing prior to being involved with the Superbike school. So in hindsight, I realized I could accuse myself of charging turns. It's something that, you know, it's a term we use at the school where you just get in there a little bit hot, you know, like just about hang on to it, but generally causes you to be a bit later on the gas.

Speaker 1 (27:43.086)
And I do remember, I I raced two strokes against a lot of four strokes in a Formula 400 class. My bike wasn't as fast. I was getting passed on the straights a lot and had to do it all on the way in. So that kind of developed my style, if you like.

great answer dude love that I mean as I mentioned in the last video with James as I put you and James in like the lowliner category and you just checked that box off dude and now you're explaining why

Yeah, well, mean, it brought throttle problems for me. And once I got involved with the school, I understood when was the right time to get on the gas and how to, but kind of lost some of my entry bravado, if you like. But then over the years, I was able to sort of refine that and fit that into what we do.

And, you know, as an organization, we're pushing a little more in the, you know, like the trail braking, the longer, lighter braking, the slow steer, lay apex kind of idea, which I've always really enjoyed. You know, I like to get down to the apex and often I'll be, you know, down the inside a little more than most other riders. Try not to have that compromise the gas on the way out if you can get in and out at a good speed. So, yeah, that's kind of how I like to ride.

trying to take the shortest possible route without compromise.

Speaker 2 (29:06.658)
Something that you just remind me that something that has stuck in my head for years is just, learned so much from you guys during casual conversation and one conversation we were having, I don't remember what it was. It was obviously about whatever track we were at. But one of the things you said is, hey man, I'm just trying to get in and out of there. Just super simple. It was just like.

I'm

Speaker 2 (29:32.13)
I mean, simple things when you can put it in a little nutshell like that, like, my God, you know, that's an interesting way of looking at it. I don't know if that, if it even means anything to anybody else. I'm just out there because it meant something to me. Yeah. Because when you're a learning writer, you can focus too much on all the little things. James and I talked a little bit about that with the golf swing and all that stuff, but

It is important to keep a 10,000 foot view on things like, hey, we're just trying to get in and out of there. Yeah, we're not we're not doping around looking around. We're not focusing on we're not staring at the apex. We're not looking at the scenery. We're just trying to get in and out fucking beautiful. And that wasn't even that wasn't even during. I think it was over a burger maybe or whatever.

But I mean, it's a very major simplification, but I think you can get caught up in the minutia a little bit too much. It's good to understand how to control a motorcycle and get that down. But then the rest of it's all about line, really, line and speed and balancing all that together.

So, okay, give me your writing style, the bullet list. Bing, bing, bing, bing. You just gave a really good description of it. Now can you like put it into a four bullets?

I don't move around any more than I need to.

Speaker 2 (30:51.822)
I had that in mind. didn't say that before. But that was what I see.

Yeah, I like to focus my attention on traction and throttle really in line. So if I'm on a line where I'm going too fast and I need to hang off a little more and like to get it in there, I might move around a bit. But if I get it right, I can keep the movement to a minimum. And I mean, yeah, if I'm riding with a top level guy, then that's different. got to work at it. But I can go pretty good without moving around too much. So I would consider myself somewhat lazy, maybe efficient.

Timing is the thing, know, you're doing the right thing at the right time. Like all the hanging off in the body position, all the rest of it, yeah, adds a few percent at the limit.

At the limit. Let's not skate over that too quickly. Can you please repeat that? The limit at the limit. Hanging off the bike. If you're not at the limit, hanging off the bike is kind of a little bit of wasted energy. Yeah, I 100 % agree. 100 % agree. mean, I basically have that same trait. And I think personally, because I'm so big, it makes I don't like seeing myself on film because I don't move around a lot and I'm big.

Yeah, it's only when you

Speaker 1 (31:52.024)
I so.

Speaker 2 (32:07.35)
Right. And so, but to me, I considered an efficiency thing and I'm not near, like, I don't, I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to, let's not go too far into my shit, but the important thing that you're saying there is, is, because a lot of people don't consider this, but if you know, you're at the limit, that is the time to think about standing the bike up more by hanging off. if you're, if you're not sliding around and you're not on the limit,

It's probably more so just wasted energy. That's a really good nugget, dude.

I mean, interestingly, body position is a big buzz right now. You know, if you poll all of our students, the thing they want to spend more time working on generally is body position, which is, I mean, it's important to look good, right? You want to get your photos and see that you know, you look something like you would expect as a rider. And for sure, if there's fundamental issues with how you're sitting on the motorcycle, we can correct that. But

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:05.327)
You see guys that show up and they're more interested in hanging off and dragging their knee than they are about lying. That to me is the wrong way around it.

Super common, isn't it? You think it's common? Yeah, super common

Yeah, very, very, Yeah. I'm not really a good role model for my position. mean, my knees are, and we talked about this, can't motocross anymore, anything like that. Just like getting into a deep hang off is kind of uncomfortable. So I only go to it if I need it. So that's definitely helpful.

Yeah, necessity, Necessity is when you're at the limit.

Yeah, and you need a bit more. Now you've got to start using the tools available, the hook turn, the pickup drill, know, like all of that stuff, really thinking about it.

Speaker 2 (33:49.986)
Yeah. Just your writing style is pretty, pretty fucking cool to see. It looks what it looks like. If not, I'm to give you my opinion. If you, I know it doesn't mean shit, but in my opinion, it just looks super efficient, like super, like there's not a lot of movement. Your lines are so clean and well thought out that, and you stay on your lines. You just look like it's a super efficient. You kind of look like, how would I explain that? you look like a

pre-planned roller coaster, not to be mixed up with roller coastering, like we sometimes say. That was a bad example. You just look like you're on a line on purpose and you just, it just looks super duper efficient and it's fast. But sometimes you pass me if you're not my coach and you come out there and you just want to fuck around a little bit. By the time I even see that it's you, cause sometimes I'm not looking and then it's like, fuck, I wonder if that's Johnny.

Boom, you're already, it's like it's over.

A lot of that has evolved through coaching. Like if I'm leading somebody and I'm trying to maybe just get them a little bit faster than they have done before, then I don't want to make any sudden moves when I'm in front. I want it to look like something you can follow and feel good about it. And if I suddenly just disappear over there, so everything is a little earlier and planned and flowing. And I think one of the things that

Maybe I pay attention to more than most is like thinking about the next one earlier. Yeah, so establishing track position Immediately when you finish one turn, you know, you're planning the line to give you optimum into the next Rather than just arriving there like I need to be over there, you know I'm thinking the whole time to make it

Speaker 2 (35:40.258)
Yeah, pretty fucking obvious. It's obvious man, then you kind of your chin a little bit I don't know. I mean you kind of tuck your chin You know one of these guys you tuck your chin in so you must do you feel like you're looking up like that You just look compact and fucking smooth and efficient you do right? Yeah, that's pretty cool, but you're kind of pumping the gas a little bit like a dirt bike You do that, right?

I like it.

Speaker 1 (36:08.504)
Yeah, that's so that when he watches the video he knows that he should be getting on it harder.

Well, what I the way I perceived it was that you're not there yet, but you're ready to be there. Right. So you're just taking every single little bit you can take until it's time. Just roll it. Right. And so you're just kind of pumping it a little bit. And I don't want to explain this wrong. You can help. You know what I'm talking about, right?

Yeah, I mean, if I do that, that's because I'm kind of demonstrating how much we've given up on the gas. So if I can go, like that, means we

could have gone. Okay, but you are this wasn't a demonstration video. This was your own personal video. So you were I don't think you were doing it to show anybody. I think you were doing it because I don't want to put words in your mouth.

It would have been to play with John, to watch it with John. If you can hear that from my bike, it's like, we could have been rolling that on right there.

Speaker 2 (37:06.414)
It wasn't that big, you know, it's very subtle but it's there it's like Like you're just you're just not quite where you want to you're just not quite pointed and so you're just you're just there Like I do it on the dirt bike all the time, right all the time Like I'm going around a big-ass corner and I'm just you know, I'm just I'm just making sure I'm right there

Well, it's not something I would typically do. Good throttle control is once the gas cracked on, it's rolled on smoothly, evenly and continuously throughout the remainder of the temp. So I'm to be very contra to that. So I would have been using that as a demonstration of we're waiting too long here, buddy.

I thought it was cool. So I'm like shit man Johnny's just like all over this gas man You're just getting ready to just hammer it and you did when you started rolling on it was even even smooth and continuous

compare a video like that, we compare the differences in lines and where we can get on the gas, how much speed you can carry into the turn and come up with a plan to make an adjustment. It's a good training tool, really is. Especially if you've got somebody who's interested and knowledgeable about riding.

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:18.734)
Yeah, and just for some fun perspective, let's say that was 2021 or two. So, you know, two or three years ago, how old would you have been? So 53. We're telling these stories, man, but these aren't like spring chickens out there, like massacring the racetrack.

the

Speaker 1 (38:41.463)
Yeah, we're definitely not spring chickens, mate. We're a long way from that. We're the crusty old roosters now.

Well yeah, I'm in that whole group. Yeah, for sure. So, placing steering points. Where to steer. Someone from your crew has to go out there and put these turning points, you call them steering points, whatever, on the track. How do you figure out where those go?

I mean, honestly, mostly in the US, there are tracks that we've been to before. So you've got a pretty good idea of where they're gonna go. Some tracks, we've already got them pre-marked. Typically it's James, actually, these days. I have other things to do in the morning. So we'll send James out after the morning intro, and he'll go around and he'll put some dots down, just little pieces of tape to mark them out so that when the person who actually goes out to put the crosses down, which doesn't happen until the level ones need to go out and do their.

turn point drill. The spot is marked. We'll adjust them. On a track we don't know so well, though we haven't been there very many times or whatever, it's always a little tricky. Then the senior guys will ride and we'll give our feedback. This one's too early, this one's too late, this one needs to move over that way a little bit. We'll pass that feedback on and then when the turn points go out, they get tweaked a little bit so that they're more or less in the right place.

So when you or James goes out and does that though, are you looking for straight lines or are you saying, I've ridden this track before, or if I were riding this track, this is where I think I would steer and that's it? Or are you walking all the way through the corner and then going back? Like, is there like a method to the madness or are you just kind of winging it until you have to like move them around a little bit?

Speaker 1 (40:26.734)
A bit of both. mean, depending on the situation. as I was saying, in the UK, the way we used to do it there, we'd ride the first three sessions. And then it was my job to go out and put down the turn points. So I could go to a track that I'd never seen before, have to coach people in the white, yellow and green groups. And then at the end of the green group, I got to out and put down all the turn points. We didn't always get here 100%. But you basically, the process for me was to figure out the lines, where the apexes were, where I need to turn, you know, to be able to...

get the line that I want and then I'll try and remember where that is, you know, because it's somewhat instinctive at speed, you know, you're like, there's a few rules that you have to observe, but we're trying to straighten out the line, right? That's really the primary piece of tech needed for putting down a good turn point. Now bear in mind that how fast you're going will affect where you turn, how quickly you're willing and or able to steer the bike will also

have an effect on where you would prefer to turn. So we can't make them perfect for everybody. As a typical rule, there would be a little bit later than where like me or James would turn or a racer that showed up. There might be a little bit earlier than a real steady new rider that's first time out there and going fairly cautious. They might want to turn a little bit later, but as a general rule, it's somewhere in the vicinity.

They're primarily there for the level ones to really understand that you can choose a place to do your steering rather than let instinct suck you down into the turn. You want some level of control over where you do that and try to pick something. Even if it's just the end of the outside curve over here or like the curves on a racetrack are generally quite useful in that regard. They're positioned such that you can usually reference them.

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:19.256)
to get an idea of where you want to turn into a client.

Yeah, that's a good point. I see some confusion there once in a while. People think that they're supposed to steer at those points, but they really just become a reference, right? Or you could use them as a reference.

I mean, the more experienced level fours, we're always trying to get them away from looking at and using them because they're not real, right? In the real world, nowhere else you go, you're to have somebody put a big yellow cross and say, steer the bike there. You got to figure that shit out for yourself, right? So like the once you've got the idea and you've seen where a good area to steer in, most people turn too early, you know, and I said, I'm a low liner, but I also steer slowly. So there's a whole balance there, but yeah.

Typically the general mistake riders make is to look into the corner and drift in and end up with a too early an apex and run wide at the exit. That's the most common line fault that you see.

staring in too early.

Speaker 1 (43:18.464)
the

I got one for you. Could we say that it's very common for someone to see it and then look at the apex? Look for see it properly. Look for the apex properly and then steer right then. instead of running it out. Man, dude, I just think that that's like super common. Big old mistake.

Yeah, it's difficult to look in but continue going straight.

Yeah, that's basically the easy way to say it. Yeah.

So it's more likely when you look in, then you start going in. Whether you realize it or not. So you're not really choosing where to turn, you're choosing where to look and it doesn't necessarily correspond to the same thing.

Speaker 2 (44:02.179)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:11.544)
Yeah, that's a biggie. So maybe we should make this into a nugget, just since we're talking about it, right? So, because it's a big problem. Maybe, what's the nugget gonna be? We can't say don't look and steer at the same time, because maybe that's too hard. That's too... Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Sometimes you do.

you should be cognizant of when you choose to steer. There's a nugget for you. I mean, if you just like you go where you look, so you know, to put that in a more positive sense, look where you want to go. But you know, sometimes you'll be looking into the corner and the information that you're gathering would say don't turn in yet. Right? And you got to be able to maintain, you know, and delay the turn in just that, you know, half a second, whatever it might be, which would change.

Okay, all right.

Speaker 1 (44:58.51)
You know, the line to the apex, where the apex is, the exit of the turn, and you know, again, going back to trying to straighten it out as much as you can.

So just to be super clear for everybody, we're spotting where you're going to steer and as soon as you spot that, you're done with that vision. Now we're going to focus on where we need to go, which is the apex, but we're not going to steer yet, right?

So your eyes are flicking back, you're like doing your teeth.

the

I mean, there's various ways. So you can use your peripheral vision to keep track of your turn point. That's one way of doing it. So you turn in the same place. mean, in certain turns, that's really important where there's no other visual cues. So you need to pick a spot to turn. In other turns, like where you steer can be variable depending on how quickly you steer and whether you want to trail the brake or whether you're going to release the brake and go directly to max lean. There's a lot of variables there.

Speaker 1 (46:08.078)
In the real world without turn points, generally it's what we call apex orientation. You look into the corner and you kind of let the corner open up to you. So, I mean, you could start steering very slowly at that point, but you're not going to commit to that corner until you actually see it get to the shape that you want. Now you can see your line in there. That's when you commit to the corner.

Beautiful, beautiful. So we got that dug out of you. That's perfect. That's the nugget right there. Yeah. Let the corner open up to you until you can see your line, then commit to the steering. Did I say that right? Correct me. We're trying to build a nugget.

That's pretty good. No, that's it. That's the that's what everybody does like to a greater or lesser degree. Right. There are marked turn points. Most riders don't hardly even consider that. But you will look into the corner and go, do you want to turn yet? You know, like understanding the correct information you need to be able to make that decision accurately. That comes with experience and training.

I'm just trying, I'm struggling. I keep up with Johnny Haynes here, Trying. okay. James said something about that.

The other one is... Don't look through the corner.

Speaker 1 (47:23.02)
Yeah, I mean if I have to get a message out, any message at all about riders improving their riding, it's don't look, like whoever told you to look through the corner out the other end, look three minutes down the road, like be able to see shit in 10 seconds or whatever, no.

Is that a James was saying the same thing that must be a common problem. Like are there other people out there coaching that do you think?

Big time.

Speaker 1 (47:47.626)
well, think this is just opinion. I'm not going to myself in the shit here, but you know, if you go and do your MSF training, like they're like, look X amount of distance ahead, you know, look through the turns, which on the street, right? If you're riding like semi blind Canyon roads or like tree line country lanes or whatever, you probably might want to see if there's a tractor around the corner. But if you're trying to be accurate on your line, then looking into next week and managing your current vicinity.

peripherally. You see that a lot. Some guys get really good at that. You know, they can get right up to 90 % accuracy. if you want to hit an apex, like rub your wheels against the curb every single lap every single time. Look at the damn thing.

Okay, that's great.

Speaker 2 (48:32.46)
Yeah, that's great. That's really good. Hey, I got to I'm going to divert and tell you a quick little story, but there's a guy named a big tall German guy, Chris Scurring, gearing. Yeah, big German dude.

