harnois

The only way to change the spring rate is to change out the spring. Preload simply changes the amount of sag. This is true as long as you are working anywhere within the safe and relevant preload adjustment range. When you adjust preload you are just changing the position of the spring relative to the top-out and bottom-out points, which changes how much the suspension will sag under your weight and the bikes weight. It should be called a sag adjustment so people would stop being so confused about it. Your understanding or explanation of what pre-load is or does seems flawed here. When you adjust or increase pre-load you are compressing the spring and making it shorter by "loading" the spring prior (or pre-) to putting your butt on the bike. You are not "just changing the position of the spring relative to the top-out and bottom-out points". The comment that "preload simply changes the amount of sag" is oversimplified. So now, in order to try and explain it, I'll write a bunch of nonsense that probably nobody cares about and only makes sense to me. If we adjust the preload while the suspension/shock is topped out, then yes we are compressing the spring against the top out stop. But, we don't ride around with our suspension topped out all the time, most of the time it is compressed some amount. And perhaps the most important moment for suspension is in the middle of a turn to keep the tires on the ground at maximum lean angle, and in this moment both front and rear suspension are compressed. So lets evaluate how a preload adjustment would affect the bike while the suspension is sagging or compressed and not topped out. Let's say we get on our bike and while sitting on causing the suspension to sag, a friend cranks down on the preload, the spring stays compressed under the weight of the rider and bike, the amount of weight on the spring is not changing, thus, the amount of compression of the spring itself is not changing. Thus, in this scenario, we are NOT actually compressing the spring, it is just staying compressed under the weight of bike and rider, and we are just moving it down the shock, or in other words moving it closer to the top out point and further away from the bottom out point. No. It does not move the spring further from the bottom out point, the spring and suspension remain exactly the same wrt the bottom out point. The shock body moves closer to the top out point for the same spring compression and spring compression is the ONLY factor determining how close to the bottom out point the suspension is. Perhaps "move the spring" is just not a good way for me to describe it. I'm going to define a term here in case it's not already clear what I mean by it: Sag point: the position of the suspension when it is sagging under the weight of bike and rider. So if we have 1 inch of sag the the sag point is 1 inch from top out. Perhaps instead of move the spring, I should say, cranking down on the preload moves the sag point closer to top out point and further from bottom out point. Bottom line though is, if a bike has 4.7 inches of travel as specified then it has 4.7 inches of travel regardless of prelaod adjustment - as long as we are within the intended preload adjustment range.

I understand the shock in the pic is topped out and will never get any longer no matter what you do with the preload. Top out is top out, like you said, it will not change. But bottom out will not change due to a preload adjustment either, thus available travel has not changed. The definition of bottomed out is that the shock has hit that bump stop/bottom stop and can not compress any further. That WILL happen before the spring itself bottoms out, as long as you are in the intended preload adjustment range. Another way to look at it is that the amount of shock shaft (the polished chromy part that disappears into the shock body when the shock is compressed) showing when topped out represents the amount of travel of the shock. No matter what you do with the preload you'll see the same length of shiny shaft at the bottom of the shock when it's topped out. If you hit the bump stop/bottom stop, didn't the bump stop/bottom stop just dictate the travel?

