California Superbike School...........
It’s nearly a decade since BJ last buckled down, sat up straight, stopped fidgeting and paid attention. So it was time to go back to school... of the California variety.
As I was pulling into Silver stone’ s hallowed facilities, following a fun but ridiculously early ride crosscountry from Bath, the march of time hit me hard. Nearly 10 years since I last did California Superbike School’s Level One? But it feels like it was both last week, and also in a different life altogether!
When myself and Andrew Saunders attended the school way back when, we did two levels at a time in two separate hits. Both of us really took to it, and it brought on our riding beautifully on both road and track. For me, I learned to go as fast with less than half the effort and, crucially, a lot less machine lean through corners. While it did my pictures for the magazine zero favours, I was so much more comfortable and by proxy (given that I suddenly had a lot of riding leeway), I ended up becoming markedly quicker.
And to this day some of the things I learned have stuck with me, mostly from Level Two’s superb vision-based exercises. But the rest? Well that faded away in the intervening years, old habits inevitably crept back in and the wealth of confidence gained long ago, while not completely spent, could do with a top-up.
Which is why I find myself signing on for CSS on an early, overcast but warm August morning. I’m curious to see how the school has evolved, too, especially now old Fast
Bikes boy and former CSS point man Andy Ibbott has moved on. Aside from chatting with the guys about their regular column for
CSS founder Keith Code, the last contact I’d had was with Andy ‘Spidey’ Peck, who had given me an incredible piece of visual advice for tackling the final double-turn on Silverstone’s GP circuit a few months back. It worked, and worked so well it made my mind up to come and do this all over again.
So here I am, at the Stowe circuit nestled inside Silverstone’s big track, ready to learn. One thing you should realise about CSS, is that unlike some other race schools the track you’re on isn’t important. The way the curriculum is put together means that it doesn’t matter what corners you’re on, or where, as every part of entering and exiting a corner is broken down into bite-sized chunks.
You’ll start with a briefing and introduction, and then five classroom studies, one before each session on track putting theory into practice. On track you have an instructor who will come find you, and either let you know you’re doing well, or if you need to work a bit more on each exercise, and also debrief you afterwards, too. This isn’t a track day or school where you’re just taught how to go faster and faster around the circuit you're on. In fact one of the most innovative practises CSS have is that for at least the first couple of sessions, you only use a single gear – and no brakes...
Lesson 1
Our first classroom session is spent talking about stabilising the bike via the throttle. The upshot being how to roll the throttle on smoothly after making a turn, to exit keeping the bike as stable as possible. Sounds simple enough, right? Yet throw in the single gear and no brakes requirement, and it becomes something entirely different. Astride a school hire bike Ducati 959, this means lapping in third gear while inline fours must use fourth gear. The first session is fascinating, not only watching others trying to grasp the zero anchors thing, but doing it yourself too. Nobody is going quickly, far from it, but once settled it means you have ample time to apply the lesson on each and every corner exit. Stowe is a small track, but it has a range of short or long exits and I’m quickly learning how more or less gas to apply, so that I’m not running into the following turn too fast to make it around or run into the back of someone – you can of course use brakes to avert disaster, but I try to take the no brakes seriously and make it through the entire session without touching them once. Already my brain is recalibrating itself and my right wrist is playing ball.
Lesson 2
Suitably pepped up, our second classroom sees everyone rapt with attention to what they’ll throw at us next. Now it’s about the apex, where and how to meet it, focusing on turn-in points. Back out on track they’ve placed huge crosses at the turn in points they’d like us to use. Just like the last time I did this, approaching the first one at some kind of pace you just think it’s way too close to the turn. However, this is also where the no-brakes and single-gear rule comes in. Running at a pace you’re comfortable with means you can do all these exercises, and even though it feels extremely tricky at first to use their turn-markers, before long I’m hitting each and every one, and once turned, then rolling the gasser earlier than I usually would do. It’s also in this session where I have a ‘eureka’ moment, about just how much control over the bike you have with the throttle. I’m not just talking about speed, but the bike’s pitch and attitude, how much (or how little) you can compress both ends of the suspension and, therefore, control just how you both turn and can go around a corner. It’s something we already know of course, without even realising it, but even when you’re fully aware it’s the extent that both shocks and wows. I’m having a ball just playing with that between turns, getting the 959 to rise and dive at will. Had we been riding at ‘normal’ pace, I doubt this would have happened but I do remember the same thing occurring to me all that time ago, too.
Lesson 3
Now we know (within the context of the curriculum) where to turn and how to exit, it’s time to step things up a notch. Students are now allowed to use two gears and minimal brakes, the reason being because of lesson three – the quick-turn. Now, we all know that if we push on the inside of a