If you have taken any motorcycle training at all, I am sure you have been told to keep your eyes up. Unfortunately, unlike at a 2 Day STAR Motorcycle School, many schools say it; very few spend quality time teaching you how to improve this skill. So, let’s talk about how important it is to get your eyes up and focus your attention on where you are going starting with some very important questions.
- How do you gauge how far you look down the road or track?
- How much are you taking in that can help you make your next decision?
- How much different are we as track day or street riders to the elite of our sport as far as visual goes?
Our eyes play such a pivotal role in everything we do; this is something that most of us take for granted. What if your vision was impaired by 20, 30 or even 50%, how much would that affect everything you do? Now think about that on a motorcycle.
I have had the privilege to race the biggest endurance races in the world and all of them go into or through the night. I have been asked the question, “how much slower do the top guys go at night”, more than once. The answer is always the same, they don’t slow down, some even go faster though there vision is impaired due to darkness. Why is that? As we start to dissect the things that are going on the answer becomes obvious.
Visual Aids Slowly Disappear
Visual aids are everywhere during the day but then they slowly disappear once night falls. What ever level rider you are, street, track day or racer, you should constantly monitor where your motorcycle is pointing. When you do this it allows you to make the decisions you need to from lean angle, throttle control, turn in points to exits. The more consistent you are during the day with all these steps the better you will be when some of those reference points get taken away. This is where being a consistent rider is so important.
All the top riders have practiced and worked on their technique so hard that when the visual aides are taken away while racing at night they are not thinking about body position, shifting, braking and the physical things we have to do on a bike. Now, they are able to get their eyes up and focus their attention on where the bike is going and hitting their marks.
What’s that Bridge Say??
When I work 1on1 with people one of things I always ask them is to tell me what the signs say on the pedestrian bridges that go over the track? Why? Because I am trying to get their eyes up and not focus on just the tarmac. Most couldn’t tell me what the signs say even though they may have ridden that same track dozens of times. For people new to a track its maybe the most important first step we do.
Signs are one of the best reference points. Lining myself up under letters has been something I have always done and I have made it a point to pass this down to every rider I work with. Getting your eyes up and taking in things like signs on bridges helps make everything bigger and slows down how fast things are coming to us. When we are looking down at the ground things appear to be going a million miles per hour, get those eyes up and things will slow down. Don’t get me wrong, I use reference points like curbings and color variations in the track surface to help navigate around a track as well. The difference is, I take in things on the ground so early and far up the track that they come at me very slowly. This is a practice that you will get better at with repetition.
Josh Hayes
I am so lucky to call Josh Hayes a friend. As I was thinking about what to write to you concerning this subject I recently talked with him after his race weekend at Indy. One of the things he mentioned to me was how hard the track was to learn because there were so few visual aids to help him. The track is so flat that even looking up track it was hard to distinguish where the edges of the track were. But with laps and repetition this process became easier. Josh’s biggest issue here was how little time he got on the track, he didn’t get the advantage of riding around a track all day long like some of us at our track days. Even a 4 time Superbike Champion has to think about his riding sometimes.
At STAR Motorcycle School we spend valuable time in the classroom as well as on track drills that are designed to get students eyes up. We teach you how to find things in the distance that will determine more than just where the bike goes. It determines how much we open or close the throttle, where our bodies will be set, braking and shifting.
STAR has a great schedule ahead where we can help you achieve all your riding goals. Getting our eyes up will be one of the things we will talk about on Day 1 and when we do our track walk on Day 2 this stuff will really hit home.
Now think, if someone turned out the lights on your track day, how prepared would you be?
Maybe we should do a STAR night school huh? 🙂
I love to hear from you so let me know what you think in the comments below.
Ride safe,
JP
Jason, thanks for the riding tips! I like the new Web site and your articles. I want to take advantage of the returning student discount, but am right in the middle of buying a new home. Hopefully I can get this all squared away and then sign up for an upcoming class. I enjoyed the Ducati one that I had originally signed up for so I did the second one and learned some new things at both. Both were at Chuckwalla, so I may try a new track next time!
Jason,
I love your “Eyes Up” article. Every time I receive an informative email from you I can’t wait to open it and savor the content. Thank you for all you do for us mere mortal riders.
When will you be back in the Northwest? I thoroughly enjoyed your Star School two seasons back at the Ridge in Shelton, Washington.
SteveO
Yes, Jason. Yes, yes, yes.
If you want to scare yourself, look down!
Night riding! Go!
I’ve been wanting to sign up to your school but you don’t do T-Hill anymore. I’d like see if I’ve picked up any bad habits.
Thank you Mr. Pridmore for sharing the vast knowledge you have on improving skills necessary to be a better rider. I can’t wait to attend your class. I liked the article posted August 22,2015. That article hit home for me as I have issues with keeping my eyes up.
Good to see you Jason and thanks for tips. I agree with looking up and far ahead. Even when driving your car on public streets. We take defensive driving courses due to the company vehicles and one main topic is looking up and far ahead. This helps Identify a problem way ahead and come up with solutions to avoid them.
Love to do a night track school session.
Love this Jason…so true. The past few years after taking a class with Lee Park’s curriculum, I quickly learned how just focusing with your eyes and turning your head (and trusting that it will “all be ok”) can get you in not only leaned into more aggressive angles, but how smooth it can help you be by getting things slowed down from a visual perspective. I gained a ton of speed by doing this, because as my focus points became more consistent and farther down the road, everything slowed down in my head so I could go a bit faster on the road. Vision is just about everything, and reference points extremely important, both on and off the track. thanks for the continued great articles!
A night school would be interesting – I just hope that if you set lights up near the corners, a corner worker doesn’t accidentally trip and knock the lights over!!
Loved the article. Personally, this is something that I need to work on and looking forward to you helping me with it next month!
For all of you that haven’t done a Star School yet…get signed up NOW! this will be my 2nd time going and when you go in so open minded you absorb everything like a sponge. I love the way they teach and the amount of track time you get!