A little perplexed and curious.

Anyone can go fast in a straight line. Slow work, slow work, slow work. Put up some home made cones in a parking lot and practice u-turns and figure 8's. Make them tighter and tighter and your confidence with the motorcycle will soar. Now your confidence will translate into the 'higher speed' turns and twisties on the back roads. Test yourself but never ride 'over your head'. There is always room to get better no matter how you ride.
 
Riding skills to me means you know how to avoid getting yourself in a bad position thus avoiding most accidents. You think ahead of the game and pay attention to what is around you. If i have to hit the brakes hard or lean hard then just maybe i was not paying attention to the situation at hand. The more time you spend in a barber shop the more likely your gonna get a haircut. Same with the bike. The more you ride the greater the chance of a accident. Have taken my fair share of motorcycle safety classes and learned a lot from them. Everything from emergency braking to learning how to stay upright after hitting something on the road. Have had to do both in real life situations. More than a few times. Have posted a lot of close calls on here. Everything from three deer on a bridge at 2:30 AM on a highway to drunk drivers. Am a very conservative rider. Then again the only parts that i have replaced on my bikes was from choice not out of necessity.
 

Goodonya, Jeff!
I hate square tires, so when I practice emergency braking, tis when I am ready for a tire change .
Skidding of the front tire is rare and short if it happens (or you be on yur ass!) so usually before rear tire changes.
In my case that occurs two rears for every one front tire.
 

If anyone is interested, I have some practice course layouts.
Courtesy of the "Lover of Goats" @scot in exile
 

Well said!
 

Yes you are correct Bull.
I've been riding for over 53 years, that is if you include mini bikes with lawn mower Engines that I built at the age of 10.
Two accidents of note in that time.
One when I was about 20 ... chasing the Cops around the City.
Fell off, ended up in Hospital for four months with a bit of damage.
2nd accident about 6 years ago when the front wheel washed out on a corner at about 25 KPH !
People said I was going to slow ....
8 days in hospital, four severed tendons on my Left hand and a major friction burn on my left shoulder.


Yes I can do a full luck U turn on the Rocket, off camber, .... on gravel. DAMHIK.

Braking, on my 1000cc T160 Trident going up to the Waigaro pub, 15 miles up in the hills West of here, through the Gorge I would slide the bike into the corner, then when I saw the exit release the rear brake and give it full throttle.
The bike went from sliding into the corner on a molten pool of rubber to wheel spinning on a molten pool of rubber exiting.
Best time to the pub ? 15 miles, 13 minutes, and that is slowing down to the posted 50 KPH limit through the wee town of Glen Massey. (Approx. 1 mile)









Lean angles ?
People talk about touching down their ... whada ya call those screw in things on the end of the foot pegs?
I removed them the first time I rode the rocket, there is now quite a chamfer on both side footrests.
See the bottom photo for the chamfer on the R/H footrest.



Brakes and Braking;
With the Pretech six pots on the front, and a front L/H 4 pot Caliper on the rear, the braking on this bike is dramatically improved, especially when braking hard from 200+ KPH down to 100 KPH.



As I have often said .... "It's no small miracle that I am still alive" !

Oh, I am quite a conservative rider these days
 
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Hooligan
 

Upload that vid of you following Rob and I. I want to see the whole bit so I can analyze what I was doing.

You give me too much credit. I will forever claim it was the bike making it so easy. I think I only had the R3R for a couple months when we first rode together and was not comfortable in the twisties with it yet.

On the other hand... I was riding on brand new Michelin Anakee Adventure tires - semi knobby, and not pushing hard. Pic of the tires below.