#ThrowbackThrusday to CSS 2015: A school with a difference
The acclaimed California Superbike School is open for admissions and you could check out our story here for further info. But in the meantime Aniruddha Rangnekar shares his experiences from the last session the school conducted.
After doing something for as long as I’ve been riding, one would think I had got the hang of it. But it doesn’t work like that always. I learnt that lesson the hard way, since I’ve just discovered that my cornering technique on motorcycles was faulty; and that’s after years of riding! I have learned all this at the California Superbike School (CSS) over an intensive, yet fun three days at the MMRT, Chennai. Everyone who attended the school was hoping go back with more confidence apart from becoming faster. As for me, I was just determined to not leave with a plastered limb!
It goes like this: you get to the track by 7am for registrations, safety briefings on day 1. And before each track session you attend class, where they teach you the next drill. CSS really feels like a school with its stringent discipline, and you need to register yourself and get your riding kit scrutinised at the start apart from being punctual, but that’s purely in the interest of safety. The MMRT is a great circuit to ride on, being technical, fast and fun. When I got to the track, I couldn’t help but ponder over the irony – this would be the first time I would be on the track in the correct direction (clockwise). I had only driven (never ridden!) on the track, in reverse direction in my rally car before attending CSS, as the MMRT has been the super special stage during the Chennai rally in the IRC. The 3.7km long circuit has 12 corners, each posing a challenge of it’s own.
Each day would encompass one level, and even if you’ve done the school earlier, you start with level 1. As we settled down for the briefing, I couldn’t wait to see what it felt like to ride a motorcycle on a race track but the safety briefings were, well, quite long, detailing the dos, don’ts and the like.
When we finally ventured out, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. The brainchild of former racing great Keith Code, the CSS has a very scientific, technical approach to riding fast, and it is all about learning various techniques and then stitching them together to ride like a pro.
They tell you not to look for lap times, and focus on the specifics of riding, since they advocate the fact that speed is a by-product of better riding skills. They’re amongst the very best in the world, and have created champions around the globe, MotoGP riders included and they couldn’t possibly be wrong. So here are my top ten learnings from the school:
1. Going To School
Yes, it involves a lot of hard work. It takes an effort to remember to apply each of the drills you are taught in class on track, but when you do, you get to see the improvements instantly. With regards to going fast on a motorcycle, especially at a race track, there’s always more to learn, irrespective of your skill set.
Even if you have read every book you can find on riding skills, you still need to keep practicing, since that is what will help you learn more. There are several riding schools in the country today, but the California Superbike School is easily one of the best in the world, where the coaches meticulously teach you the nuances of riding a motorcycle fast and ensuring you remain safe on the go. So go for it!
2. Throttle Control
Races are not won on straights, they’re won around corners. And the basic rule of going fast through a corner is keeping your motorcycle stable. Contrary to my expectations, the first session where we were taught about throttle control was very slow, as we were riding without even touching the brakes. It helped us get accustomed to using only the throttle to control the motorcycle and learning the nuances of keeping your motorcycle stable by opening the throttle as smoothly as possible. Even the smallest of openings or closures affects the suspension, which affects stability. A jerky throttle hand will cause the suspension to compress and rebound, which could even cause you to stray off the intended line. Hence, one of the biggest contributors to stability around a corner, especially at the exit, is a butter-smooth throttle hand. And as your corner speeds go up – irrespective of the power output of a motorcycle – throttle control becomes all the more crucial to keep it steady.
3. Reference Points
Finding reference points around corners is crucial as these points help you identify your turn-in spot. This is important, since apart from physical skills, what you are seeing plays a key role in helping you plan and attack a corner. The idea is to find a marker on or near the corner (something permanent) that will help you identify your turn-in point, be it on a racetrack or on your favourite riding road. This will help you gain consistency with your turn-ins, adding to your confidence greatly, and also enabling faster entry speeds. More importantly, turning in at the right point smoothens things further into the corner. A perfect turn-in will help you get as close as possible to the apex, which in turn will aid a better, faster exit. It’s as straightforward as buttoning up a shirt. If you put the first button in the wrong button hole, the rest will be wrong too.
