Hazy on some riding techniques

[Natemare13]

Ok....So Iv been reeding twist of the throttle.

Got some questions maybe you could explain in more street terms.

When turning, Why accelerate? If your accelerating to fast, and u dont feel comfortable leaning anymore then what?
I hear rolling on and off the throttle is REALLY bad

If the rear tire is slipping out (spinning)..why am I supposed to roll ON the throttle? in a turn, going straight..?

I have experianced sometimes in turns the bike getting really light when im leaning into the turn and almost feel like im at the point of loosing traction..what is this? and why does it happen?

[HooliganR6]

I think you may be combining some information.

The reason for getting on the gas in a turn and not chopping it is to settle the chassis. If you get on the brakes in a turn you are putting more on the front tire which has a much smaller contact patch then the rear tire. So if you feel the front start to wash out you get on the gas....not much...but enough to settle the bike back and put more of the energy through the rear tire vs the front.

The goal is to set up before you enter your turn. At least for street riding. Trail braking is the act of staying on the brakes going into a corner. This is for deep entries into a corner and is used on the race track. For street riding you want to get your braking done, then tip the bike in. If you feel you are going into a corner to fast you can roll off the throttle a little, but never chop it or apply the brake. Chances are if you just look through the corner and lean over further you will make it through the corner just fine. If you are not scraping the pegs you have more lean angle to play with.


My .

[kriton12]

Just to add some more info on why the front tire washes, it is because of friction. When you hit the brake mid turn it adds extra weight to the front due to your inertia. Technically this increases the tires contact patch due to tire deformation however the only thing really keep the bike on track is the friction between the tire and pavement. When you overcome that amount of friction the tire will no longer be able to grip and you will end up low siding.

As Hooli said, applying a slight bit of throttle called "maintainence throttle" settles down the chassis by relieving some of the weight off of the front and transferring it to the rear. However you really shouldn't need this on the street because you shouldn't be pushing the bike that hard. If you're really at the limit then you need to go track. You can still get the bike over pretty far on the street while leaving yourself room to correct for error.

One more thing, you don't necessarily need to accelerate in a corner while street riding. Once you pass the apex of the turn racers start applying throttle through the exit of the turn. This is because they are looking for as much speed as possible. Riding on the street you shouldn't take that attitude unless you want to lose your license or crash, however, applying gas out of the turn will help you stand the bike up.

[fjman]

To restate some of that more clearly:

When you're cornering, you've got more rear tire on the ground than front tire. If you lightly gas it (by lightly, it's like 10mph every 3s, iirc) the bike will shift weight backwards, onto that larger contact patch. If you gas it too hard (easy to do), you'll overload the rear. If you don't gas it enough and are going fast enough, you'll overload the front tire.

Overloading the contact patch is going to cause you to slide. So why gas it? It's a lot easier to control the back end coming around than the front pushing, for one. Being properly on the gas is great, you'll know when you get it right becuase the bike's chassis will suddenly settle down and it'll handle great!!

If you feel that you're carrying too much lean angle or too much speed becuase you're accellerating... chopping the throttle is bad. Holding the gas steady is bad, even. Just lightly gassing it is going to be the safest, period. Unfortunately, your mind is screaming NO!!!! and your right wrist will chop the gas all by itself. This is why riding is hard! Once you can convince yourself to go through a corner "too fast" and stay on the gas, you'll realize that the bike probably has a lot more potential than you do... and that's how you become a better rider.

As to your other question, if the rear tire is spinning (sliding) while cornering, you've got some options. You can gas it, you can let off, hold steady, hit the brakes, lean harder, or stand the bike upright more. Basically this is going to do one of three things to the chassis: 1) move weight forward 2) move weight backward 3) leave weight static. Let's look a bit at those options.

