Your nemesis corner?

[Number One]

So I should weight the pegs? Well, the outside peg when cornering, but both if I'm just riding down a hill? I practice doing this anyway, so just continue with what I'm doing? And being an ex horse rider I instinctively tend to lean back a little too... right or wrong?

oo you so serious and studious...I luff you

[MSTRS:Me]

So I should weight the pegs? Well, the outside peg when cornering, but both if I'm just riding down a hill? I practice doing this anyway, so just continue with what I'm doing? And being an ex horse rider I instinctively tend to lean back a little too... right or wrong?

Try riding in a straight line and sort of tense your thighs slightly as you would if you were going to stand up. That will put even weight on the pegs. It has the effect of taking some weight off the swingarm allowing the rear shock to work better. It also lets you move about a bit as well, since your bum is no longer holding all your weight. Following?

[Trudes]

Try riding in a straight line and sort of tense your thighs slightly as you would if you were going to stand up. That will put even weight on the pegs. It has the effect of taking some weight off the swingarm allowing the rear shock to work better. It also lets you move about a bit as well, since your bum is no longer holding all your weight. Following?

Always following. Cheers.

[HenryDorsetCase]

think of a jockey on a racehorse.

having said that it gets a bit tiring after say 6 or 8 laps.

[Trudes]

Hovering the arse above the seat, good for the thigh muscles!!!

[Lissa]

Every corner on the Rimutakas is my nemesis. I really cant remember the last time I was on the hill, its been such a long time. If I had to choose it would be any of the corners going down, but really I havent had too many scary moments on a corner yet, only had a small off on a straight.

[Number One]

THIGHS..........

[MSTRS:Me]

Always following. Cheers.

Listen up and you may find that changes....
Now, when you've practised that a bit, try doing through a series of corners (gentle ones are good...you are trying to reprogram your conditioned responses).
Once you have that feeling comfy, try decreasing the weight on the inside peg (or increasing on the outside). You should be feeling the bike move a little under you and it will feel more 'stable' somehow. This is good. Once that feels natural, you can get a little faster (or move to practising on tighter corners). Then you want to start moving your body over a little to the inside of the corner, whilst still keeping a little more weight on the outside peg. It does take practice and will feel odd for a start.
Everyone develops their own 'style' but in general I think cornering technique is best served by using your body weight to assist the bike turning. Afterall, you are a part of the total package and weight distribution is one of the skills you need to learn to have more effective control. It's the fine tuning like which peg to weight and whether to lean forward or shift back etc that will lead to more enjoyable riding. Probably safer too, since you will have more control, and you will be riding at (say) 60% instead of 80% for the same result.
Capische?

[Trudes]

Thanks MSTRS.
I've been practicing this for a little while now, but get a lot of conflicting things told to me about whether I should shift my bum off the side of the seat or doing what I find comes more naturally which is more of an upper body/shoulder leaning into the corner, basically the "kissing your inside mirror".
More practice is needed and the bucket racing is definitely helping me to try different things, but the peg weighting is starting to become second nature which is good, and definitely makes a huge difference to stabilising the bike.
Always keen to learn new things to help me survive!!

[MSTRS:Me]

Thanks MSTRS.
I've been practicing this for a little while now, but get a lot of conflicting things told to me about whether I should shift my bum off the side of the seat or doing what I find comes more naturally which is more of an upper body/shoulder leaning into the corner, basically the "kissing your inside mirror".
More practice is needed and the bucket racing is definitely helping me to try different things, but the peg weighting is starting to become second nature which is good, and definitely makes a huge difference to stabilising the bike.
Always keen to learn new things to help me survive!!

Better to shift your shoulders and upper body towards the inside of the corner (kissing the mirror). If you shift your bum sideways, then you must shift your shoulders and upper body more than you've shifted your bum. You could look upon this as being the part of your bike/body that is leaned over the furtherest is the pivot point and the pivot point is most effective at the top...your tyres being at the bottom.

[vifferman]

When heading uphill at a steady pace, compared to being on the flat you're using more of the available traction of the rear tyre, and less of the front.

So you 'have more front traction available'.

When heading downhill at a steady pace, compared to being on the flat you're using more of the available traction of the front tyre, and less of the rear.

So you 'have more rear traction available'.

And front traction is what counts when it comes to getting around corners, so going downhill is the worst possible situation.

That's not the whole story though, is it?
You're also compressing the forks and thereby effectively making the rake steeper and quickening up the steering - like you do when you brake immediately before you tip in. But conversely, you're also making the steering heavier, because of the extra weight on the front end. As you take the corner, the forks are going to extend again, changing the handling much more than when you take an uphill corner, where there's less weight transfer and less fork length change happening, so less of an unsettling effect happening.
There's also the matter of leaning on the bars, which can't be good.
I can't help wondering though whether a lot of the downhill vs. uphill thing is largely psychological (like in skiing when you finally go :slap:, realise that the whole idea IS to go down hill, not try to slow yourself down, and stop braking and start leaning downhill (instead of uphill) and the weight balance comes right). In the case of motorcycling though, I suspect some throttle /weight-shifting is required to get more weight on the back of the bike, compared to either uphill or on the flat.

[Grub]

Rimutaka Hill road. Last passing lane on the Southside going up to the top. Right hand corner up a kink and rise!

Is it this corner or the one before it where the passing lane is ... I agree, a vicious little number.

[Number One]

Is it this corner or the one before it where the passing lane is ... I agree, a vicious little number.

OO that's a nasty place to crash...no my corner is the one with the passing lane and huge run off area (one just back) there's a good reason why that run off is there......

[Grub]

Eww yeah, Piecock Hill road, heading back to Pahatanui, about half way along there is a blind right hander that has some really yucky patching I think it is right on the apex

Yep that one is a bytch ... it's a telecom pipe they layed and no, you can't power your way through it ... it's a Mark I Nana corner that one. Anything else is grief material.

[Deano]

Conversely - I simply lurve the last passing lane on the south side heading up hill - left hander into the passing lane, then switch into the right hander using both lanes. It's very fast....I mean smooth.