KTRSD is dedicated to continually promote motorcycle safety and encouraging riders to always be improving their riding skills. With that in mind, we begin a series entitled; “Becoming A Better Rider”. This series will feature tips and advice to help all of us improve our skills as a cyclist. Todays article deals with proper cornering and is authored by a fellow blogger, Dan Bateman of Musings of an Intrepid Commuter.
Ah, Spring time! A time when a rider’s fancy turns to strafing corners. Very few things we do on a motorcycle are as pleasurable as gracefully swooping through curves. On the flip side, in my neck of the woods failure to negotiate corners is the single leading cause of rider crashes. The good news is that cornering is like a dance. Get the steps right and it can be a sensuous experience. Get them wrong and we can get hurt…..or worse. It reminds me of being at an Army base long ago. I’d reconnected with an old friend who was still serving. He invited me to accompany him and his buddy to a step aerobics class. So here we are, at the back of a group of women. In the front of the room all was wonderful. Step, step, twirl, step. The women exuded grace and beauty. Things were much different at the back of the room. Clunk, clunk, stumble, clunk. We looked like water buffaloes among the gazelles. The moral of the story is that we were there for the pleasure of ogling and didn’t know the steps. As a result we looked kind of stupid. Ok, I confess, a lot stupid! Pleasure quickly turned to pain. Proper cornering is the same way. Certain things need to be done in a certain order. A rider can’t be successful if they’re there for the fun without the preparation. It’s the difference between carving corners and doing the slice-n-dice thing. I know a lot of riders already know some things about cornering. In the advance classes I teach the students are experienced riders. Yet it quickly becomes obvious that truly good cornering skills are lacking. The biggest problem areas are late braking and poor head turns. We can all use some brushing up. So let’s break cornering down into some basic elements. The overall sequence is Slow, Look, Roll, Press. It’s often taught with the last two items in reverse order. I don’t buy that. You’ll see why in just a bit. In my world, anything a rider does to get ready for a corner is called transitions. All transitions need to be done while the bike is still straight up and down. In other words, any braking and downshifting, turning our head to find the target, and rolling back on the throttle happen before the bike is actually leaned by the press on the handgrip. So far so good? We all know about braking and downshifting. Everyone should have a pretty good idea of how to make a bike lean by countersteering. Remember the press left, go left, press right, go right, thing? With that in mind let’s focus on the Look and Roll parts. Then we’ll touch briefly on apexes and how to make them work for us. The Look part is extremely critical. Everything else hinges on it. That’s why this step comes before the roll. Firstly, we need a target to roll towards. In this case, it’s the end of the curve, right? The bike will go where we look. No two ways about it. Reminds me of another story. I’m teaching a group of eight new riders by myself. Due to the small size of the range, the porta-potty is in one corner of the lot. It’s out of the path of travel but not out of sight of the students. One woman is staring at the outhouse. Guess where she’s heading? You guessed it. Right for the thing. I’m clear across the range diagonally. Thinking quickly, I loudly talk to her. “Diane, look at me!” Sure enough, she looks over her left shoulder at me. The bike follows her head turn and disaster is avoided. I got to thinking about what I would have put on the accident report. I finally decided I’d write, “Student was looking where she wanted to go.” Never underestimate the power of a head turn! Anyway, I digress. Back to reasons to look before we roll. Secondly, we need to know if it’s ok to roll and how much. Think about it. Doesn’t visual information set up everything else? Our corner entry speed, the line we take, and our apex all depend on the information we get from looking. It sounds so simple yet it’s ignored all the time. How do we know that? Two thirds of our fatalities in Oregon are from riders failing to negotiate corners. More specifically, the crashes happen in the last third of the curve. Either the rider straightens up and goes off the road, hitting something like a tree, or they cross the center line and impact an oncoming vehicle. What does this tell us? The riders were surprised as they headed toward the exit of the turn. The police reports will chalk it up to excessive speed. That’s not the whole story. Most bikes are better than most riders these days. It wasn’t a case of too much speed for the bike’s capabilities. No, it’s too much speed for how far the rider was looking. Let’s reason on it a little further. I’ll throw in the classic thing I hear in classes. A rider says they were surprised by gravel in the corner and subsequently crashed. You tell me. If a rider can’t see all the way through a corner, what do they have to do with their speed? Keep it down, right? After all, who knows what could be waiting around the bend? Number two, if a rider can see through a corner and spies gravel, what should they do? Right. Keep the speed down and move to go around it. So if a rider is surprised by gravel or anything else for that matter, what went wrong with the sequence? The head turn came too late. Remember, the proper steps need to be in the proper sequence. The Look step has to be really early in the process. As a side note, some riders express how they’re not comfortable keeping their heads turned towards the corner’s exit. These folks are afraid they’ll miss something in the road near them. That’s a valid