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Reddit mentions of Total Control: High Performance Street Riding Techniques

Sentiment score: 13
Reddit mentions: 21

We found 21 Reddit mentions of Total Control: High Performance Street Riding Techniques. Here are the top ones.

Total Control: High Performance Street Riding Techniques
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  • Simon Schuster
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Found 21 comments on Total Control: High Performance Street Riding Techniques:

u/windblast · 11 pointsr/TwoXriders

You can definitely hit the highway with your CBR300 as long as you allow yourself to gradually get more comfortable with riding at speed. Sure, a bigger bike will have more passing power and a little bit more weight which will make it feel slightly more stable, but that extra weight has its downsides too, and it's not like the upgrade will strip away the problems you're encountering now, it would just tone them down slightly.

I remember my first time riding on a highway and how I felt the wind was pushing me all over the place, but after years of riding the thought of wind doesn't even cross my mind. What changed? Truly the change that made the biggest difference was letting the bike find its own balance instead of trying to constantly use steering inputs to react and counter every new sensation I felt on the highway. In short: I developed more faith in the ability of the bike to keep itself upright.

Motorcycles are remarkably self-stable, even your CBR300. Also, motorcycles are actually way more stable at speed than when they are puttering around town believe it or not, and I fear you might be making the mistake of overbearing the motorcycle with unnecessary steering inputs. It might sound scary right now, but if you took your hands off the handlebars at 60MPH while going straight down the highway the bike will continue heading straight, and even if a gust of wind hits you with your hands off the bars the bike will actually self correct on its own and continue heading mostly straight... I'm not saying I recommend that, I'm just trying to illustrate a point: the bike will do the heavy lifting of keeping the bike upright without any help from you at all, your job is to guide the bike with subtle steering inputs.

How can we achieve this? The big secret is not letting your arms fight eachother. Lee Parks adresses this in his book Total Control (excellent read, highly recommended); he recommends only letting one hand/arm be in charge of any given steering input. Don't push with one arm and pull with the other, instead allow one arm to be in charge of the steering input and the other just supports the action by balancing the handlebars. The goal is to relax your arms and be entirely neutral in your grip when no steering is necessary.

Once you get the hang of this you will feel like a zen master every time you hop on your bike, and you'll feel a deeper connection with your machine too because you'll realize it's not just a one-sided effort of you singlehandedly keeping the bike upright, instead it's a mutual relationship between you and your machine and you both have to hold up to your end of the bargain for it all to work out.

I hope some of this helps!

u/SutekhRising · 7 pointsr/motorcycles

Good choice for a first bike. But its important to understand that you need to respect the machine and what its capable of.

There are plenty of resources here that can help you. First thing first, take the MSF course. This will give you the best start on riding a motorcycle. They will teach you a lot of the very basic fundamental principles that you need to know to ride safely. Dont skimp on this detail. It will definitely help you in the long run.

Second, start reading. I recommend "Proficient Motorcycling: The Ultimate Guide to Riding Wello" by David Hough. This is a good book to start with.

After that, - and once you've read through the first book at least twice - look into "Total Control: High Performance Street Riding Techniques". This is a good second book to pick up and commit to memory.


As for gear, I wouldnt trust a $50 helmet. It may work perfectly for you. It may even be comfortable. But in a crash, when you need it to perform at its absolute best, you get what you pay for. Im not saying you should go out and buy an $800 Shoei or something, but the helmet is not somewhere you should be skimping on protection.

The jacket and gloves look fine. As for the boots, I've been using cheap Chinese knock-offs of American combat boots. They are all leather, go up mid calf and with tall socks, I fold the top of the sock over the top of the boot to keep the laces tied. Definitely not something you want to get caught in the gears.

And read this forum (and all motorcycle forums) with a grain of salt. In other words. There are plenty of opinions out there. Some of them good, some of them bad.

