Focus on S bends.

[cowboyz]

I was playing round the other day and found to be unsettled on tighter S bends.

I am talking about <45k S bends rather than sweepers.

I find myself approaching at 70-80k laying the bike into the left and looking right to the vanishing point of the second corner. This causes me to throw the bike into the second part of the S bend before I have finished the first bit, often cutting over the centre line. Now I don't ride really fast. I am no racer. I enjoy riding at a pace I feel comfortable with. I have no problem laying the bike into a 45k bend at 80k if I can't see the next corner (if you get what I mean). One corner at a time is no trouble. I seem to unsettle the bike when I get ahead of myself in the planned move.

I can see one of three things really.

1. cut corner and ignore the left hand bit of the S bend and just take the right hander. (unacceptable as part of the challenge I like about riding a bike is staying in the left lane and following the road as it was meant to be ridden)
2. Look left until the apex of the corner and then look right throwing the bike into the S bend
3. look right and "guess" where the left hand goes to . This is what I find myself doing to an extent. I find myself looking over the top of the bike with the bike banked left and me looking right.

Anyone follow what I am talking about here and got any suggestions?

[FzerozeroT]

REPOST!

jokes, of course other people have asked similar questions

http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/sh...survivors+line

maybe make yours a bit more specific with a diagram?

[ZeroIndex]

only thing i could suggest is maybe (if it's the same section you're practicing on), go walk about it, and pick a landmark/area (maybe chalk a section of the road), and work on that as your turning point, and build up speed from there (once you've got the hang of it), and eventually, it should become habit

[cowboyz]

diagram.

the black is obviously the road.

the red would be the line you want to ride on. (lets say the right hand black line is the centre line)

The blue lines would be where I aim to look through the corner. By the time I am trying to look at the second blue line the bike is banked a fair way over the wrong way so I have to try to look over the bike.

The purple line is what I end up doing. Concentrating further up the road. Missing the vanishing point of the first corner and in effect cutting the corner. The trouble with this is that I still bank the bike left which makes turning right somewhat unsettleing.

As for walking the corner. Like I said before. I am not racer. I get more entertained by clocking up alot of k's and this means riding unfamilar roads all the time. It is the art of reading the road on the fly. I love it. I prefer it over following the same track all the time. It is just this left right combo that is a little strange. I don't feel I am going to fall off kind of scary. Just unsettling of the bike.

The really bizarre thing about it is if the S bend is right/left then it does not matter so much.

[avgas]

Look where you want to go, not where you are going. The bike will do the rest.
Swing out wide on the corner, so you can see the apex of the turn. Then as you progress the apex concertrate on the further most point of the turn that you can visibly see, make a rough assumtion in you head and imaging where the corner goes. Be prepared to stop at all time when your visiblity is nill.

[ZeroIndex]

diagram.

the black is obviously the road.

the red would be the line you want to ride on. (lets say the right hand black line is the centre line)

The blue lines would be where I aim to look through the corner. By the time I am trying to look at the second blue line the bike is banked a fair way over the wrong way so I have to try to look over the bike.

The purple line is what I end up doing. Concentrating further up the road. Missing the vanishing point of the first corner and in effect cutting the corner. The trouble with this is that I still bank the bike left which makes turning right somewhat unsettleing.

As for walking the corner. Like I said before. I am not racer. I get more entertained by clocking up alot of k's and this means riding unfamilar roads all the time. It is the art of reading the road on the fly. I love it. I prefer it over following the same track all the time. It is just this left right combo that is a little strange. I don't feel I am going to fall off kind of scary. Just unsettling of the bike.

The really bizarre thing about it is if the S bend is right/left then it does not matter so much.

i agree with the "i get more entertained by clocking up alot of k's" but in saying that, there's obviously more than one left/right s-bend in New Zealand, and if you plan on riding one of those, and you've got a slight problem with them, walking through one, and planning on one particular one (the closest one to where you live perhaps), then, when you find the others, your sub-concious/experience/sheer luck, will get you through the corner perfectly fine..

[Ozzie]

my novice approach would be to focus on the appex of the 1st corner, then as far round it as you can, when you see the next one (going to the right) focus on that.

Basically, you will go where you are looking, so look where you want to go.

As a sort of mud map, I would be looking where the arrows are, straightening up and flipping the lean roughly where the star is.

I may be wrong, and am sure that will be pointed out quickly if I am. But it works for me, I love S bends, but am by no means the fastest at doing them.

[cowboyz]

I think my problem is that I get too far ahead of myself. You put my map drawing skills to shmae so I will refer to your map better. When the bike gets to the first green mark and is banked left I find myself looking at the top right of the map which means I am looking over the bike. I think I have to hold the line for another couple of seconds to make the left. more practice required

[SuperDave]

Maybe I havn't understood you correctly but the solution to this problem as far as I understand it is to just not do what you are doing at the moment. If you are leaning hard to the left as per the last diagram then why are you looking at the corner up ahead which you arn't even dealing with yet. Of course you can have a rough idea of whats coming up next from a quick glance before leaning hard left but when you are into the left hander you need to be focusing on that corner alone in my experience. Then as you are coming out of that left hander straighten up and alter your line to deal with the right hander coming up.

No offence meant at all mate, but maybe you are riding faster than you and your experience/skills allow you to comprehend and decide on how to deal with the next corner, so as a result you try to give yourself a few seconds more time by 'looking over the bike'?

Apologies if I have not understood your correctly.

[cowboyz]

You have understood perfectly. I fully admit I am no racer. I enjoy riding at pace but at pace means that I am comfortable that the bike is not going to throw me off. I realise in an anonoymous forum such as this it is difficult to judge someones background. I have been riding bike since adam was a cowboy but only rode on the road for a couple of years during school and then went to dirt bikes. Spent 15 years enjoying the feeling of being on the verge of being out of control on some (looking back on it now) pretty insane places we took some bikes that were really not surposed to be put. Then a couple of years ago I decided to go road touring so I brought a Ninja 250 and spent some time on that before upgrading to the 600. I like the 600F because it doesn't bite you like the stories of the R models round here. I have never fallen off a road bike on my own. I certainly do not ride my road bike like I ride on dirt. Maybe cause of the ammount of times I have fallen off on dirt and it hurts. I am just too scared of hitting tarmac - even in leathers. Hopefully we will get some fine weather this weekend and will look at going up to DVK for a look.

[FzerozeroT]

If it's specifically the left/right not the right/left that is your problem then I would tend to surmise that your problem is left hand corners fullstop. Same as many people have a dominant stance (goofy/natural in skateboarding) this also relates to how comfortable you are turning in one direction, on my leathers my left puck gets annihalated but my right is fine, (until I swap em) so I have the same problem but because I ride to suit it doesn't bother me.

Some of this I put down to time on the track at Taupo (all lefts bar 1) but otherwise I am the same in other sports.

/endramble

your poor ability to turn left (in relation to your turning right) puts you in a bad road position to make the right hand turn, you don't notice on left hand only bends because the straiht road ahead doesn't require great road positioning.

advice: get to a track with lots of left hand corners and practice over and over again with shifting your weight etc, don't try and do it on the road unless you can find a set of corners that you can repeat over and over quickly.


Just had another idea, get up out of your chair and do a piorouette (the ballerina move) yeah you'll look like a nancy boy, but when you spin one way you will be able to move freely, the other way will be jerky. this will help prove the concept