Cornering

[TwoSeven]

A game that I play when I am out riding the hills around chch when there are no cars around is to stay dead center of my lane. Sounds pretty easy but its actually very hard to do.

I can almost do the whole 50km port hills circuit without using the brakes at all and am working on not having to change gear either - but there are a few corners that still need work.

[TonyB]

Waaaaay back near the start of this, someone said you shouldn't over think it when riding, just relax and let it flow- or something like that. T'would apear that there is scientific evidence to back this opinion up. I was watching BBC world while eating my brekky this morning, and I saw the tail end of a program that delved into the reasons for 'choking'- ie: Beckham missing a simple penalty kick, or the All Blacks never winning the game that counts.

According to the research they had done, when your learning to do any new activity (like kicking a ball, or riding your motorbisikle) you use a certain part of your brain. In order to become expert at the task you need to do the task so often that it becomes a subconcious process and you no longer need to think about it. When this happens, you use an entirely different part of your brain.

So what? When placed in a high stress situation, most people revert to using the part of the brain they were using when they were learning the task, and they suddenly find doing the task much more difficult, probably because they are over thinking.

I reckon there is definitely some truth in this- how many perfectly good road riders have gone to a track day and spent the first couple of sessions wobbling around like a learner until they relax and just ride? I know I have

[2_SL0]

Im living proof of that. I was cornering ok. (not great but ok) Then I hadnt been on the bike for a few days (the weather and work etc) I got itchy feet started reading and analysing my cornering etc. Hey presto I was able to complte fa$k it up from basically trying to hard to do it right. Since then I scraped it all went with the flow, looked through the corner as much as possible and drop into the apex as late I AM happy with. I gurantee you overanalyse this and you will bugger it up.

Please next time I start asking to many questions and start down this road again. Someone slap me round the head and tell me to go ride my bike.

I will thank you for it later.