How much lean

**Robtharalson** · 6th October 2010, 10:28

Originally Posted by lukemillar

This much:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqKShV-iN5M&

Front wheel off the ground and he still didn't bin it

(well, sort of!)

You do realize the only reason he didn't highside was he ran over his foot with the rear wheel which gave him the time to get things gathered up and pointed down the track.

Despite the lean angles evident in the video, their actual cornering speeds are lower than a properly set up sport bike is capable of. How do I know this? Radar clocking of motards and conventional road racers on the Streets of Willow course show a difference of 10 to 15% at the apexes. Exit speeds were considerably lower as well. They are, however, a real ball to ride!

I have encountered many Motards on the roads in the Malibu Hills, and while they are pretty capable in the corners, their corner entrances ("Backing it in".) slows them down a whole bunch, and as soon as I get behind them all I need is a good corner exit and about 50 feet of straight to get my 900 Hornet's 105 HP to the ground and blow by them like they were painted on the fence. That really pisses them off! Also, in high speed sweepers they can't maintain their pace much less accelerate nearly as well as a properly fettled large displacement inline four.

There is one road, however, that is a Motard riders dream: Tuna Canyon road in Malibu. Copy and paste this: tuna canyon rd @34.060550, -118.610570 into the search box in Google maps. There is a 3D photo tour available too. The entire length of it is one way downhill, there are steep dropoffs and vertical cliff faces right on the edge of the road, lots of exfoliated sandstone littering the road along with the obligatory leaves, branches, road kill, deer, and just about anything else you can imagine, and an absolute blast to ride! Throwing 300 kilos of bike and rider around for the length of it really takes it out of you, but with about 100 kilos gone and all the flickability one could possibly ask for it becomes a real hoot! One caution -- MX width bars catch things on the side of the road. Experienced Tuna'ers fit very narrow bars. It really is that tight. BTW, the fastest Ive gone on Tuna is 94 MPH (151 K) -- see if you can guess where! A hint: it's not on the bottom section.

Rob