1- If we're in midcorner and the rear starts stepping out, chopping the gas or hitting the brakes will both move weight forward. (In both cases, you're getting off the gas. I don't forsee many people gassing it hard while on the brakes!) So what does the bike do? Well, when you let off the gas, the tire no longer has to deal with the force of the motor, and can be fully used for cornering forces. Odds are you're going to immediately get traction now. Sounds good, right? Well, no. Becuase your tires weren't in line (becuase you were sliding) the rear will now violently hook up and jerk back in line with the front. That jerking effect is going to cause the rider to be spit "up" (towards the handlebars, kicking your ass off the seat almost like you were standing on your pegs). That's going to cause all sorts of ugliness, but it's only the beginning. It's also going to cause a rather ugly headshake becuase you're holding on with your arms (because your legs are all fux0r'd from when you got unseated, you're not in position to hold on properly) and the instability will be transferred into the steering by you.
At the other end of the spectrum, if you were really quite sideways, when the bike catches traction finally it will be too far out of alignment to go back in line. Instead, the bike will flip over (picture an SUV sliding completely sideways on ice and suddenly catching a patch of dry pavement.. flips over!)

2- Well, shifting weight forward wasn't good. How about shifting weight backward? The rear tire is already overloaded (and spinning). You can maybe sit up some, but giving it more gas is probably just going to let it spin harder. If you suddenly catch traction, you can refer to option #1, and if you go too far sideways and just lay it over (a lowside) you can imagine the results.
Please note that you're likely to get hurt less in a lowside than a highside, as a rule, so this is even preferable to letting off the gas.

3- If you stay on the gas evenly, what happens? Well, obviously you were sliding before. Stay on the gas and you'll continue sliding, the goal being control rather than an end to the slide. But if you remain on the gas, it'll just slip out and you'll crash, right? In a word, no. If you've ever been in a car and tried to do a very low speed burnout, you've seen the reason why. Try (in a RWD car/truck/etc) to do a normal burnout; jump on the gas (dump the clutch, if you've got one) and your tires will jump up to say 50mph, even though the ground is going past at walking speed. It's pretty easy! Now, try to do a burnout while rolling at 45mph, but ONLY allow the wheels to go 50mph. You might get a chirp, but they'll catch pretty much instantly. It's very, very difficult to slightly slip a tire on pavement... you tend to accellerate enough to make up the difference, and then you're hooked up.

Now look at what happens when you're sliding through a turn on a bike. If you leave the throttle on, without giving it more or less (actually you can slightly roll on, but that's a more advanced technique). The tire is going say 70mph, the bike is going 65mph... just enough to slip. If you hold the gas on, the tire will bring the bike up to speed a bit, hook up, and you'll go on your merry way, feeling like a million bucks. The important thing to know here is that if you let the bike hook up by leaving the gas on, it's fairly smooth, which prevents the sudden realignment of the wheels (which is what caused the crashing in example #1).

If you "help" it a bit by hanging farther off (position body farther from bike = bike needs reduced lean angle, and stands up slightly = tire closer to vertical = bigger contact patch), you'll give it the effect of slightly rolling on the gas (bigger tire diameter in the middle vs the edge, so standing the bike up effectively makes the wheel speed at the ground greater). However, the increased contact patch will gain traction faster than the increased speed will use.

My preferred way of doing it is to hold the gas right where i've got it, even continuing to open the throttle slightly (still fighting to be able to do that, I don't chop it anymore but it's hard to keep gassing it farther when it slides) and straighten the bike up. The best reason to stand the bike up as a method of increasing traction is that it's gradual.... you can cut the throttle instantly, but you can't stand a bike up and have 100% traction instantly. This also helps prevent highsiding.



JFC i'm a windy bastard. Sorry for writing the book.

[Natemare13]

Originally Posted by fjman

To restate some of that more clearly:

When you're cornering, you've got more rear tire on the ground than front tire. If you lightly gas it (by lightly, it's like 10mph every 3s, iirc) the bike will shift weight backwards, onto that larger contact patch. If you gas it too hard (easy to do), you'll overload the rear. If you don't gas it enough and are going fast enough, you'll overload the front tire.

Overloading the contact patch is going to cause you to slide. So why gas it? It's a lot easier to control the back end coming around than the front pushing, for one. Being properly on the gas is great, you'll know when you get it right becuase the bike's chassis will suddenly settle down and it'll handle great!!

If you feel that you're carrying too much lean angle or too much speed becuase you're accellerating... chopping the throttle is bad. Holding the gas steady is bad, even. Just lightly gassing it is going to be the safest, period. Unfortunately, your mind is screaming NO!!!! and your right wrist will chop the gas all by itself. This is why riding is hard! Once you can convince yourself to go through a corner "too fast" and stay on the gas, you'll realize that the bike probably has a lot more potential than you do... and that's how you become a better rider.

