Blind corners

acotrel

acotrel

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Jun 30, 2012
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A few times on this forum, I have mentioned my dislike of blind corners. Yesterday I was watching a video on Youtube about riding on public roads which are twisty. Apparently if you watch the point at where the laft and right sides of the road intersect ahead of you, you can tell whether you are approaching a bend faster or slower if the point of intersection moves towards or away from you. With a neutral handling motorcycle, if you get into a blind corner too hot, it is normal to ease the front brake on. When you do that to lose speed, the front goes down and you tend to run wide faster. You might end up over the centre line of the road and into oncoming traffic. But there is a point at which you can let go of the brake and get back onto the gas. It is a matter of judging your speed. On a race track, if you get into a corner too hot, you can end up off the other side og the bitumen, then all you can do is stand the bike verical and spear off or drop it onto the grass. However if your bike over-steers when you gas it and the front comes up, you can recover much more easily.
 
Southern Loop at Phillip Island does my head in. You can go around there really fast and find lots of bikes are riders all tumbling down the road in front of you. I don't even see the flag marshals. And from where they need to be, to make it safe, they probably cannot see what is happening anyway.
 
Riding on the track is pretty much all about taking blind corners as fast as you can based on knowledge of the corner and trust in the marshal. If you go around corners on a track as you would on the road, you’ll be last out of the first bend.

One of the big pleasures of motorcycling on the road is touring and / or exploring new roads and places. When doing so you clearly do not know the road. Making good progress doing that is an entirely different thing to riding on known roads, or a track.
 
I was talking to a fairly elderly guy two nights ago. He is a member of a Japanese vintage motorcycle group.. He said that whenever they go for a ride together, there are some members who are extremely fast. I would not have thought that was the object of the exercise. There is no disgrace in riding slow enough to enjoy the experience. Road riders who ride faster then the speed limit are kidding themselves. A race track is usually much safer than a public road. The problem is that it might present an obligation to perform. If you crash, you can look very silly.
 
I been riding with a few new friends who some of my mates have been riding with and they have taken me on some new roads that twist and turn, the new friends know the roads but it has slowed me down following them, but they don't get to far a head of me, I travel at my own pace and if anyone gets to far back they always wait at the next turn off, some friends who do come with us are not in no hurry, haven't lost anyone yet, we never speed on the popular roads or highways but in the back roads where not many go on its is taken a lot faster and in some cases well over the speed limit and if we know that road pretty good then it can be a race who gets to the twisty parts first, most of my mates I been riding with for over 45 years and we all know how far we can push each other without putting anyone in danger, well we must be doing something right as we haven't lost anyone yet, its following the ones who we don't know can be a problem till we get past them.

Ashley
 
In that video there is a comment about steering geometry. If you start with more trail, the results when you brake and accelerate are different.
 
I was talking to a young lad at one of the local motorcycle spots. He said he wanted to get a faster bike because he couldn't keep up with his mates and he kept crashing. I was pretty sure at that point no amount of advice was going to solve his dilemma. :rolleyes:
 
Its not how fast your bike goes but how its set up, most of my riding mates all ride sports bikes, they handle a lot better than twin shock bikes, it also depends on the persons experience, all my road bikes are twin shocks and I have them all set up to handle as good as they can and always push them to their limits, but my mates on their mono shock sports bikes will always out handle the twin shockers, but if I am in front I am a good blocker, even better when I know what my mates are going to do or try.
Its good to have the power and torque but you also got to have the experience and know what your bike can do, inexperience riders don't understand that and think a faster bike will be better, one of the reasons so many young unexperience riders get hurt or lose the life from trying to push their bikes beyond their skills or experience.

Ashley
 
Around the back of Winton Raceway there are four tight corners. When I was racing my Triton 500, if Iowered the gearing, I was faster around there than the Z900 or H2 Kawasakis,- they used to out-gun me down the straights.. A modern sports bike would not be faster around the back of Winton than my Seeley 850. The only problem is they ride where I do not - they come down off the ripple strips as I go under them.
Monoshock makes a bigger difference when the road is bumpy.
 
swooshdave said:
I was talking to a young lad at one of the local motorcycle spots. He said he wanted to get a faster bike because he couldn't keep up with his mates and he kept crashing. I was pretty sure at that point no amount of advice was going to solve his dilemma. :rolleyes:
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Most road bikes have neutral steering. As you brake, they tend to run wide or are difficult to tip into corners. If you gas them in a corner they also tend to run wide.
When you increase the trail, the handling spectrum shifts. It is not about stability, it is about self-steering as you brake and accelerate when cranked over. When the bike does something for you, you become a champion.
 
swooshdave said:
I was talking to a young lad at one of the local motorcycle spots. He said he wanted to get a faster bike because he couldn't keep up with his mates and he kept crashing. I was pretty sure at that point no amount of advice was going to solve his dilemma. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Darwinism in action.
 
acotrel said:
Around the back of Winton Raceway there are four tight corners. When I was racing my Triton 500, if Iowered the gearing, I was faster around there than the Z900 or H2 Kawasakis,- they used to out-gun me down the straights.. A modern sports bike would not be faster around the back of Winton than my Seeley 850. The only problem is they ride where I do not - they come down off the ripple strips as I go under them.
Monoshock makes a bigger difference when the road is bumpy.
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Ripples, out of a corner say, on a race track torn up by the tin brigade lot, will upset the back end no matter what suspension set up you have twin shock or mono shock.
 
Fast Eddie said:
Darwinism in action.
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When some people crash, they blame their motorcycle. Often they are probably right. A good bike makes a good rider, a bad bike teaches you how to avoid crashing. The two things are substantially different. Mike Hailwood only ever rode excellent motorcycles.
Whenever I raced, it was usually on a bike I had built myself. It took more than 40 years before I managed to develop one of my bikes into something which is fairly respectable. If you are going to race, start with the best. If you cannot afford it, do not race.
Most of the kids who now race in MotoGP, seem to have come up through Motocross and have gained sponsorship that way..
 
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My friend has 1200 cc Suzuki Bandit. If you run wide in a corner through going in too hot, and ease the front brake on, it immediately stands up and goes straight. It is a safety feature. You are not supposed to brake while you are cranked over.
 
Fast Eddie said:
Darwinism in action.
Click to expand...

acotrel said:
When some people crash, they blame their motorcycle. Often they are probably right. A good bike makes a good rider, a bad bike teaches you how to avoid crashing. The two things are substantially different. Mike Hailwood only ever rode excellent motorcycles.
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Eh?
Sorry, but history shows that Hailwood took over the Honda 500 four racer after Jim Redman was left with a broken arm after being pitched off it. Anyone who saw this bike being raced will tell you what an evil handing bike it was - why, even Hailwood paid Ken Sprayton of Reynolds out of his own pocket to make a frame for it, that was until the management heard about it and told the Honda mechanics to stop.
 
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