Crash106

Not trolling, just engaging in a lively discussion. May I say that I have played with this technique a LOT. When I say a LOT, I mean off and on for months--literally hours and hours and hours of riding time just on this one issue. What I HEAR is that entering a corner at 45 mph and turning "slowly," say 1 second from full upright to full lean, the tires hardly notice, I can hardly hear them working. Going around again, same corner, same entry speed, I "quick turn" the bike, say half a second from full upright to full lean, and the tires let out a terrified groan. Clearly the tires are working much harder when quick turning the bike. I can't believe I'm the only one who has noticed this. If you haven't heard the exact same thing, I suggest you go out and play in traffic some more. :-) (Any excuse for a ride, right?) So, it's raining in the Smokey Mountains and traction is low, which technique do you want to use? One that requires very little from the tire, or one that pushes the demand for traction? Or, you are on the track, you enter a turn after a long straight, you are going to be putting 1.1 Gs of force on your tires, any more than that and you'll slide out. Do you want to approach that limit all at once, or do you want to ease up to it with a sense of control? Yes, lean angle = G forces, but just as you load the front tire to get maximum braking, I believe you must load the front tire to get maximum turning.

I'm slower than pig snot on a winter's day, but I just don't see the point of hanging off if I'm not running out of lean angle or traction. I'd rather just sit there and enjoy the ride rather than crawl back and forth across the bike for no good reason. I just don't enjoy riding that way. Too old and stiff and tired, I guess. For me, it's eyes up, watch the vanishing point and roll on the throttle.

So Dylan, I'm looking at your body/foot position picture, and I see an imaginary line between the front tire and your knee, AND I see your foot at least 3"-4" above the pavement. At least it looks that way in the picture. So I'm thinking that's 3"-4" further down a rider could put their foot pegs. I know your not riding a touring bike, but why be more scrunched up and uncomfortable than you NEED to be?

I imagine the physical limit is pretty darned high. On the other hand, what's the point of turning faster and faster if you: A. Don't need to turn that quickly B. Scare your passenger half to death (sorry, thought we were talking about street riding for a second), or C. Turn so quickly that you can't set your lean angle properly and either bounce up and down or scare your own self silly and blow the rest of the corner. Lately, I've been seeing how SLOWLY I can turn and find I'm more comfortable leaning slowly and therefore I can lean further (carry more speed?) into the corners. But maybe that's just me.

I noticed this on the ST1300--as soon as I climbed on, my legs locked right in. The Concours 14 is nice, but I jut don't get that same "locked in" feeling.

Welcome to the forum. Nice photo--you look pretty comfortable on that bike. Sometimes it is hard to know what you are doing wrong, but a good coach will spot it right away. You can also learn a lot just from riding behind better riders.

Wow! He is one of those people who NEVER gives up.

Two Examples: Rider R (racer) enters a corner already leaned over, then he adds more lean angle to make his apex. Rider C (cruiser) enters a corner and leans over, then he adds more lean angle to make his apex. Sounds similar to me. Both riders are adding lean angle while already leaned over. Granted, the above examples do not address Mugget's original concern about how FAST he can steer when already leaned over. When I am already leaned over in a corner then decide to add MORE lean angle, I tend to do it more slowly than when I do all my steering at once at the entrance to the corner. I'm extra careful because I don't want to add lean angle and throttle at the same time, and I don't want to add lean angle too fast and start dragging hard parts. Basically, I take it slow because I'm a clumsy lout and have a hard time walking down a hallway without bumping into the walls never mind ride a motorcycle, however, as long as I don't run out of tire tread, I don't think the TIRES care if I lean them from straight up to 45 degrees or from 35 to 45 degrees. So, IMHO, a skilled rider, such as Mugget, certainly CAN quick steer the bike when leaned over, but it takes a bit of finesse. (Is that any clearer? I am sorry if I have expressed this badly. )

Oops. Double post.

Okay--the short version: Sometimes it is okay, in my opinion, to lean in, then lean in some more. For example: Here are a couple of riders violating the One Steering Input rule, and making it work at about -1:14 to -1:05.

