Cornering at speed with full tank of petrol.

[Grendel]

Ok I had a bit of a brown trouser moment on the way home from work the other night. I had just filled up with petrol and was on my way home on wet roads and decided to give it a bit of throttle to avoid an idiot driver. I was going around a sweeping Left hand bend on the inside lane on a 2 lane road only to find as the corner got tighter and I was approaching 40-50 the bike decided to drift sideways to the outside lane where the car was coming up from. My reaction was to hit the front brake but then thankfully I thought better of it otherwise it would of probably had me off. So just throttled off and hoped for the best. THANKFULLY the idiot in the RH Land had changed there mind (yet again) and was now on the inside lane behind me so thankfully no accident occurred but that didn’t stop her almost taking me out at a junction later where she was in the RH lane to turn right while indicating left.


So the question is what should I of done beside ride slower around the corner.
Should I of tried to hit the rear break and lean harder and counter steer round the corner?


I didnt think about the difference there was in cornering with a near empty tank to a full tank of petrol

[999Mike]

So the question is what should I of done beside ride slower around the corner.
Should I of tried to hit the rear break and lean harder and counter steer round the corner?

According to experts in the field you should always look to where you want to go, not at the point of danger. Takes a bit of getting used to as where you look when it gets a bit iffy is where you'll end up,(stare at the hedge when you've overdone it, etc........) it's all to do with your brain and the fight or flight syndrome, it always focuses on the danger. You can practice it, next time you are out, look through a corner to the exit, move your whole head - eyes alone are not enough. See what it feels like, wierd at first but after a while you don't even notice. Look at racers and where their head is pointing.

[ian porter]

I did something similar a bit back, being a relatively inexperienced rider.

scared the crap out of me, especially when a couple of bends later I can across someone who'd done the same and wasn't so lucky, bike wedged under and oncoming car and rider in the back of an ambulance.

I'm always trying to pick the right approach line, look where I WANT to be and trying to spot vanishing points now, it's slowly becoming second nature but I just don't get to ride enough at the moment

I guess it's one of those practice makes perfect things.

Ian

[Warthog]

I agree with the focus on the target point above: really works but hard to master! I still struggle.

Otherwise, I would leave overtaking for straights. If there is an idiot ahead, throttle off so you have a safe distance from them: then only overtake on a straight, especially in the wet.

Otherwise, the back brake is a safer option, as well as shifting you weight off the seat (hanging off, style, although even one bum cheek can straighten the bike enough to let it get settled), but this is best done before you maneouvre. I hang off more in the wet: don't bother in the dry.

Finally, if you are going round a left hander, the push your right foot into the right peg. Sounds wierd, but you are effectively pushing straight down on the bike, ie 90 degrees to the road, so pressure is straight down through the contact patch, no from the side, if your weight was pushing on the left peg in the same left hander.

Clear as mud, eh?

[tramp]

Hi Grendel,
sounds to me like that "centrafugal force thingy" weight displaced out as speed increases.

to me sounds like you should have lent further over so conteracting the outward force, but on a wet road and a quick prayer to the Almighty would have been better you could have applied back brake and eased off throttle or not gone into bend as fast .

BUT really all of no importance as your still okay just one of lifes little adventures, just dont do it again.

If you`d been really clever could have used the car to push yourself back over .

Got me New rear tyre fitted today so I`ll have to engage Brain more for the next 2 weeks till its scrubed in properly.

Becarefull it aint getting better in the southampton area

[AlanH]

Touching the front brake mid-corner on a wet road is asking for trouble. Even throttling off or touching the back brake will cause more load to be transferred to the front and risk the front sliding out from underneath you. As you did manage to throttle off without the front end washing out, I'd say you probably had enough grip to lean it in a bit more on an even throttle or even putting a bit of power down. There is usually far more grip available than you think. I say usually...

