In Inner Peace with the Violence

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Racers are a different breed, especially the ones you can find on top 10 result lists. Then there is the mid-field, which are about to develop something specific- and there is the back of the field which might, or might not make it to the mid-field one day. This doesn’t go for the MotoGP racers btw, because they have it and it is also why they are in MotoGP.

These racers are highly motivated aggressive machines. They are ego driven- no team player type of athletes, and no prisoners making competitors. But where the hell am I seeing a connection to you the regular street rider or amateur racer?! Well, let’s see.

Crashing in MotoGP happens ones or twice in average per race weekend. Their bodies are covered with scars and titanium plates. Blood, bandages and the smell of some kind of pain easing sport lotion on those bruises is your new aftershave cloud. A Mick Doohan almost lost his leg if the doctors wouldn’t have stitched his other leg over it to support blood circulation. He joined the championship in the same year, but he lost the title. Impressive huh?!

A Jorge Lorenzo crashes and breaks his collarbone again (that bone goes most of the time first). He flies home to Barcelona to get fixed up from the doctor he trusts, and he does. Next morning, Jorge flew back to join the race with literally an open wound and ‘gotta get use to it titanium bolts’. Now you can come with another lame one like ‘well, he’s filled up with pain killing injections’, and I’d give you right on this… but what would go through you mentally, thinking you could crash right back onto it etc?! However, Jorge made a podium spot that race!

I remember I crashed so hard at Bruno Circuit in Czechoslovakia in qualifying ones. One of the highest high-siders I’ve ever had, and landing on my hip bone. This is like dropping out of 2nd floor right on the hip and adding about 100 miles an our to it. It turns it wasn’t broken, but the bruise and pain made me walk like Quasimodo for four weeks. On the way home I called my team for tests at Nuerburgring, where they had to lift me on the bike.

Go and ask Wayne Rainy if he would do all of this again if he could reverse time and his horrific back injury which ended his career. What would he might say?!

Now let’s just put a away the most lame and quite arrogant conclusion, that this is their job and what they are all get well paid for. At this point you can trust me when I’m saying that they would do this even for free, so why and how the hell is ‘being like this’ even possible?! What is it that makes them come back after injuries you’d quit for, and performing on almost the same level where they were at before the crash?!

It’s because they love what they do, and they living their passion and dreams. It’s because they have distinctive goals- they are on a life mission. What’s stronger than fears and to get hurt is ‘passion and love’. That’s the gas of their mental motors, so it should be yours. Be driven by passion and love instead of being controlled by fears. Sound’s easy huh? :-)

Am I saying just go crazy, way over you abilities? NO I don’t. Just keep doing what you’re doing and have at least a fraction of that mentality. Have goals, work on something. That keeps you brain busy in a positive way. Think of how much you enjoy to be in this particular turn right now. Ride with passion in your comfort zone and stop thinking what could possibly happen. Racers don’t think this far. Were they at where you are?… oh yes, but they’ve learned how not to think this far. So you can… inner peace is freedom!

Headcoach Can Akkaya, Superbike-Coach Corp

Featuring Wiseco Performance Products

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Imagine you’re crashing or your engine just died under a thick cloud of smoke. Horrible idea right? But stuff like that happens.

How I see it is that this is a just an opportunity for mods, upgrades and rebuild. The aftermarket give us everything we need to keep the ball financially low, because depending on the brand you’ve been riding- that can be a money pit real quick. My argument… but even it’s not cheaper, I’d try to make the bike better as it was before. Make it more ride-able, make it looks better, or my favorite… to get more performance out of it.

Wiseco is a well known name for performance products around this planet, and we can proudly say that they sponsor the Superbike-Coach Corp. So we recently had to rebuild two of our school bikes and they provided us with the highest quality of race piston kits, titanium valves and gasket kits you possibly can get. Lucky YOU, if you can rebuild engines yourself, because that will save you thousands of Dollars which you can put into upgrades instead. If you can’t do that… learn it, because it ain’t that hard actually.