concern. Although I always tell riders that by the time something’s right at the front wheel it’s too late. Whatever it is should have been identified long ago. Still, though, I make concessions to people’s concerns. The key is to keep our nose pointed at the target. That way we can slide our eyes side to side but they’ll quickly return to center. Much preferable to the much longer time it takes to physically move our heads side to side then try to find our target again. Ever see riders that look like they’re making a bunch of little turns instead of one smooth one? They’re going where they look but they’re not looking far enough head. Their turn is a series of targets right in front of the bike. They should be looking ahead just a far as they can see. Again, I can’t stress enough how important it is to have good head turns and do them early. Success or failure in a corner depends on getting the critical information as early as possible. Why does the roll happen before the press? There are a few reasons. Firstly, being back on the throttle early settles the suspension. When it comes time to turn, all the bike has to worry about is leaning. We’re not asking the bike to turn, brake, and rebound all at the same time. Braking? You bet. How many brakes does a bike have? Three, with the third being the engine. If the throttle’s not at least back to even, then the bike is braking. This is a classic case of “if the bike’s not happy, then you’re not happy!” If the bike’s comfortable then the rider will be, too. Secondly, rolling on the throttle lifts the bike. The bike pivots vertically at the point where the swingarm bolts to the engine casing. With the bike lifted, the rider now has maximum suspension travel and ground clearance available. Which means the suspension can actually absorb bumps like it’s supposed to. If the suspension’s still compressed in a turn because of trailing throttle or late braking, bumps can throw a bike off line with bad results. Here’s the other side of the coin. A rider gets into a corner and hears the scrape of the foot peg. This is a warning that we’re getting close to maximum lean. Most riders will slightly panic. So what do they do? Yeah, they roll off the throttle. If rolling on lifts the bike, what does rolling off do? The bike’s already said we’re getting close. Now we roll off and put the bike’s ground clearance into deficit spending. Then hard parts like mufflers, center stands, and sometimes floor boards act as levers. The rear tire is lifted off the roadway and the bike slides off the road. Have you seen or heard of this? It’s all too common. Better to hold steady throttle and use our great head turns to guide us through. If there’s room we can slightly let up on our press. Now you can see why I stated earlier that the Roll should come before the Press. Let the bike get settled and get your ground clearance ready to lean. How much roll? Just steady or slightly increasing. Why? Too much throttle can break the rear tire loose. Not good. Even without that happening, think of this. Applying healthy throttle makes the bike want to stand up and go straight. What does a bike need to do to make it through a corner? Lean and turn. All we’re doing by using too much throttle is wasting traction as we have to press even harder to keep the bike in the lean. In our world of street riding, traction and ground clearance are the currency of the land. We need to keep as much in reserve as possible, just in case. Lastly, let’s briefly touch on apexes. I’m surprised how few people can accurately define that term. People often say it’s the middle of the turn. Sometimes it’s true, but not usually. An apex is the point where we’re closest to the inside of the turn. It can be early, in the middle, or late. Most of the time it will be late. The point is to understand exactly what it is and then make it work to our advantage. Our line should be outside-inside-outside. What will differ in each corner is where the apex happens. When should a rider commit to an apex? Remember the visual information thing? The apex is where we’re the most vulnerable with the least room to maneuver. Is it wise to be that committed without having all the information? You know the answer to that one. Yet we’re losing riders who did exactly that. We can’t commit to the apex until we can see the end of the corner!! Only then do we have all the information to base a good decision on. Stay wide until we can see the exit of the turn. Then we can apex. That’s why I said our usual apex mode will be a late one. Visibility through most curves isn’t that great. Late apexes are also useful for linking corners. A late apex on the first curve will put us exactly where we need to be to enter the next curve. A simple way to sum that up is “Make the exit of the first turn the entrance to the second one”. It’s the safest way because it minimizes transitions. Coincidentally, it also happens to be the smoothest and fastest way. Bonus! Now that we’ve discussed each part, the process can be condensed into three steps. Ready, Aim, Fire. The first part is our transitions which includes setting up for our line. The second part is literally target acquisition with our head turn. The third part is rolling back on the throttle, executing the press, and continuing to face the exit. Proper cornering technique can seem complicated. Sometimes it is. However, it’s well worth the effort to master. Go forth and dance. Dance long and well!
I have been thinking about the local teenager(Nick Haney) who died in a motorcycle accident on Sunday. I can’t help but mourn for him and his family who will miss him dearly. Perhaps I am moved by this accident because I saw it, or perhaps it’s because I have 2 boys of a similar age. I guess the reason doesn’t matter. What does matter is a young man has left us too soon! And that makes me very sad.
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