Welcome!! Gotta Question??

[Chris Peris]

Hello ChampU members! I wanted to welcome you to the Forums section. I am one of the lead instructors at ChampShool and ChampU. If you have a riding question, I am here to help. Post a new topic and I will do my best to answer it for you.

[Dave Leamer]

Awesome, thanks Chris!

[Tim R.]

Thanks, Chris.

I’m enjoying Champ U so far. More importantly, I can’t wait to bring this foundation with me when I get the chance to do Champ School next year.

Cheers.

[Rachel T]

Hello 🙂
I’m very much enjoying the course and following the material published so far. Unfortunately I’m in England and wont be able to attend one of your courses in person yet..

However, as a beginner rider, I do have a burning question to ask relating to emergency braking. Overall stopping distances vary according to weather conditions, do you have any recommendations for emergency braking when the surface is wet as according to theory, the average stopping distance at 50mph on a wet surface is nearly 100 meters ! Does this mean that as a rider you would need to be very good at manoeuvring around the object rather than braking at all in this case?
Secondly, I have had to brake in heavy rain and the back wheel immediately slipped and the bike dropped. Why was grip was so drastically affected? was it my braking technique or the road surface ( I had equal pressure on rear and front brake and didn’t slam the brakes) ?
Thanks for taking the time to read my comments!

[Keith Culver]

Rachel,

Keith here.

It’s all about 100 points of grip, especially the first and last 5%. The back tire locked up because they didn’t load it enough before asking it to work. Back brakes on many modern bikes are also a bit too strong for their own good. When you brake, the load and weight go forward which takes the weight off of the rear making it easier to lose traction.

I recommend spending extra time rewinding and watching everything to do with that first and last 5% in the videos and then practicing it in all weather conditions. Nick spends a lot of time drawing on the side of the trailer to show what this means. It’s also discussed in Braking Practice.

We can’t do anything about making a motorcycle physically stop faster in the wet but we can work on making the rider do it as best as can be.

Feel free to reach out any time.

[Cengiz Sever]

Thank you YCRS for informing us on how to properly use our beautiful motorcycles. Love the info on riding skills we need to consciously apply when riding especially at speed. I have a Yamaha Raider (power cruiser) with forward footpegs so moving my but around not really happening. I usually push on my footpegs when turning or breaking (out of fear). also if there are any tips on slow speed maneuvers that would be appreciated.

[Keith Culver]

It’s going to be a bit harder to put weight on your footpegs with them being so far forward so keep this in mind;

Weighting your pegs on corner entry is to initiate a lean. The turning comes from the leaning. Counter steering is also a way to initiate a lean, thus helping turn the bike.

On the street, especially on a bike like yours, you may find yourself using the bar pressure (counter steering) to initiate that lean and to begin the turn more commonly. While weighting the pegs is a higher priority on a sportibke because the speeds are typically (designed to be) higher and peg weighting is usually less abrupt (if done correctly), it’s still all about initiating a lean. If given the choice, we prefer to weight the pegs because its typically less abrupt.

On the corner exit though, moving your head to the inside will put your equilibrium to work and almost automatically push the bike up onto the center of the tire, reducing lean angle. While moving your butt before your head can help this be more useful/efficient, on the street, the act of moving your head to the inside of the centering is what we are really looking for.

So, weight the pegs when you can to initiate lean and counter street when you cannot. Drop your head to the inside of the corner on the exit to reduce lean angle even if you can’t move your butt. It may not make a huge difference in street riding but it is the safer option for sure.

_keith

[anthony carbone jr]

Awesome content. With our purchase can we go back through the curriculum as much as needed?

[Alex Hatfield]

Yes! You have access for as long as we’re in business!

[Paul Parnell]

Loving the course, it’s terrific value. I’m an instructor in Australia and my teaching has improved by thinking and understanding champion concepts more deeply so thanks! I find it quite challenging to take the practice out onto the road – I’ve really had to slow right
down and reengineer my approach to keep up with my brain chattering through the concepts; I feel like a novice again sometimes! But slow is fast and I can’t wait to get to my next track day and improve my skills.

[Eric Marsh]

I’m about half way though this course and have been doing a unit or two a day. I’m an (almost) fifty year rider who finds that in life one should never stop learning or, especially for us older people, brain rot sets in. (Young people aren’t immune to brain rot either.) Even well seasoned riders can find good take aways from the course and some of us old farts may need it more than new riders because we’ve had so long to develop bad habits.

At this point the thing I’m focused in on is the topic of a gentle transition from brake to turning in and plan to practice my technique on some upcoming rides.

It’s my nature to mentally pick things apart when I’m learning something new and the thought occurred to me that when making rapid transitions from a turn in one direction to a turn in the other, such as in a tight chicane, the front tire is going to briefly unload with a neutral throttle and reduce the contact patch. It doesn’t seem like there’s much of a chance to touch the throttle and/or brakes. I imagine that this is more of a situation one is likely to experience on mountain roads or roundabout with lower speeds than on a track. (Yes, it’s fun to use roundabouts as an excuse to heel the bike over.)

I’m thinking that in that a smooth transition from one side to the other is about the best that it’s possible to do but I’d be interested in your take on it. Is this even a relevant concern?

[Anonymous]

Hi! Just finished the course! I’m a beginner and this course helped me a lot.
Wish I had the Downshifting module covered last week, it would have saved me waiting 6 hours for recovery… You’re all wonderful and the course is very straightforward and easy to understand even for very beginners like me.
All the best!??

[Craig Billingsley]

Hi Chris, just finished Body Position section 5 and believe I totally get being either left or right of the imaginary center line. But, what’s the best practice for a 2-up passenger….for the passenger to always stay center or peeking slightly over your left or right shoulder? Thanks!

[Nick Ienatsch]

Hi Craig…We ask our passengers to look over our inside shoulder, right shoulder in right-hand turns, left in lefts. Thanks for your support of Champ U.

[Niels Reynolds]

Rachel, can I suggest finding a very quiet road, or car park and just practice your emergency stops? Do it every ride if you can, if safe to do so.

As you are in the UK, I would recommend joining an IAM RoadSmart advanced riding course. Our group runs 3 or 4 machine control days each year, which includes (among other skills) emergency braking in a safe environment using front brake only, rear brake only and both brakes together. These day-courses are open to everyone, not just IAM members.

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