I was hoping to have one of the rebuilds captured on video, ready to show you the process for this article. Unfortunately we couldn’t get it done on time so I’ll deliver later. However, all the information is out there to do a decent job yourself. All it takes is patience, will and guts to get to it.

However, my Supermoto race bike, which I mostly use in our Cornering School and Supermoto 1on1 programs, is a beast now. Thanks to Wiseco we could install a top tier piston kit with the highest material quality out there. The compression ratio ramped up to 13:1 now and gives the extra punch out of corners. Extremely light titanium vales for less moving masses in that engine give me that extra rpm band at the end of the straight.

Ones you went with cheap no-name gaskets, you know that this isn’t the place to save money on… you go with trustworthy quality for the extra dollar, and that’s Wiseco for us as well. Their clutch plates rounding our needs up.

Wiseco has pretty much everything for any application, so for yours. Go check them out.

 

 

 

Headcoach Can Akkaya, Superbike-Coach Corp

Superbike-Coach Corp. Receives 2019 Best of Elk Grove Award

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Ones more, Superbike-Coach has been nominated and awarded with the ‘2019 Best of Elk Grove Award’.

Superbike-Coach came a long way to this point. Starting back in Europe in 2003 and coaching track riders and racers only on almost all MotoGP tracks. Coming to the U.S. in 2008 and continuing Superbike-Coach on a very small scale in 2009.

And now another year went by- quicker as ever. But what would you think where it might goes when you’ve booked up all classes in the previous year already? Not much further you’d say, but we did. All classes in 2019 have been booked up, plus the ones we’ve added. And those were only the scheduled classes. Also the headcount for Road Skill, Cornering 1on1, Supermoto 1on1 and Track Drill 1on3 has gained a lot, so that a off-riding season isn’t excising anymore for Superbike-Coach. But I can assure you that we’ve enjoyed every class- and every single individual we had the pleasure working with.
 
So I want to thank all those riders for giving us their trust, hopes and dreams. We are not taking this for granted. It’s been a pleasure to work with so many characters, levels and categories and yea, also ego. Most of them have become part of ‘the family’ or even serious friends. Sure, we can’t reach everyone. This is impossible anyway, but we’re also not even trying hard, because we’re not selling ourselves. We leave this to the others out there.
 
So this here goes to the Superbike-Coach Corp team. The dedication, effort and commitment you guys put into everything you do is beyond extraordinary. The friendship, loyalty and respect to each other makes the difference. Marion, Lindsey, Mark and Dean… I thank you from the core for every minute for being a Superbike-Coach, because also they are the foundation of what SBC is today.

Marion Akkaya

Dean Lonskey

Mark Stewart, Marion and Lindsey Alexander

You know… Superbike-Coach is not just the class you see- It is thousands of pictures to manage, tries and errors for developing the right program, hours of work on websites, thousands of students to manage, hundreds of water bottles to buy, engines to fix overnight, and many miles to go. And this is even just the tip of the iceberg. Love you guys!

But also a thanks goes out to our sponsors, because they are indirectly support our students as well, and some even directly via student discounts. We so appreciate the support of Forma Boots USA, Arai Helmets USA, Wiseco, TechSpec, Moto Gear, Dynojet Research, BikeMaster and new to us Amsoil. All of these top notch companies are wit us for so many years already that there is a boundary which goes way beyond regular sponsorships. Go see what they have to make your hobby even a better one.
 
My thank also goes to the Little 99 Raceway administration Heather and Tony who as dedicated into the detail as we are.
 
This is a big package and responsibility to lots of people, and this type of dedication got us sometimes to total exhaustion. However, we’re ready to tackle 2020!
 
I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Office, Superbike-Coach Corp

Featuring Forma Boots USA

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I can tell ya- no other company supports the racing community more than Forma Boots, and that goes trough all professional levels in this sport- up to MotoGP.

