Mar 16, 2007
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They always say its important to ride in your limits, know your limits. dont push yourself too hard, well you have to push a little or youll never get better. anyways my question is, it seems to me that the pros when they are racing, are riding so fast and so hard that they are like border line out of control. like thier riding almost to the point of out of control but still just inside thier limits. stewart is a good example of what i mean.
 

Patman

Pantless Wonder
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I think you should also see that different pro's have different levels of just how far near or over the edge they are willing to ride. RC actually lloks a lot more in control than he did even a few years ago, Windham has always looks smooth and well within the limits of what seems sane. McGrath always looks like he was floating around a SX track and was smooth but working harder on a MX track. Bubba has always seemed to be riding on the other side of the edge to me. He's been burned and rewarded for it.

I think if you are in a competative situation such as racing on a regular basis then it's important to push things when you practice. That way in the heat of battle when you can't help yourself you do have that little bit of extra or at least are less likely to be a serious danger to others and yourself. Learning how far to push things in a race is dangerous for everyone.
 

cnielse5

~SPONSOR~
Feb 22, 2005
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I always judge a rider's abilities by how well they know thier limits. It is good to "expand" you limit by pushing your boundries. the key is to know how far to push the limits.
 

keefbikes

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Apr 16, 2007
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I agree with Patman, I think in order to better yourself you have to push your limits, but it is not a one time thing and you dont do it in a race or in an area you risk others safety for your own gain. I push my limits every time Im out, but I ride trails where the only life I risk is my own and a trees, but when I go to the track and I have all levels of riders on the track with me I will not, unless that track is near empty. In other words "there is a Time and a Place".
 

WoodsRider

Sponsoring Member<BR>Club Moderator
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Oct 13, 1999
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Of course the best place to push your limits is when you're practicing. That way, come race day, you know what you and your machine are capable of. However there are times, during a race, you need to push your limits. Kind of like the slogan go big, or go home.

Once, at an enduro, there was a guy on my minute who was in the same class as me. He was a fast hare scramble racer, but had never done an enduro. He basically sponged off me for time keeping. I pushed my limits the whole day taking lines I normally wouldn't have taken just to stay in front of him. Had I stopped and thought about what I was doing he would've beaten me. At the finish I beat him by one point.
 
Mar 16, 2007
471
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tips on getting faster

Tell me if you guys think this is a good idea to get better. I tried it once before and it worked for me until I crashed. Basically you have a guy who is better and faster than you ride behind you on your ass, and you do your best to stay in front of him, and he kinda messes with you pushing you. I tried this by accident, my buddy who is faster than me we went riding and somehow I got in front of him and once I was in front of him I didnt want him to get by. I felt myself riding faster and harder, faster than I would have if I was behind him trying to catch up. He passed me up eventually tho because I pinned it out of a corner and spun the back wheel out. :laugh:
 

peanuts

Member
Jun 16, 2007
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If you already have all the skills and knowledge you need to go faster and all you need is to be pushed past your fears it sounds like it could work. If you want to better develop your skills I would think chasing a faster rider would be better. You can watch the lines they take and the techniques they use. Unless you are an excellent rider you will probably benefit more from skill development rather than pushing your fear boundaries... which can lead to injury.
 

VintageDirt

Baked Spud
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Being fast is over rated. But of course I'm just guessing.
 

oldguy

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Dec 26, 1999
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We like to take 2 riders that are pretty close in speed and play hound and hare. The hare gets a 15 or 20 second head start and then the hound takes off. It goes a preset number of laps (usually 6 to 8) and first across the line wins. They change start positions each time so each gets practice passing and the other blocking
 

150rguy

I got fat bars!
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Dec 21, 2006
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At the track I try to keep up with the kids a little bit faster than me. if I try to keep up with the kids way faster than me, I usually just get sprayed with roost
 

olderndirtmom

Member
Apr 28, 2007
424
1
oldguy said:
We like to take 2 riders that are pretty close in speed and play hound and hare. The hare gets a 15 or 20 second head start and then the hound takes off. It goes a preset number of laps (usually 6 to 8) and first across the line wins. They change start positions each time so each gets practice passing and the other blocking

Sounds like great fun OG!!! :) I occasionally use this same game coaching our cross country runners during our forest runs here. I assure you, not nearly as much fun as it would be on a dirtbike, but they loved it none the less. EXCELLENT idea. :cool:
 

XRpredator

AssClown SuperPowers
Damn Yankees
Aug 2, 2000
13,510
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VintageDirt said:
Being fast is over rated. But of course I'm just guessing.
I would over rate it as high as you over rate it.

or something like that.

