Corner Audience
 

I ride by myself most of the time. Today I rode up Lookout Mountain and was on my way down. I got behind a car, but they were nice enough to pull over and let me by. So I felt pretty good as I approached the upper switchbacks.

I downshifted before the first corner and leaned. I went around and accelerated down to the next switchback. I have the stock exhaust, but a modified airbox with the lid taken off. My Suzuki actually makes louder intake noises than exhaust.

At the apex of the next switchback, about 15 sportbikes had pulled over. Most of the riders were off their bikes. When they heard my bike accelerating, they all looked up at me. So I'm zooming down right at them. Fast. One mistake by me and I would wipe out everyone of their bikes. The bad thing is I'm looking at their bikes instead of picking my line.

Now I've taken these corners a zillion times. In the rain, in the snow, with gravel on the road, and in front of and behind other sportbikes. But with all those riders watching me, I started getting a little nervous and started thinking about what I was going to do instead of doing it automatically.

But I brake smoothly, do a perfect downshift, give a nod to the riders, lean off the bike, look into the turn, and accelerate smartly out of the corner. Whew! I wonder if they also gave a sigh of relief that I didn't crash into them.

Good thing you didn't because insurance would have hated you and made you hate them right back. Good job on making it through ok though.

Corner audiences are normal at the gap, I don't even notice people sitting in them anymore.

I was so focused going through there that I would only see them as I approached a turn for like a half a second... sometimes... I pretty much ignored them...

I notice corner audiences at the track sometimes... there are grandstands in turn 3/10 and turn 6 at NH. Also... at the end of the main straight people will be lined up to go out for the session after yours in your last few laps.

The only time it fucked me up was when one of the instructors took the beginner group out to a turn to watch our group and I saw them and totally blew the apex. We laughed about it afterwards.

Now it doesn't bother me anymore.

I like to powerslide and leave a blackie while folding each one of their kickstands with my rear tire to get a dominoes effect. Everytime I do it they are pumping their fists in joy.

:bs:

Did you really need to call BS there captain obvious?

What do you expect from a :whore2:

He's just hatin because I knocked his bike over and he knew at that moment I was The Man!

With all the photographers at Deal's now, I often wondered if those crash sequences were the result of them being there rather than them simply being in the right place at the right time.

Distraction or showboat. Either way, it sucks to biff with an audience.

Friday night, an NBA player from my hometown had a huge fireworks show in one of the parks, right next to the road and there were a shit ton of people on the other side of the road. When me and a friend rolled out halfway through, it felt like I had just won a MotoGP race or some shit. Kinda funny.

did you throw it up?
:kawi:

Never have, and that wasn't where I was going to try it at.

what about the seat stand/bow and arrow?

I thought about mooning them. My friend was standing up humping the air though, so my pants pulled down would have looked really bad.

Did ya give the bitches a wave?