body positioning & weight (track riding)
 

according to CSS and Twist of the Wrist etc, you hang your weight off your outside leg and midrift, and leave your arms to steer. And if flick-flack corners, use the outside leg to lever the bike over

my question is: can you still do this when a bit heftier than average? My worry is hanging my body out at the 'right' position, ie half off the seat with head around the mirror, shoulder dropped, and the bike liierally toppling over!! Is there a kind of minimum speed which you should do this?

I know what I mean, tbh not sure I've articulated iut that well...

Bradders your not meant to hang off both sides of the seat at the same time..........:lol: ;)

constructive then :rolleyes:

come on, you must know, all the training you've had on and off track

more wieght, you dont have to lean as far to counteract the g trying to pull the bike the other way. and the more your wieght is on the inside of the corner the less angle needed again. so really its all a matter of balancing your "hanging off" against the forces acting on you and the bike in a corner.

Dont be so touchy all the while.......

As the saying goes...........In the real world, its a bit like riding a bike, you never forget.

Your body will tell you when your going to fall off and you will do something about it, either go faster or stand the bike up......

ooh nearly forgot........i thought you were one of those against track riding....

You know, sometimes you can just think about these sort of things a bit too much.

so if I sling the bike on its side, ala aforementioned schools, will it just topple over?!?


ok I'll own up; real reason I want to know is if I can lean the bike as far with me hanging off as I do when not hangimg off....get my knee down if I can!!

an example

wasnt being touchy, just asking for your experience as well as the pi$$ taking ;)

and wheres the against track riding come from?! confusing me with someone else there.

trouble is, it feels really odd hanging off, always has, and I guess in the back of my mind there is the thought it will just fall over (especially at roundabout speeds) and now I'm back on a sports bike, I want to work on improving my riding, especially on track. Rehearse the right habits ;)

You have to ask why its required to hang off and what the reason and benefits are!!

.........and at a low speed roundabout its not......in fact probably at all roundabouts ............. except when you want to make a poxy video.......;)

OK so on this piccie, you look as though your sat on the spike thats in the centre of your seat...... if you had moved your ar$e over generally in preperation on arrival to the corner maybe as your braking in the straight line, so your left cheek was the only one on the seat pad oyu would virtually be knee down.

you could also practice by moving your head to around where the wing mirror would be....... look at someone pretty like rossi or whoever and try to mimmick their style.....it will feel alien but when you go look at the pictures at the track you will look right!

yep, do the head thing, especially on the road and on my bimmer!! have some good (better than above) pics of me doing that at brands, so kind of move my uppper body but not the bottom bit

s'pose I'll have to try and hope survival kicks in when its needed, not because it thinks its needed!!

ok...mallory hairpin, which is the pic before, or cadwell hairpin etc etc

but r/bouts are a great place to learn the technique if chosen correctly

If you're talking about wanting to ride fast then the key to that is comfort on the bike. You need to adopt a riding style and position that makes you feel comfortable and relaxed to the point where you are feeling no discomfort and positioning is not impinging on the job at hand - riding. This will allow you to concentrate properly.

What works for you might not work for someone else and in this case I really do think you need to figure this out for yourself. With all respect, you're a big lad so some skinny rake isn't going to help you with this. If you approach a corner and you're spending mental effort trying to position yourself in manner that someone else thinks is correct then you're not going to make the best job of that corner.

Compared to some people I barely hang off at all either on the road or on the track. This has both advantages and disadvantages, but it works for me.

i found at first it does feel wrong but after a while you get used to the new position. i started by concentrating on getting my upper body over first, when that started to feel good i moved my backside out of the seat in order to help. when i got the hang of that i started to try and get the right wieght balance on my legs.
hanging your arse off and leaving the rest of you over the middle of the bike doesn't help at all

TWPD - I guess my main worry is running out of lean angle. I use all my tires on the road, have been known to scrape parts and carry a reasonable bit of corner speed too. If I want to go racing again (and I do!!) the only way I can up my corner speed is to use less lean anlge, and use my weight instead (so I'm told)

Glyn - I guess give it a go is the massage, ta

In the main that is correct. Run out of tyre and you will crash. However, if you have even the slightest bit of tyre left you will be amazed at how many extra degrees of lean you have left. 2-3mm of tyre might give you another 5-10 degrees of lean depending upon tyres, tyre pressures and the corner/camber.

I look at your photo and to my mind you're not really anywhere near using up all that tyre. If you look at the foto of me below you will see I am achieving very high lean angles, but typically when I check the tyres I still have a bit left so, clearly there's more lean angle to be had. I have only once run out of tyre that I can recall.

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I look at your positioning on the bike and you seem very stiff and set to me. Look at my arms and how they are bent compared to yours - yours are dead stiff and locked straight. At the risk of causing some offence, and I don't mean to, some of this is probably a result of your physique. That will dictate to you how to sit on the bike and until you change that physique it is going to be difficult to do much about your positioning or that way you clamber over the bike. By the same token tall blokes find it hard to tuck in, small blokes find it hard to keep a foot on the outside peg when cornering. Everyone's physique has a bearing on their positioning on the bike.

It's all very well someone telling you to hang off more, but if you can't for whatever reason then you are going to be forcing yourself to try to ride to a style that won't work for you.