4. Quick Turn
You’d never think about moving the handlebar to the left if turning right, but we all do it subconsciously to a very small degree. It’s as simple as giving the handlebar a tiny nudge to the left if you want to turn right, since that will help you turn quicker. Once you have the turn in point decided, you can try to save precious milliseconds by turning in quicker. It helps you tip the motorcycle much faster, and that is also how the pros do it. Do not confuse it with counter-steer though! You might be in awe of the way Marquez or Lorenzo almost drift into corners, but that’s a different story. This is about simply turning in quicker, and is something you might not find too effective immediately. However, make a habit of it and you’ll see the difference it makes to the time you need to have the bike fully leaned over from bolt upright. The effort needed goes up as your speeds go up, but there is possibly no corner in the world where this won’t work, so it is a small yet significant thing to do around any corner.
5. Body Positioning
As you’ve seen the pros do, you do need to hang off a motorcycle to lower its centre of gravity. The importance of your posture is relative to your corner speeds, so if you want to go fast, you need to ensure you are doing it right. The idea here is to push your inside shoulder into the corner and get half a butt cheek off the seat. At the same time, gripping the tank with the outside knee will help you free your upper body, since when you try to hang off you tend to subconsciously tense up your arms, and as resultant, grip the handlebars really tight, something you shouldn’t be doing.
It is important to keep the upper body relaxed and relatively free, using your lower body to grip the tank as it allows you to use your arms as a suspension to soak in the vibrations transmitted via the handlebars. This is helpful around corners where the surface is bumpy, and there’s a fair possibility of you unsettling the entire motorcycle as opposed to just the front end with your vice-like grip on the ‘bars.
Stability is the key at all times, and a motorcycle is least stable when being flicked from side to side around a chicane. When shifting from one side to another on a motorcycle, you need to have at least one knee gripping the tank firmly. When you are about to change direction, bring the other knee back to the tank before switching sides and throwing the other knee out while pressing down slightly on the handlebars. This will ensure the motorcycle is stable and the front planted. The basic thumb rule about all body movements on a motorcycle is that you need to finish moving around and hanging off before you turn in, ideally before braking for the turn in point. Twitching around on a motorcycle while leaned over around a corner is only going to unsettle the motorcycle, so you need to keep it clean.
6. Vision
You need to be looking in the right direction to go where you want to. Target fixation means that where you look is where you end up going. So look in the right direction and you will get there. Look off the track, and you’ll probably end up there too. At CSS, visual skills are given as much importance as physical ones, for the same reason. You need to look at the corner entry before you get there, and when you are sure that you will hit the sweet spot, start looking out for the apex. Similarly, once sure of hitting the apex, identify your exit point and open the throttle, while looking out for the next corner. This, in effect, will help you plan ahead, so you know that’s where you will be going. Again, the idea is to finish looking before you actually get there, with the same intent of keeping it steady. This has a lot to do with your consistency as well, since each time you get to the same corner you are sure to hit the same entry point and get the apex right as well. CSS also emphasizes what’s called the wide view. When you approach a corner and look at the entry point, you also need to take note of what lies around that point. This helps you to be prepared for surprises, like an oncoming vehicle or an oil spill. On a race track this will help to gauge the full width of the track, and use a different line around a corner, if you need to.
7. Do A Marquez!
We’ve all seen Marc Marquez hang off his motorcycle with his upper body leaned-in way, way into the corner. That’s called hooking the turn, or simply hook turn. If you are carrying too much speed into a corner and enter it too fast, you are bound to run wide, since the motorcycle will simply want to carry on in as straight a line as possible. To counter this, you need to pull the elbow of your inside arm further down closer to the ground. What this does in effect is, pull your shoulder inside and into the corner as well, thereby helping you tighten your line and correct it, ensuring you do not run wide. It is a highly effective way of entering a corner faster than you would and still making it through safely, without going off or having to brake mid-corner, which is a surefire recipe for disaster.
8. Attack The Corner
We’ve all had our moments aboard motorcycles where we’ve had to enter the corner from a rather awkward entry point due to reasons like oncoming traffic, potholes or oil spills and the like. On a race track that could be because of a faster rider passing you on the inside at the entry point, forcing you to enter from a wider angle or from the outside. To avoid the surprise element involved, it is important to know the corner, especially on a race track, and learn the consequences of entering it wider than normal or having to take a tighter line. In such a situation, you need to make corrective measures and prepare yourself, so you do not have to slow down too much.
9. The Right Gear
If you have a passion for bikes and are keen on riding well, then CSS is a kind of drug. You are not going to be cured, in fact quite the opposite, but you do learn how to control your addiction and get the ultimate, safe but unbeatable high! The school is not for wannabe racers, though it will help you if that’s what you want to be; it is genuinely for everyone who wants to be a better rider. And while all of us may not be born a Rossi, we need to hone our skills, during which we might most likely end up falling off the bike more than a few times. Hence the right protective gear becomes very important. While at first I thought dressing up like a power ranger every time you go out for a ride was a bit stupid, riding around a track fast made me realise how much confidence proper riding gear gives you while pushing hard. A secure fitting helmet gives you assurance. Gloves that fit securely but comfortably, have adequate protection and padding make for great confidence as well. If you are serious about track riding, it makes sense to get a leather race suit, or a good, protective textile riding jacket and riding pants with protectors should do the job. It’s better to pay for these, rather than pay hospital bills, since on a motorcycle you are bound to go fast, especially on a race track and there’s always the danger of something untoward happening. So ensure you have the right riding gear!
10. Upgrade Your Bike
Most modern motorcycles handle well enough to let you have fun on racetracks, but there’s always scope for improvement. The CBR 250 you see on these pages is a race-prepped version of the CBR 250R Honda sells in the country. There’s a lot of research and testing that has gone into making the motorcycle race-worthy. The soft, bouncy front forks have been stiffened up with thicker fork oil and stiffer springs inside, apart from the bike getting a steering damper to save your skin in the event of a wobble. The ECU has been remapped to up the power output and also smoothen the torque curve to make it even and give performance throughout the rev range a boost. This motorcycle is also running a free-flow exhaust that was designed and tuned to specifically suit the CBR 250. The bike also runs racing tyres (not slicks!) sourced from MRF Tyres, and from experience we can tell you these are far superior to the Continentals the stock motorcycle runs. This is the very motorcycle Honda uses for its CBR 250 championship, which is a support series to the national championship, and more importantly this motorcycle is modelled on the lines of the CBR 250 used by Honda in the Asia Dream Cup, a feeder series for Honda’s own Moto3 program. So the point is, if you are serious about track riding or racing and want to go faster, you need to make the requisite changes to your motorcycle, irrespective of what machine you ride, to make it more capable on a racetrack. And there’s always lots of scope for that, irrespective of whether you ride a 100cc commuter or a 1000cc track focused superbike.
California Superbike School is one of the most revered motorcycle riding schools in the world, and the 2015 India edition was the fourth time the prestigious school has come down to India. And each edition has been made possible courtesy of the father-son duo you see above, TT Varadarajan (left) and his son TT Siddharth (right). In the centre is Glen Rothwell, one of the veteran coaches. Glen has been a part of the school every time CSS has come to India, and he is one of the most experienced coaches at the school globally. TT Varadarajan and Siddharth are both passionate bikers, and have been instrumental in bringing the school down to create more confident, faster riders in the country. The duo has been at the forefront of organising the school each year at the MMRT, apart from getting sponsorships for the school and the valuable partnership from TVS Motor, who lend a bunch of their race RTRs to students at the school. The school, and evo India’s participation would not have been possible without their efforts, and we would really like to thank this passionate duo for making it possible.