As to your other question, if the rear tire is spinning (sliding) while cornering, you've got some options. You can gas it, you can let off, hold steady, hit the brakes, lean harder, or stand the bike upright more. Basically this is going to do one of three things to the chassis: 1) move weight forward 2) move weight backward 3) leave weight static. Let's look a bit at those options.

1- If we're in midcorner and the rear starts stepping out, chopping the gas or hitting the brakes will both move weight forward. (In both cases, you're getting off the gas. I don't forsee many people gassing it hard while on the brakes!) So what does the bike do? Well, when you let off the gas, the tire no longer has to deal with the force of the motor, and can be fully used for cornering forces. Odds are you're going to immediately get traction now. Sounds good, right? Well, no. Becuase your tires weren't in line (becuase you were sliding) the rear will now violently hook up and jerk back in line with the front. That jerking effect is going to cause the rider to be spit "up" (towards the handlebars, kicking your ass off the seat almost like you were standing on your pegs). That's going to cause all sorts of ugliness, but it's only the beginning. It's also going to cause a rather ugly headshake becuase you're holding on with your arms (because your legs are all fux0r'd from when you got unseated, you're not in position to hold on properly) and the instability will be transferred into the steering by you.
At the other end of the spectrum, if you were really quite sideways, when the bike catches traction finally it will be too far out of alignment to go back in line. Instead, the bike will flip over (picture an SUV sliding completely sideways on ice and suddenly catching a patch of dry pavement.. flips over!)

2- Well, shifting weight forward wasn't good. How about shifting weight backward? The rear tire is already overloaded (and spinning). You can maybe sit up some, but giving it more gas is probably just going to let it spin harder. If you suddenly catch traction, you can refer to option #1, and if you go too far sideways and just lay it over (a lowside) you can imagine the results.
Please note that you're likely to get hurt less in a lowside than a highside, as a rule, so this is even preferable to letting off the gas.

3- If you stay on the gas evenly, what happens? Well, obviously you were sliding before. Stay on the gas and you'll continue sliding, the goal being control rather than an end to the slide. But if you remain on the gas, it'll just slip out and you'll crash, right? In a word, no. If you've ever been in a car and tried to do a very low speed burnout, you've seen the reason why. Try (in a RWD car/truck/etc) to do a normal burnout; jump on the gas (dump the clutch, if you've got one) and your tires will jump up to say 50mph, even though the ground is going past at walking speed. It's pretty easy! Now, try to do a burnout while rolling at 45mph, but ONLY allow the wheels to go 50mph. You might get a chirp, but they'll catch pretty much instantly. It's very, very difficult to slightly slip a tire on pavement... you tend to accellerate enough to make up the difference, and then you're hooked up.

Now look at what happens when you're sliding through a turn on a bike. If you leave the throttle on, without giving it more or less (actually you can slightly roll on, but that's a more advanced technique). The tire is going say 70mph, the bike is going 65mph... just enough to slip. If you hold the gas on, the tire will bring the bike up to speed a bit, hook up, and you'll go on your merry way, feeling like a million bucks. The important thing to know here is that if you let the bike hook up by leaving the gas on, it's fairly smooth, which prevents the sudden realignment of the wheels (which is what caused the crashing in example #1).

If you "help" it a bit by hanging farther off (position body farther from bike = bike needs reduced lean angle, and stands up slightly = tire closer to vertical = bigger contact patch), you'll give it the effect of slightly rolling on the gas (bigger tire diameter in the middle vs the edge, so standing the bike up effectively makes the wheel speed at the ground greater). However, the increased contact patch will gain traction faster than the increased speed will use.

My preferred way of doing it is to hold the gas right where i've got it, even continuing to open the throttle slightly (still fighting to be able to do that, I don't chop it anymore but it's hard to keep gassing it farther when it slides) and straighten the bike up. The best reason to stand the bike up as a method of increasing traction is that it's gradual.... you can cut the throttle instantly, but you can't stand a bike up and have 100% traction instantly. This also helps prevent highsiding.



JFC i'm a windy bastard. Sorry for writing the book.

thanks dude that was an awesome response!!!