You talk about upping corner speed - there's other aspects other than outright corner speed where you can gain time on the track.

oooh if were willy waving.....;)

but on a serious note.............outside arm straight inner arm bent, could lower my head a bit more really, and if i had of would of been in elbow down territory, up on the inside toe so the foot doesnt touch.....gripping with the outer leg inner thigh.........all for the camera really!

most important bit is looking where i want to go.........and youll go there...

during the race I was scraping the rear sets..then crashed twice! and remember they are diablos..

physique has a lot to do with it, no offence taken and I get plenty of stick for it! but I guess I want to do the best I can without crashing!

and as my new to me 848 will be my track tool, not a crashable race bike, I wanna get it right!!

I don't need to. I am faster than you. Period. :)

but not as pretty............or as safe....(refers to donny video!);) :D

Pretty boy! ;)

Hey...I like to push to the limit. I get it wrong from time to time. :lol:

i couldnt afford to on me expensive bike...

..anyway....let's not derails Bradders' thread...

You can teach people lines, braking points, bike setup etc. But I am a firm believer in figuring out the positioning thing for yourself. If you look at the top racers many of them have styles that are unique to themselves and which you won't find covered by a text book or riding class.

ooo the next subject...lines and braking points ;)

for road or track........very different......twpd, im coming into my own!

Bradders, what you doing on sun 26th April? Im part of my lots bikecraft event at Silverstone stowe circuit..........might be able to slip you a ticket.......er, so to speak!

I hope you have a box of mansize there ;)

Yep...very different regimes. But then again, I seem to be one of the few people who think that track riding doesn't teach you much about road riding :lol: I've had a few arguments about that as well!

and we agree on something!:eek:

That'll be more by luck that judgement on your behalf then ;)

Hey Bradders, the 848 is a great bike for hanging off.

I Jelled with it straight away.

Just get your bumb to one side & its easy to knee down without too much lean angle, especially a damp barn corners as here... But remember to hold the tank with your left leg.

Andy

Show-Off :p

No-no Kev, the bike really encourages you.

I loved it and desperately want one...

Andy

Do what you need to be fast? By feel.

I never got my knee down, felt better tucking it in and trying to get my head forward and over the front? Doohan style was my inspiration.

I used to push the bike down, got some coaching, " keep the bike as upright as possible, get you body over and down'.

Bradders, you're a big unit, no doubt, so can you pick yourself up and then down, just using your legs, from one side to the other, not just sitting on/in the seat?

Haven't tried the 848 yet, haven't even tried a basic 1098, both 1098s I have ridden have been the R model and they are impressive, one of them I rode at last years Cadwell trackday and the other on local roads that I had ridden the day before on a MV 1000 Senna, I'd have the 1098R over the MV any day of the week.

made me laugh!

dont think I can no, tho not tried it...but the more I can use other than my arms, the more steering I can do

They teach it perfectly at the California Superbike School Paul, why not give them a try?

http://www.superbikeschool.co.uk

:)

so predictable........:rolleyes: ;)

You can do better than that!

I'll second that...I'll be after one of Ducati's 848 demo bikes for a session at Cadwell. I remember how good it was last year and want another hit.

As for the body positioning Bradders, I move around on the bike a lot, and hang off in what feels, to me, like a gibbon. As you can see from the photo, I'm just going into Barn the same as Andy is ^^^^ up there. Similar lean angle (Andy might be over a couple of degrees more), similar body position, but my knee is still yards from the tarmac and I very seldom get it on the deck.



The main difference is that I've got short stumpy legs compared to Andy, and what you can't see behind the zorst is that I'm already right on tiptoes with my left boot in order to use my left leg to lock into the tank, whereas Andy's boot is much flatter. This in turn means that I'm already hanging off about as far as the length of my thigh will let me, any more and my outside boot would be off the peg. Bayliss can do that but I can't without compromising the cleanliness of my undies. That and the fact I'm not very flexible in my hips and can't splay my legs any wider (ooerr missus) probably costs me a couple of inches in my ability to hang off, and my inside leg has the same affliction so that probably costs me another couple of inches between my knee and touch down. Alright, my outside foot is probably on tiptoes a bit more 'cos this is obviously my ST and it's got loads more seat to peg distance than my 888, but it's pretty much the same story with the T8, my knee hardly ever touches down. I don't sweat it, the pic above is about as far off the bike as I'm comfortable with right now.

One thing I do notice is that I'm up to 15 1/2 stone now and my beer belly really does restrict how easily I can get my torso down low - not just on a bike but during karate training as well, so I know I need to lose weight to be really mobile, another thing you can't see is that my belly is pressed flat on the tank so a few inches off my waistline would let me get my upper body a lot lower

so much debate....

not sure I'd get great value TP tbh. As said above (and too much!!) my statue also restricts my ability to jump around on a bike.

In terms of going faster, I'll be concentrating on track first being able to brake and turn and use markers something I know they teach but something a well mannered mate can teach me on a trackday. Also, having seen the program and read the books, I have a reasonable appreciation of what is needed. £2k is a lot of trackdays!!

reason for the Q is that I can practice body position on the road.

Jools - know the short leg thing all too well alas :rolleyes: