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AGV Backmarker: Getting My Groove Back
November 19, 2009 by Mark Gardiner
Filed under Backmarker
About the time the racing season ends, the launch season begins. That means that over the fall and winter, I get my turn on the track—at least I do if I get invited to launches.
Keith Code’s California Superbike School is entering its thirtieth year, so it must be doing something right. Lately, Code’s devoted a lot of effort to creating a “systematized” teaching program, which has allowed him to essentially franchise CSS in the UK and Australia.
With that in mind, last month I arranged for a tune-up day with Keith Code’s California Superbike School. I’d previously taken one of Keith’s schools, but it was so long ago that I thought it would be better for me to come back in fresh rather than as a returning student.
The school I attended was a one-day deal, pretty competitively priced as schools go, at $390 or $650, depending on whether you use your bike or one of the school’s (I rode one of their Kawasaki ZX-6Rs). The school was pretty well-attended, as I was pleasantly surprised to find most of the spots filled. Dylan, Keith’s son, told me, “2008 was our best year ever, and we’re only down about 5 percent so far in 2009.”
That would make CSS one of the best survivors in the current motorcycle depression. (Screw “recession.” Let’s call a spade a spade—business is terrible.) Maybe, I speculated, people were opting not to buy new bikes, but rather to get more out of the ones they have, and thus deciding to take a track school. That’s possible, but most CSS students are returning; they move up through four levels. So maybe it’s just that customers are fundamentally satisfied by the experience and keep coming back for more.
Keith told me that he’d surveyed students over the years and found that most of them arrived for their first school with a bit of trepidation. A majority, for example, said they wouldn’t feel comfortable just showing up at a track day. After taking a school, though, a majority said they would consider doing a track day. “Track-day operators should love me,” Keith said. “I’m helping to create new customers for them.”
Here, I’m getting debriefed by my assigned coach, Cobie Fair. I have to say, the advice I got was pretty good—all pretty fundamental stuff, but since I’m a slow learner, I benefited from hearing it again.
Although CSS emphasizes that it does not cater to utter newbies, the program I sat in on would definitely have been comfortable for the average street rider. The structure of the classes is the same at all levels. Students are presented with a few bite-sized pieces of information in the classroom and given specific exercises to practice on track. Then they get suited up and take their bikes to pit-out, where they’re reminded what exercise they’re to practice. Each group of three students is accompanied by a riding coach who leads students around and follows them for observation. Coaches will occasionally motion students to follow them into pit lane for advice in mid-session. In any case, each student is debriefed by his coach after each session. Then, after a short break, the classroom-track-debrief series is repeated. The day is comprised of about six such cycles.
Over the years, I’ve sat in on several track/racing schools, ranging from Rich Oliver’s Pro School (totally hardcore—one of the students ruptured his spleen and kept going) to the now-defunct Freddie Spencer school in Vegas, which was more like a breathtakingly expensive fantasy camp.
In general, I’d rather not hear a lot of talk that’s intended to establish the school’s credentials—which is usually dispensed at the expense of rival schools. Riding motorcycles well is still at least as much an art as a science.
Interestingly, a couple of weeks later I was up at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca for the launch of the 2010 KTM street bikes. The first couple of sessions of that were an abbreviated version of the KTM-sponsored Skip Barber Superbike School that runs up there. While the theoretical basis of that school seems almost diametrically opposed to Keith Code’s school—and there were points in the classroom sessions where I received information that was directly contradictory to CSS’s—the actual advice I got from the coaches was the same.
Both Cobie and my assigned coach at the KTM launch (Jason DiSalvo) pointed out that I had a tendency to slip my ass too far off seat when hanging off. That made it hard to relax my grip on the bars, and forced me to counter-lean my upper body. I’m working on it.
Anyway, at the end of the day, I left Streets of Willow having received some good tips from Code and his crew; I had things to think about the next time I rode. I imagined myself as a newbie and thought I’d have left pretty ecstatic. I saw at least one person get her knee down for the first time, and—for some people anyway—that’s a huge deal.
Of course, much of the benefit comes from simply accruing seat time. If you’re a good athlete, you can almost certainly just sign up for a few track days and start circulating in the slowest group, learning by observation and moving up as you’re able. Also, there’s no substitute for actual racing experience. If you’re aggressive and confident, and you want to get fast quickly, here’s what you do: join your local racing club, take its new-racer course, and then do a few novice races. Bear in mind, though, that it’s motorcycle racing; learning by trial and error can be expensive and painful.
Most people, however, are understandably intimidated by those self-starting alternatives. For them, a track school or two can provide the confidence they need to start attending track days or try club racing. Also, there’s something to be said for getting the basics down pat before you start practicing. And even if track days or club racing aren’t a goal, the school I took would pay big, big safety dividends for the average street rider.
If you plan to buy a new bike this year, please do. The motorcycle industry needs that incremental sale. But if you don’t—and looking at consumer confidence figures, I’d say most people won’t—make this your year to get more out of the bike you already have by getting out on the track.
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