noamkrief

Why does getting on the gas require increasing your lean angle? To maintain the same raidus, if I accelerate, lean angle must increase. Are you trying to make the turn a constant radius? To what purpose? Wouldn't it be a better solution to change your line so that you can have a straighter drive out of the turn and be able to accelerate harder without adding lean angle? If you are wearing your tires to the edge, you are already leaning it over a fair amount, and in the video it looks like you are leaning it plenty. I recognise that you are trying to get more comfortable leaning it more, but I am not sure why, since we normally are looking to mimize lean angle to maximize traction and suspension efficiency. If you could go significantly faster, WITHOUT increasing your lean angle, would that satisfy your goals? Or is leaning it over more a goal in itself, and if so, why? Thanks for the replies I'm keeping a constant radius because I'm trying to get comfortable on the bike in the corners. I know it's not an ideal line, but the more time I spend in a constant lean, the more I come to grips with being "ok" with it. I'm still at the stage where leaning feels unnatural - like the bike is going to fall over. My reason for wanting to increase my lean angle is to increase speed. With more speed per specific radius, the more lean angle required. From the photos from the track day, my knee is about 1 foot off the ground. As you can see from my video, i'm not perfect body position, but i'm also not just completely ON the bike without hanging off just a little bit. From what other control riders on the track have said to me after the sessions, my bike can lean alot further without a problem. I want to lean further so I can gain confidence in my tires. Right now my max is lets say 35 degree lean. So whenever I'm at 35 degrees in a corner, I ###### my pants. If I can lean to 45 a few times and know that the bike is still gripping, then I can be much more relaxed leaning at 40 degrees. Does that make any sense?

Why does getting on the gas require increasing your lean angle? To maintain the same raidus, if I accelerate, lean angle must increase.

Thanks for the replies. I've read twist of the wrist 2 and also another book called "total control". What actually happens when I want to tighten the turn is this: I'm overslowing on entry because i'm timid and have no "speed sensing abilities" yet and I want to be safe. Mid way through the corner I feel a bit more confident and I can see that i'm a bit slow, so I get on the gas (smoothly) to speed up a bit but that would require me to increase lean angle. That increase in lean angle is my problem. It's simple, the more lean, the more afraid I get. thinking of buying a 250 ninja today. It's much lighter than my 600 zx6r or my s1000rr. I can plant my feet on the ground when I sit on the bike, and it's so much lighter and I feel that if I lowside - it won't be a big deal. Thoughts?

I've been to the track 3 times this month and very new to all this... My main hurdle right now is that I don't trust the motorcycle - specifically the tires. I've been riding for 3 months in total now so I don't even trust the bike over grooves on the highway yet - trying to avoid them at all cost. Here is my track day this saturday: http://youtu.be/E3Uq17QtHCY?hd=1 On sunday I worked on body position for the entire day and got my upper body more relaxed, and also getting my upper body to hang off a bit more and shoulders pointing into the turn more... (no videos from sunday). My question is simple, If i'm in a turn and I lean more (body and bike) what will happen? I feel like if I lean more, the bike will "give up" and fall down - lowside. Once in a while i'm in a turn and I feel like I need to tighten just a tad bit more. I stay on maintenance throttle and countersteer to lean just a little extra. That little extra lean ads tons more cornering force, The bike dives in to the inside and I feel like there is no possible way these tires are going to stay sticking to the ground. I keep watching videos like this: I feel like that's going to happen to me if I lean over any further. I'm on BT016 bridgestones right now. I'm going to put some track tires hopefully that will help me trust the tires a bit more because right now everything in me refuses to lean any further. It's almost like i'd rather go off the track and run wide rather than lean further. I just flat out refuse... Here is some of what of I feel: That at a certain angle, i'll hit the sharp edge of the tire, and my contact patch will be as tiny as a needle. At this point, my tire will surly give up and slide!!!!! The other thing is that my tire is chewed up all the way to the edge on both sides. Woohoo - no more chicken strips!!! So why should I attempt to lean further when I'm obviously all the way to the edge of the tire??? Anyone who follows me on the track says I can lean further though.... Any suggestions? I have a track day at chuckwalla next weekend. I'm thinking of letting one of my experienced friends ride my bike and show me how low he can lean it and that the tires are not sliding and the bike doesn't just fall over. When I first started tracking cars, I had the EXACT same issue. I refused to let the tires slide. I felt like when they will slide, they will loose 100% of the traction and i'll be completely out of control. I hired a private instructor and he couldn't get me to hit the limit of my tires in a car. So we switched and he drove. He was sliding my car all over. Then it clicked in my brain - "wow! my car can do this????" and then I got back in the car and was able to really push the limits of the tire. I really need to get over this barrier, or else i'll end up with great body position, being smooth, but refusing to lean far. Any input would help.

