Hi and welcome to my SMOOTH. It’s called SMOOTH because that is the way to get fast on a bike and safe at the same time. What do I know about being smooth, well I have raced at clubman level, around some of the great tracks in the world. I’ve been through the Police advanced rider training for two different countries and have been riding for around 37 years on four different continents.
Such an important topic really. But do you know? I mean do you know that your brain, just as one example has many different parts that work almost independently and that some are complex and slow, whilst others are simple and really fast!!! Which explains why, if watching your hands whilst typing you are limiting your typing speed because you are engaging a more complex and slow part of the brain to do the co-ordination of your fingers. Whereas if you watch what you type and let your muscle control systems drive your fingers your typing speed will accelerate enormously whilst your typing accuracy will improve by huge amounts also.
So what is all this stuff about smooth and wobbly bits?
One of the great light bulb moments, you know the eureka thing, is when you realise that you are actually riding something akin to two pogo sticks with a wobbly bunch of limbs flopping around on top and the only way to shuffle it along at a decent pace is to try to stop all the wobbling and choreograph the whole thing so it’s all working together.
Interesting little thing that twisty twiddly bit on the right handle bar. Everyone get’s that you turn it and the power comes. But do you know why? Or how? Or more importantly what happens to your wobbly bits, that’s the bike and yours, when the power comes?
It’s a brake how hard can that be!!!! You’d be amazed, because it’s not about the braking effect it’s about all the other effects. If I asked a new rider to learn how to brake for an emergency in a straight line they would do a pretty good job, but once you take into account what happens before and after your braking effort under normal circumstances, i.e. accelerating, braking , cornering , accelerating things get a whole lot more complicated. I count three transitions there and four “sets” that you need to choreograph your way through smoothly.
