Sport Riding Techniques

About 5 years back I bought the book "Sport Riding Techniques" by Nick Ienatsch. After not looking through it for a number of years I took it with me on Wednesday for reading material on a plane ride.

Did not take long to realize again what an excellent book it is for anyone who rides a motorcycle. This is a serious book on how to improve your riding and if you have not read it before you're missing what I would refer to as an essential motorcycling book.

While there is no question applying the lessons in the book will make you go faster, its focus on doing it safely is to me even more important. After re-familiarizing myself with the braking section I found myself out on a deserted stretch of road practicing stops from 80-90 mph, because as the book reminds us, if you are going to travel at those speeds you better know how to do emergency stops from those speeds.

At 49 years old and riding a motorcycle since I was 12, I was amazed at the amount of lessons I could still learn.

 

awesome !! stoppies at 8-90 I could only do those at 20mph now i stopped doing stoppies go figure..

 

I have that as a PDF but find PDFs hard to get into, I'l give it a go.

I have been enjoying re-reading Keith Code's Twist Of The Wrist, all three of his books can help, too. His theories on attention, placement and use of, are applicable in other sports, too. Very interesting stuff.

Thanks for the recommendation.

 

Nick was a featured speaker/coach at Sportbike Northwest last summer. Rode with him on a closed course. Err.. behind him. Me and everyone else. He was on a 250. The rest of the pack were on all kinds of go fast stuff.

Upcoming we are expecting the same thing from Mr. Pridmore Sr.

 

I may be incorrect but I think he is referring to the section of the book that hammers home the importance of good braking techniques; Lenatsch talks briefly about stoppies in the book but I think the poster was actually referring to practicing controlled, short-distance stops (not necessarily stoppies) to the point of tire howl, as lenatsch espouses.

 

Nick stresses safety and actually had some of those doofus type questions from the peanut gallery. Turned those doods into peanut butter with no chunks.

IMO, attempting stoppies at 80+mph just might be a little hard on somebody's forks.

 

You are correct - I was practicing stopping from those speeds, not stoppies.

 

Yep, stoppies at 80 will fork your forks or fork almost anyone.

 

thanks for the input-been wanting to read nick's book. did anybody read lee park's Total Control?

 

Yes; somewhat similar to Lenatsch's book but Parks' book is leaned a bit more towards the track. Parks spends more time on topics such as suspensions and chassis set up, overcoming your fear threshold, and more indepth discussions of correct body position for both the track and street.

For example, he uses Larry Pegram frequently to show the WRONG technigues of Pegram's track style; Parks readily admits that Pegram is much faster around a track the he is but his point is that Pegram would be even quicker if he used better form.

A street rider will learn plenty from either book but Parks gives more specific information. I really enjoy re-reading both books, though; you can't go wrong with either.
Joe

 

Thanks for the insight Joe. I'm already watching nick's book on ebay and just waiting for it to end.

 

I just got Ienaetch (sp) book from Amazon. So far real good, I like Houghs books too of course.

ace57