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Proficient cornering...

Actually, good riding is a Zen thing. When you become truly proficient on the bike, you will actually forget its under you. You will start feeling the road thru the contact patches, and your movement and movement of the bike will feel as one. It is at that point that any corrections tend to become automatic, allowing your focus to remain on your path and the surrounding environment. How do you get to this point? Ride, ride, ride. Training, training, training...then more ride, ride, ride. LOL

Constantly work on your riding technique. Take classes. Look to other good, experienced riders and talk with them. I ride with a couple of different groups, both on the track and on the street. We will routinely discuss lines, corners, techniques together. We should all be learning constantly. I learn something everytime I go out on a track session. The challenge is when you start to develop real skill. At that point it is like any other activity. The more skilled you become, the more of a challenge it is to advance that skill. Of course, if it wasn't a challenge, it wouldn't be any fun!

Good Luck!
 
Just reflex from my track riding...its really silly when I'm in the car, look left around the corner and bang my knee into the door... :)
 
Just reflex from my track riding...its really silly when I'm in the car, look left around the corner and bang my knee into the door... :)

oh, probably better than inadvertantly shifting gears with your right knee.

you know its serious when you open the car door to put a foot down at stops.
 
1. Lee Parks Total Control; and then
2. Reg's CLASS

Lee Parks class teaches techniques in a parking lot. Once you have the basics, the CLASS course is AWESOME. I've been riding for over 40 years and learned more when I attended the 2 day CLASS at VIR than I had learned in the previous 37 years! I'm not exaggerating. A track is the SAFEST place to practice your cornering at speed and the instructors are more than willing to give you pointers to sharpen your riding. If you don't come away as a better rider after a couple of track days then give it up and buy a trike.:wow
 
One more pic that really illustrates the difference in where you look. My wife, Becky, is on the white no. 90 CBR600RR as the group approaches Turns 5/6 at Barber. Turns 5/6 combo is a wide, left 180 degree corner. You can run it as either a single apex or double apex line. Note where her head and eyes are pointing, as opposed to the guy in front of her. Right after this shot was taken, the lead rider ran wide (right where he was looking) and Becky neatly slid inside of him and around the turn.

(It also didn't hurt that she was set up wider at the entry point and had a better line started thru the corner...)

418593_3453256259819_47216428_n.jpg
 
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1. Lee Parks Total Control; and then
2. Reg's CLASS

Lee Parks class teaches techniques in a parking lot. Once you have the basics, the CLASS course is AWESOME. I've been riding for over 40 years and learned more when I attended the 2 day CLASS at VIR than I had learned in the previous 37 years! I'm not exaggerating. A track is the SAFEST place to practice your cornering at speed and the instructors are more than willing to give you pointers to sharpen your riding. If you don't come away as a better rider after a couple of track days then give it up and buy a trike.:wow

I haven't been to the CLASS course, but have heard good things about it as well. You can't go wrong with a good track school. Riders who have never been may think it is all about racing, but that's not true. As you note, it is really about sharpening your riding skills. Speed on the track comes as a result of those skills. You're also right that if a rider doesn't come away from a good track school as a better street rider, they need to just give up the sport... LOL
 
On a recent trip to South America one of our fellow participants was technically very skilled in cornering. This person dropped the bike six times over the two weeks. The problem with the roads was the lack of vision available and often increasing (dramatically) radius of the turn. After the first few scares I encountered, I made a mental note to not carry speed into any curve I could not see through. The skilled rider's bike ended up being carried in the back of the truck with bent forks. No blood was spilled, but I felt like the turtle versus the hare.
 
Sometimes being skilled in one enviroment causes over-confidence in other, unfamiliar terrain. Like I tell my students, a lot of crashes are a case of ego overcoming ability... :)
 
One more pic that really illustrates the difference in where you look. My wife, Becky, is on the white no. 90 CBR600RR as the group approaches Turns 5/6 at Barber. Turns 5/6 combo is a wide, left 180 degree corner. You can run it as either a single apex or double apex line. Note where her head and eyes are pointing, as opposed to the guy in front of her. Right after this shot was taken, the lead rider ran wide (right where he was looking) and Becky neatly slid inside of him and around the turn.

(It also didn't hurt that she was set up wider at the entry point and had a better line started thru the corner...)

418593_3453256259819_47216428_n.jpg

Great photo...and good for you in the selection of your mate! I think it takes a special combination of intelligence and personality traits to ride competently...and Becky seems to possess both, if that photo is any indication. Lucky guy...


Rode up the canyon 40 miles to a mountain town yesterday...really worked on the cornering. One thing I'm learning is I wasn't really getting my weight to the inside, and now that I am I feel as though I'm leading the bike through the turns, rather than being led by it, if that makes any sense. My speeds were higher, though that wasn't the point...but it did surprise me, because they didn't "feel" higher...and I felt more in control at those new speeds. Interesting...a work in progress, for sure.
 