He's fucking, I love that dude.

So he, at some point, I don't know if you know this, but I actually try to sneak a ride around the tracks that I go to to kind of do my own line seeking, let's say. And so he asked me one day what I had for Thunder Hill. And I said, oh, I just made myself a video. I said, well, I just made myself

uh, my typical, you know, video of that track and you're welcome to look at it. It's got a shitload of cussing and swearing in it because I'm dealing with a buddy of mine. He's got his own ideas. Um, but if you're willing to just put up with all of that, you're welcome to it. And he said, yes, send it to me. And so this year he sent me a picture of you and him at the track. Maybe if I can find that Angus can post it up here. But anyway, he thanked me profusely for that video as,

Nobody taught me how to walk around. I mean, I do it on my scooter, right? So my big nugget to everybody would be to find a way to figure out what the line should be on every racetrack that you ride. And so I gave him my video and I said, hey man, do whatever you want to do with it. I'm going to put what I told him. said, what I'll do is I'll put one lap of me and James Tooey at the end of it so you can see me riding the line.

Speaker 2 (50:12.686)
that I'm trying to figure out in the morning before Trevor gets there. And so anyway, yeah, he just, he was really nice guy. said, Oh my God, yeah, dude, thank you so much. It was so fun. Johnny gave me all these compliments and Hey man, I just like, fuck, it didn't cost me anything. I already had it made. So I am interested. One of my rules is in the grand and the 10,000 foot view of when

Right.

Speaker 2 (50:40.598)
when you're going to go to a track, whether you think you understand the track very, well or not, is you need to know the line. Like if you have to, the way my mind works is you have to prioritize things before you go out and get on the death machine. And so you need to know the line plus or minus like five or 10 % or something. Like you need to, it's really difficult to even ponder making a lot of other adjustments if you're not riding close to a reasonable line. That's just-

out the law.

Speaker 2 (51:09.944)
Do you agree with that? The lines, everything. Thank you. So would you make that a price? If a newbie came to you, not as a professional coach, but just in a bar, I'm trying to put this in perspective of just a general conversation and say, Hey, what's your priority when you go to a new racetrack or an old race track or any racetrack? Mine is you gotta know the line. Plus or minus, you know,

Yeah, lines, everything.

Speaker 1 (51:36.45)
But when you say you've got to know it, you're saying you've to know it in advance, because I have never done that ever.

Well, what do I mean? I mean, not necessarily in advance, but, get someone to show you the line or somehow learn it, learn plus or minus, you know, whatever you want to call it, two or three feet either way, have somebody draw you the line on a big map or go ride it with them or go ride it on your scooter. You know, somehow get a reasonable line underneath your tires before you start.

Making adjustments.

I agree, when we're certainly experienced regular guys, then it is refinements on the line and you use those techniques to make those adjustments. But how do you decide on the line without riding the track?

Yeah, no, I totally agree. You have to be on the track eventually. Yeah

Speaker 1 (52:34.19)
I like to just figure it out as I go, honestly. And I don't, I mean, you mentioned that you and James talked about intuitive riders. think I have an intuition about lines, like maybe isn't as difficult for me as for other people. I mean, I'm very well known for not being any good whatsoever at directions. You know, if I had to go here to my best mate's house in Long Beach or whatever, I still have to follow my maps because I don't pick up.

anything periphery around there. I'm just still looking at the lanes and the lines. It comes at that cost, I guess. But when I go a track, I can pretty much figure it out two, three times through a turn. like, yeah, I've got that sorted out.

Yeah. Are you doing that first? Say again? No, I know. I mean, you're, maybe we're beating this like a dead horse, but is it a priority to find that line first? Yes. Okay.

No, I just show up and go right. I just show up and go right.

Speaker 1 (53:31.266)
Yeah, so however you do it, I don't do any preamble, I don't look up maps or watch videos or do any of that stuff. I like to just go write it. When you get there, it's to go and understand each corner. Some are simple, it's pretty obvious, you can see everything you need to see. Some we've got to start figuring out, right? There's visual cues that are designed to trick you and like draw you down in there too early and then you run wide and have to chop the gas. right, mistake, don't do that again.

Well, yeah, and I-

Speaker 1 (53:58.326)
move the apex a bit later and then you start evolving it that way.

Perfect. think what I'm really what I'm meaning to say is do whatever you need to do. Listen to people. Look at a map, whatever, so that you can go out there and make a priority out of knowing a proper line. Yeah. Because if you go out there and start trying to do other things and you're you're doing these big wavy, you know, now we could talk about the roller coaster. You know, if you if you're going out there and you're riding ridiculous lines,

then you're making things worse.

Yeah, me personally in my coaching, somebody's not showing me a decent line. That's the first priority. I mean, I'm fairly well known amongst the coaching staff for a quote, know, what are the three most important things about going fast around a racetrack? Line, line, line. I mean, if you haven't got a line and you don't know how to make one and you can't control a motorcycle enough to be able to, you know, duplicate and maintain a good line, then there's no other problem that needs handling.

apart from that, until you get that figured out, right? You're looking in the wrong place, choosing the wrong things, misunderstanding something about, you know, any sort of speed. If you want to go fast on a track, you've to have a line. I mean, you can get away with mechanical grip up to a point, but if you're compromising that by being on the wrong part of the racetrack, and again, it seems intuitive to me. If you start letting the bike go, right, you start picking up speed, you realize there's parts of the racetrack you can't go to anymore, you know?

Speaker 1 (55:32.632)
Because the speed and the momentum, is that the right physics term or inertia? You're the physicist. But you try and make the bike go over there when it's already going 100 miles an hour in that direction, you suddenly realize, I can still make it into this turn from here. There's no way I'm getting over there, but I can go faster over here. So you're constantly balancing all that.

Yeah, what the turn the turn that comes to me, most people aren't going to know this, but like the exit of turn six at the ridge, a lot of people just stay left and they make this big lobe out of going down the hill when they need to be going straight over to the paint, which you can't see. Right. And so it's that kind of thing. It's that kind of thing.

Cause if they start working on throttle control and stuff like that and they're making this big lobe out of everything, you know, which, Hey man, I used to do it. So I'm not saying like I'm Mr. Perfect over here, but.

I think the common rider errors, mean, is this the reason the school exists is to help people identify and overcome these kind of pretty pervasive errors. mean, if we're not designed to operate over about 22 mile an hour, you know, if you think about human beings, our history, right, before any kind of motorized vehicle, we've got like millions of years or whatever of being able to run at about 23 miles an hour. think I saw most reading

book called The Upper Half of the Motorcycle, it's like psychology about riders. Our brain can handle 22 degrees of lean angle, think, which as a, you know, if you're running barefoot chasing a pig or something, you know, trying to get your dinner, that's about as far as you can lean over, right? Before you start to lose traction and other things. So if they're our parameters, 23 miles an hour and 22 degrees of lean angle, and you get on a motorcycle,

Speaker 1 (57:21.966)
Now all of a sudden we're operating in a realm that we are not designed for and we don't really have any background on this. We've to figure it out as we go. Some people do a better job of it than others. But a lot of riders will have a lean angle limit that they'll have cycles and visual skills that are more related to 22 mile an hour running after something than 100 mile an hour and then it's 1000. So there's some adaption that needs to happen for sure. helping people push through that is

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:50.978)
Pretty tricky sometimes.

Yeah, that's a lot of lot of DNA and instinct to take. Yeah, but here's the good news is you can do it like people people can do it

You've got to re-screen how your eyes work. going back to our original point, I mean, if you don't have a good, are able to maintain a good peripheral vision and know exactly what you actually want to look at along the way, you know, if you haven't got all that sorted out, then you'll end up following the white line around turn six until like you can't follow it anymore. Then you look up and go, Oh, I need to go over there. You've got to change your visual patterns.

Yeah.

That's great. So we're going to make that a big old nugget, you know, wherever it takes, however you're going to do it, whatever it is, learn, learn the line. so, don't know.

Speaker 1 (58:42.734)
point. I mean, there is no such thing as the line.

That's what I was just gonna say. But please, I was gonna ask you, because people, yeah, because then we talk about low line, mid line, high line and all that stuff. So can you just give us an explanation of what is this line that we're looking to have before we start branching out into throttle control and body position and all of that? What is the line? What are we looking for?