Bad news, Mugget--you are now riding your track bike like a Harley! A classic way to ride a heavy cruiser on the street is to enter a corner by going around the outside of the turn. In other words, you tip the bike in at, say 10 degrees of lean. Then, when you see the apex and all is clear (no trucks or squids in your lane), you make a possitive turn toward the apex and lean in to a frieghtening (on a cruiser) 20-degrees. This type of a line is called Tip-in Turn-in. It is actually a safe and conservative way to ride on the street. I also see a lot of MotoGP riders using this technique. They approach the curve and TIP in till they about drag their boot, THEN they pick up their foot and actually TURN in. I don't stick my foot out, but I like this approach sometimes because once I have tipped in, I don't feel like I'm about to run off the road. Somehow, leaning MORE seems less scary to me than that initial lean from straight up. You must be pretty comfortable on our trak bike to notice this. Well done.

Interesting poll. I like to play with the corners. Otherwise, on the street, you have to at least double the speed limit for it to feel fast. I have too many school loans to afford to ride on the track.

Welcome, Tyler. Nice to hear from you. You've done three levels. What would you like to work on if/when you do Level 4? Just curious.

Hello Dan, Welcome to the forums. Good to hear from you. My only question is, why you would want to ride that old Duc? Just kidding. That is a classic ride you have there, Dan.

Lots of uses for the rear brake. It is not necessarily a nuclear detonator.

What about Cornering Rule #1: One single steering action per turn? Here is my bonus question: How can this rule be true for both a wide "qualifying" line, and a "point-and-shoot" line? (Check page 62 of ONE of the twist books.)

Welcome ANORXIC51, I was just talking to a lady in her 50s. Her husband rides a Gold Wing. She's been a passenger for years, but she is now a new rider on a midsize cruiser. Her first bike. She is very timid about cornering. It scares her to lean over at all. She feels like just riding the speed limit on some corners is PLENTY of excitement for her. It will be ages before she even WANTS to carry a lot of speed in the corners. So, I was thinking about her and about some of the thing KC said in TOTWII and wondered if riding straight and quick turning the bike would be something she would be interested in. So, I hopped on my Wing and tried squaring off the corners and quick turning the bike. I found that on a lot of curves, by the time I got the bike turned, I was up again and pointed straight down the road exiting the corner. Other corners, I had to spend more than a few seconds "hanging there" with the bike leaned over, but by squaring off the turns, I could cut that uncomfortable (for her) "hang time" down a lot. I was certainly able to keep up with traffic while squaring off the turns and riding the speed limit, I didn't need to do any hard braking either. Me? I like big swoopy turns on a nice, wide "qualifying line" (outside, inside, outside), but it was kind of relaxing to quick turn the bike and find myself riding along straight up and down again. It was kind of weird. It felt a little like cheating. Still, I found squaring off the corners and quick turning the bike to be a good way to spend as little time as possible in what some new riders feel is that "horribly-uncomfortable leaned-over I-am-about-to-fall position." You know, I wouldn't think of teaching quick turning to a new rider. They don't need it. Right? Why would you need to quick turn at 45 mph? Having played with it and thought about it from a beginners point of view, I wonder if squaring off the corners and quick turning the bike might not be a smart and stress resistant approach.

Hello, Old Guy: I'm another Old Guy. I think motorcycle boots should look like they looked when I first started to ride. Sooo, I'm saving my pennies for some nice Bates Custom Leather boots. http://www.batesleathers.com/images/boots/fastlane.jpg Of course, my preferred boots for actually touring are any light-weight over-the-ankle hiking boot. Even in my Gold Wing, I don't have room for two pairs of shoes, so my touring boots have to be supportive, protective and comfortable to walk in. If I can't walk around at my destination, I ain't a-wearing 'em!