And then, practice, practice practice!

u/SlidePanda · 5 pointsr/motorcycles

Yep - sounds like you're probably past a lot of the on-bike portions of the BRC. But there is some valuable class room stuff for someone who's not ridden on the streets.

Lucky for you the BRC course book is online - bam:
http://msf-usa.org/downloads/BRCHandbook.pdf

Another couple books that are worth looking at
David Houghs - Proficient Motorcycling
http://www.amazon.com/Proficient-Motorcycling-Ultimate-Guide-Riding/dp/1620081199

And Lee Parks - Total Control
http://www.amazon.com/Total-Control-Performance-Street-Techniques/dp/0760314039/

I like Parks descriptions of the more technique oriented content. But Houghs book covers a lot of road/traffic survival techniques that are touched on lightly or not at all in the Parks book

u/Aragorn- · 3 pointsr/motorcycles

How is leaving your foot on the lever relevant to proper shifting technique? That's like me saying you shouldn't use your clutch because someone had their hand on it for X miles with it partially engaged on the highway and they burned it out.

Of course it's going to cause wear on the transmission, everything causes wear. As I mentioned, properly preloading will make it smoother and cause less wear on the transmission.

>"Press your foot down with just slightly less force than that needed to engage the next gear. Next, quickly roll off the throttle approximately 25 percent of its twisting range. When this happens, the torque force on the transmisssion will temporarily unload, and the preloaded shift lever will now snick into the next gear. For regular shifts at less than full throttle, a simultaneous, light stab of the clutch will help ease this process. For full-throttle 'speed shifting,' no clutch is necessary. In fact, it's actually harder on the transmission to use the clutch in this type of situation than to just let the loading forces do the job." - Total Control: High Performance Street Riding Techniques by Lee Parks

Likewise I'm not trying to convince you to do otherwise. I just want to prevent the spread of misinformation to whoever else may be reading this thread.

u/thtanner · 3 pointsr/motorcycles

Check out Sport Riding Techniques by Nick Ienatsch.

Also Total Control by Lee Parks.

u/khafra · 3 pointsr/AskReddit

Space does not permit all the tips I've learned by reading this, this, this, this, and this.

But, briefly:

  • watch out for "edge traps"--where road work or a 2x4 in the street or anything similar can catch your tire and turn it to the side.

  • go somewhere safe, not on the road, and practice. Learn how hard you can apply your brakes, and how to ease off the back as you apply the front. Set up cones and practice various kinds of turns.

  • look far ahead, look all around, predict what other vehicles are going to do in one second, two seconds, five, ten.

  • Three words: Shots and wheelies.
u/lukeatron · 3 pointsr/motorcycles

You should try only doing your steering input with the arm on the inside of the turn. Trying to steer with both arms means you're going to be needlessly flexing a lot of muscles as your arms try to fight each other. By steering with one arm the bars will feel a whole lighter and your outside arm will stay relaxed and free to work the controls with more dexterity. It also lets the wheel move slightly as is it responds to the road through the turn. Nothing on the road is going to try and rip the bars from your hands mid turn so just let them wiggle as they like (dirt is a different story).

The first time you try this, do it somewhere nice and open because you might find the bike turning in more quickly than you're used to. I was actually quite surprised at how much easier it made turning the bike. It feels like you shaved 100 pounds off your machine. It reduces fatigue substantially as well.

For attribution, I learned this technique from the book Total Control by Lee Parks. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Edit: the second review on that amazon link mentions this exact technique and reviewer's amazement with it's effectiveness.

u/StarWolve · 2 pointsr/motorcycles

Here's a list, off the top of my head - I know all these are on my bookshelf, but I'm probably missing a few more:

Hell's Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club by Sonny Barger

Freedom: Credos from the Road by Sonny Barger

Ridin' High, Livin' Free: Hell-Raising Motorcycle Stories by Ralph Sonny Barger

Dead in 5 Heartbeats by Sonny Barger

Under and Alone by William Queen

No Angel: My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels by Jay Dobyns

Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga (Modern Library) by Hunter S. Thompson

Street Justice by Chuck Zito

The Original Wild Ones: Tales of the Boozefighters Motorcycle Club by Bill Hayes

Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road by Neil Peart

The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa by Neil Peart

Against the Wind: A Rider's Account of the Incredible Iron Butt Rally by Ron Ayres

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford

Honda CB750: The Complete Story by Mark Haycoc

Shovelhead Red The Drifter's Way by Roy Yelverton

Shovelhead Red-Ridin' Out by Roy Yelverton

A Twist of the Wrist 2: The Basics of High-Performan​ce Motorcycle Riding by Keith Code

Total Control: High Performance Street Riding Techniques by Lee Parks


Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig - Still my favorite. A high school english teacher bought it for me when he found out I had just passed my motorcycle road test. I've read it at least 15 times, and get something new from it each time.


But the best recommendation - Buy the FACTORY SERVICE MANUAL for your bike and read it. Read it often, until you can almost turn to the exact page for each procedure.

u/Aposematism · 2 pointsr/motorcycles

Lee Parks also has a very good book, geared more to the street. All of them have the same basic info, only thing different I recall Parks talking about is he like to pull the outside bar to countersteer, rather than push in the inside. Easier leverage, less unintended input from your body mass. It is worht trying both ways to see which is preferred

u/jtunzi · 1 pointr/motorcycles

I read these based on Amazon reviews and they were both very helpful in addition to Twist of the Wrist.

Total Control

Sport Riding Techniques

u/BrianWantsTruth · 1 pointr/motorcycles

Here is what it looks like at least.

u/bbasara007 · 1 pointr/motorcycles

My friend that got me into riding races an R6 with more low end torque than an R1 (only tops out at 120 because of that though :/ ). Another is a bmw s1000rr. I myself ride a old 90 FZR600 supersport and a honda shadow.

It doesn't matter what type of bike it is, steering physics work the same. Cruisers just steer slow and with less lean. It doesn't mean your input on the turn should be any different.

This is also backed up by some well known pro's. Example:

Twist of the Wrist: Keith code

http://www.amazon.com/Twist-Wrist-Basics-High-Performance-Motorcycle/dp/0965045021/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1344012435&sr=8-2&keywords=twist+of+the+wrist

Total Control: Lee Parks

http://www.amazon.com/Total-Control-Performance-Street-Techniques/dp/0760314039/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344012569&sr=1-3&keywords=total+control

Lee Parks spend a good amount of the book explaining the techniques for both sportbike and cruisers, which end up being the same thing.

u/AGGGman · 1 pointr/motorcycles

You can do that with the Ninja 250. It's all practice. Like V_Glaz_Dam mentioned you should watch the Twist of Wrist 2 series.

Here's something I wrote for one of my friends.

For books, I personally like this one the most. I feel like Nick took a lot information from the Twist of the Wrist books and made it more modern.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1893618072/ref=oh_o02_s01_i00_details



But I also learned a lot from Lee Park's book. Lee Park hosts a rider school where he runs over all the drills in his book and helps with rider technique. You have to google the class schedules but he comes around California at least once or twice a year.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0760314039/ref=oh_o04_s00_i00_details



The there is the Twist of the Wrist series
http://www.amazon.com/Twist-Wrist-Motorcycle-Roadracers-Handbook/dp/0965045013/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330372612&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Twist-Wrist-Basics-High-Performance-Motorcycle/dp/0965045021/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1330372612&sr=8-2

I haven't read those books but the Twist of Wrist II videos are on youtube so you can check them out.



The last book I would recommend is Proficient Motorcycling. I highly recommended reading that one because it focuses a lot on general riding. Techniques that everyone should learn just to stay alive riding on the road. The book can be found at some libraries so you can save some money by just loaning it.
http://www.amazon.com/Proficient-Motorcycling-Ultimate-Guide-Riding/dp/1933958359/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330372534&sr=1-1-spell

The rest is all practice.
Also youtube "ninja 250 track" and you'll see a bunch of videos of guys racing their 250s on the track.