And that's a scientific FACT!
 
Jul 4, 2006
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As long as you have all the tools and having them work together. Proper form and technique go a long way in this game without it you'll hit a wall and can't go any faster without being totally out of control.

If you were taught the basics correctly and build off of that only your fitness and determination are the limiting factors.
 
Mar 16, 2007
471
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what about age, i used to ride as a kid, now 12 years later im getting back into it. I know that my childhood dream of going pro etc is out of the question, but I would like to be able to "go big" one day. I dont need to be doing any tricks for me to be satisified, I just want to be able to hit one of those monster jumps, the feeling of doing that and while you are in the air has got to be just unreal!
 

FruDaddy

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Aug 21, 2005
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I don't know about all of that, but I would rather be a slow rider on the track than a slow rider that tried to ride too fast and quickly found the hospital.
 

whenfoxforks-ruled

Old MX Racer
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Oct 19, 2006
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Hubert,getting older suks! Common sense,responsibilities and old age can be FEAR! I am still working on some resemblance of the speed I used to carry,good luck! The bigger the jumps the worse I chop the throttle! Hey but I can go out and try harder! One day Larroco's leap and me have a date!
 

Ol'89r

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HubertGarfunkleIII said:
my question is, it seems to me that the pros when they are racing, are riding so fast and so hard that they are like border line out of control. like thier riding almost to the point of out of control but still just inside thier limits. stewart is a good example of what i mean.


You will never know your true limits unless you push those limits.

The pros ride on reflex. Have you ever dropped your car keys out of your hand and reached down and caught them before they hit the ground? And, you did it without thinking about it. :nod:

That is the way the pros ride. They have the basics down after many years of practice and racing, they know how to ride the bike. They know all the tricks. What makes them faster than most mortal beings is they trust their own abilitys to save them in a bad situation. In the heat of racing, you really don't have the time to think about what is going on. You have to trust and rely on your reflexes and natural abilitys to save you.

Some people call this, 'riding in the zone'. Others call it riding over your head. If you have to stop and think about every move you make on the racetrack, you cant think fast enough to react to the situation. It has to become automatic. It has to be a natural reaction and this takes years of practice.

Try this little experiment. Take a dollar bill and fold it in half longways. Have someone hold the dollar bill just above your hand with your fingers spread to about 2 to 3 inches. Look at the dollar bill and concentrate on it and tell yourself when the dollar drops, to catch it and then without warning have your friend drop it. When your friend drops the dollar, try to catch it between your fingers. Hard to do isn't it? Unless you have very fast reactions, the dollar bill will be about a foot past your hand when your fingers close.

Now, do the same thing but, don't look directly at the dollar bill. Unfocus your eyes and simply look at the whole picture. Don't concentrate on the dollar but wait for any movement that your peripheral vision sees. You will find it is much easier to catch the dollar bill when you are relying on your natural reactions instead of the direct link from your eyes to your brain.

Our brains tell us that we shouldn't be doing these kinds of things. When we come up to a big jump, our brains tell us, STOP you idiot, you could be killed. :yikes: This is our natural instincts to survive. We have to go beyond those instincts and trick ourselfs into thinking we can do this. We have to be able to mentally project ourselves over that jump before we can actually do in on a motorcycle.
To ride like the pros you have to trick your brain into allowing your body to do what it has been trained to do. You have to trust yourself to have the ability to save yourself in these situations. You have to have confidence in yourself. You also have to be willing to accept the fact that this does not always work. You could step-off at speed. You could be injured or worse. You have to be willing to accept this part.

If you do your homework, train, wear all the good protective
gear and keep yourself in good physical condition, you can usually get away with riding like this. If you don't have the basics or the conditioning you shouldn't even try it.

Just my $ .02

Ol'89r

"If motorcycle racing wasn't dangerous, everyone would do it and they would call it golf or something like that." ;)
 

olderndirtmom

Member
Apr 28, 2007
424
1
I read a very interesting article about a guy who is studying "those little things" that are supposed to be unteachable in athletics. The physical elements that set the Supreme apart in any sport. Ol'89er you actually summed up a portion of his hypothesis. In short he says you can teach those peripheral "instinctive" things. (Your dollar bill unfocused example.) I'm not sure I can retrieve the location of the article, but if you are into sports physiology/biomechanics and training methods it was an extremely good read on an new field.