The only way to change the spring rate is to change out the spring. Preload simply changes the amount of sag. This is true as long as you are working anywhere within the safe and relevant preload adjustment range. When you adjust preload you are just changing the position of the spring relative to the top-out and bottom-out points, which changes how much the suspension will sag under your weight and the bikes weight. It should be called a sag adjustment so people would stop being so confused about it. Your understanding or explanation of what pre-load is or does seems flawed here. When you adjust or increase pre-load you are compressing the spring and making it shorter by "loading" the spring prior (or pre-) to putting your butt on the bike. You are not "just changing the position of the spring relative to the top-out and bottom-out points". The comment that "preload simply changes the amount of sag" is oversimplified. So now, in order to try and explain it, I'll write a bunch of nonsense that probably nobody cares about and only makes sense to me. If we adjust the preload while the suspension/shock is topped out, then yes we are compressing the spring against the top out stop. But, we don't ride around with our suspension topped out all the time, most of the time it is compressed some amount. And perhaps the most important moment for suspension is in the middle of a turn to keep the tires on the ground at maximum lean angle, and in this moment both front and rear suspension are compressed. So lets evaluate how a preload adjustment would affect the bike while the suspension is sagging or compressed and not topped out. Let's say we get on our bike and while sitting on causing the suspension to sag, a friend cranks down on the preload, the spring stays compressed under the weight of the rider and bike, the amount of weight on the spring is not changing, thus, the amount of compression of the spring itself is not changing. Thus, in this scenario, we are NOT actually compressing the spring, it is just staying compressed under the weight of bike and rider, and we are just moving it down the shock, or in other words moving it closer to the top out point and further away from the bottom out point. As we crank the preload down while the suspension is compressed, the shock will extend by exactly the same amount that we move the preload adjuster, while the compressed spring stays the same length. We are extending the shock and a fully extended shock is topped out, thus we are moving the spring closer to shock top out. As we make the adjustment, the back end of the bike will rise up because it is sagging less. If our adjustment takes us from 1.5 inches to 1 inch of sag, then we just moved the rear suspension .5 inches closer to the top out point and .5 inches further away from the bottom out point. Amount of overall available travel did not change, we just have, from the new sag point, more upwards wheel travel available and less downwards wheel travel available. Let's say we set the sag at 1.5 inches, then we ride down the road and hit a bump that causes the suspension to compress 1 inch from the sag point and then return to the sag point. Then we crank down on the preload so that we get only 1 inch of sag, then we go out and hit the same bump at the same speed. Once again, the suspension will compress 1 inch FROM THE SAG POINT. Same bump, same speed, same spring, same starting weight on the spring thus same amount of starting spring compression, it will react the same UNLESS we reach top out or bottom out. Preload is just going to make the whole 1 inch of suspension movement resulting from that bump happen at a different portion of the available travel, or in other words, the bike will sit higher or lower as it rolls over that bump. In the context of this scenario it's perhaps not even accurate to call it "stiffer" or "softer" as is commonly said. So far no one has given me any actual mechanical explanation as to how this description is incorrect. In the case of front end dive under braking, relevant to this thread, if we increase front preload to reduce sag by .5 inches then repeat the hard braking in exactly the same way, then for all practical purposes the front end will have .5 inches less dive. The front end will sit .5 inches higher during the braking and all other times except when bottom out or top out is reached. Changing out the spring could make a much bigger difference, and would allow me to have less brake dive without reducing sag, which is why like you said, it is a much better option - as long as we don't decrease the fork's mid-corner performance. I'm not really confused about anything except for some of your statements and explanations. It's obvious to me from other threads you've participated in that you have a good understanding of how suspension works, and I believe my understanding is quite clear as well, but we have a different way of perceiving it and/or explaining it and I think we're mostly just going in circles over that sort of thing. Perhaps this is a peculiarity in how I communicate, but just because I ask a question doesn't mean that I don't already think I know the answer. It just means I'm open to whatever new subtle understandings may come of it. The "enough preload to capture the spring" concept came out of that. Another example would be me opening the thread in the first place. Just cos I asked the question about the rear end wiggling under braking doesn't mean that I had no idea at all how to solve it. It just means, I'm open to more ideas, in case there's something I hadn't thought of or heard of before. I don't ever assume that I know everything about anything. Edit: I have now removed that post. It still remains here in quotes which is good because this is where we finally get around to talking about it in more depth.

Well, there is potential for travel and then there is how much the suspension actually does travel under "normal" riding conditions. I was thinking the latter; but, the former is also true. And you seem to be confusing the two. The motorcycle is suspended on springs. When you compress the springs, the potential range of motion is decreased. And the actual amount of travel the suspension experiences is also reduced. [...] Cheers. I'm not confusing anything except perhaps your terminology. Travel to me means the number, for example 4.7 inches listed on this page: http://www.kawasaki.com/Products/detail.as...=specifications That is the distance from top out to bottom out. It won't change due to adding or removing preload, not unless the preload has been adjusted way outside the intended adjustment range which is not even possible on any stock shock I've ever seen. If we have 5 inches from top out to bottom out, and 1.5 inches of sag, then we are 1.5 inches from top out and 3.5 inches from bottom out. In other words we have 3.5 inches of upwards travel available and 1.5 inches of downwards travel available. If we increase preload, reduce sag to 1 inch, then we have 1 inch of downward travel and 4 inches of upwards travel available. Upwards travel available increased as a result of adding prelaod, which is why adding preload might prevent bottoming out on large bumps. So I still don't get what you mean by travel is reduced?

