Who Needs the Street When You Have the Track?

Greg Moorhead
Guest Writer for AllAboutBikes.com

I would like to preface this story by giving a very deserving thanks to Julian and Ron from AllAboutBikes.com, Todd from FASTTRAX, the Sport Bike Alliance of Pittsburgh, and Julian’s friend Bart Schuster. They are the ones who made this past weekend happen and made it the experience of a lifetime.

The natural lure of street bikes is obvious to some and to others it is a huge mystery.  For those that love the grace and beauty of a street bike laying over in a turn on a road course, there are just as many if not more that think you are a total fool for even attempting that feat.  All I have to say is, “don’t knock it until you try it.”

I am here to vouch that there is no comparison when it comes to riding on the street versus the track. Of course riding on the street is fun and I like going down the highway at speeds that are “somewhat” above the posted limit. However, I can honestly say that I LOVED laying the bike over in the carousel at Nelson Ledges doing 90 MPH with my knee dragging on the asphalt. Then again, there is that ability to do a 12 o’clock on the highway. I mean that is exciting, but what do you call drafting someone down the front straight at Beaver Run doing well over 100 MPH in 5th gear and then slamming down into 2nd  to make that first hard left hander. It most certainly is not boring. Everything you can do on the track is exactly why you buy and ride “crotch rockets.” However, there is a lot that goes into mastering the fine art of dragging the knee at impossible angles and I learned that from some excellent teachers this past weekend at my first ever track days.

I do not want to give a day by day, session by session recap of riding because that could become rather boring. I will just try to touch on the events that made me smile, panic and almost crap my pants.

It is really hard to pick out certain things that made me smile. I say this because what is there not to smile about when you are having the time of your life by pushing your bike to its upper limits. Ultimately what gave me have the biggest smile this weekend was twofold. The first and probably the most obvious would be dragging my knee around the carousel for the first time at Nelson Ledges. The sheer thrill that radiates through your body when you scrape the puck on your knee over asphalt at speed is nothing short of pure bliss.  The second would have to be the compliments I received from Julian and Bart on how well I was riding. It meant a great deal to me to have the two guys instructing saying I was learning quickly, and my pace showed it. I greatly appreciated all of their pointers, even the duct tape that went over my speedometer. THANKS BART!!!

Panic is defined as a sudden overwhelming fear, with or without cause, that produces hysterical or irrational behavior, and that often spreads quickly through a person. For me the cause was simple, street bikes are not made to go on grass at high speeds. This happened to me not once, not twice, but three times total at Nelson Ledges.  As unfortunate as it was to go “surfing,” I learned from my mistake of looking down at my line and not ahead where my line was going. I will also say that I never felt the grass at Beaver Run, but Julian might be able to tell you how it feels since he was the only one catching the green wave on Sunday.

Lastly we come to the almost crap my pants moment. I have wrecked many of times on dirt bikes and as pitiful as it was I have wrecked and totaled a street bike. Now before you start sighing and saying, “oh no he crashed,” I did no such thing. However, I did have a vision of my bike rolling down the trackin front of me at Beaver Run on Sunday. This not so glorious apparition occurred as my back end slid out from under me as I was coming off turn 3. I luckily stomped my foot down and saved my bike’s life. I couldn’t even imagine how to explain that one to the insurance company. After collecting my thoughts and slowing my heart rate, I got back up to speed and finished out the session.

The amount of knowledge I picked up from this past weekend is immense. Whether it would be about getting the crack of your butt to the edge of the seat when you are leaning into a turn or that not knowing how fast you are going makes you faster. Once again, THANKS BART!!! I also learned that screaming down the straights doesn’t matter if you can’t transition into a smooth entry and exit on the apex of a turn. I will say the most important thing I did learn this weekend is that there are no trophies given out on track days. The trophy you get is putting your bike back on the trailer in the same shape as it was when you came to the track, but with less gas in the tank and less rubber on the tires.

I truly cannot wait to get back out to Nelson Ledges, Beaver Run, or any other track for that matter. Because let’s face it, once you go track there is no turning back.