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Can Quick Turn Be Overdone?


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Im sure the S1000RR 's longer wheelbase and slightly relaxed rake/trail + TC makes quick turn almost impossible 'cept when tires are not warmed up properly and with TC set to really really low or off

(I presume in racing, its off/ set to low?) .

 

 

 

The way you've phrased this makes it sound like you perceive Quick Turn as a all or nothing kind of technique, which I don't think it is, as Dylan stated previous in the thread the technique is to steer as quickly as possible for the conditions, you can always turn the bike quickly, and quicker steering action always has benefits on your line, you cannot however steer the bike as quickly at 150 mph as you can at 15 mph, the massive increase in gyroscopic force to be overcome means no matter how strong your upper body strength you cannot throw the bike down as fast as you would be able to at a much slower speed, A raked out chopper might not steer as quickly as a Moto 3 bike, but you can still use the quick turn technique to steer "As Quickly As Possible" and carve a tighter line that someone who steers the same bike at a much slower rate.

 

I assure you, after watching Joe Roberts and School Coach James come through the 4,5,6 sequence at Streets of Willow at full tilt, the S1000RR quick turns just fine

 

 

AH DANG!!! i misworded it bad ...

 

it should have been " makes quick turn almost impossible to be overdone" , thanks for pointing it out and I apologize for the literature blunder !!

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this is PURELY theoretical and not trying to be sexist but if COG has a formularic pattern,

then it could explain why riders who are more top heavy (esp women) prefer lowered front bikes, it offsets a part of their COG on the stock settings, how much im not sure.

 

Im sure Im taller than hotfoot but with a lanky light build , i actually prefer a slightly taller front end , maybe my COMBINED COG of a similar bike+rider might be actually the same as hotfoots lowered front build.

there almost certainly can only have one "Sweet spot" range in a formula governed with constants like gravity and mostly fixed variables (wheelbase,power output,tire sizing) imho

 

Ha ha, I WISH I was top heavy. :) I'm sure those who know me are giggling at the image...

The center of gravity is usually lower on women than men, actually, and women are often shorter and lighter, which makes shifting weight by hanging off more challenging for women in general. But, we have the advantage of light weight, flexibility, and being a lot smarter overall... (hee hee) :D

 

Regarding lowering the front, I think it is just preference on how stable you want the bike to feel in corners and how much effort you want it to take to turn the bike. I started OUT lowering the front as much as possible mainly just to get the bike as low as possible because I am so short. But I also learned that I liked the way they handled with a low front. My husband hates riding my bikes, they feel wobbly and nervous to him. To me, his bikes feel totally planted in corners and more stable under braking but I have to push a lot harder on the bars to turn them and I can't get them turned as quick.

 

Interesting comments on wheelbase - on my SuperSingle we just shortened the wheelbase significantly by moving the rear wheel forward, and lowered the front an additional 5mm (I had already lowered it 5mm), and the net result was much sharper handling. We tried lowering the front ANOTHER 5mm but at that point it started to wobble on corner entries.

 

 

Hotfoot :

 

oopsies XD, thanks for the data ^^"

 

Then Theoretically it should be more akin/closer to variable COG % as a value in correlation to the bike's weight.

 

In layman's terms it means your weight : the bikes weight , and as you pointed it out (the example of you vs your husband) ,: >>

 

having less leverage when the % is lower = more understeer while the bikes bone stock with stock settings ,hence the need for lowering of the front

 

Lowering of the front , I think besides the lowering of COG , also decreases total wheelbase length (its trigonometry) and makes the rake/trail values change... (< not 100% sure, just started dabbling with chassis dynamics)

 

I love a great discussion ^^

 

@Stroker, im not sure about the RSV4R esp the APRC , BUT I do know that the KTM RC8R and 1199 Panigale's back suspension linkage has knobs to directly adjust ride height !

(seen them both myself and knows how they work, havn't seen the RSV4's so called chassis/engine adjustability ; eg how it works)

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No warmers. I was on a school bike. I had been following a slower student for a few laps then stopped for a couple minutes before the crash lap.

 

Benny

 

I though the school bikes were all on Q3's ?? Did you request the upgraded tires ?

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AH DANG!!! i misworded it bad ...

 

it should have been " makes quick turn almost impossible to be overdone" , thanks for pointing it out and I apologize for the literature blunder !!

 

 

I was pretty sure that was just a typo or something along those lines

 

 

No. I was in training to be a rider coach so I was on a coach bike which had the GPAs. Fortunately, I'm still in training despite the crash.

 

Benny

 

Congratulations Benny, and Good Luck !!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

A bit late to this party, but...

 

The tearing sound some are alluding to is quite real. At my level 1 class I was taken out on one of the drills where one counter steers from side to side in a kind of 'S' pattern. Can't remember the drill name for the life of me.

 

Anyway, I was corrected by the coach for my tendency to plow the front as I turned in. Each time I did this, I heard the same sounds as the rubber was gripping and adjusting (deforming) to the force being applied to it. Made for a nice snappy turn in, but the coach spent quite a bit of time correcting it, making my side to sides much more fluid, albeit much more boring and predictable.

 

You can make the same sounds with good basketball sneakers on poor pavement by grinding your toes into the pavement as you put weight on it quickly.

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Make that 2 people who are interested.

 

From my observations being observed it seemed like the coach was trying to determine "how" I initiated my turn when I did the drill. Body or bars. :)

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That is definitely one thing we look at; Keith has quite an impressive list of possible steering errors, riders can get very creative in their ways of attempting to steer a bike! It was a really remarkable training process to learn to coach that drill; Keith has given (and still gives) that particular drill a lot of attention and it continues to evolve - it has certainly changed a lot from the first time I did it as a student. If you have a chance at a school go observe some riders doing that drill - it looks very simple at first but it is really enlightening to see how much riders can change and improve in just that one drill.

