Working on cornering

this is where abs would help not braking too much and going into a side
abs knows when to slip the brakes

 

Never pump, always a smooth application. Load the tire even before the turn as this sets up your suspension and tire. Watch this video again and pay attention to what they are saying about loading. https://youtu.be/G1rlQ0NmbWs

 

A bit off-topic, but some days I feel like a cornering guru, while other days I feel clunky and awkward and can't do anything right. Ah, well . . .








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Not off-topic at all. See the first post.

 

What I've found when this is happening to me is that I'm being lazy with body positioning, too tense on the bars, etc. Pay close attention to that and see how it changes things. One of my recent rides, I was following a guy downhill and I was lagging. I realized I was not squeezing the tank and instead I was way tense on the controls. I gripped the tank with my legs and loosened up a lot on the bars and it was a hell of a lot easier and I was able to catch up and keep him in sight. He won his class last year at the track, which is said to illustrate how much of a difference it made, not that I'm Johnny Go Fast.

 

Yeah, steep downhills in the tight stuff is harder for me than anything else. And I have been riding for years and years. The motorcycle just feels less settled. I'll work on that. Always improvements to be made.
















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I'd like to suggest you raise the forks 10mm and shim your shock. I did this with my bike and it has made a world of difference. Prior to, especially downhill, my bike felt as if it were pushing the front tire. Now, it feels like a different bike. It made all types of riding in twisties easier. And, the best part is it's free! I went to a car alignment shop and asked for an alignment shim. They mechanic gave me two used shims he had in his drawer. I loosened the nut holding my shock in place and with some difficulty, slid it on the top of the shock, and it's made such a vast improvement! I've had no headshake at either high speed, hard turns, hard acceleration or hard braking, but I feel like I went from a Yamaha FJR to a R1. It really has made that much difference.

Try it, I bet this will help a lot with all aspects of riding as I noticed a big difference in downhill twisties.

 

Definitely try the same road, but really focus on squeezing the tank and using your core to hold your weight off of the bars, even if you're "hanging off", as then it is even more important to keep your arms loose to make any line corrections substantially easier. Brace yourself as much as you can while remaining flexible. Looseness and flexibility is key.

 

A shitload of all this street corner carving needs to be tempered with the surroundings. Just one example. Up on the Washington Peninsula we got your Hurricane Ridge. Going up the twisties and switchbacks are tons of fun. When not socked in the visibility allows time and distance setting up for the next corner pretty easy. Most of the corners are constant radius and if ya run off, ya got a nice upslope shoulder to stop on.

Coming down is a different matter. Envision the dudes in LA who get off hard up on that muy famoso place where the dudes with cameras hang oot to watch the crashes. The major difference here (on the Ridge) is if you fuck up on one of several downhill twisties the bottom can be a couple of thousand feet. Very hard on bikes not so much the fall of course but when ya come to a halt.

There are vids of this on Utube.

Almost forgot!! Tourists in cages. I'm headed down one day and there's a van in the middle of this two laner and the "occupants" are scattered around feeding the small critters or maybe they were trapping lunch vittles.

 

I totally agree BB. I mostly am posting some tips that I have learned as they can all make for a better safer ride, especially in a fast pace, but also in an emergency. SO many variables on the street that are out of our control.

 

Yesterday I felt like a total tard (tip of the hat to Alaskan) on the 800. Starting to love the 700. Maybe it' the tires.

 

Well that is part of cornering. You did fine. You need brake control and throttle control along with counter steering. You need very fine throttle and brake inputs at times so learn those two things to the utmost and your corning will get a lot better. You can change your line with either of those two also. Leaning, (counter steering) is only part of going around a corner.

I don't mean braking in a corner, you should have all (most) of your braking done before you get to the entrance of the corner. I mean fine tuning your line with either very minute brake or throttle inputs or both sometimes at the same time. Hard to explain easy to try.

 

One of many tips to better and safer riding is to stop thinking aboot yourselves/ourselves as fast guys.

 

BB wins the Internet on that last post.










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My own opinion is:
Never think that you know everything.
No matter how good you are, some one will be better.
Listen to old people.
Don't try to be a Casey Stoner on a public road.
If you have to grip hard with anything, you're doing it wrong.
Know your limits, and don't try to go over them on a public road.
Build core stength, the only thing that will stop you having to grip hard with anything.
Balance and smoothness is the key.
Practice, practice, practice.
When you hit a corner without using brakes, lean it at the right time and scrape the pegs, and accelerate smoothly to full throttle as you lift it, all this without stiffening up or placing any weight on the bars, and holding the grips without effort, you've nailed it.
It takes years mate, track time and lessons are the best thing you can spend money on.

 

Agreed. One more important thing- Keep the rpm's up 5k or higher (higher is better/more stable). This helps steady the bike because of the gyroscopic effect or the rotating internal mass. Acts like a gyroscope keeping the lean angle more stable.

Go in to a corner at lower rpms and see how the bike feels lazy kind of. Now take that same corner at the same speed only at higher rpms and feel how the bike is more stable and sharp/responsive to your inputs. As Oz says practice practice practice is one of the main keys. Another is to get it in your thinking so it's a reaction and not a thought. If you have to think about it while doing it, then you're to late with your movements any everything you do seems rushed or wrong.

 

Like he says.

 

Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect. Amateurs practice till they get it right, pros practice till they can't get it wrong.

Have someone video you or video yourself. What can feel like the perfect body position to you while riding may actually be quite bad if you don't know what the perfect body position actually feels like.

 

A little bit of a year from the dead, but read this:http://www.cycleworld.com/2015/08/11/ienatsch-tuesday-swearing-and-trailbraking/?src=SOC&dom=fb

 

It just occurred to me that you may be receiving a couple or more pieces of advice at a time. If you go out and practice more than one new technique, how are you going to know which one helped? Who knows, one may counter the other. Maybe a wise practice would be to take techniques offered one at a time and practice that until you are comfortable with that new technique and determine if that helped. Then move to the next new technique and practice that. Then put the two together and practice. See where this takes you.

Again. I am not a racer or even that technical of a rider. Just a thought process.