I mean at the school the three characteristics that we attribute to a good line is only steering the bike once, regardless of the duration right, like when you start to steer the bike you complete the steering and then you roll on the gas. So you should be able to apply good throttle control which we mentioned earlier once it's on you want to have it rolling on throughout the remainder of the corner to whatever degree.

Like you don't want to have to go back off of the gas after that point, right? And then the straightest line you can make. Now that's where the interpretation comes in somewhat, you know? In simple terms, on a standalone corner, you want to start on the outside apex, as tight to the inside as you can in the right spot, and then run it back to the outside on the way out. That's how you straighten out a line. But you have to look at each of those steps along the way. A lot of people look through, don't really see the apex, don't get as close as they could or should and...

Therefore they're not running as straight a line, they start to run wide on the exit, have to start manipulating the gas, steer it again. Now that's not a good line. So if you're making those errors, you've got to keep adjusting what you're doing until you stop steering it three times. You don't have to roll out of the gas on the exit. You do get nice and close to the apex on the inside. You can get the gas on earlier and still roll it on all the way through the turn. You're adapting your line to be able to fulfill those criteria.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36.842)
Man, well said sir. So there's a there's a priority. There's a little bucket of things that you would like to take with you a little a little bucket of tools that should have that you should have to use in every corner and then use the tool once and throw it away. That's that would be like the best. I'm going to steer the bike once and now I have no more. Whoops. I have no more handlebars. Right.

I mean, we're all gonna make my own adjustment.

That's all going to be given everybody. That's all given. There's nuance included in everything.

But the goal is to be as light on the bars as possible. Mostly so that if you do need to make an adjustment, you're not already bound up on the handlebars, you can tweak it and you can finesse it. You can feel what's going on.

Yeah. Okay. So, so the line that we're looking for, we're kind of beating this up, man, but it's good. You're the man. So, and we did mention this in James's video, but why not go over it all again here? So, one steering input, one braking input if possible, if brakes are even needed, handlebar brakes, sometimes that that's not a, that's not an absolute, right? We don't need the handlebar brake in every corner.

Speaker 1 (01:01:51.502)
No, most corners.

Yeah. So if it is needed one time on trailed off, if you're a trail breaker and one time on the gas, if you can do those things, it kind of builds you automatically sort of formulates you, you know, give me a number. I don't want to be doing all the talking here, man. What kind of, are we 80 to 90 % there? If we can do all those things in a corner.

That's the idea.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16.558)
I don't know. There's a few more variables outside of that ability. I mean, how far are you willing to lean it over? soon do you suppose all reactions kick in in relation to speed or breaking forth or acceleration force? Do you overreact when the thing starts to spin or slide? There's a whole bunch of other stuff, but that's a great foundation for sure. If you can create a good line, that's what you would hang the future improvements on.

Yeah.

If you can't maintain that line as you start going faster, they're the areas you need to look at so that you can. It really helps progress the rider because soon as they deviate from what's now foundationally a good line, then what was the problem? Did you brake too late? Did you gas too early? You start making those errors again at a higher speed, then you start figuring it out again.

So we'll just call that the baseline. And then we'll add.

Yeah. The speed of a rider is somewhat personal, right? It's like whether it's you, me, first time rider, Valentino Rossi, know, like Jorge Martin, we all run up to the limit. There's a point at which we get scared, right? It's like, that's it. I'm not going to go any faster than that because I think I'll probably crash. And like that occurs at very different speeds for different people. So we're all riding in the same, with the same concerns and fears and

Speaker 1 (01:03:38.548)
effects just at different levels. how fast a rider is willing to go, mean a lot of that comes down to how bad you want it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49.932)
All righty then, that's great, okay. Yeah, yeah, man, dude, you can rail on it. There's absolutely no question about it. Let's dip our toe into what might be the second most important thing.

I always wanted it real bad.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06.104)
That's a bit of a curveball there, Timing.

Okay. Wow. Interesting. Okay. And give me like the quick rundown of what are those things? Not all of them, but just say a few. What, know, what are you talking about? Throttle timing.

Doing the right thing at the right time.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19.71)
mostly. When and how much. mean some of that art form's been taken away with traction control. know, people can smash on it and get away with it. Not in my day,

We talked about that a little bit the other day on the phone, at the streets. Me trying to keep up with somebody that's got traction control and interesting stuff.

I mean, I honestly believe that you can do a better job than a computer. Well, I believe I can. Now, it's somewhat fraught with danger, especially if you get closer and closer to the limit. mean, no stranger to crashing, right? That's another downside that comes with, you know, getting closer to the limit. Sooner or later, you actually step up.

Well, we're similar in that way because with a slight variation in that is I want to think that I can do better than the computer or I want to think that I can I want I don't want the I don't want the computer I want to be able to think encroach on the line the optimal corner without the computer that's me right and so I don't I don't run it, you know, and You know, it cost me places sometimes

Well, without the intervention of a computer, you have a much more direct connection to the motorcycle. Yeah. For better or worse, right? I mean, it will do what you want it to do. It's not got a computer going, you want how much gas? No, I don't think I'm going to give you that much. I'm going to give you 20 % less. I'm like, fuck you. I want that because I want it to spin, for example. So yeah, the actual interaction with the motorcycle, depending on the quality of the electronics can be detrimental, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50.902)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02.862)
Like, you know, if you put the S1000 in rain mode and try and ride it around and like you end up rolling the throttle on all the way, it's still not really responding to it. That doesn't really help as a rider to control the motorcycle, Maybe is the best safety net, but you're not really understanding what the bike's trying to do with the control inputs you're giving it. It's like this vague interface, like in the way. I I want...

Yeah.

as best I can to be directly connected to that rear wheel.

That's interesting, I did not know that we had that in common. I did not know that.

I still run the traction control because mean coaching one of the like we're always running on cold slicks right so you're constantly trying to assess how fast you can go when you ride with the faster riders you know sometimes you have to it's a bit sketchy yeah yeah a little safety net for that really that's

Speaker 2 (01:06:53.826)
Right. Yeah. Well, and so we should.

And we should also maybe say, capitulate that it is safer, right? I mean, you can run it and it's a safety net. The downside is it's gonna chew up your tires quicker. But I mean, if you wanna roll on the gas harder and you don't know, it's probably safer to have traction control on. You're gonna have a lot better chance of not having the rear end slip out on you and all that, right? So I mean,

There's use for guys like weekend riders and stuff like that that don't want to risk. They don't care about necessarily the art of it all. They just want to rail on it. Well, turn it up, buy another tire.

Street based, I think this stuff's amazing. Really, with all the varied conditions, tire temperature, to have that safety net, and honestly in a street environment, I don't think it's that invasive when you're trying to around. not like you're trying to draw every last percent out of the motorcycle, but when you transfer that to the track and you are trying to get another half a second of your lap time, every time you roll it on, it...

just holds back and doesn't quite give you what you want. There's a few little, you get pumping sometimes where the traction control will catch it and then release it and then catch it and the suspension is not good enough to deal with that. Then you get this cycling and that will chew tires up and it will affect how hard you can roll on the gas coming out of the turn. So there's positives and minuses. I mean, my favorite is to be in the zone where everything's going slow.

Speaker 1 (01:08:34.229)
and fuck the traction control, I want it all on my right hand at that point when I'm riding like that.

Well said,

Well, that's great. I, uh, yeah, I think that too. I really do. I turn all that stuff off when I got my apes and it's never been, it's now when I never turned it back on. But when I borrowed a bike at, uh, in Las Vegas a couple of years ago, when I was with corner working for you guys. Yeah, dude, I turned it on. Cause I didn't want to wreck some dude's motorcycle. I didn't know the power band. I didn't know the bike. So, um,

Ian came over and he's got the same bike and he did all the buttons and set up the traction control I said dude just turn it up man like you know don't make it stupid high but I don't want to crash this guy's bike I don't know the power band or anything and so hey I felt really good about having it on someone else's bike I'm like bring it on

a cold day on like cold slicks and no tire warmers, I turn it up and then I only turn it down if it starts to impede. When you're trying to drive and you can feel it's not quite, you know, it's what you're asking for 100 % is giving you 70 and now it's time to start turning it down a little bit. But I mostly keep it there as a little safety net. You know, it's kind of a game to try and ride underneath it and not activate it. you you get used to traction control, you can get a little heavy handed with the controls.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56.429)
Right.

and get away with it, right? But when the light starts going and it's intervening, then it takes a little moment before that clears, right? So if you don't activate it at all in the first place, then you can keep it there as a safety net without some of the compromises.

that's a good way of looking at it, man. That's good. That's good insight. That's really good. Excellent. So that reminds me of another thing you told me once, totally separate subject potentially, is you crashed at Streets. I think you told me it was in turn two or something. It was on a new bike. maybe you, I think I remember you telling me, do you remember telling me this? That you crashed.

