I've been working hard lately to correct some rather significant flaws in my riding and also to hone some skills that are good but not great, and to develop a better man-machine interface between me and the Ninja. That last part is important as I still don't know it intimately and am still developing a feel for what it's trying to tell me in various situations. Practice and saddle time are the answer.

I can be a fairly driven person and have a good ability to focus on a task at hand. Both of these things contribute to being able to learn well, but sometimes best without others around. Don't misunderstand, I love getting out and practicing with my friends and rely on the inputs I get from trusted eyes. Sometimes though I just want to repeat an action 100 times without having to worry about other people having fun or getting something out of it.

So... I set up a "test rig" of sorts that lets me go out and video myself, then watch it in near real-time to make corrections on the spot. Basically I set up my GoPro so that I can either put it on a tripod or attach it to something handy (like the USA Today newspaper dispenser I attached it to yesterday), and bring my laptop with a card adapter and video editing software so I can download the video immediately and focus in on particular segments. This allows immediate feedback, critical for fast improvement. It also allows stopping the frame to get a good close look at everything from body position to bike placement - something even the best human can't easily do - and replaying multiple times to watch specific elements at play.

I did this yesterday in a set of exercises to work on better body position, something that has been vexing me lately. I went to a favorite parking lot and spent over an hour doing nothing but constant and decreasing radius left and right turns at 20-30MPH. I shot video and then took a look after every three runs. I was able to see so much more that way and make incremental adjustments, at a fast pace, and then immediately see the result. I made a total of about 100 turns, pretty evenly spaced between right hand and left hand, with about 20% of them decreasing radius. My objectives for the day were: get the center-line of my body parallel to or more away from the center-line of the bike; attempt to get my head past the mirror while keeping it 90deg from the road surface; keep feet up and back on the pegs to prevent toes from touching down; extend vision up and through the turn long distance (like looking through two or three turns at a time on a road course); get more forward and down when getting into a cornering position. A secondary goal was to continue to refine my trailbraking and exit throttle application.

Boy, did it pay off. I knew it had worked when I noticed on the onramp back to I-95. I was able to take the onramp at an appropriate speed with the bike taking much less lean angle (aka more tire contact patch), and pretty much no effort on my outside hand with my visor out by the mirror.

I've been going out to the parking lots once or twice a week to focus on specific things and it is really paying dividends. I can feel the cobwebs leaving and the bike is starting to feel smaller and smaller, my connection to it is definitely improving as I'm able to safely find its limits (I had a couple of lurid tail slides yesterday and the front end washed out twice, so getting a very solid feel for what no traction feels like).

LOL, I have no chicken strips but I may need new tires sooner than I thought.

I would be more than happy to bring the "rig" out for my friends if any are interested in doing something similar. Be warned, this is not like going for a fun ride, this is spending a lot of focused time repeating the same thing over and over.

Excellent.

I have wanted to do something similar for the longest time. Up here around College Park I haven't found any appropriately abandoned parking lots to practice in, but I may give this a try. I have a tripod which has been languishing through dis-use.

I completely understand what you mean about not wanting to dampen other people's fun. I feel much the same way. There are time I just want to "work" and put in the hard time on the bike but don't want to keep other people away from what they are doing.

I feel a mix is probably the best. Focus the majority of time on the self-directed practice but, from time to time, get feedback from others. At least that seems to work best for me. YMMV.

(Sounds like a really good day to me, BTW!)

An interesting idea indeed. I wonder why more skills courses don't add this or something like this into the mix?

Probably because it's boring and wouldn't sit well with the Play Station generation's need for constant stimulation. Also, if there were more than a couple of people it could bog things down terribly. It is used extensively in one-on-one coaching though, provided by a number of racing schools.

I just happen to know of a great parking lot location In the next few weeks, if the weather holds, we could set it up.

Sounds like a plan to me.

This is exactly the type of thing that I am looking forward to doing(at a much different skill level, obviously), but at this stage, even if I had an appropriate bike available, I would still have to dampen someone else's fun. I most definitely want to use the rig to see exactly what is going where, and what the small changes that I feel myself making look like.

I wonder if we can use the abandon CP airfield. There is also the parking lot by the airfield.

CP Airfield is still active.
It is the oldest continually active airport in the US.

Yun, did you mean the old Ercoupe factory airfield further down toward Hyattsville? I know it exists, but have no idea how it can be accessed.

YES! the abandon one in hyattesville. I"ve done some car photo ops there but the inside I dont know if there is a way in. Its in the back of that office park area.

Is this ERCO Field, in Riverdale, MD?

Could it be this?:

the old ERCO building has signs on the fence that it is property of University of Maryland
and no trespassing.

The College Park Airport museum is a great little place to visit sometime. It's just down the street here. (Yes, that's it.).

The airport is a short walk from there. There are trails all around behind the airport that I'll sometimes go for walks on.

I don't think there are any good parking lots out there to use for practice since it'll pretty active. One might be able to use the University of Maryland overflow lots for a while at least. Yun and I did exercises out there summer before last when I was teaching him to ride.

I know it's a bit of a haul for the MD guys, but I've not yet come across bigger, better, more empty on Sunday, or private lots than these (Yermo has seen them, we were in the bottom middle of Lot 3):

Here is a screencap that I took last weekend in these lots, I've also added a pic showing the area where the screencap was taken to help give a sense of scale.

On weekends or out of hours these lots aren't bad. There's a bit more traffic than I like but they are nice and large.

Very cool screencap pic!

yea cp lot is nice