I think I understand. Even though your speed stays the same, you are still accelerating hense achieving the 0.1 G's in acceleration Code speaks of to transfer 60% of the weight to the rear. I can live with that!!! Funny how motorcycles have thin tire in the front and wider in the rear. For cars - that's a formula that would guarantee an understeering car = slow! But i'm sure the engineers have already got this figured out - staggered setup is best on motorcycle. Just don't really understand why. If I had to guess, a motorcycle doesn't actually need the front tire during mid corner and especially corner exit phase. I can imagine a motorcycle exiting a turn with an aggressive lean angle with the front wheel hovering about an inch over the pavement. The front wheel doesn't actually do the turning - as in a car. The LEAN does the turning! I think I got it no??? The front wheel is primarily in charge of initiating the lean - just like in a car, you steer left, the bike turns left (for a split second) as the weight transfers to the right, and the bikes pretty much falls over to its right side - and there you have a rightside lean - and a right hand turn. I've read alot online about why the rear tire is wider. Most common answer - because it needs to accelerate the bike. That doesn't make much sense to me - because braking force on a motorcycle or car is much greater than acceleration force, so with that reasoning, the front tire should be wider....

So every source I've read or heard says to accelerate through the corner. The reason is simple - the rear tire is wider and can handle more load. Therefore - you must accelerate to transfer some weight to the rear to give the rear tire it's fair share of load. Even in the riding school to get my motorcycle license they say to brake, and once leaned, crack the throttle open and accelerate. My question is this: Once you get into long turns - 180 degrees or even 270 degree turns, if you enter the turn and flick the bike quickly to an aggressive lean angle and you start accelerating, what would keep you in the turn exactly? The more you accelerate, the faster you go, and the more lean angle required to maintain your radius... So if I start with a maximum lean angle initial turn in, and I accelerate - won't I have to increase lean angle to maintain the same radius turn? If it's a constant radius turn - that could pose a problem. If we take this one step further - a 360 degree turn non stop round and round - how can we possibly accelerate at the recommended .1-.2 G's? Eventually, we will go too fast to stay in the turn... Maybe this is one of those beginner B.S. techniques? When I first started tracking cars - it was the same thing. Accelerate through the corner. When I started getting faster and faster and got into actual racing, it was obvious that technique would never work because on long turns you can't accelerate forever - you'll either start pushing the front or oversteering - simply put, you end up going too fast during the turn. With cars, when you start really going fast, you trail brake carrying loads of speed all the way right before the apex. That point is your slowest point. By no means - SLOW. Because you are going in so hot into the corner under light braking that the back end is always just about to give up... Once at the apex (a bit before depending on the corner) you get on the throttle and accelerate. The acceleration plants the rear end, but also rotates the car since the rear tires are on the verge of being overloaded and slip a little bit. That slip (slight oversteer) points the front towards the inside of the turn. (THIS is not a drift, it's very subtle and probably only the driver is aware of it through steering wheel feel). Anyway, if I would drive a car and get on the throttle right as I turn, and I can accelerate through-out the long 180 degree corner and stay on the road it only means one thing - I'm loosing time because my entry speed was too slow. Most common driving error in comparison to really going fast? Overslowing for a corner. I could have carried more speed into the corner. I remember when I first started tracking cars, the advanced group seemed impossible to achieve. They were so fast. Now after having to run with the front runners in actual racing, when I go to a track day in the advanced group - even with a 20 year old BMW, it's like a parking lot - they are SLOW! And it's obvious why. The advanced group drivers have good car control. They can drive at the limit from the apex to corner exit. That gives them good speed down the straights. But they are still using the old methods that you learn in car control clinics - slow in, turn, and power through the corner... They are all overslowing for each turn. Without getting too technical, to truly go fast in a car, and maybe in a bike, there should NEVER be a point in which you have a constant radius turn. In a 90 degree turn that is constant radius, you should choose a line that is as follows: 1)You start your turn in at high speed 2) As you trail brake into the corner your speed decreases and your radius increases. 3) once at the apex - that's your slowest point, and tightest radius 4) at the apex you start accelerating and naturally unwinding the steering wheel - which increases the radius So at no point you maintain a constant speed and radius. It's constantly changing. I'm inclined to think the same applies for bikes, but I'm new to all this so I thought I would ask. PS - On the other hand - there is a thing called "momentum cars" and "high powered cars". In high powered cars - it's like point a shoot! You slow way down, get the car rotated to the exit - and get on the gas - hard! What are bikes like? Point and shoot? Or momentum? PPS - I've been reading that flicking the bike quickly on turn in in is KEY! In cars, we "build up" traction. Meaning that i can't just turn a car from a straight and do 1.5G's. You kind of have to ease into it to let the tires build up lateral traction. So when we flick the bike too quickly, are we not letting the tires build up lateral traction properly? Just thinking...

