Riding Skills Series: Using Reference Points When Riding

Andrew Trevitt uses all the track by scraping his knee over the inside curbing, effectively gaining another foot or more of pavement for the bike to widen the radius of the turn. Many riders unfamiliar with the track limit themselves by not using the final bit of pavement this way. Don't be intimidated by putting a knee on the curbing; just remember to lift it up lightly over the gator's-teeth profile some tracks use.

Elsewhere in this issue is my coverage from the Ducati 848 world press intro (page 40) in the south of Spain at the Circuito de Velocidad de Almeria. Because I was new to the circuit, with its many fast blind corners, some cresting hills and others sweeping off into the distance, I found myself frustrated with the task of learning the new track, something I'm usually pretty good at. The answer lay in the lack of easy reference points.

Reference points are typically referred to in racetrack terms, but there's nothing that says you can't use them on a few of the trickier sections of your favorite roads as well. They're valuable anytime a rider benefits from having advance information to signal where he needs to be at a certain point. For instance, a favorite road is often long enough that memorizing every portion of every corner is basically impossible without years of experience on that same section of pavement. Using a reference point-it could be a skid mark on the tarmac, a road sign, a tree, or some other immovable object on the side of the road-enables you to determine your precise location and thus your control actions. "OK, there's that big tree with a broken branch; that means I need to be on the left side of the lane for this approaching corner so I miss the big pothole on the entrance."

It's difficult to use reference points when you put yourself in a position where it's hard to see. For demonstration purposes, I show what not to do by running my GSX-R too close to Trevitt, thus blocking much of my field of awareness. I might argue that The Geek is so thin that he doesn't block much of the view, but you get the point.

Reference points are best located on the asphalt or directly adjacent to it whenever possible. A recent class I taught at Laguna Seca brought to light the danger of using distant objects on the horizon as the sole point of reference for judging where you need to be on the track. Riders who fixated only on a telephone pole visible as they approached the blind, high-speed crest of turn one ended up in differing areas on the exit depending upon their location as they neared the turn. You need to have multiple reference points so that you know where you should be in approaching a turn when using a distant object like the telephone pole as a reference. Using things like trees or telephone poles on the horizon as your only point of reference can easily be misleading because of parallax; if the object is too close in relation to you and the turn, your visual perspective of it can change depending on your location. The advantage of patches, paint or skid marks on the track itself is that they are consistent, one-dimensional and don't require a repeatable approach.

Here's GSX-R-mounted Trevitt powering off a corner using the dark line (probably laid down by Mikolas earlier in the day) as his corner-exit reference cue to begin picking up the bike off the edge of the tire and twisting the right handgrip smoooothly on. Note the direction The Geek's helmet is pointed, his ever-moving gaze focused well down the track toward the following corner.

However, if the pavement doesn't have any markings and the sides of the track are featureless, then using objects a good distance away from the pavement surface becomes a necessity. Also, if you're following someone at high speed, it's very easy for them to block your view of the upcoming pavement (even at a distance, not just in their slipstream), robbing you of your usual reference points on the track surface; by the time you notice them it's often already too late. You need to have multiple reference points that allow you to locate yourself without relying solely on any one item. Basically, it's similar to the way GPS uses multiple satellites or how sailors in the past used stars to ascertain a location.