What’s particularly amazing is that I don’t get faster by pushing, necessarily. It’s all about being smart, taking the right lines, keeping your vision open (i.e., looking WAY the hell down the track), and then taking baby steps. You can get dramatically faster without ever having an “oh sh$%” moment…or, well, at least without having a lot of them. I feel like I’m running the same relaxed pace I was when I was running 1:48s but I’m going over 10 seconds quicker. That’s a difference of 10 mph in average speed, and that should be enough to freak me out!
The same is true of the street. There’s no need to push yourself to go faster and faster on your favorite rides. That’s not how you become a better rider, and it’s not how you stay a living rider either. Lately I’ve been trying to learn how to cope with a sliding rear tire on asphalt. I’ve been taking my supermoto to a parking lot, leaning it farther and farther and opening the throttle more and more. I’ve also tried rudely ripping open the throttle at high lean angle. The truth is it’s very hard to get my tires to slip, and when they do, it’s only for a tiny second. I thought, especially with street tires and bumpy, dirty, and crack-filled pavement, that it’d be pretty easy to lose grip. This told me how much more grip I have than I thought, and within the same day’s ride I found it easier to commit to turns that would have scared me just an hour before.
A step at a time, using smarts instead of balls. That’s how you get better.