Thanks cornering master! Regarding tire width in a lean, I think you are 100% correct. About 2 weeks ago I drew this on my laptop: It tells me that the higher your CG (the more you sit upright on your motorcycle) during a corner, the less lean angle you will need. Hope you understand the drawing. As shown in the red line with a low CG, the actual lean angle is not as steep as the perceived. This is bad. It means you are leaning 45 degrees on the tire, but your bike is cornering with a 40 degree lateral force.

I attacked the same twisty road (8 hairpins in 2 miles) yesterday and today for about 4 hours each day and you guys have predicted correctly!!! Go figure! 1st of all, it's a decreasing radius turn up hill. I was doing an early turn in and early apex - just typical newbie mistake! Today I was working on looking as far as possible into the turn. That fixed my early turn in problem. As "cornering master" stated: during that part of the turn that made my front end tuck multiple times - YOU ARE CORRECT - as the radius decreases, it goes from being uphill, to SEVERELY uphill. At the same spot, it also goes from great positive camber to no camber at all. You were so right! I just read your reply and that's exactly what I noticed earlier today riding there! Another thing I was working on today is NO ROLL OFF during the corner. That's where I noticed for the first time that roll off during a lean doesn't only effect the balance negatively, but all my body weight was going to my arms all the sudden and lost tons steering ability because my arms became so tense! Once again - you were 100% accurate! Just in case anyone is curious - this is the run I do. I'm working it in sections. It's very famous place here for bikers. Many wrecks - every weekend People dragging knees etc... I'm just there working on smoothness, visual skills etc... http://goo.gl/maps/BhYjX It's the 2nd hairpin (from point A) right hand 180 degree turn. Right before the exit - it turns tight and gets steeper. This is me practicing on it yesterday. Only been riding for 3 months. S1000RR is my first bike. Never ridden anything before. http://youtu.be/1diRW-iMFaA?hd=1

Thanks for the replies! Speaking of data acquisition - what is popular in the bike world? I use traqmate for my racecar. I'm going to mount it on my motorcycle soon and see how it does?