To be in MotoGP is a huge responsibility in regard quality and performance of the product. Why?… because lack of these attributes will show it to a worldwide audience and the racers won’t use it, no matter how much a sponsor pays for it. That makes this sport to such a development booster btw. So if you think you can boost cheaply made riding boots by paying MotoGP racers to promote them… you might end up looking real bad if you put quality and performance second. Doing this right means, 101% commitment to the product and trust for what its capable of. In other words… if a company like this has been established in MotoGP for so many years… their products are ripping it and are rock solid on all edges. Like a perfectly grinded diamond.

The more I am super proud to have Forma Boots USA as a sponsor, cuz’ hey… that also kinda says something, right?! Forma is with us now for many years and took care of our needs no questions asked. Their segment covers all motorcycle categories, and even on the civil side:

The Forma brand was born in 1999 and since then has always shown important growth trends. Thanks to its own R&D and the continuous technical development, the brand has been able to offer the market a complete product range. Only the highest quality standards have guaranteed Forma to become a global brand amongst the most recognized in the world.

Forma USA send me some phenomenal looking and fitting ADV Tourer boots and a set of Ice Pro Flow race boots, which are matching my MotoGear suit pretty nicely. I’ll have a video of how to adjust shift and rear brake levers soon, and you’ll have a look on those boots as well.

And yea, Forma Boots USA has a 20% off discount for all Superbike-Coach students. That is extraordinary and you should take advantage of it. Thank me later :-)

Headcoach Can Akkaya, Superbike-Coach Corp

#formabootsusa #motogearusa

Superbike-Coach Accelerates Into 2020

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I hope you had some great Holidays with family and friends. Kinda good to be out of this as well, huh?! :-) :-) :-)

Just realized that Superbike-Coach had its 10th anniversary in the U.S. (started in Europe years before that), and when I reflect where I started here in California- oh boy. The first class was a 1on6 Road Skill and I had 5 classes in that first year. From there, I accelerated through those years till 2019. Now seeing where we are- a 101% dedicated team of five with Marion, Mark, Dean and myself, and a schedule with 55 classes and 1on1’s per year and ALL booked up. Now seeing where we go. Guess what… we’re still accelerating!

So this time I don’t have an educational- for some controversial- article for you, because there are some news here you should look into and IMPORTANT date changes for those who already booked a 2020 class.

Biggest news is, that we added a new program, the ‘Rider Passenger Class’. I’m super excited about it because I know how helpful this will be for the rider and the passenger in MANY ways. It’s gonna be so fun for them and for us to be on our Little 99 Raceway. It’s gonna be for all skill levels and bike categories and hell of advanced. We even plan demos with my wife Marion on the passenger seat, who is very experienced with this. Don’t lean back to wait and see, because there is only ONE date in 2020 for it right now, and no doubt- also this 9/27/2020 class will be booked up!

We’ll have 3 level groups on the track and classroom between the riding sessions. This class will connect the riding pair physically and mentally. I seriously can’t wait for it.

To make space for that class- the Cruiser Rider Class has been eliminated. Not that the cruiser community wouldn’t have a use for it… it’s because I don’t see the SENSE to separate motorcycles from motorcycles. Cruiser riders and their bikes belong in the Cornering School program like all the others, because we’re all dealing with the same element… PHYSICS.

I also eliminated ‘Sideline Coaching’. It was designed for the ‘faster’ ones, for the racers, but it never really established. I don’t want to go further into this, but if you are interested in the depth of what I think this is, then read my article ‘A ‘Sensei’ has to be old‘.

It took longer than ever to put our schedule for 2020 together, and it actually is still not all done. Track Drill and Road Skill dates are missing, but they will be added during January. We added more cornering school dates and the new classes, so that we probably see a total of 60 classes and 1on1’s in 2020. More info see below.

I am also excited that we have some new sponsors on board and could keep the ones which are longer with us for the most. These guys

 

rock, because they are also supporting our students- either indirectly or directly with discounts. We appreciate their support a lot and you might check what they have to make your hobby even better. We’ll introduce them and what they do in a section of every newsletter.

So, again… if you’ve already booked something in 2020- you need to double check the accurate 2020 schedule and let us know if you can’t make it so that we can work this out with you. Also check out the info below. Gonna be a great year.

Headcoach Can Akkaya, Superbike-Coach Corp