[Paul-S]

Don't panic

Look where you want to be going - not at the hazard

Use the outside peg pressure to create more grip - it works

Keep your body weight up and lay the bike lower into the corner by extending your inside arm - left on left handers and right on right handers - this is the opposite to the way you would see a sports bike ridden but the same way you would ride a mountain bike round corners

Throttle off and braking is always the last resort and if you must do this do it very gently or get upright before being forceful

[jarl]

the bike decided to drift sideways to the outside lane

Mine does this every now and then, pretty scary, feels just like the rear is shuffling sideways. No play in the rear wheel assembly at all, so it must be the tyre (tourance), which is correctly inflated. Ergh!



Ok, here's a question I've always had. Sports bikes hang off so they can lean over further and thus go faster round corners. More lean=more grip due to the design of tyres. In the mountain biking world, you lean the bike well over when cornering whilst keeping your body relatively upright. Motocross boys do the same. So is hanging off only done to prevent hard parts of the bike from catching on the ground? If so, is it good technique to lean the bike under you when cornering and you consider it unlikely that hard parts will catch on the ground? (i.e, in the wet should I be leaning the bike as much as possible or keeping the bike as upright as possible?)

There's so much heresay and legend surrounding this subject, hopefully one of you lot can help?

[Warthog]

Ok, here's a question I've always had. Sports bikes hang off so they can lean over further and thus go faster round corners. More lean=more grip due to the design of tyres. In the mountain biking world, you lean the bike well over when cornering whilst keeping your body relatively upright. Motocross boys do the same. So is hanging off only done to prevent hard parts of the bike from catching on the ground? If so, is it good technique to lean the bike under you when cornering and you consider it unlikely that hard parts will catch on the ground?

As I understand it with sportsbikes, you hang off to allow the bike to be more upright at a given speed than it would be if you were sitting normally: the centre of gravity is shifted in grip's favour thanks to your body weight.

I think that in the offroad world be it petrol or pedal powered, "sitting over" the bike, the opposite from sports bikes, means more weight is "directly" over the tyres. Tyre and surface friction is less from the side as on tarmac, and more from above, which is favourable to the loose surface...

I think...

[pete h]

I didnt think about the difference there was in cornering with a near empty tank to a full tank of petrol

On a bike that weighs over 215 kilos regardless of the fuel load, unless you're a seriously gifted rider there isn't a noticeable difference in carrying a 17 kilo lump of petrol.

From reading your description of the incident Grendel I'd say the fuel load had absolutely nothing to do with it. It sounds like a simple case of excess speed for the bend and the road conditions. That doesn't mean you were speeding, just that the speed was inappropriate for what the rest of you was doing.

You said the roads were wet, and it's an established variable that riders, even on roads and bends that they know well, (which I'm taking it that you do know this one, as you're near home) will ride differently when they perceive the road to be more hazardous than usual.

Once the brain makes the decision to uprate the potential danger that the road presents, that's communicated as a motor function response that can be so slight as to be almost entirely imperceptible - one of the most obvious things it does do to motorcyclists is to decrease the amount you lean into a corner - nothing dramatic, but enough that a corner which you may have gone through 000's of time previously, suddenly becomes a serious problem.

If you ever watch a learner motorcyclist taking a corner and doing it in the style of a 50p piece, straight line turn bars, straight line turn bars etc, that's what you're watching - their brain has yet to identify that the safe option is to lean, it's still working with the rules it's been evolved to follow ie upright and level is best for everything involving motion.

Several posts have addressed what to do when you find yourself drifting wide on a corner, and the advice is sound,

Look where you're going - and keep looking at it!,

Increase your angle of lean, tyres will nearly always out perform your ability to lean over,

It's always a bad idea to hit the front brake on a bend

It's frequently a bad idea to hit the rear brake on a bend - but it's easier to counter the centrifugal effect trying to stand your bike up and you're less likely to lose all your rear traction.

You can always put more pressure on your countersteer than you think you can.






(I've been on a course)