I know the story, but he doesn't tell me a bit more.

you crashed because you assumed that the power band was maybe the same as the bike, the same bike of the previous year with the same model and all that stuff. And it just kind of caught you out when you roll it on and you elaborate on that a little bit, like give us like what, the power band, how do you adapt yourself to a new bike?

Speaker 1 (01:11:04.738)
Well, I didn't do a very good job that particular time, but it was when the BMW switched to the 2020, like the new model that's the current model now. So this was actually, I think, 2019.

Jesus, dude, really? seems like it was like last year.

Yeah, it's just pre-COVID, I think. So the bike was a little bit different. Engine characteristics were different. It had the variable valve timing, or maybe that came later. I remember. But because of some of the emissions stuff that BMW had to do to get it into the United States, they had a little bit of a sort of dip in the power around 6.7, which meant it came on a little bit like more abrupt. I mean, it's like a two-stroke, which is my thing, right? So I kind of liked it.

but I was adjusting the suspension. It wouldn't quite hold a line in the way that I wanted it to. And I'd made a few tweaks and I was out doing an assessment of that. And I went up to turn two and it actually held a really nice tight line. It held it little tighter than I was expecting. And on the inside, further inside on the track, just after the apex, as you leave the inside, there used to be bit of a dip there and it was more pronounced the further toward the inside you were at that particular spot.

wasn't somewhere I would typically go on my ideal line, but I was actually in tighter. Anyway, as I rolled on the gas, it chimed in to the power band right as I went through that dip and I think it fractally unweighted the rear toe. Anyway, it spat me sideways like so fast. 45 degrees, like, or 90 degrees, sorry. Yeah, that was that.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43.276)
What did you were you unscathed or did you break something? Okay.

Got a pretty fucking good concussion.

all right. And the bike probably was just smithereens. Okay. Wow. That's a really good story. Yeah. So what's the, what's the, let's just make this the equivalent of somebody buying a new motorcycle. Like what would we, what's the message? There's gotta be a message there.

Uh, don't remember. It was a concussion.

That was very violent.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12.35)
I was a bit complacent, if I'm honest. I was rolling on hard in first gear out of a slow, tight hairpin, right? And I didn't have all my ducks in a row. So, yeah, it was just a bit cocky, really. He always think, yeah, I've got this, I can do whatever I want until he can't.

Okay, so the nugget is don't be cocky when you get a new motorcycle.

Especially a 1000cc one, you know what mean?

Take it

Yeah, like learning. But also, you know, there's like a little combination of things there. Most crashes are not one big glaring error, like a little sort of stack. Usually two or three things that all kind of interact together and that's what it takes.

Speaker 2 (01:13:58.264)
Yeah, people call it the Swiss, the holes in the Swiss cheese lining up. Yeah, it's always, it's always a few, a few things for sure. That's good. Okay. So we have priority number one line, priority number two vision.

Alright.

Speaker 1 (01:14:14.606)
Mm-hmm. Those two are very intricately connected.

And the second one's a little more difficult to just sort of like figure out how to figure that out by yourself. Like that might really require some coaching. Like the line you could ask around, you could have somebody take you out there, show you the line and kill that in a session or two. But the vision, I if your vision's not right, if you're not looking at the right things at the right time, then you probably need a coach.

Yeah, yeah, I mean that can speed things up for sure.

Yeah, because I mean otherwise, how would you know? You know what I mean? I think it would be really difficult to know.

Well, I think you mentioned that you and James talked about intuitive riders. It comes easy to me, honestly, like it seems obvious. So I don't know what that is or why, you know, a lot of my coaching career has been like unraveling that to understand what makes it. But to give you an example, I'm a brother, he came and did the school, he did levels one and two at streets. We used to ride together as kids.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56.205)
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:11.628)
I mean...

Speaker 1 (01:15:19.598)
terrorizing the Michael town. He can ride. was the wheelie guy. I was the corner guy. Anyway, he comes to Vegas and you know Vegas is pretty tricky. So he's doing his level three and four there and he rode the camera bike and I watched his video footage. If I let Kobe coach him, I wasn't going to get involved with that side of it. You don't coach family. I trust the boys to look after him. He was totally online. He did the camera bike third session. So he'd done

You know, I was doing level three and four, so he'd done some body position stuff. But he hit the apex in turn 11. You know, was patient and he waited and he let it come back around and he was tight on that. Straightened out the line down to 12. All the common errors that riders don't intuitively do. He did. And it sort of made me realize that, you know, there's something genetic or, you know, like there's some skill that we must have.

That's very interesting.

Yeah, I mean, it baffles me that other people don't see it.

Well, and the other thing that you must know as a coach is not everyone has that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:28.43)
Absolutely, I mean I talked to Keith about this a lot and he reckons one in fifty have a natural sense of line. I'd go along with that. That seems about right.

and

One and fifty. Okay. Which turn was what did you say turn eleven?

Yeah, you were sitting there corner working on the inside of it when you were out. So there's the keyhole one.

Way, almost before the straight, the turn before the straight.

Speaker 1 (01:16:50.638)
No, so you've the back straight, looking nine into ten, then there's a little short shoot, and then the really long right hander.

the other!

Speaker 2 (01:16:59.638)
Okay, yeah, yeah, you're right. Both of those. work both of those. Right. Okay.

But yeah, all the common errors, he didn't make them. And he'd only done 10 laps, something like that, 15 laps. And he was online. It mind blowing, actually. He did a great job. Not blisteringly fast, but his line and his timing was good. And he built on that over the remaining two days that he wrote.

that's great. Okay.

Training that into people, like here's one of my theories is certainly in the States, a lot of the roads are somewhat straight and lots of intersections, you know, in the UK, the roads are a little bit more windy. like riding on those kind of roads speeds that process up a little more, I don't know. But I think most people just follow the yellow lines or white lines or whatever, and they'll just stay and follow that.

Wow!

Speaker 1 (01:17:53.422)
path rather than seeing a line.

That's a good theory. What's your speed limit there? Do you have a higher speed limit in general?

I've never really paid much attention.

They're always just speeding.

Mostly yes.

Speaker 2 (01:18:07.438)
Cause I wonder, yeah, cause I think our speed limit, our speed limit, mean, these days people are, being really stupid on bikes, but I mean, 55 miles an hour on a motorcycle, you know, I can see how your vision could, if you just did that for a while, your vision would suffer. that's a good theory, man. That's a really good theory. More whiny roads and stuff like that.

I mean, I would say typically Brit riders have a higher aptitude level than American riders. I know that's going to be controversial, I think we have lot of roundabouts as well, which, you you get to corner. I used to go and play around roundabouts, like trying to get my knee down and all that sort of shit when I was a kid. Just doing laps of roundabouts. It's like my own little racetrack.

Yeah, that's really interesting, man. there's so many things we could talk about. what, what, what, because you're talking, you brought up intuitive writers. One of the things I asked James, that I find interesting or my opinion, I have an opinion. like if you take a very intuitive, fast writer, and I can, we could use use as an example. So you're an intuitive fast writer and then.

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22.018)
Did you plateau and then you met Keith and then he showed you a couple of things you said, right? Am I remembering that right? Yeah.

So when I was racing, I mean, all I really had in terms of improvement was to try harder, push harder, crash more, lean it over more, you know, like they were the only things I really understood that I could change. interestingly, I come from a science background. I used to work in agricultural research. I have a very inquisitive mind, yet I never connected those two things together. Like riding was just like, it was about how bad you wanted it. Like I was saying before, you know, just push harder. And then I met Keith.