I wrote to the folks at Leanometer and detailed the issues from the above post. Here is what Steve had to say: Thanks for the email. Firstly, congratulations - you're very observant! Secondly, you're absolutely right - motorcycle tyres could not achieve 2g of lateral force. The footage taken at Qatar was with development software, which scaled the lateral force by a factor of 2, so each hatch mark is in this case 0.05g, giving a total range of 1g. The reason for doing this was for road riders: most road cornering is taken at a more sedate pace, and we thought it would be a good idea to increase the resolution of the scale. For the road this works well, as you can see more clearly your level of cornering force. However, for a well-ridden race bike on slicks, the scale maxes out too easily, and you can see this in the video. The accompanying data from the ride shows about 1.25-1.3g maximum lateral force, which is what you would expect. Since then, we have changed the scale to make it more suitable for the track. In future, we'd ideally make the scale adjustable by the user. Please feel free to share this response - in fact we're always happy to talk about this and other aspects of cornering. Best regards Steve Makes sense to me. Also, very interesting how much MORE force is being applied to the race bike tires than the street bike tires.

Sure. If I read the Leanometer correctly, in the street bike segment, the rider is leaning over a fair bit, but according to the meter, he is not putting much stress on the tires. I see five hatch mark segments lit up across the top of the display. The literature at the website seems to indicate that five hatch marks means the rider is only generating .5 Gs of side force. If I were driving a Mazda Miata at 35 mph, around a corner that the tires and vehicle could take at 70 mph without sliding, well, I would probably get very little feedback from the tires. They would not be sliding, squeeling, screaming, wiggling or doing much of anything really. At that speed, the tires might not even be properly warmed up yet. So, if I'm just riding around one up, at the speed limit, on my motorcycle, I might be getting very little feedback from the tires because they just don't have much to say. They aren't howling because I'm not breaking very hard. I don't get a sense of GRIP because I'm just not asking them to grip very hard. I feel uncomfortable turning in because I'm getting so little feedback, when that's exactly what I SHOULD be getting when I'm riding well within the bike's and the tire's traction limits. In other words, I'm just over thinking the whole turn in "problem." ----- However, what confuses me in the video is, if you keep watching, you'll see the Leanometer in race mode. On some corners, I see numbers like 48-degrees maximum lean. Okay. Race bike. On the track. Completely believable. But it LOOKS like those hatch marks around the top are indicating 2 Gs of side force (20 hatch marks). Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think ANY motorcycle race tire will give you two gravities of grip. So, I may be full of beans. I'll contact the sellers and report back with their answers.

I haven't had to swerve for real, but I do practice swerving and that is one of the few times I get some feedback or a feeling my tires are gripping. I have often wondered if I could just keep that level of swerve going and use that much speed at the entrance of a curve. I haven't fallen over yet! That supports my theory that it is pretty hard to slide the front tire just by turning. Now here is something that might explain the seamingly contradictory feedback I get from my tires. I saw this new product called a Leanometer. It measures lean angle and acceleration forces. For exampe, in the video below, at 1:46, you can see the bike has just rounded a corner with 34 degrees of lean, a pretty good lean angle for the street, and those bars over at 2-o'clock indicate only .5 Gs of lateral accelleration. I have heard street tires are good for 1.2Gs and race tires might go 1.4. So, the rider in the video is leaning over pretty far, but using less than half the tire's available grip. Even on that supermoto, he might not have a good sense that the tires were gripping.

Your right, Eirik. I am afraid to change directions under ANY conditions. Pesky darned corners!

I was checking out the video in Eirik's thread about early superbike racing when I noticed one of the guys over brake at the entrance of a curve, slide the rear tire and low side. I've also seen more than one current superbike rider over brake the front tire and low side. BUT ... in all the racing videos, crash videos, mountain rides and twisty road videos, I don't think I have EVER seen someone slide a tire and low side JUST from turning. No, wait, I did see one guy crash a brand new Kawasaki Ninja by turning and adding a lot of throttle at the same time. And I have seen people fall over midway through a turn by adding TOO MUCH throttle. Am I imagining things, or is turning the bike--without adding brakes or gas--pretty darned safe?

"Stress comes from worry, worry comes from lack of commitment. You quit worrying and get busy once you've committed to anything!" Now THAT is something to think about!

I ride a Gold Wing and don't race. I use my rear brake ALL the time. Starting slow. Slow u-turns. Scooting around trucks in the parking lot. Riding on gravel (both ends of my commute). I use it FIRST to settle the suspension. With that 66" wheelbase, linked ABS, rear bags and trunk, and a passenger, I can and MUST use my rear brake to get maximum stopping power. I've only locked the rear brake once on a big touring bike, that was during an emergency stop on my Voyager.