How far to lean?
 

As a guy who does'nt use knee sliders I'm never sure just how far over I can go.
Back in the day it was easy, first was the sidestand, then the footpegs, then the centrestand, then the exhaust.
NOW, every time I go into a bend I always come out thinking " could I have gone through faster"
Just how do you find the limit, without sliding down the road on yer arse?

Not on the road certainly - Trackday / Coaching seems needed.

Hello 900MAN

or get up early on Sunday moring and head for a favorite

roundabout and make yourself dizzy.


TopiToo

yeah but I dont want to slide on my arse at a trackday either ;0)

Know what you mean but I just dont fancy,
A: keeping my body within the bike therefore increasing the lean angle and potentially loss of adhesion and I fall off,
or,
B: stick an unprotected knee on to the deck, ouch!!!!!!!

Guess I've answered my own question really.

I run good rubber always so that gives me confidence in lean angles, but a keen eye has to be kept on the road surface, that is texture and sand, oil patches etc.You can get a bit of an idea from your chicken stripes on how much tyre you are using but a rideday at a track where rider based skills training is taught is brilliant and well worth the fee. No matter how long you have been riding there is always something else to gain.
Cheers, Rob

Get a velcro patch sewn onto your leathers and stick knee sliders on ..... no more wuckin forries

Wear full leathers !!! , it will give you confidance ,well mine do , the few times i go out in my jeans ( Draggin jeans with kevlar) i dont feel so safe

When in my full leathers i have no problems getting my knee down i feels natural to do so , its like drive without your seatbelt it just dont feel right !

I got the feeling he wears leathers, just not the kind with sliders on ... only my view.

maybe 900man can confirm.

I asked this question a few years back about how far you can lean and the reply was "until you fall off and back a bit from that!"

Now I can get my knee down (track only), I wouldn't feel comfortable going fast through corners without hanging off the bike. It just feels natural to me but I would second (or is it third) the advice of wearing full leathers with knee sliders. That is not to say it will make you any quicker but I guess most tuition you will receive nowadays will advise you to shift your weight off the bike which is foolhardy without adequate protection. As my mother used to say, if you have a £10 head, wear a £10 helmet.

Of course, people will point to fast police riders etc and say they don't hang off but most would agree it is the fastest way round corners .... and it looks way cooler in pics when getting your trackday pics back. Oh, lastly do a trackday if you haven't already done one and you'll learn loads.

simon

Check the edge of your rear tyre, 1/4 inch ( 6mm ) from the edge is far enough for the road.

"Check the edge of your rear tyre, 1/4 inch ( 6mm ) from the edge is far enough for the road."

does it make a difference if its a 180 or 190?

I think it was easier to get to the edge on a 190 than a 180, tried both.

cool - I'll test that theory, just changed from 180 to 190

how about the front? I notice that on my monster and old 748 I would be closer to the edge on the fronty than rear, on 996 its the other way round with loooaaads left on the front and next to nothing on the rear...??

There are two simple things you need to do ...
1. Make sure your boots have replaceable TOE sliders.
2. Move the ball of your foot to the end of the peg when you corner.

The first is a really good idea anyway, and the second is something that will give you a better feel anyway.
If its still not happening, what you can also do is to reduce the rear preload a bit to reduce your ride height, and hence make your toe a little bit closer to the road. When you start getting your toe down, you can increase the ride height and try again etc.

One of my mates (ex racer in the seventies and eighties, and still very fast on his 748R) laughs about the need to get your knee down - but he does get through a lot of toe sliders :lol:

1/4" on the back 1/2" on the front, it`s harder to get to edge on the front.

I go around corners slower with my knee down, it`s not much use on the road.

Just measured the edges.
6-7mm on the back (190)
6mm on the front

just to go against the comen veiw
i always go for a hard tyre compond e.g macadams,020's or azaro sts
i can still get my knee down with out to much of a problem
can take them right to the edge of the tyre
but getting back to the original question, for me the main reason for prefering these over a stickier sports tyre is that they will slide earlier than a sports tyre and in a more controlled maner
i can quite happily go round some of my favorite twistys and feel the feed back from both wheels and it is always very consistent
with a sticky tyre there is always the danger of them letting go of the road whitch is always going to be a lot further than my hard tyres will go, but where a hard tyre will walk a sticky one can just go out as you find it's limit

obviosly a sticky tyre is always going to be better for a person that can really ride a bike and know it's/his limits but for me on an st2 i like some thing to tell me when i'm pushing my luck

please dont all shout it's only an opinion:D

you can get your knee down on pretty much all bikes with all tires and you dont need to going fast or be a good rider. i can get my knee down at will but im not that quick or good. it is a very good indication of how you are cornering though. turn in speed etc etc

Errrrr....I can't get my knee down at all.

On Saturday in the lakes there was a left hander that went around about 100 degrees. It was a fairly constant radius about the same as a large-ish roundabout right at the bottom of a valley. The road swooped down to the corner and back up the next hill on the exit. I arrived at the turn in point quite hot and had no option but to hang off the bike as far as I ever have done and I think that I must have leaned the bike to a greater angle than I ever have before on road or track - it felt like I was almost horizontal, hanging right off the bike and my knee still didn't touch down.

Jools your knee could of been just millimetres of the ground. Some peeps twist their hips so that the knee swings in towards the bike. If you slide you bum back all the way keeping your hips inline with the bars and your upper torso parallel with the bike, it will happen sooner than you think.

I must twist my hips then, cos I've still yet to touch down. And I've got no chicken strips at all!! Toes went down on some French roads last year, but no knee.

I've had to make do with rubbing up against a wall for now ;-)

Ade.

same for me then. got no chicken strips on the right, and I do feel my right side of my body move forward as I lean. Will try the tip

I have been doing some wall rubbing too recently but thats for a completely different reason :-)