After watching the way some people ride the curves on the road, I thought I'd ask..... what is your riding style?
My style is to just relax and countersteer around curves in the road. This way, my butt stays on the seat and my upper body naturally attempts to stay upright as the bike leans over into the corner. I figure that the fewer changes I introduce into the chassis when I am cornering, the more stable the bike will be. In addition, this serves to keep maximum downward force on the tire's contact patch thus improving traction. This also seems to be the natural inclination that a passenger might have.
A buddy of mine likes to keep his butt planted on the seat, then lean his upper body into the corner to tip the bike. He only consciously countersteers if he he enters the corner too "hot" or finds he is in a decreasing radius corner and needs to heel the bike over more. Seems like a lot of work, though.
On the other hand, I have seen a few riders who shift their butts off the seat and seem to hang their whole body into the curve while the bike stays relatively upright, no matter how mundane the curve might be. This seems like a lot of unnecessary work and might make the bike less stable in the event of a road irregularity. I could understand riding that way on the track, where you are perhaps approaching the tire's limits of adhesion and you are trying to get a little more weight closer to the ground while still staying on the treaded part of the tire (on the track, the curves have some good cambers that support this style, too.) This style of riding would seem to take the greatest amount of effort from the rider without any real benefit in real-world riding. I'm not quite sure why people do it - maybe someone could educate me on the finer details?
So, what is your style and why?
My style is to just relax and countersteer around curves in the road. This way, my butt stays on the seat and my upper body naturally attempts to stay upright as the bike leans over into the corner. I figure that the fewer changes I introduce into the chassis when I am cornering, the more stable the bike will be. In addition, this serves to keep maximum downward force on the tire's contact patch thus improving traction. This also seems to be the natural inclination that a passenger might have.
A buddy of mine likes to keep his butt planted on the seat, then lean his upper body into the corner to tip the bike. He only consciously countersteers if he he enters the corner too "hot" or finds he is in a decreasing radius corner and needs to heel the bike over more. Seems like a lot of work, though.
On the other hand, I have seen a few riders who shift their butts off the seat and seem to hang their whole body into the curve while the bike stays relatively upright, no matter how mundane the curve might be. This seems like a lot of unnecessary work and might make the bike less stable in the event of a road irregularity. I could understand riding that way on the track, where you are perhaps approaching the tire's limits of adhesion and you are trying to get a little more weight closer to the ground while still staying on the treaded part of the tire (on the track, the curves have some good cambers that support this style, too.) This style of riding would seem to take the greatest amount of effort from the rider without any real benefit in real-world riding. I'm not quite sure why people do it - maybe someone could educate me on the finer details?
So, what is your style and why?
. Seriously, that's how I comfortably ride and in easy corners my knee seems to drop cause of this. May look like I intend to try and drop my knee but it's already naturally dropped.