Crap-as expected- I can't find it. However, I found this interesting article which says that Dirt is the new Prozac. Maybe it explains why dirtbiking is addicting and makes us happy happy? :laugh:

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jul/raw-data-is-dirt-the-new-prozac
 
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Ol'89r

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olderndirtmom said:
I read a very interesting article about a guy who is studying "those little things" that are supposed to be unteachable in athletics. The physical elements that set the Supreme apart in any sport. Ol'89er you actually summed up a portion of his hypothesis. In short he says you can teach those peripheral "instinctive" things. .


I would love to read that if you can find it mom.

The peripheral vision thing is huge. It works in all kinds of situations from trail riding to full on pro racing. It especially works with starts. Many riders look directly at the starting gate or flagger on the starting line. The good starters look all the way into the first corner and let their peripheral vision look at the gate. The one's looking directly at the gate usually find the gate flat on the ground before they go or they go when others around them start to go. The really fast starters look into the corner and when their minds detect the slightest movement in the gate, they're gone. :ride:

On trail it works in much the same way. If you are looking down directly in front of your front wheel all the time, you are slowing yourself down. If you look up ahead on the trail as far as you can see, your peripheral vision sees everything from that point back to your front wheel and registers that in your mind. Even though you are not looking directly at the trail in front of you, your mind knows what is there and tells your brain if there is anything to be concerned about. If you look directly in front of you, you will see every little bump, rock, root and irregularity in the trail and you will find yourself backing off the throttle for those things. If you rely on your instincts and peripheral vision, you will ride right over those things and not even notice them.

There are many little tricks like that and that is what separates the true moto Gods from the rest of us.
 
Mar 16, 2007
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olderndirtmom said:
I read a very interesting article about a guy who is studying "those little things" that are supposed to be unteachable in athletics. The physical elements that set the Supreme apart in any sport. Ol'89er you actually summed up a portion of his hypothesis. In short he says you can teach those peripheral "instinctive" things. (Your dollar bill unfocused example.) I'm not sure I can retrieve the location of the article, but if you are into sports physiology/biomechanics and training methods it was an extremely good read on an new field.

Crap-as expected- I can't find it. However, I found this interesting article which says that Dirt is the new Prozac. Maybe it explains why dirtbiking is addicting and makes us happy happy? :laugh:

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jul/raw-data-is-dirt-the-new-prozac

that explains why i lke getting roosted! :laugh:
 

olderndirtmom

Member
Apr 28, 2007
424
1
I'll keep looking. It may take awhile.

You have to realize I suffer from what I politely refer to as "shiny object syndrome"...ie. I keep getting distracted by every great biomechanical gadget the Internet can cough out my screen: bobsled simulator, MTx, motion analysis machines, etc. etc. Major intellectual flaw.

Meanwhile, must disconnect tube and go engage in real life for a time.

Incidentally, when I taught my youngest daughter to ride a bicycle I referred to the phenomenon of crashing into the only big tree in a large parking area as "The Whomping Willow". (Borrowed from the-then popular movie Pocahontas.)

In other words, if you think about the willow, the willow will reach out and grab you and dump you on the ground. I think it is a related (converse) phenomenon to your soft focus/zen/peripheral vision/let the force be with you concept.
 

Ol'89r

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Jan 27, 2000
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olderndirtmom said:
In other words, if you think about the willow, the willow will reach out and grab you and dump you on the ground. I think it is a related (converse) phenomenon to your soft focus/zen/peripheral vision/let the force be with you concept.

That is another good tip mom.

Look where you want to go. We tend to go where we look. If you are on a narrow trail with steep drop-offs on either side, it will be hard to stay on the trail if you look over the edge. (Ask Gomer about this one. :laugh: )

If you look over the side, it feels like there is a large magnet trying to pull you over the side. If you look up and ahead, you don't get that feeling. Same with trees. If you blast around a corner and there is a big tree in your way, don't look at the tree. Look for an escape route between the trees and that is where you will go.

Many years ago one of my sponsors told me this trick. I was having trouble sliding off the groove on a very slippery racetrack. When I slid off the groove, I would look at the crash wall and think to myself, damn I don't want to hit that. :whoa: Well, guess what? I did hit the wall. My sponsor told me that when I get into that situation to look back to the inside of the turn and tell my self, "That's where I want to be." and make yourself go there. I looked at him like he was nuts but, the next time I slid off the groove, instead of looking at the crash wall, I did what he told me to do and it worked. I was able to save it and get the bike back in the groove.

I like your "let the force be with you" analogy. :cool: We all have that force within us and it is up to us to find the keys to unlock that force. These little mind tricks are the way to to that.
 
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