Right. So they could refer to past experience to deduce a range or good starting point ... for you and your type of riding. That was my point. As for "dragging Max into it", my point was that, for your benefit, you might want to address your questions to TD personally. As YOU have a pre-existing business relationship with TD, they probably would be inclined to discuss the matter directly with you. Customer service and sales and all. In any case, I was not suggesting that you ask Max to "join the fray" or "settle" anything here. And, I would imagine that since it is his profession, he probably wouldn't be interested in holding forth on an internet forum ... for free. I already addressed my questions to TD personally back when I got that shock from them. So far, I have no reason to think that I misunderstood any of the answers. "I was not suggesting that you ask Max to "join the fray" or "settle" anything here." Neither was I. I don't care who is right or wrong about anything. I also don't want to assume that my current understanding of anything is 100% complete and correct, because then I would stop learning.

Since either adding pre-load or switching to a stiffer spring would reduce fork dive when braking, I realize that, especially within the context of this thread, your comment makes perfect sense. Sorry for my negative comments about it before, and for being rude and full-of-myself. We all have our moments. What do you mean by "at the expense of geometry and suspension travel?" "At the expense of" to me means it will have a negative impact. I understand it will change but do you mean to say that it will have a negative impact? Seems to me it could be negative or positive depending on what you are trying to do. Just wondering if there's something else for me to learn here. Specifically, I meant "at the expense of" in the most direct sense that it reduces travel and 'alters' geometry. I suppose that might not always be a bad thing under all circumstances; but, I am of the opinion that the geometry as designed by the engineers probably has some value as a starting point ... from time to time ... (lol). And that, for me, the broadest range of adjustment yields greater ease with which to acheive accuracy or better resolution from which to "fine tune", as it were. For example, if your analog radio tuner/dial has a really small knob, it will be more difficult to adjust precisely than if it has a really big knob which makes fine adjustments easier. I don't know if that analogy really gets it, but ... Anyway ... I believe the primary geometry issue is that, pre-loading the spring adds ride height. Logically, you might think that the overall height will simply sag to the same point relative to ground because you are merely pre-compressing the spring and the spring will only sag or compress as far as it would anyway with you on it. However, as you yourself pointed out before, there is more to the suspension than merely the spring. And I think it is precisely that combined with the fact that you are not on the bike when compressing the spring that is the critical factor. Ordinarily, the spring compresses under your weight, the suspension moves and the bike sags. But what happens if you compress the spring without you on the bike to make it sag and sort of "equal out" the suspension? That extra pressure now in the spring is being applied to the same set of levers, no? Won't that force the suspension upward to a higher starting point from which the now limited travel sags? And, like you pointed out, changes at the shock body/spring translate into a bigger value at the axle. So, along with reducing travel, I believe that compressing the shock spring without weight on the bike will raise the rear ride height. And the same for the front. Overall, with the suspension rising and falling through a greater range due to a too soft spring and/or that spring range being altered and limited in its travel due to excessive pre-loading, it seems an obvious thing to me that the geometry will be closer to what was intended by the designers with the most proper spring installed. You are saying that adding preload reduces travel? I don't get how. "Travel" to me is a measure of how far the suspension can travel from top out to bottom out, fully extended no weight on it to fully compressed. I don't think this measurement changes when preload is added or removed, unless the preload is cranked down so far that the spring bottoms out on itself, but that'd require settings so grossly out-of-whack it isn't worth talking about. Or are you just saying that the suspension will move less in response to any given bump as a result of increased preload?