Hey everyone. I'm a new rider and i don't lean over 40 degrees. I was out on my favorite road that has alot of 180 degree turns at around 35mph and I had the following happen to me 3 times around the same right hander: It's a slightly decreasing radius 180 degree turn uphill, I go in and lean the bike over hanging off, maybe 35 degrees lean, no knee touching the ground because I would only attempt to drag knee on the track (still never dragged knee). Nice the radius decreases and gets me every time, I ease off the throttle mid corner. I know it's bad, because I need to be on the throttle, but I'm NOT chopping the power. Just gently easing off of it. After about 1-2 second of having no throttle, the bike slows down severely because of the up hill attitude, and the front end tucks!!!! Here is what I mean by the front end tucking. On the right hand turn - the bar instantly turns to the right about 10-15 degrees i'd say. And as that happens, the entire bike instantly leans over another 10 degrees. Almost as if it's free falling down towards a 90 degree lean. Needless to say - it was scary! For the next 3 runs on that same turn the same exact thing happened. Every single time, I instantly added a fair amount of throttle which seemed to stand the bike up a little bit. From my car racing background, adding throttle is a natural reaction anytime someone happens I don't like - I'm thankful for that. I need to understand what happened there. Obviously me not being on the throttle during the corner was the mistake. What is this front end tuck all about? Did my front tire lose traction? Why did it lose traction if I was already off the throttle for more than a second and weight transfer was not an issue? (I can understand if this happened right after if I chopped the throttle transferring weight to the front, but i've already been off throttle for a while) Most importantly, why did the handle bars steer to the right all by themselves? Would there be any situation where the handlebars would steer the opposite direction of the corner due to front end grip loss? Are there any warning signs to this issue I was not aware of? I would compare this to a snap oversteer in a car - no warning! This happened to me about 1 week ago. Just now it's sinking in my brain that I almost low sided. It's serious stuff! When I was actually riding - I just swallowed it as instability of the bike... I would appreciate any feedback. PS - see attached photo - this is what I mean by front end tuck. That's not me riding - I don't lean that far, and I try to hang off my entire body. Noam

Hi everyone. I'm a new rider - 3 month but an experienced Spec E30 (Infineon / Thunderhill) driver and I absolutely love understanding the physics that control cars, and now motorcycles. Looking all over the internet and forums for a simple question "how many lateral G's can a bike pull in a corner" I found all sorts of answers that were all different from each other. I ended up plugging in some basic formulas into excel and compiled some graphs. Here is what I learned: 1) Lean angle of 45 degrees = 1 lateral G. Regardless of tires, speed, or radius. 45 degrees will always produce 1G. 2) If you maintain a 45 degree lean angle and accelerate, your radius will increase. This is pretty obvious. 3) Lean angle vs lateral G's is not linear. For example - your first 10 degrees of lean angle will produce around 0.17 lateral G's. But the extra lateral G's produced by leaning from 40 to 50 degrees is 0.35. In other words - an extra 1 degree of lean when at 40 degrees will result in a much tighter radius change than lest say going from 20 to 21 degrees lean. I could you could also say that at higher lean angles - lean angle becomes more sensitive. The point of all this is that next time you are in a corner leaning 45 degrees, get your big fat head towards the inside just a couple more inches to increase the total system lean by 1 degree - it can make alot of difference in terms of increasing your lateral G's. And when you increase you lateral G's, your turn gets tighter - OR - you can go faster hahaha which would you choose? Unfortunately, the data was pretty disappointing. Specifically, the exponential relationship between lean angle and lateral G's where it seems that only after 60 degrees lean, every little bit of extra lean starts to make a whole lot of difference in lateral G's. Up to around 45 degrees, it's almost linear. It just goes to show me the importance of cracking that 45 degree lean barrier and i'll be able to zip around these turns much faster. But again - a bit unfortunate that bikes can't lean to 60 or better yet - 70 degree lean. PS - when talking about lean angle,we are obviously considering the entire system - bike + rider. If the bike alone is leaned 45 degrees, and the rider is vertical refusing to lean with the bike - you may have an overall system lean of 40 degrees. The following formulas were used for getting lateral G's: acceleration in m/s = velocity² / radius (all in m/s) to convert to G's: accelleration in m/s² / 9.80m/s² = G's The following formulas were used for lean angles: tana = .067*mph²/radius in feet Then you have to inverse tangent of tana and you get degrees of lean angle. I hope this helps someone out there who thinks like I do. I usually have to understand the math and physics behind something before I'm willing to try it in real life. Hope to see some of you at the school in 2013. I'll be attending in las vegas. I know Infineon very well, but wouldn't dare to try it on a bike - at least not yet. Kind regards everyone. Noam