When you lean your bike into a corner, do you stay inline with the bike, or lean toward the vertical position with your upper body? Pros and cons? Thanks.

 

Halo for normal lean angle, lean in-line with the bike, (I.E. taking a turn at a normal/slow speed) for high speed leans I am not sure but you probably want the counter balance technique, I would like some input from other riders here on that though. Thanks all.

 

Hey

Cornering is so often misunderstood and seen as a black art by some ... non of it helped by the fact that quite a few people tell you the wrong things which all adds up to the confusion ... a bike, on the road, corners by "counter steering" for 99.9% of the time ... that is what you use to steer and lean a bike over ... now it is always best to go with the bike, ie lean with it at the same angle but this is where it gets a wee bit subjective ... racers will climb all over the bike and that is fine on the track, but at the sane and kind of speeds used on the road just stay with the bike or go into a slight lean off position, move around the seat if you feel it best for you ... I tend to like to lower the C of G as much as possible by going into a semi crouch, staying in line with the bike but lowering myself down slightly this helps the bike flick left, right, left in the twisties as there is less leverage needed to get it to turn from one side to the other and saves me changing my seat position as I go left to right and back again.

Read this Counter Steering article ... it is so important to good road riding and can save your life especially where it comes to obstacle avoidance half way around a bend for instance.

https://cbrforum.com/forum/riding-skills-88/corner-fast-dont-crash-important-update-pg4-body-steer-63523/


Any questions feel free to ask me



Jules

 

There's a thread in the street skills section where we discuss counter steering and body positioning. Randyjoy, who is a track instructor gives some great advice in it. https://cbrforum.com/forum/street-skills-89/help-practicing-counter-steering-110679/

And counter-balancing should only be done is slow speed maneuvering, like u-turns. Counterbalancing during a higher speed turn will destabilize you as you fight the bike and physics.

 

Thanks all. I have been staying inline with my bike, because another guy told me that trying to lean vertical would lessen my traction. Others (cruiser riders) were saying that I should lean toward vertical. Needless to say, I wasn't sure which was correct. I appreciate the info.

 

Great thread! Thanks for linking it.

 

Here is a video demonstration of counter steering at work ... you can see how swift I am going down that twisty road and the bike's rapid change of direction is through counter steering alone. I am not leaning off the bike or doing anything other than a bit of a low crouch to keep the centre of gravity lower (aids swift flicking) and simply using the power of counter steering to get through the bends at a brisk pace.

If you get this down to a fine art you can make the bike dance


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPZcmgogxDU

 

Thanks for the video. I'm going to work on that...

 

You are most welcome but promise me something ... you won't go trying to ride like that anytime soon, it took me years of riding to be able to do that and my reactions are very finely honed on a bike ... this is a bike I was absolutely sure of which also happened to be new, everything working perfectly as it should on a supersport bike designed to corner like that, new tyres on smooth grippy tarmac on a road I know well ... take any of those things out of my above equation and that means going slower, a lot slower ... by all means practise counter steering and leaning/crouching as much as possible until it feels natural, like breathing, but you can take it slow and bikes begin to counter steer from just about 20mph ... you have nothing to prove to anyone, take your time and it will come


Jules

 

Couple of helpful videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxODo...layer_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxb5n...layer_embedded