Getting Max involved would be interesting. Since you raced with him for years I'll leave that up to you. I don't want to be the one to drag him into it. If we have 3mm of preload, and 30mm of suspension sag with the rider on the bike... The 30mm of sag measured at the axle translates roughly to 15mm of spring compression (due to that roughly 2-to-1 ratio previously mentioned). The 15 mm of sag plus the 3mm of preload, we can deduce that the weight of the rider and bike on the rear wheel is compressing the spring 18mm. We can increase preload to reduce sag, but in the end the spring itself will still compress 18mm with the rider on the bike - same spring same amount of weight on that spring means same amount of spring compression. If we go to the softer spring, we can get the 8mm of preload and 30mm of sag at the axle, makes 8mm plus 15mm of spring compression means the spring is compressing 23mm under the weight of that rider and that bike. 18mm of spring compression with the heavier spring, now up to 23mm of compression with the lighter spring, under the same amount of weight, makes a 28% difference. So from that we can say that a going from 3mm of prelaod to 8mm of prelaod while sag remains at 30mm is a 28% difference in how far the spring is compressing! In my specific example of going from the 800 pound spring to the 650 pound spring that's a 23% difference in spring rate so the math comes pretty close to matching up. If ya know how much a spring is compressing under the weight of the rider and bike it makes sense they could deduce from experience roughly how well that spring will work out as far as absorbing bumps for that rider on that bike. When I talked to the dude at Traxxion (someone other than Max don't remember who) and gave him that 3mm of preload number and was asking all the "why" and "how" I was under the impression that it not only helped him deduce that the spring was too stiff, but also deduce roughly how much to change it. When they are helping people through the mail I guess all this math is all they have to go on.

Earlier in this thread somebody responded and said after reading the thread he was able to solve his same problem. Cool!

What do you mean by "at the expense of geometry and suspension travel?" "At the expense of" to me means it will have a negative impact. I understand it will change but do you mean to say that it will have a negative impact? Seems to me it could be negative or positive depending on what you are trying to do. Just wondering if there's something else for me to learn here.

I am very glad I did business with TD. Max at TD has the best customer service ethic I have ever experienced in any industry. Although the spring is 6 inches long we know it can not compress that far. Seems like the shock itself had roughly 2 inches of travel so that plus the preload applied to it would be the practical compression range of the spring. So that means the 8mm of preload is something more like 14% of it's range. Plus since the shock appears to have about 2 inches of travel and the suspension has like 4 or 5 inches of travel there is a roughly 2-to-1 ratio between how much the shock moves and how much the suspension moves. 8mm of spring compression translates into 16mm suspension movement at the axle. The recommended sag range I hear most often is 25 to 35mm - a range of 10mm. Hence that 16mm is more than the whole sag adjustment range. All this is probably pointlessly over-analytical but hopefully you can see how I would not perceive 8mm of preload to be practically zero. I never measured the preload on the stock spring but no doubt like you said it was a lot more than 8mm. I get your point that compared to the stock that 8mm is not much at all. The concept I'm getting from you here is to have "enough tension to capture the spring" but not take it any further than you have to, and that's making sense to me and something I hadn't thought of before. This is why I come on this forum and open threads - to learn stuff like this. Funny as soon as I read "enough tension to capture the spring" I realized that I apply that very same concept to my remote control car suspension setup, even though I'd never put it into words. It's funny to me to see such correlations. I have noticed that suspension that seems ridiculously hard when riding easy can be annoyingly soft when riding hard. I wonder if, since the pros can ride a heck of a lot harder than I can, if they use much harder springs. But man that 800 pound spring just felt wrong. I asked them why they sent it. What I understood was that since the YZF600R is not that popular I think they hadn't ever sold a shock for one of those before, and in that scenario they start out with the penske recommendation, which can sometimes be a bit off.

