Cornering experiences

Cornering..

That should in fact be the most fun/rewarding action you do on a motorcycle, why? because it involves technique, courage, interconnection between man and machine, you can feel gravitational forces and you have to blindly trust the rubber (just like you do with a condom).

I took my drivers license 10 years ago, passed the theoretical and the practical test in one go. It was a great feeling of achievement, or was it ?

Looking back now, no one ever teach'd me about Counter steering, Body position, Throttle Control or even Sight. The rest of the Appendices obviously were explained and  a general overview was learned. Myself, I am an engineer at heart, so basically one of those guys that wants to understand how things are made and how they work, give me something with a steering wheel/bars and I will gladly drive it while perfecting the technique and understanding its mechanics, give me a broken engine and I will gladly start diagnosing, present me a challenge and I will use everything on my reach to make it work.

When you are thrown (in this case by my self) to the saddle and you get confronted with SR's (Survival Reactions) most likely you will freeze and crash, because you are not prepared to bypass these reactions, even if you are a cold blooded person with extremely good reaction, you know those reflexes that kinda put everything in slow motion around ya, let me tell you something, if you don't train to bypass SR's you will not bypass them. No one ever explained me about Target Fixation as well..

I finally managed to buy a street bike 6 years later (insurance prices, parents not agreeing, financial situation you name it) anyways after a while I got my first 600cc motorbike, I bought a 2004 Yamaha R6.



Later and after about a year and a half, I unfortunately crashed (you can see the left side is scratched and the tank gas dented). Before the crash I was reading all kinds of books and techniques for cornering, I felt motivated and had the feeling I knew it by heart, however now I can see what failed.. It was, the lack of real practice on avoiding those Survival Reaction's, this could have saved me some money and some pain, oh well, you know what they say, sometime you gotta hit the bottom to come up. Lesson learned..

All of this being said, I still continue to read books and watch the same technique videos, because the thought process is too complex to just leave it as it is, and you can always improve on some aspect, plus I always learn something new or find some area I should be more conscious when practicing, the objective is for me to pin point my flaws and know how I can take advantage of the best performance out of my capabilities while driving a motorcycle in a safe controlled manner.

How to hang of the bike:



Cornering strategy:

In cornering, everything is important, consider the following:
look through the corner in advance,
plan your line,
body position on the motorcycle,
how you use the throttle,
how you shift,
how you brake in advance,
how you start the corner,
and sometimes, unfortunately, how you brake or swerve in the corner itself.
once you are at the apex and ready to come out,
how will apply throttle smoothly and constantly throughout




Small tip about Warming up tires:

weaving back and forth in apparent attempt to scuff the tread surface, there are far more effective ways of generating heat in a tire that are also much safer. Rather than weaving back and forth—which does little in the way of generating heat but does put you at risk asking for cornering grip from tires before they're up to temperature—you're far better off using strong acceleration and braking forces, and using them while upright, not leaned over! Acceleration and braking forces impart far more flex to the tire carcass, which is what generates the heat that then transfers to the tread compound as well (you often see Formula 1 cars weaving violently back and forth because automobile tires operate on a horizontal plane, so they have and use significant sidewall flex to generate heat).

Chicken Strips and your lean angle:

Whatever you do in the bike world, if you are into Super Sports , Naked or any other type of road motorcycle, chicken strips will become a part of your social riding life.. Somehow these marks have become the Status of the riders, its a fact that they do show how much lean angle you use, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you are using it correctly, perhaps because people consider driving at high speeds on the road something to be proud of, even brands like Metzeler are taking advantage of this, (above picture) you can see how the Elephant (wise animal) is determining your evolution.
Chicken strips should not matter to anyone but yourself , so I would say go and race on the track, then you can be proud of your speed and lean angle, if you still have chicken strips after a couple of laps in a race track, get more involved in technique.

Keep in mind though that there is another side of this story, chicken strips and rubber scuffing can and will say a lot about your lean angle, also about your suspension settings. A badly tuned suspension can lead to incorrect scuffing of tires, thus reducing the life of the tire and as a consequence not being able to provide the same levels of grip as first intended.

Some good material I would advise you to read/watch:

The cornering bible " Twist of the Wrist " by Keith Code- What a legend, this guy back in the 70's back-engineered what the pilots did while riding, meaning he actually understood and developed workflows for cornering techniques, he collected the collective knowledge and distributed it through the audiences on a series of books and films called Twist of the Wrist.

Small Video Interview with Keith Code about how he started here
Link to TOTW 2 movie here
Link to TOTW 2 book here
California Super Bike School, Course explained here
LazyMotorbike here