| Quick turning
Picking up a topic from the body position thread, how do you get on with quick turning?
I've done CSS through to level 3 and I know the theory - quick push on the inside bar to get the bike turning then relax and let the bike steer itself. How far you push the bar is how far the bike will lean, how quickly you push it is how quickly the bike will get to that lean angle.
So in theory, you approach a bend at just the right speed and in the right gear, look at the apex (or other RP's if the apex is blind), turn the bike quickly with a quick push on the bar and wind the throttle on smoothly all the way through the turn. Do all that right and you should clip the apex perfectly and (given all the other body position stuff is right) get a good exit and drive out of the corner.
In practise, I find quick turning the hardest thing to get right. I've lost the front end and lowsided twice when I've been trying to do a perfect quick turn on track. I've got something wrong, either still being on the brakes (don't think I was) or not relaxing enough after the quick prod on the bars and letting the bike lean until I rode of the edge of the tyre or somehow loading the front too much. I'm quite prepared to buy into the quick turn theory, but the practise of it is a leap of faith for me and I still feel some trepidation trying to do it right. After some perseverance I suppose I can now do it moderately well, if a little nervously, on track.
I was interested to see Andy Ibbott say that you could practise on the road as well as the track, and since I can't afford too many track days, that's where I've done most of my practise, but perhaps that's also why I'm not making the progress I want to. I find quick turning on the road is as hard as hell. For a start, the carriageway is only about 8-9 feet wide on an A or B road, then you can take a few inches off that on either side to account for all the gravel and crap near the kerb and the cats eyes in the middle. Then there are all the road hazards to deal with, such as all the bumps and the tramlines from heavy traffic, the manhole covers (why do they put so many of those on an ideal line for bikes) and assorted white lines, plus of course the inconsistency of the grip that you can expect with Farmer Palmer spreading muck about and those little banks of gravel that inexplicably end up in the middle of the carriageway.
So because of the narrow width and all the assorted hazards there's not much margin for error when you're trying out quick steering on the road (OK you could use both sides of the road if you can see clearly all the way through the bend and there's absolutely no traffic) and I've found that when you try it the control inputs that you have to make are minute. You have to push the bar quickly, but not very far in most cases and there is a tendency to overcook it and have to sit the bike up again because you're steering too deep
There is almost a natural tendency when you shove the bar quicker to also push it harder and further than it needs to go, then you try and compensate for that and end up not doing enough. Then of course for me there's that demon inside my head that says "Jools if you push that bar too quick you're gonna lose the front again", so I have my own battles with exorcising that particular gremlin
Anyway, enough rambling, how do you do it?
[Edited on 12-7-2005 by Jools]  | 
Jools
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