A couple years ago I bought a penske shock for my YZF600R from Traxxion Dynamics. When I first got the shock it had an 800-pound spring on it. When I installed that on the bike and went for a ride, it thought it was way way too stiff. It felt like I had a metal bar bolted in where the shock was supposed to be. I know there is some preference involved, but it was so stiff I could not imagine how anyone would possibly consider it to be optimal. Traxxion has a good reputation for customer service and I contacted them about the problem. What they had me do was set the sag to around 30mm (I had done this before I rode it the first time) then measure the length of the spring while the shock was topped out. It was a 6-inch spring and when I measured it, it was about 3mm shorter than that, so it had 3mm of preload on it. They told me that definitely indicated that the spring was too stiff, that it should have around 8mm of preload when the sag was properly set. So I thought, cool, the math was matching up with what I was feeling when riding. It was a while ago so I could be getting some of these numbers slightly wrong but I'm being accurate enough here to express the idea. They sent me a 700-pound spring and I sent the 800 back. I repeated the sag setup and then measured preload with this spring and it was about 6mm. When I rode it, it was ok, felt reasonable some of the time, but in bigger bumps felt like a rock. I ended up getting a 650 pound spring, and that one rode pretty well, and had the recommended amount of preload with the sag properly set. So once again the math was matching up with my riding observation. Based on this experience and the math involved, I would deduce that if you had a spring that you could run at zero preload and still have the recommended level of sag, it would be absurdly stiff, stiffer even than the 800 pound "metal bar." They also had some rough recommendations for how much the bike should sag under its own weight only, vs, with the rider on board. Those numbers came into range also when I moved toward the softer springs. I did some googling but have so far not been able to find any more information about the zero-preload concept. Do you know of any setup articles out there on the web that I could read that talk about the zero-preload concept? I did find this article which says the preload should be no more than 10 to 12mm, and it does this in the context of how to determine the correct spring for your weight. http://www.dynobike.com/motorcycle_suspension.htm. I get the idea that with the spring at zero preload or "negative preload" the suspension would be able to float most freely when topped out allowing it to hold the road better under such circumstances as hard braking, rather than the suspension being clamped firmly between the spring and the top out stop. Aren't some suspensions these days using top out springs to acheive this affect, so that when the suspension is topped out, the top out spring and main spring will balance against each other and the suspension can float between them? I remember reading about that somewhere but I don't know how common it is. I did some quick googling on top out spring and found these articles: http://www.sportrider.com/bikes/2003/146_0...aper/index.html - This one mentions that the 2003 kawasaki ninja has a top-out spring on the shock and the forks. http://pantablo500.tripod.com/id43.html - this one mentions the top-out spring on ohlins shocks. It also talks about the 0 sag for a 125 and loss of momentum, I think somebody was discussing that earlier in this thread.

I have owned several bikes and helped a few friends adjust the sag on their bikes as well. I have never seen a modernish motorcycle that had enough preload adjustment range in the stock shock to "take the travel out of the suspension." The only way that could happen is if you cranked it down so far that the spring bottomed out on itself before the shock bottomed out against its own bottom out stop. But, the prelaod adjustment on any stock shock that I've seen was way too limited to come anywhere near allowing that to happen. I haven't seen the stock shock on every bike but I seriously doubt that the stock shock on a bike as popular as a 2006 R1 is going to allow you to take the preload anywhere near the danger zone in either direction. I helped 2 friends that were around 200 pounds adjust the sag on their bikes. One had a fairly late model R6, and the other had a YZF600R. Both were using stock shocks. For both of them we had to crank the preload on the shock all the way down and they still had 1.5 inches of sag or more. On my YZF600R that I used to have, I used to run the stock shock preload cranked all the way to the max, that gave me about 1.25 inches of sag, and I weight only 150. I have also experienced the exact behavior you describe due to worn out tires or just when getting used to a different model of tire that has a different profile. I used to go through 2 rear tires for every 1 front tire when just street riding. But I got sick of fighting with the bike in the curves due to the flat spots on the front tire so lately I just end up replacing the front one along with the rear even though the front still has tread left on it.

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Good idea but I tihnk I'm actually more locked on to the new bike. The old bike was a yzf600r which has a fat 5-gallon rounded tank that was hard to hold onto. The gsxr is really shaped well to make it easy to hold onto. I was using the stomp pads on the yzf and found they were unnecessary on the gsxr because it is already so easy to hold onto. I was aware that holding myself back with the bars might cause inadvertent steering inputs and could cause the problem so I was making special effort to pinch the tank with my knees and stay loose on the bars. Yeah I was thinking about that only after the track days so didn't get a chance to try changing it. My downshifting is very smooth, so I'm not lurching it into slides or anything nutty like that, but I was downshifting at high rpms. If I were to let the engine speed come down more before downshifting then there would be less engine braking and that may settle down the situation quite a lot. Could be I got away with the aggressive downshifting on the other bike because it just didn't have as much engine braking in general and was a heavier bike.

I was lazy and ran the bike with stock suspension settings. I don't think I even checked the sag. So I'll do that and also do the zip tie thing to see how far it's compressing while braking. I don't think it is bottoming but it could be compressing more than desired, which would steepen the steering head angle and maybe contribute to the wiggling? The rear rebound damping idea makes sense to me I'll try that as well.

I was not using the rear brake at all. I was positioned at back of the seat during braking.

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I dunno about EVERY time, but yes it was quite consistent relative to the corner. I mostly remember it happening in turns 1 and turn 14 (top of the hill right hander) at VIR North Course. I don't recall it happening when braking for other turns but it was kinda a long time ago at this point.

Sounds to me like you know exactly what you need to do, and you just need more track time to practice it. What you describe above is basicaly a lack of smoothness. There was another thread on here where someone asks about what does it mean to be smooth, and Keith said it was about visual skills. So perhaps it is visual skills that you need to concentrate on. If you look at the apex of the turn the whole time as you approach the turn and as you enter the turn, then it should be a lot easier to judge when to turn in, how hard to turn in, how fast you can go at turn in, etc. Then after turn in keep looking up ahead around the turn as much as you can. This helps you to picture your whole line through the turn rather than seeing the turn as a bunch of separate peices. Your mid-turn adjustments should turn out to be smaller because you'll see what you need to do a lot sooner. Your concept of adjusting your line by using the throttle is not necessarily wrong in my opinion. I think I do the same thing to some degree. But those adjustments should be very sublte, and as you get to know the track you are on better and refine your line more it should come down to practically no mid-turn adjusting, at which point you will have reach your goal of "bonzai speed" at entry and "the correct line." Of course you can not acheive that goal with out practice and slowly working up to it, but in my opinion concnetrating on visual skills would speed up your learning curve. When I ride unfamiliar public roads with lots of blind turns I feel just like you describe above, because I can't really apply visual skills in that circumstance.

Or, by keeping your body further back on the seat, you can roll-on the throttle more gently throughout the turn and still maintaining the desired distribution, thus enabling you to enter the turn faster and carry more speed throughout the whole turn. By moving your weight forward then getting on the throttle more aggressively, at aggressive lean angles, aren't you just risking sliding the rear wheel? And all with the goal of gaining back that speed that you could have just not scrubbed off to begin with? When sitting fruther back on the seat it is easy to make the transitions back and forth from left hang off position to right hang off position, and it is easier to hold onto the gas tank with the legs. If sitting far forward on the seat, ya have to kinda akwardly rotate your torso around the gas tank in order to hang off, plus the knee won't be able to lock into that convenient lip on the tank. The only time I move forward all the way on the seat is when I'm upright enough to go to full throttle.

Here's some things that came to my mind when I read this: The peg placement between a VFR and a Moto GP bike is probably a lot different. The pegs on a VFR may be lower than some other more aggressive track oriented models like the zx6r, gsxr600 and so on. The lower pegs could be part of the difference you see in photos. I had a YZF600R which, like the VFR, had somewhat lower pegs because it was made to be more comfy for street riding, and I definitely remember a phase with that bike where it was a challenge for me to get my knee on the ground before scraping toes or pegs. Although over time with improvements in body position it became not an issue. If you are not moving your shoulders off the bike along with your hips when hanging off, you are not getting nearly as much benefit as you could from the hangoff, thus the bike is leaning a lot more than it needs to and putting your toes closer to the ground. Although it sounds like from your original post you are already aware of and concentrating on this. I also thought the same as Mr. Kane, that when you ride with the balls of the feet on the pegs, you can extend the ankle joint to lock your lower leg between the peg and the lip on the gas tank. Some of the more track oriented bikes have gas tanks that are shaped specifically to make it easier to hold on with the legs while hanging off. I ride with the balls of the feet (toes) on the peg except to shift. I do not use the rear brake and I select gears that won't require me to shift mid-corner.

I agree. I was just mak'n jokes. Aparently, they weren't very good jokes. Completely agree. And to help ourselves. At FULL throttle? No, haven't tried that. I don't see how it relates to the original post, since that is about approaching turns. But anyway it doesn't have to relate to the original post. I find hanging off at 140 is rather uncomfortable and unstable due to the wind hitting me. But I'll try it at 40 or 70. My hypothesis is that it will still gradually change lean angle toward the direction I'm hanging off but it will not change lean angle as quickly. Having the throttle on is going to slow down the process and going faster is going to slow down the process, and at some point it would get to be insignificant and very difficult to detect. Holding oneself in a position off center with the bike will make the bike gradually change lean angle in that direction. If you want to discuss WHY it happens, here's how I see it: Let's assume first of all that the rider makes his position change very smoothly and without affecting the bike as a result of his weight being tossed violently around on the bike. As you move off to the left side, the bike leans somewhat to the right, and your body goes to the left, and the combined bike-rider Center of Gravity doesn't change much (or maybe practically not at all). So you might at first think that nothing would change. But, since the bike is leaned to the right, the steering head tube is leaned to the right, thus due the trail of the front wheel (and possibly other less important things) the front tire will turn itself to the right of it's NEUTRAL POSITION* and continually hold itself to the right of the neutral point as long as you are hanging off. That then continually drives the tire out from under the bike towards the right, hense the bike gradually leans more and more towards the left. The bike is being rotated around its center of gravity by using traction with the ground as the levering force. It is no different than what happens when we countersteer, except that the handlebar turned due to the lean of the bike in that direction rather than due to our direct handlebar input. *by NEUTRAL POSITION, I mean the steering angle of the front tire/forks that would make the bike maintain a steady lean angle. Which when going in a straight line is straight ahead, and when going around a turn it is slightly turned towards the inside of the turn. When the wieght of bike and rider are centered relative to the steering head, this will be the position that the tire and forks will keep itself in when there is no presure on the bars. Going back to the original subject of hanging off while appraoching turns off throttle, when we counteract that gradual lean angle change with a slight push on the bar, what we are actually doing is just holding the bar straight, in it's neutral position* preventing the front wheel from being driven out from under the bike. But, it doesn't do any good to think about it this way when riding, because when riding except for parking lot speeds the handlebar is always so close to it's straight on position that we can not detect it's actual position or which way it is turned, we can only feel how much presure is required on the bar to get the bike to do what we want. We can do certain experiments to demonstrate what the bike will do in certain circumstances. But to be sure WHY it does what it does would require much more elaborate experiments or testing that we are not likely to do with our bikes and our own time. That we leave to people like Keith Code and Tony Foale. We humans find leaning through turns be a fairly natural concept since we do it while running. So to me riding a motorcycle is like running except I can go a lot faster and don't have to work nearly as hard. It's like being a superhero with phenominal running abilities. Which, yeah, sometimes it does seem kinda magical.

I've been playing Moto GP 2 on PlayStation 2 lately. I thought it funny some of the techniques taught at superbike school can be used to do better in this game. Throttle control for example (Rule #1, once the throttle is on keep applying it smoothly more and more throughout the turn) can be applied quite well with practice, and definitely leads to winning races. Put the game in simulation mode, and you can powerslide like a mofo out of everyturn but if you get too far sideways it will toss you off. It is a lot more forgiving that real life though. With simulation mode off the game does the throttle control for you which makes it not really worth playing at all. The concept of quick turning also applies big time, especially in chicanes and high speed turns. There is a handling setting that you have to turn all the way up to be able to make the quickest possible lean angle changes. The visual skills though I'd say are the most useful. Looking way ahead at the turn exit or all the way up through a chicane make it a lot easier to judge the turn in points and get back on the throttle and the soonest possible moment and come out of the turn right on the line. Future teaching tool? Just kidding.

I only weight 20 pounds more than you and I also tried it hung off a lot less than normal. I think you have a very magical motorcycle. Whoever "wins" this "argument" is still a retard, since you know what they say about winning arguments on the internet and the special olympics and so forth. I doubt that the original poster or anyone else really care's about our ramblings but I have very much enjoyed our discussion. The most interesting thing to come out of this was the discovery of this thread where Keith Code participates in a Body Steering vs. Counter Steering discussion: http://www.r1-forum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21254 I am utterly amazed by humans' ability to come up with the most bizarre explanations as to how they get their bikes to do what they do and why it does what it does. They can't even come to a consesus on something as simple as how to steer a bike. Subjects that are actually complicated, like say Global Warming, are doomed to eternal disagreement for sure. On page 27 post number 24, post by Winders: "Example that is easy to see: Hang off a bike that is going straight, the bike will turn the direction you are hanging off if you do not countersteer to keep the bike going straight." Post number 529 by Keith: "Ya, that is my expereince as well."