Forget knee downs - got my toe down!

[ital916]

What use is your back brake in an emergency situation?

Why change down a gear in an emergency?

In an emergency you generally need to steer your bike or brake hard with the front brake. Riding with the balls of your feet on the pegs gives you maximum control over the bike for both. If you really want to use the rear brake you can move your foot the 3cm required in an instant.

mmhmm

Changing gear is the last thing to be thinking of in an emergency stopping situation. Just use the brakes on your bike and stop! Who cares if the bike stalls, as long as you are in one piece. Moving your feet to the control takes all of a second.

[george formby]

Ok, thank you all for the tips and pointers (and especially the pics Maki they were very helpfull).

So, what I've taken from this is:

• Make sure that my feet are not pointing outwards (duck feet).
• I don't think I'll use the balls of my feet on the pegs for now (but may try this on a trackday - if I ever get round to doing one).
• Leaning is not just as simple as thorwing your body over one side of the bike. There are a lot of different ways to lean. The Hagi example seems to have the whole body to the left slightly rather than the bottom half with the top half scrambling back over the bike (the next pic after the hagi one).

All good. I think I will try it slowly for now and hopefully it will feel a bit more natural.

Cheers

If I'm tootling & particularly looking for hazards in traffic I cover the rear brake & gear lever, just so I can react as quick as poss. When I get the chance to string some corners together I put the balls of my feet on the pegs, making it easier to adjust my body weight & keep the bike stable as it swings.

[IdunBrokdItAgin]

OK,

finally got a chance to get out there today and try some of the points given in this thread.

Went from Johnsonville to Makara and then onto Karori back through town and back up the gorge to JVille again.

After about five minutes on the makara road things started to fall in place. Very soft leans to "try and kiss the wing mirror" at first. Started feeling comfortable leaning after about 10 mins of small leans and started noticing the bike didn't hardly need any countersteer to get round corners.

Then upped it to leaning right out to get round a gentle corner and not steer the bike - even better (all at lowish speed) even if it looked a bit weird to other road users.

Then tried leaning out and countersteering and wow. The turn rate is about twice as sharp than countersteering alone. At the Karori end of the makara road I was having a great time leaning into those fast corners (if anything I had to keep an eye out for oversteering - when historically understeering had always been my problem).

So, I would like to say a big thank you to all the bikers who gave me tips in this thread. Good on you guys - you helped out a newbie to develop his skills safely - what this website should be all about.

I'll carry on practicing and maybe one day use it on a track session.

I also tried "balls of feet on the pegs" for a while. Definitely more control for leans but I don't think my brake or gear levers are set up for that style. I'll keep trying though.

Cheers

[Cr1MiNaL]

OK,

finally got a chance to get out there today and try some of the points given in this thread.

Went from Johnsonville to Makara and then onto Karori back through town and back up the gorge to JVille again.

After about five minutes on the makara road things started to fall in place. Very soft leans to "try and kiss the wing mirror" at first. Started feeling comfortable leaning after about 10 mins of small leans and started noticing the bike didn't hardly need any countersteer to get round corners.

Then upped it to leaning right out to get round a gentle corner and not steer the bike - even better (all at lowish speed) even if it looked a bit weird to other road users.

Then tried leaning out and countersteering and wow. The turn rate is about twice as sharp than countersteering alone. At the Karori end of the makara road I was having a great time leaning into those fast corners (if anything I had to keep an eye out for oversteering - when historically understeering had always been my problem).

So, I would like to say a big thank you to all the bikers who gave me tips in this thread. Good on you guys - you helped out a newbie to develop his skills safely - what this website should be all about.

I'll carry on practicing and maybe one day use it on a track session.

I also tried "balls of feet on the pegs" for a while. Definitely more control for leans but I don't think my brake or gear levers are set up for that style. I'll keep trying though.

Cheers

If your getting your toe down on a Hornet 250 and not your knee or peg down with it there's something horribly wrong with what your doing.

I didn't really read this entire thread just your posts and Maki's posts so if someone had said this before then lets just say I agree.

If you met me in person and asked me the question as to why I lean off my bike so much I'd say to get knee down! or Knee down is where it's at! or something rather. But let's just be honest here as you are a learner and good advice will go a long way.

Leaning off the bike whether on the road or the track has the same 'benefits' albeit it has different 'advantages' on the road, as road riding is very different to track riding.

Let me explain in plain easy to understand English-

1. when you lean off your bike and 'counter - steer' you are effectively asking the bike to fall over for a mili second as your steering inputs are throwing the bike off its natural gyroscope momentum and taking it into the corner. A bike likes to go straight when under constant throttle and nothing else. Google 'gyroscope' for more on this.

2. What leaning off the bike also does for you is it transfers the weight to the inside of the bike. This is the MAIN 'benefit' of this technique. // there are limits to grip, traction and speed, leaning off helps keep your bike more upright so that you can get on the throttle earlier and take the corner quicker without getting flung to the outside of the corner due to the effects of gravity and inertia. Think about it, if you jump off a moving bus you are not just going to land on your feet and walk away - expect to roll. Similarly a moving bike is not just going to turn into a corner without any implications. Crucial you understand this. * I have also started weighting the outside peg when my knee is on the ground coming out of corners as this puts downward force on the center of the bike and helps more aggressive throttle responses i.e wheeling out of corners!

Feet:

Definitely have the balls of your feet on the pegs... when on a left hander it is ok to have your right foot slightly less on the balls of your feel so that you can trail the rear brake - although I suggest you google that one separately and not try it at this stage.

Leaning:

Also when your learning to lean off understand 'how' to correctly lean off as Maki pointed out. I learned the wrong way and am always trying to correct myself as habits are hard to break. The idea is to not push on the bars from above but the have lent of sufficiently to push on the bar from the side you are leaning off. Thus doing less and letting the bike do more.

To go with all this there is the art of 'throttle control', understanding of the 'geometry' and how 'suspension' on a bike works just as the basics to think of entering and exiting each and every corner. Add to this the perils and unpredictability of road riding and you have quite a tired mind after 300 kms of assertive road riding.

Good luck eh, it is quite a demanding sport and the consequences of not getting a small bit right are well... you know.

Pic 1. You see what I am doing wrong? Sure my knees on the ground but it's not really helping... I'm on the bike rather than off it and pushing down on the bars. Bad basics... in my defense that's not really a road where you can get your knee down the correct way without going a million miles an hour and it was for a picture.

Pic 2. Now that's a lot better body off the bike if I were to dip it in to the point of getting my knee on the ground you can see where I'd be. Much better.

[Maki]

Then tried leaning out and countersteering and wow. The turn rate is about twice as sharp than countersteering alone. At the Karori end of the makara road I was having a great time leaning into those fast corners (if anything I had to keep an eye out for oversteering - when historically understeering had always been my problem).

Brilliant, thanks for that interesting feedback. No more toe down for you.