And I'd already sort of finished my race in, just had a kid and things changed. So it was nice to switch to the coaching at that point anyway, but to suddenly have some technology that I could apply and rules and parameters and things to think about. Once I started introducing those and paying attention to what I was doing, then I was able to improve for sure. So even though it started as intuitive, as you say, there's a plateau that you can only go up to a certain point. Otherwise everybody would be world champion.

But I think it's an important point for just people to know because there's a certain amount of intuition for everybody, but there's certain people that are just very, very gifted, intuitive people. And to me, it can be a detriment, but I'm really taking that from, like if I go back to like teaching math and physics, I would meet kids that were just gifted. So they go into the intuitive category and I would tell them,

You're just a very intuitive person and you're going to kill, you know, these exams. But here's the deal, right? Is can you explain this and they can't explain it, whatever it is. And I'm like, someday, if you leave here thinking that you're the master of this because you killed these exams, you're not going to go out into the world thinking that, you know, this perception of yourself is that you can do it all and you're not going to make any mistakes and you're just killing it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:28.184)
Well, the real world is going to bring a problem to you that you are not going to be able to solve because you need to be able to break that problem down into all the little innuendo and issues that problem involves and then have the tools to solve it because it's not exactly like the problems that this institution is giving you to solve that you're solving intuitively with no problem at all. So I would give this warning to, you know, the physics expert in the room or whatever.

You know, because they are going to, they're going to go out into the world and some mountain is going to crash or some tower is going to fall or some bridge is going to fail. And they're going to want somebody to go figure out why, you know, and if they don't have the tools to break it all down into the minutia, which is, isn't that exactly what you're talking about though? It's like, you need to know what, what the, what the, what the things are that you can manipulate on the motorcycle.

Yeah, you gotta know what to change, right? If you want to make an improvement, you gotta change something.

Yeah, so rider inputs and what all of those are and how to manipulate them, generally speaking. What do we got? Give me the bullet.

So you gotta know when to steer, we talked about that. You gotta know when to roll on the gas, you gotta know what to look at, when to look at it, and all the little adjustments in between. When to brake, how hard to brake, how much to release the brake. Trying to work with the motorcycle, you don't wanna be fighting it, like sort of working with the momentum and all the rest of it. You wanna get to a point where the line is not consuming all of your attention, so you can think about traction. And if you're trying to go fast most of the time, you're like,

Speaker 1 (01:23:09.334)
assessing or how hard can I break, how much can I lean it over with this much brake on, how hard can I roll it on at this lean angle, you know, that kind of thing. So it's when and how much.

Yeah. So like Angus likes to title it, the things that you can be deliberate about, right? We can be deliberate about, steering and how hard am I pushing? How long am I pushing? What am I looking at? How long am I looking at it? You know, and all the, the, we're, how it's better to be deliberate about all these things and pay attention or like James said in our last chat is like, who doesn't know where that, what their right hand is doing? Well, lots of people, right?

Yeah, you'd be surprised when we ask somebody, so at this point, were you on the gas or off the gas? And they don't know. But I mean, honestly, you don't want to be thinking about the minutiae. Like when we ask a question like that, quite often the solution is to go and find out and you suddenly realize, shit, I didn't actually close the gas going in there, right? That's why I'm struggling to get it to.

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:24:09.998)
hold a tight line and then you make a correction. You know what the ideal is and you figure out where you're deviating from that and then you make an adjustment. I mean patience is a big thing as well honestly like and really understanding where it feels like you're going too slow here but you get more back over there you know and that whole balancing act you know in fast out slow in slow out fast you know and the turn balancing right the whole relationship with that just waiting a

fraction longer before you get on the gas so that can get on it much harder and you know where's the the true and that's really the fascination is to optimize all of that so many variables to take into account.

That's good stuff. So I guess what our message here is for newish riders or even intermediate riders to know there is a whole lot of things to be delivered about. And it's likely that you're not being delivered about one or more of those things. a coach would be good wherever you are in the world, a coach would be good to help you sort out what you're not being delivered about so that you can be deliberate. In other words, if I asked you

Man, I could just pick any corner. Turn 13 at the ridge. When do you think you're all the way off the brake? When do you think you're done steering for that corner? How about when you think you're fully closed on the gas?

and the apex.

Speaker 1 (01:25:35.48)
at the apex.

Speaker 1 (01:25:41.454)
Three cone on the way in just before the break.

And when are you getting back on the gas? Okay, but you could draw me a picture, couldn't you? So that's what we're really talking about. It's like, yeah, you're not thinking about it every single time. But you but you your brain has thought about it so many times. It might not be in the frontal lobe, but it's in the process of you negotiating that turn that you could articulate all those little things.

as soon as I got the thing pointed.

Speaker 1 (01:25:55.084)
Fairly accurately,

Speaker 2 (01:26:16.51)
all those little deliberate things, you know exactly where they are.

Yeah, but I've also been teaching this material for 28 years on racetracks.

You do it, man. You can still do it. And the reason I know you can is because I can do it and I'm not you.

Yeah, but I mean you've done a lot of school days as well. Like you've learned the process, you've learned the little pieces and like now it's fairly easy to keep track of them and understand what you're doing, right? And that is a big part of improving. Before you can take a step forward, you've to know exactly what you are doing. Maybe that's what you're getting at here, but I forgot where I was going with that. I mean, the process of analyzing other riders has been very beneficial to my own riding, you know, because...

You got to understand, like, if I ride with a fast guy, and we saying earlier, sometimes I'm like, how the fuck did he get me three bike lengths right there? Now I've got to go and look at, what did I do? And where was that gap? Where did that come from? And how do I close it? What do need to do? Do I need to brake later? Do I need to turn in a bit sooner? You know, like, get on the gas a bit earlier. Will it run wide? Maybe it won't. So you're constantly looking at all of that. And it's good to have that in the back of your...

Speaker 2 (01:27:29.39)
Okay, clear.

Well, not in the back of your mind, but to be, I guess it goes back to being deliberate, right? Like, I know what I'm trying to achieve, I know what I want, and you don't always get it perfect, but you're trying to get as close to perfect as you can.

I what I, the message I'm trying to have you put together for us here, which you, we are, you are, is I remember being a beginner and not really understanding that the nuance level of all of this stuff, right? So what I'd like people to get from talking to somebody like you is to just know that if you know where all of your hands,

and eyes and controls are in any given corner that I can just spew out at you. How is that possible? And it's because all of those things are being paid attention to. So as a beginner, you know, they're looking at big chunks, like big macro things, like how do I stay on the bike? How do I keep from falling off the bike or how do I steer it or what, you know, make the bike go where I want it to go and things like that. But it's really good for people to know that

There are much things that they can use to their benefit if they learn them to help them just go much higher, right? There's a whole slew of nuanced things and maybe not even nuance isn't the right word, but rider inputs that you could be paying attention that you can specifically manipulate to give you a better day. Go find a coach, find out what all those inputs are, you know, and then practice.

Speaker 2 (01:29:07.786)
and have fun manipulating those inputs to see what they do.

Yeah, and look for the advantages when you do it right and I recognize the benefits. mean, it was something that was kind of challenging for me. I remember sitting on Andy Ebert's couch when he first came up with the idea of bringing the school to the UK, asked me if I wanted to take a class. I'm like, nah. I've already won in races, dude. Like, need to go to school. Yeah, that was a very bad point of view.

it's been life changing to actually go and find out the things that I should be paying attention to and what the rules are and why. know, like when we talk about throttle control and the timing of it and what you should be doing with it and there's data that supports it. And when you execute correctly, you realize what the benefits are and that's massive. And then that starts the ball rolling, right? And you, and now you start paying attention to all of it you become more sensitive to the outcome when you change certain things and you know what to change. Then it's fun.

It kind of seems like we're beating a dead horse, but man, I could just talk about this forever because it's so important. And what you just said is really interesting, man. Like when you were winning races, you didn't even really want to get coached. To me, that's just right. Well, probably to you right now, too. It seems insane, right? Yeah.