Also, don't wait until you are in a turn to move your body around. Get in the body position you want to be in before the turn. Use pressure on the outside (of the turn) to keep going straight. This way the bike is "preloaded" to turn. When you reach your turn point adjust the pressure on the bars and enjoy your turn. The idea is as Lee Parks puts it is to "be as invisible as possible to the bike". I want to take Lee's course again, do level 2 then go to Kieth Codes class etc, etc, etc. If I won lotto, I'd spend all of my time taking riding courses.
 
Also, don't wait until you are in a turn to move your body around. Get in the body position you want to be in before the turn. Use pressure on the outside (of the turn) to keep going straight. This way the bike is "preloaded" to turn. When you reach your turn point adjust the pressure on the bars and enjoy your turn. The idea is as Lee Parks puts it is to "be as invisible as possible to the bike". I want to take Lee's course again, do level 2 then go to Kieth Codes class etc, etc, etc. If I won lotto, I'd spend all of my time taking riding courses.

Yes...I read that somewhere here...about being in position before the turn. I admit that felt a little strange yesterday, but your advice to counter the weight shift ahead of the turn with outside bar is good. Without that, I was heading into the apex too soon.

This stuff is great...becoming a good rider takes work...which makes it worth doing. Too many people think (especially these days) that there are shortcuts to success. Nope...there never are. That's the way it should be...
 
On a recent trip to South America one of our fellow participants was technically very skilled in cornering. This person dropped the bike six times over the two weeks. The problem with the roads was the lack of vision available and often increasing (dramatically) radius of the turn. After the first few scares I encountered, I made a mental note to not carry speed into any curve I could not see through. The skilled rider's bike ended up being carried in the back of the truck with bent forks. No blood was spilled, but I felt like the turtle versus the hare.

methinks you meant "decreasing radius"- where the turn gets tighter than it began, often tossing a rider to the outside. an increasing radius corner is one that opens up as you go, and typically allows generous accelerations out of it. pretty rare to crash in increasing radii corners.
 
Yes...I read that somewhere here...about being in position before the turn. I admit that felt a little strange yesterday, but your advice to counter the weight shift ahead of the turn with outside bar is good. Without that, I was heading into the apex too soon.

This stuff is great...becoming a good rider takes work...which makes it worth doing. Too many people think (especially these days) that there are shortcuts to success. Nope...there never are. That's the way it should be...

Lee Parks course concentrates on, if I remember correctly, the 12 steps to cornering, covering in sequence from foot position on the pegs to exitting the corner...
 
methinks you meant "decreasing radius"- where the turn gets tighter than it began, often tossing a rider to the outside. an increasing radius corner is one that opens up as you go, and typically allows generous accelerations out of it. pretty rare to crash in increasing radii corners.

Yep your right.
 
Thanks, sedanman!

Also, don't wait until you are in a turn to move your body around. Get in the body position you want to be in before the turn. Use pressure on the outside (of the turn) to keep going straight. This way the bike is "preloaded" to turn. When you reach your turn point adjust the pressure on the bars and enjoy your turn. The idea is as Lee Parks puts it is to "be as invisible as possible to the bike". I want to take Lee's course again, do level 2 then go to Kieth Codes class etc, etc, etc. If I won lotto, I'd spend all of my time taking riding courses.

Your comment about the outside bar pressure sunk in. I also read it in Lee Parks' book "Total Control" (which arrived a few days after your post). I've been working on this technique, and all of a sudden, today, it all clicked. Before this, I wasn't putting pressure on the outside bar approaching the turn, and the bike kept falling in to an early apex...which I had to correct. Then, without that pressure, back to another apex I went...all the way through the corner.

I rode 40 miles up-canyon to a mountain town today, and 40 miles back, using this technique. Not once did I fall into an apex early, and my bike tracked like it was on rails around the turns. When I was ready to go into the apex, I just relaxed the outside pressure, and WHAM!...into the apex I went. Open the throttle, and out of the turn I went. I'm a little tired now, because this took continual thought, but, wow, the effort to "get" this was really worth it.

Your advice paid off...thank you!
 
I didn't invent it. I just tried to put it in plain english. If you go canyon riding for a long day or a few back to back days you'll know you're doing it right if your upper body feels like you've been to a spa and your legs feel like you've been hitting the gym real hard.
 
I didn't invent it. I just tried to put it in plain english. If you go canyon riding for a long day or a few back to back days you'll know you're doing it right if your upper body feels like you've been to a spa and your legs feel like you've been hitting the gym real hard.

Funny you should say that...my legs are sore tonight. I did do a good workout this morning before the ride, though...:)

And your "plain english" worked just fine. It was exactly what I needed to get it...
 
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