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Essentially I was counter steering way to much, way too hard, way too fast. I'm a pretty strong guy (think Warren Sapp just white & 10 years older) so it's not hard for me to muscle my bike around. Plough would probably not be the technically correct term, as I think I'm turning the tire in the other direction. But it was highly aggressive while simultaneously leaning in hard. All at fairly low speed (20-40 mph range)

 

Bike was very unstable, but I thought at the time that was the point. Destabilize e bike to get it to change direction faster by effectively pivoting on the front tire. I understand now how that would have probably ended up high siding me at speed as the bike tried to recover from what I had just done, but at the time I knew just enough to be dangerous. Sill there, just not nearly as much ;-)

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And HotFoot, you are 100% right. Don't know if you were at Thunderbolt late last August, but I was the guy in the black size 54 school AGV leathers riding one of your S bikes with a eating grin all day long. Yeah, black leathers in NJ in August, lost 10# of water that day.

 

The steering drill, along with the 2-step, throttle control, quick turn and other drills I learned that day changed my riding for the better. I ride faster, safer, more in control and with massively better confidence now. I'm combining that with NJMSF advanced courses for my slow speed technique as much as I can. The insurance discount for the latter helps a lot too with the Minister of Finance ;-)

 

Don't get a lot of track time as all available tracks are over 100 miles away (in NJ that means more like 1000) and little spare time. So everything I've learned I've applied to my street and highway riding. I hope to do level 2 soon, but looks like it'll be early next Spring.

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Essentially I was counter steering way to much, way too hard, way too fast. I'm a pretty strong guy (think Warren Sapp just white & 10 years older) so it's not hard for me to muscle my bike around. Plough would probably not be the technically correct term, as I think I'm turning the tire in the other direction. But it was highly aggressive while simultaneously leaning in hard. All at fairly low speed (20-40 mph range)

 

Bike was very unstable, but I thought at the time that was the point. Destabilize e bike to get it to change direction faster by effectively pivoting on the front tire. I understand now how that would have probably ended up high siding me at speed as the bike tried to recover from what I had just done, but at the time I knew just enough to be dangerous. Sill there, just not nearly as much ;-)

Thanks for the explanation. Inquiring minds wanted to know. :)

 

So question for you. I'm not being critical at all here just genuinely curious. When you were turning the bike like that what was the perception of the gain you got vs steering the bike less aggressively?

 

On the track quick steer is quite amazing. It's a skill I'm working on developing further.

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Eirik, your brother often losing the front, don't think that's from being hard on the gas...something else is happening also.

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He is, like EricG, very physical when he rides, often using a lot of body movement and always a lot of force on the handlebars to steer his bikes. So he likes a heavy steering bike. I dislike having to use much force to turn, so I prefer nimble bikes. So sure, it could be that all my brother's antics overtax the front end.

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Well, it seemed I was cutting down on lean and getting the bike pointed where I wanted faster. At least, that was the idea. The sharp cuts seemed to decrease the amount of time I had to turn, but I realize now hat was mostly illusion. Sacrificing stability for a perceived gain in stability just doesn't work. There were very good reasons it was a bit scary.

 

Thanks to the steering drill, and the quick turn drills, I've learned not to be 'too' aggressive with the counter steer and let the bike 'do its thing' once I got things going. You don't need to muscle the bike to get a good flick. In fact, it really doesn't take much to get a good fast flick, and it works much better with a bit of 'touch' to it. Ah, the benefit of technique!

 

Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast, as the Rangers say. ;-)

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EricG,

 

Thanks for sharing the explanation.

 

If you think about it the quick turn does exactly what you were trying to accomplish in the steering drill only at higher speed so your logic was not completely flawed. I'm glad you were able to get it sorted out though with the steering drill and the quick turn. I bet you are probably great at quick flicking the bike now without making it unstable at all. :)

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  • 1 month later...

I never realised just how much force you need to put into the bars at high speed until one day i went into a high speed corner way too hot and the only thing i really could do was to turn as hard as i could and look through the corner and hope for the best!

Well i made it though the corner and it wasn't until then i realised what keith meant in his book about some guys back in the early 80s actually bending their handle bars.

That was a lightbulb moment!

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  • 8 months later...

Holy thread revival Batman...

 

Well, after almost 1 year and a half 100% away from the track due a new job and my 1yo daughter, just did my second trackday in 2015 and the sh*t is f'up.

 

I can't carry any cornerspeed because I have zero confidence to countersteer/quickflick... in fact, I can't countersteer at all, only body steer and peg weighting.

 

Please, help me out to increase my quick flick rate... what drills can I try within my next trackday? I'm starting over again, that sucks a lot because I was used to ride in the advanced group and now I look like an old lady among the beginers.

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Well, after almost 1 year and a half 100% away from the track ...just did my second trackday in 2015 and ...I can't carry any cornerspeed because I have zero confidence to counter steer/quick flick...

 

Rikker;

You answered your own question didn't you? You have been away from the track for 18 months and you're surprised that you can't just pick up where you left off? You couldn't do that with a violin, downhill skiing or flying an airplane to name a few highly intense highly precise activities. Re-read (or re-watch) the Twist of the Wrist II and keep practicing it incrementally and you will find your way back. But don't be surprised if it doesn't all fall into place on track day no. 3 unless it is with some very skilled coaches who know what they are doing.

 

Can you get to a School?

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I went without riding for 3 months. It took me a bit to dig myself back out of the "hole" from not being on the track. Just take your time. Relax. Forget all about the idea of "going fast" and just focus on "doing it right". The speed comes back by itself.

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