I wouldn't get on a track until you are at least familiar with your motorcycle. Get some miles under your belt before you decide to do it. After you are comfortable on your bike I would try to hook up with some local riders who are better than you. That way you can talk to them and learn from their experience. But remember to take most advice with a grain of salt. I personally use meetup.com to meet a lot of other guys to ride with.



u/tsunesf · 1 pointr/motorcycles

Lee Parks' Total Control book has good drills.

u/TriumphRid3r · 1 pointr/electronic_cigarette

It's definitely because you haven't figured out how to handle it yet. I'm an instructor with Doc Wong Northwest. It's a free riding clinic & covers the finer details of sport riding. We teach the concepts covered by Keith Code's Twist of the Wrist 2. I personally help run the clinics in Albany, but they originally started in PDX. You should check them out. They meet the first Saturday of every month at BMW Motorcycles of Western Oregon in Tigard. Not only is it a great way to learn more advanced riding, but it's a good reason to get out and ride & a great way to meet other riders in the area.

I'd also like to recommend a few books to get you started:

u/Bootsypants · 1 pointr/motorcycles

Twist of the wrist was one I read- it didn't do much for me. It was very much about fine-tuning each turn on a track, which isn't where I'm riding. I got a LOT more out of Total Controle.

u/Benny_Lava · 1 pointr/motorcycles

Capt. Crash Idaho has some good tips and techniques with his free videos.

Here are some basic parking lot exercises. A tip for laying out parking lot cones--get a bunch of bright yellow tennis balls and cut them in half. You'll get two "cones" for the price of one tennis ball.

There's a lot of good articles on Bike Safer.

There are some good books and DVDs if he's willing to spend a few bucks, get the Total Control or Ride Like a Pro DVDs. RLAP is mostly focused on slow-speed tight turning techniques (like the police bike "rodeos" do). More Proficient Motorcycling book is great for street survival tips. If he's willing and able to spend more money, then he could take a course, such as Total Control, MSF Experienced Rider course, etc. Speaking of MSF, you can get their book here.

When I took the MSF Beginning Rider Course, several of the other students already had experience riding and owned their own bikes. They, like me, were there to refresh the basic skills and maybe learn something new because we were all self-taught. BRC isn't cheap, but I think it's worthwhile, and being on a bike in a structured environment like that might be just the confidence-builder that he needs.

Edit: I found a link to PDF files from the MSF, including their textbook for the BRC.

u/tomatopaste · 1 pointr/motorcycles

> The techniques I have learned and shared were taught to me in the MSF Beginner course. I think your advanced techniques and concepts might certainly be confusing and "over the head" to many beginners .. such as the OP.

I encourage others to think, and -- as I keep stating -- I fight misinformation. If you have a problem with one or the other, I really don't give a shit.

The MSF course teaches you the fundamental mechanics of riding and very little more. In retrospect, I'm horrified that they put people on the street with so little training. If you want to swaddle people in a nest of MSF generalities, go ahead. I may well be there, too, to point them in the right direction.

> Oh, and disagreeing with others does not have to equal calling them idiots.

I call it like I see it. Not an idiot? Demonstrate it by reading and writing carefully. Your post was poorly constructed, contained tangential information, and was simply wrong. Further, you were defending someone who has been going around spreading some dangerous misinformation.

Seek out information and learn.

Total Control

Proficient Motorcycling

More Proficient Motorcyclig

Twist of the Wrist

Twist of the Wrist Vol 2

u/[deleted] · 1 pointr/motorcycles

Download the kindle version. You can download the kindle apps for free. $9.99.


http://www.amazon.com/Total-Control-Performance-Street-Techniques/dp/0760314039/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b