Weight transfer?

[BMWST?]

all valid points....but your reaction to the particular problem you had was the only thing you could have done...lifting your body/head away from the car has to be compensated for leaning the bike in more...if you relax while you do this you shouldnt have any undesireable effects...on a rh it can also help with your sight line round say a bank on the rh side of the corner...

[Grub]

Going back to the original post, I think you've pretty much nailed the issues, now just practice and perfect.

2) This was the biggie (I think). I noticed I laid the bike down to the right but moved my weight to the left.

Exactly and then you went on to experiment and find that body down low or even better on the inside (in this case the right) of the bike stabilised and controlled it. This is great stuff because you kept trying things and was able to feel the difference.

There was a youtude clip of a Superbike racer explaingin his cornering and he mimiced what you describe. Be leans forward with 'soft' elbows and then moves his head and shoulders in towards the apex of the corner. He ends up as MSTRS describes with his shoulders (not his arse and knee) low and to the inside of the bike.

The ideas of stiffening a leg or applying pressure to a foot peg are good. It doesn't really matter how you get there, but you can feel that you have right when your weight is on the inside arse cheek ... in this case it would have been the right cheek carrying your weight.

[dpex]

You should sign up for "Ride Right Ride Safe" - you're exactly the kind of person that will benefit from it.

I have done that. But, for various reasons I haven't managed to connect with them.

[dpex]

You two, Hitcher and Jrandom, should try flying something simple, like a racing glider filled with 200KGs of water, around the Lindis Pass area when, suddenly, the ridge lift turns into down-draught and the only thing under your arse is shale cliffs, and there's apparently no place to go.

The diff, of course, between this and biking is, when you screw up in a glider you get a lot of time to look into the face of pain. But hell's teeth, just being up there, as free as a bird, is worth it.

[dipshit]

There was a youtude clip of a Superbike racer explaingin his cornering and he mimiced what you describe. Be leans forward with 'soft' elbows and then moves his head and shoulders in towards the apex of the corner. He ends up as MSTRS describes with his shoulders (not his arse and knee) low and to the inside of the bike.

This one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxb5nRufuZ8

[Hitcher]

Hmmm. Plane...

http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/al...pictureid=9819

[Grub]

This one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxb5nRufuZ8

You da man! It's long but a great watch!

[slofox]

I find a 2D visualisation the easiest way to start thinking about finding the center of mass (I think 'center of gravity' is an odd term).

Imagine a set of points on a plane. Say, a bunch of particles grouped together to form a solid body, although conceptually it doesn't matter whether they touch or form a 'cloud'.

The COM is the single point on that plane that has the lowest average distance to each of those points.

It should be intuitively clear (please don't make me prove it rigorously) that as you take your particles and stretch some of them out in one direction, that COM point will shift.

Extend that into three dimensions, and it then becomes clear that standing up on the footpegs and therefore moving your body mass further away from the existing 3D COM point will shift the 3D COM point upwards.

Therefore, moving your body around, regardless of the 'contact points' involved, can indeed change the COM of the bike-rider system, and the way it tips from side to side.

QED.

Jeez JR - you said that way more impressively than I was gonna try to do......+1 from me dude....!!

You are right of course - and heads are heavy - the higher up they are the more the COM (better?) moves up - just like you said....I think.....

[swbarnett]

Can't see the COG thing being lower by 'hunkering down'. Your weight is carried by the bike and is concentrated on the contact points...pegs and seat, and too a lesser degree the bars. By moving the bod about you are redistributing weight, certainly, but you are not lowering it.

C.O.G is the point at which it can be said that gravity acts on a body as a coherent unit and is determined by the distribution of mass within the unit. A bike and rider can be considered one coherent unit. When you sit tall in the saddle your body mass is set high, this brings the C.O.G up because the mass distribution of the unit (bike and rider) is higher. Similarly, if you hunker down your body mass is set lower so the G.O.G is consequently lower.

How the two components are attached is largely irrelevant, it's the distribution of mass in the unit that matters.

[dpex]

You da man! It's long but a great watch!

That was a great vid. Thanks for that. I will go out today and start practicing that. I think the hardest part of learning a new skill is over-riding an existing bad habit.

[jrandom]

By the way, yous fullas who I'm emailing ATotW I & II to, be aware that the email's about 20MB worth, so prepare your pipes and mailboxes accordingly.

(I'd post it here, but the copyright implications would make Hitcher's head explode. And that would leave a big mess.)

[enigma51]

Watch the rear braking thing in corners. Yeah it can work well but it's so easy to screw up and then you end up backing your bike into a corner which is good if that's what you want. Normally though, that's unexpected and causes people to shut off the throttle, the bike regrips and you get a nice highside with the resultant bonk on your block.

Cornering: relax your grip on the bars, keep your arms relaxed and drop the inside shoulder into the corner and everything else others have sai

Trail braking is for when you wanna look cool!

[jrandom]

Trail braking is for when you wanna look cool!

And/or go straight into the gravel at Turn 1 eh?

[enigma51]

And/or go straight into the gravel at Turn 1 eh?

steady on there i had at least 2 cm to go still

[MSTRS:Me]

COG...COM...whatever you call it, I know what I was trying to say (even if I wasn't right). Obviously it depends on the style of bike, but think about this...
Ultimately the entirety of bike/rider weight is carried by the tyres, but...You are sitting on the seat. Your weight is mostly being borne by the shock, just behind the swingarm pivot point, therefore letting the rear tyre carry a greater share of the total weight. Now bear down on the pegs. You have transferred your body weight, in relation to the 'carry point', lower and forward, in addition to taking some weight off the rear tyre and increasing that amount to the front. When that weight to peg is applied to the outside peg, the bike becomes more stable when cranked over. Add too much weight further forward (by using the front brake, say) and the equation becomes unbalanced, causing the bike to resist leaning and to try and stand up.
So, when you are setting up to tip in, you need to move some of the weight forward, but not too much, and conversely when exiting the corner you need to move that weight backwards (by putting your weight back on the seat and accelerating).
Have I made any sense?