How did you guys practice hanging off when you first started to push yourself more on your bike? How do you stay locked on the bike w/o tightening on the bars? I'm interested in finding out every way you hold on, knees, forearm, tucking feet into bodywork. How do you point your inside foot, are you on the ***** of both feet or just the inside foot? Details would be very helpful. My goals are to get more comfortable, safer, and faster but since I low sided it's been hard to really push myself through the corners w/o SR's hitting me. It's dumb b/c the low side was completely caused by an SR (freezing on the bars coming out of a corner) but it's just shot my confidence.

I saw some videos on youtube of slow speed parking lot circles hanging off and thought it would be a safer way to practice really hanging off the bike and build back confidence. I never got a knee down while doing the parking lot circles and I had a hard time feeling secure on the bike w/o death gripping the bars. I pretty much eliminated the chicken strips on my q2's but never got a knee down, so I must not have been off the seat like I thought. My foot pegs didn't touch down either, which I thought they should before I got near the edge of the rubber.

 

probably going to get a bunch of flack for this one but...

See how far you can get the bike to lean over while riding in a straight line on an open lonely highway, also try riding with your hips off the seat, tucked, and only using thumb and tips of fingers to hold the handle bar.

note this will in all likely hood give you absolutely horrible body positioning while in a corner. float on the bike let it do its thing... take street tires on a washed out dirt road and you will know what i mean.

i ride on the ***** of my feet(/big toe), gets them up away from the ground, gives spring in the legs.

note the moment you do this in a non controlled environment you are worse than a dead man.

Correct answer is to go to the track, chicken strips= safety margin, you do not want to be pushing them to the limit on the street. also shifting around your weight while in a corner upsets the bike and combined with other factors, leads to bad things(see sig).

picking the right line is how you reduce times, not by going faster.


if you really want to pucker, get on the ***** of your feet, approach a right turn get your hips totally off the seat (have thigh on seat), hold left bar with pointer, middle and thumb tips, lock left elbow, bike should be leaned pretty far left, hold throttle with only your right palm, and enter the corner. dont do all at once on the first turn.

this post is more getting comfortable rather than proper technique. Op, should have probably rephreased and posted in track techniques instead. everything not in bold is a wonderful way to run yourself off a cliff... recently i have been trying to get comfortable in a turn while in a full tuck... whole nother can of worms but requires a totally different position than what most people use on the street


whats an SR?

YOU SHOULD NOT DO ANYTHING IN THIS POST! it is mostly bad advice

edit 600rrs also have a ridiculous amount of lean stock.

 

My bike is a 2001 f4i, I should have put that in the OP. The chicken strips weren't really a concern for me so much, I was using them when trying to hang off in the parking lot to judge how far I got the bike over. The fact that they were nearly gone after several circles and I hadn't touched down lead me to believe I wasn't hanging off properly.

I want to be clear that I'm not trying to go around corners on the street dragging knees. I do however believe that learning to drag a knee and hang off hence keeping the bike more upright will allow me a bigger safety margin on the street as well as make me more comfortable on the bike.

SR's are survival reactions, from kieth code's book and video like freezing up on the bars, pretty much something you do when you panic b/c you feel overwhelmed. I was getting the feeling the track would be the answer most people gave, thanks for your input.

 

Scoot close up against the tank, squeeze with your knees.
Try to hang on mostly with your legs, use your hands for handlebar input to lean.

 

2 month old thread BTW but....

If you have to 'hang on' your not going fast enough for that lean.

You don't lean for the sake of leaning or hanging off, its a balancing act. Your movement has to be in concert with the bike, no more no less. When your lean angle, corner speed and body position are all in harmony you won't feel like your forcing anything. You feel like everything is right where it should be.

 

That actually makes a lot of sense after practicing hanging off more and more recently. Thanks.

 

No problem.

Hangin off is not the goal, its simply an equal compensation to ideal angle and speed in a given corner, if that makes sense. I ride with alot of guys that think touching a knee is the final level yet they can't understand how I can rail right around them without plenty of tire to spare and inches before my knee gets close to touching down.

Ideally you want to be relaxed in the seat, outside leg comfortable wrapped around the bike with your body just positioned to the inside of the bike prior to the turn. After you've done all your breaking, put slight outward pressure to the inside bar to tip the bike into the turn and try and feel the balance between your body and the bike. Keep your arms, elbows really, relaxed and let the bike turn in naturally and the suspension work freely underneath you. As the bike falls into the turn your body should ease outward only as much as needed to maintain the balance you felt prior to that. The only time you would exceed that is if your really trying to push the limits of the turn but even then you must stay connected to the bike. If you lose that connection and the bike at that point should lose any traction, shake or bobble, your done.You have to maintaine that connection so you still have control of the bike and not the other way around.

Hope that made some sense.

 

Hanging on with legs=no death grip on bars.
I hang on with my legs even driving straight up...

 

Thanks zaq, your explanations are very helpful. I suppose I kind of feel like getting a knee down is a goal I'm reaching towards, but I really just want to feel more secure and in control on the bike. Moving around, just hanging off a little seems to help me find my seat on the bike/feel more secure. It's just taking me a long time to really feel secure on the bike again after I lowsided awhile back. A track day would help from what I've heard, wish there was one really close to make it easier.

 

Thats awesome. Sounds like your getting the idea.

The purpose of hanging off is so you can keep the bike as upright as possible for that turn and relative to your body position. If you force the bike over just to get a knee down your making all things at least of which, your contact patch, your margin for error, your ability to correct and ultimately your best potential for carrying speed throught the corner.....worse and not better.