I had no idea what was available to me back then. I thought I was the fucking God's gift. I went out and won a race at my first race meeting and I'm like, why is everybody going so slow? didn't understand. But that was not the best way to start a racing career because I'd quit smoking and drinking and all that. I was getting all fit and everything and then I'm like, fuck that. I can just go out there and smoke everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55.95)
But the involvement with the school, I mean, it definitely reduced the amount of times I crashed, right? Because all I had before was push harder. I actually remember somebody telling me, we were racing at Cadwell Park and it was one of the most like seasoned races. I was pretty new guy. he said, need to, I borrowed a four stroke because my two stroke wasn't going to win. And I had a chance at winning the championship. So I rented an FZR 400 RR.

which was like the hot shit in that class. And the guy was saying, yeah, you need to turn it a bit later and turn it quicker. Which is my stock in trade now in terms of terminology. I know exactly what I mean. I remember going, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Walking away thinking, what the fuck's he talking about? I had no idea what that even meant. And therefore didn't do it. I actually blew that bike up so I didn't win a race. But years later, having got involved with the school, now I look back and I was like, how fucking ignorant was I?

Speaker 1 (01:31:52.992)
Really, to think that I had all the answers and all I had was leaning over more and like crash more than everybody else and think I was fast. I mean, from the things you were saying earlier, now I can hold my own in most company with way less effort, way less risk, way better control, way better cognizance of what's happening, way better management skills of situations and all of that. And all that came from Keith and the stuff that he developed for sure.

that's great. Yeah. Well, it's pretty obvious watching you that it's, I don't ever see you've been out of shape, man. Ever. Yeah, but maybe you're, yeah, but no, it's visibly from externally visibly. You might be feeling it, but it's not, of course. mean, you know, I don't ride with you every day, but from what I've seen personally over the years, like I don't think I've ever seen you've been out of shape, dude. You just look like you're, you know, on a rail. It's fucking bad.

It feels like it sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:32:49.966)
I'm glad it looks like that.

It does. wow. Well, very cool. We've got some good nuggets in there, man.

like it. None of this is rehearsed, right? So it's just opinion and speculation in the heat of the moment. I've enjoyed it. It's been thought provoking for sure.

Well, people like to, I think people like to hear, you know, the little stories and the little things like that you just said that makes sense, man. I mean, the big thing is, like for me, the reason I'm doing all this is I want people, I want to make sure people understand what is possible for them. You know, that they're, and I also want to try to get the guys that are out there doing what you were doing, you know, the intuitive guys that don't think they have anything to learn.

Really important that you said that because I want those guys to hear this and you know, give it up man Like we want you out there And we want you safer and we want you to go faster if you want to go faster But don't don't sit there and think that you got it all figured out man because you're just going to keep crashing, know, there's this whole theory about you know racers that crash all the time are great because they're just trying to

Speaker 2 (01:34:05.774)
They're at the riding at the limit. Yeah, they're riding at the limit at the riding at their limit.

Well, they're riding over the limit.

Yeah, right. There's nothing to be proud of, There's nothing to be proud of if you're crashing all the time.

There's the willingness to crash, right? That's the thing. And there's degrees of that. When I was younger, honestly, I'm all in. The consequences were insignificant to the goal, which was to be as fast as fuck. And as you get older, I don't like crashing so much anymore. It takes longer to get over it. It's embarrassing and it's...

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:34:47.502)
painful and it's expensive and it just sucks all around. But it's also, you got to be willing for that to happen. know, like if you're, if you're constantly in fear of what might happen, then you probably won't reach your potential. Is that controversial? I mean, that may not be the best message. But you'll see guys that, you know, will push and crash more even within the coaches. I mean, I crashed as much as not more than most.

Really? I mean I do a lot of riding, around a long time but I my fellow sheriff none of them are cool

Yeah

Yeah, but I think that that's all possible. just think that this notion that... I mean, let's flip the coin and say that there's a lot of world champions that don't crash very much compared to other champions. And so why is that? And that is because maybe they've learned the nuance better.

than the other world champions. Like they can still be a world champion. You were a winning rider, right? And thought you didn't have to change anything, but guess who's, well, I don't know if I want to name names. There's a very recent world, multiple world champion rider who's suddenly decided to not crash so much. And it's not because he switched bikes in my opinion. We'll just leave that one alone. But I think he figured out, hey man, I just need, I can't be crashing all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:36:12.386)
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:36:18.722)
So, and he's still fast as hell. All right. Right. That's a totally separate. Yeah.

but he's not scared of it either.

Maybe the thing I'm trying to make, right? You can't imagine it will never happen. want to go fast, you have to acknowledge that the closer you get to that edge, the more risk you're taking. Right. But that's the fun bit.

Yeah, but you can push the edge. you learn finer nuance, you can push the edge away. That's the thing. So I think we're agreeing on that. I just think it's so very interesting, It's so interesting. But guess people eventually going to get tired of crashing, man.

Oh yeah, mean, yeah, it's not fun. I did a lot of my crashing when I was younger, know, no leathers, like in road rash. I mean, you see me hobbling around these days, a lot of that is an accumulation of minor injuries that slowly wear you down, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:37:19.416)
Yeah.

It's amazing how much you guys ride, man. We didn't really hit that nail on the head here, but like over a hundred schools a day, or I mean a year.

It's about 85 school days of which I think like James, myself, some of the other full-time guys will ride 60 or 70 of those days, something like that. But that's without, you know, if you go to Australia and you do another 10, 15 days in the off season, maybe do a couple of other international schools, India in January. So yeah, you can get, you could get 100 days. I've probably had years where I've done 100 days.

I do what, 200 miles a day, give or take?

That's unreal, man. I don't even know how you guys physically do that.

Speaker 1 (01:38:05.582)
Why are you just lazy? That's where the riding style comes from, right? I mean, climbing all over the bike when you're riding around at 40%, it just doesn't work out when you've got to be on track all day. You we ride two or three times as much as the students that are there. We're out on track the whole time. So, yeah, I'm not gonna wear myself out.

That's what I've been told.

Speaker 2 (01:38:22.114)
No doubt.

Speaker 2 (01:38:28.258)
Yeah, you learn how to be efficient real quick.

Yeah, and it helps put the focus back on the line, you know, like, I mean, for sure, like everyone thinks body positions, the secret to using less lean angle is line, mate. Line is the biggest saver or creator of lean angle, depending on how you do go about it. You can, you know, have a rider doing 40 mile an hour through a turn where I'm sitting in the middle of the bike with about 15 degrees of lean angle online, and they're dragging their elbow with like 45 degrees of lean angle offline.

And I still can't get on the gas, I've got to wait for him to come back. And he needs you a demonstration right there of how impactful the line you choose is on how much lean angle you need for the speed you're carrying.

you

Speaker 2 (01:39:13.742)
So interesting. I wish we could get more specific, but it's very difficult to do that in this setting. But yeah, I guess the message is the line. That's what it is. The line is very, very, very important. Like, find a way to figure that out first and your life will be easier. Everything else will be easier.

You match all your controls to that, you know, to be able to create that line. You're steering, alright, okay, so you know how to steer a bike, but you've got to steer it in the right place to get the right line. You've got to steer at the right amount to get the right line. You've got to stay off the gas the right amount of time, open the gas at the right time, the right amount to maintain your line.

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:39:53.934)
And I guess maybe let's clarify this. Let's clarify this. It's possible to, let me formulate this question correctly. In any given corner, it's possible to have more lean angle than is needed. How does that happen?

Bad line, throttle errors, that's a big one. So if you open the gas too early, then the bike is not pointed in the direction you want to go, it's pointed outside of that. Essentially it's going to send you

Because you got on the gas too early.

Yeah, so if you run out of the gas, you steer the bike and you're waiting to have it pointed on a line that will take you to the apex, right? And once you feel that you've got the bike pointed on that line, then you roll on the gas and maintain that line. If partway through that steering, you start rolling in the gas, you select that line and it's not pointed at the apex yet. It's not going to take you to the apex. So you start rolling on the gas and it's running you wide at the apex. So what are your options? You have to start leaning it over some more to try and close it on the inside.

but you've got the gas on and the gas is still pushing you over there. So you have to lean it over some more. So we talk at the school about adding throttle and lean at the same time that that comes about. Usually the precursor to that is too slow an entry speed, which leads guys to try and get the speed back. And they think about the speed before they think about the line. They're not able to be patient enough to get it online before they open the gas. They go, we're too slow. Open the gas starts to run a wide, lean it over a bunch more. Now you've got

Speaker 1 (01:41:23.982)
10 degrees more lean angle than you need for the speed you carry in and you still have to shut the gas in the exit.

Speaker 1 (01:41:41.08)
can't wait long enough before you open the gas so it's always going to push you wide if you're early apex unless you hug the inside until you actually get to the point where you can drive out of the corner again if you go too early you leave the apex too soon start pushing you towards the outside so maybe you can't roll it on quite as hard as the guy who waited a little bit longer maybe you roll it on as hard but then you have to roll it back off either way the other guy's gone he waited longer and then disappeared

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:42:09.378)
Yeah. So I think we're painting a pretty good picture of how important the line is and how all of these rider inputs actually are simpler, right? If you only have to do them one time, it simplifies your day and it just really boils down to the line. You figure out what a good line is as a priority. Yeah.

Yeah, mean that's the direction we'll push most of our guys in. mean, level one, we cover turn points, we cover the two-step. We talk about a fair amount through that. I mean, the turn points is the second drill. That's where a good line is introduced in the program. Throttle control comes prior to that. It's important to understand that too. But ultimately, you then match that to your line. If you've got good throttle control, that means you're able to put the bike on line and maintain the line. I hope so.

Good stuff, man.

All right. Well, can we reserve the right to have you back? All right. Because I'm going to take that. I'm going to reserve that. There's just so much to talk about, But at least we kind of broke through a few things tonight and I think gave some good nuggets, some good nuggets. And we got to learn about your background. That's good stuff. Yeah. So thanks again for, we'll let you get to the rest of your day. But thanks very much for taking the time.

thanks to you, Rick, as well. It was fun.

Speaker 2 (01:43:31.522)
Yeah, that's what we want to get out there is, you know, it's it's good information from a very experienced professional rider and coach, man. I mean, that's pretty bad ass. I appreciate everything you've done for me as a rider and your directness. Like you said, you're a very direct coach. I think it's good. I remember you asking me about how I felt about my steering, how my steering accuracy once.

And I just thought that that was an interesting... Why are you laughing?

Well, again, the regular level fours, they kind of get to understand what we're aiming at by the questions that we ask.

Speaker 1 (01:44:16.654)
Sometimes we go fishing, right? Like, I'm not going to start telling you that you're inaccurate if you feel like you're accurate. want to get a, you know, like, are you happy with this? Because, you know, it could go either way. I go, all right, if that's all you want, then we'll leave it alone. But if you're not happy with it, then we'll fix it.

Well, I loved that question. then I worked on, I went out and tried to pay attention if I am as accurate as I think I am. And then I worked on it and worked on it worked on it. And then we had a race, I think, maybe the next day or two days later or something like that. And here's the funny thing that I thought about after is...

You know, all through warmups and qualifying and all that stuff, man, I'm fucking nailing. You know what I'm talking about? I'm talking you were when you asked me it was turn eight streets, you know, and how you feel about your accuracy going into this right in here. And I'm like, well, do you mean the do you mean the four inches between the white line and this little black thing? Is that what you're talking about? You're like, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Right. So anyway, here's the funny thing is so I'm nailing that, you know, and

It's working and then the race comes You know because because what I learned and this is part of Learning is what I learned is qualifying. I wasn't going 95 or 100 % in qualifying. I'm not I'm not and so I went in qualifying I basically I think I pushed myself to get what I needed to get and so and then the race comes and your your Brazilian dude

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:45:57.004)
you know, is putting up a fight. Do you know who I'm talking about?

This was a couple of years ago, wasn't it?

He went into that bowl like way high and then came down

was he on the last seat no that was that him yeah he was kind of a new rider he was another like intuitive bands I

Maybe, maybe.

Speaker 2 (01:46:17.582)
Yeah, he was out of control on every corner rider, but he was really fast. Yeah. And so he got by me and so now I had to push, man. I had to push if I wanted to get back. some of that some of that got away from me because now I'm going in faster than I was. the, you know, the geometry all changed just a little teeny bit. And so now that accuracy is somewhere else.

And it was, I just found that to be intriguing. It's like maybe throwing it out the window isn't the right thing to say, but I was disappointed in myself on the first, the first time I'm just busting ass into that corner and went diving in there and I'm like, I'm not going to make it. I'm not going to make it where I think I need to go, but I need to get on the gas now. And so, I mean, it worked out. It was just different. It was really funny.

Yep, but I mean to me that means that something has to change. To some degree it's slightly out of control. If you're not putting your tyres on the inch of asphalt that you want, then you're not fully controlling the motorcycle.

Yeah. And that's a balance for me. That's a balance between, like you were saying earlier, like I don't want to force the motorcycle. I can tell when I'm forcing the motorcycle more than usual. And I know that there's a massive extra amount that I could. I learned that a lot over the years. I know I'm not forcing it as much as I could, but I like to try to let it go where it wants to go.

Yeah, like you shouldn't rely on blind faith that oh yeah, I'm not going fast enough the bike definitely can handle it. That's not a good thing. That feeling of forcing the bike. That that's underpins most crashes. Yeah, I've had when you just ask him a bit more, you know, you kind of know. And sometimes you break trail breaking in and like, you just got to sit tight. Don't pull the brake anymore. Don't lean it over anymore. Just wait.

Speaker 2 (01:48:04.472)
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:48:22.478)
If you try and force it at that point, it ain't gonna work. And you can gather it back up. But you gotta then learn, you know, like in most cases, if you're running wide of an apex like turn eight, I would say you probably looked a bit late and steered a little bit late or whatever for the speed that you were going. You you need that recalibration to be able to get back to that spot at the slightly higher speed.

Maybe your attention was on the Brazilian dude in front you like fuck this guy, I'm gonna catch him.

Cause your want to, know, then the red mist, you know, you just, your need to get there kind of overrides. That's another learned thing, right? Is the, let's just call it the weight factor. The weight factor is big. You got to have patience.

Mm Yeah. You start looking at the other guy. You've got, mean, I've had several experiences of attempting to go fast, right? You know, actually, like since I've been racing, I've done a little bit of endurance racing and stuff like that, but not much racing, but opportunities to go out and challenge myself. the most successful action that I've come up with to get the best lap time. Once I've got a bike that I like and it's doing my one is

to hit my marks. All they talk about this in my GP all the time, to be online, like as soon as you try and go in a bit faster than you have been, and then you run a bit wide, you feel busy, you know, you feel like you're going fast. You can start skating around, sliding, you lean over a bit more than you should have to, it won't grip, it's spinning up, like, and you're like, that was awesome, and you're two seconds a lap slower than like a calm, considered accurate,

Speaker 1 (01:50:11.598)
lap, know, within reason. You mean, you're still pushing to the limit, but up to the limit that you can still hit your marks, go where you're supposed to go on the track. And every time I try and, you know, step it up a little bit beyond that, start making mistakes. And those mistakes, every one cost you, you know, half a second here, a couple of tenths there, and suddenly you're working really hard to go slow.

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:50:37.346)
Yeah, dude, that's good info, He did crash, like coming onto the straightaway. I don't remember if that was during a race or just to practice or whatever, but he crashed coming onto the straight and then his axle. And I remember riding by you and you found his axle nut like in the paddock. He's like, you bend over and you go, yeah, look what I found. Yeah.

I might need that.

Those are fun times, Thank you for that, man. This is fun times.

You know, like, we're all out there riding motorcycles for one reason. Because we love it, right? Any reason to do it. There's a lot of risk, a lot of money and all the rest of it, but goddamn, when it goes well, it's fucking awesome.

No doubt.

Speaker 2 (01:51:27.564)
Like you said, man, the, the, when it's all, when it all comes together and you find that, as James calls it the sweet spot, but everybody calls it the sweet spot, whether it's tennis or baseball or golf or whatever, you know, people that have found the sweet spot, they know what it is. They know what it feels like. And there's a sweet spot on the racetrack. There is man. it's that's what keeps me coming back is basically when you're busting ass and

You know, I'm reaching my goals and it felt kind of effortless.

To me, that's just beautiful. It just feels good, A lot of that's because obviously you guys. So anyway, thanks for coming on. Super duper appreciate your time and energy. And it's been a pleasure being on the track with you for all these years. And hopefully the KiwiMoto crew will get some interesting information out of all this that we talked about today. So thanks again, man.

And we'll see you next July.

Yeah, man. See you then. Cheers.