Faster cornering on race circuits.

maylar said:

I suggest you start your own thread. This one is about racing.

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Oh the irony!

Shit

gortnipper said:

I am happy we have a race cornering thread where this topic can be safely discussed, without threat of crashing other threads.

Trail braking. Yep.

And that requires good suspension setup too.

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Shit....left hander.....they are way more difficult!

Bind bend at a race rack - Coppice at Donington, if you see it before you turn its too late!

I've always loved that saying!
"The older I get the faster I was"
It's right up there with
"If I don't take it out of the garage it won't get worn out"
My favourite & most closely associated with me is
"One day I will get around to finishing that bike!"
I've led a few races!
Twice I started on the front of grid, back in the days of ball in the bag grid positions. It was at Three Sisters & I was a novice & along with my mate (another novice) we drew the front row. I think the pack was scared to overtake us for a while lol.
I've never manage to hold that lead to the end of the first lap.
Once I led for a long while at Pembrey when everyone crashed at the hairpin at the start & I rode around the inside of all of them! So I know how Acotrel feels & I can tell my road racing tale the same way! I would have beaten them all but they were a tad faster than me.
What I can say is it's addictive a real buzz & I love the people. As I always say do a parade get out on track & enjoy it, there is always someone to race with.

A bit off topic, but I think Al will forgive me.

I raced very briefly with AAMRR in the early 80's. I had a stock Kawasaki S3 400 triple, baby brother of the H1. It was scary fast but didn't handle for shit.
I discovered that if you wanted to race you had to be willing to fall down. Put both rider and machine to their limits in every corner. I was unwilling to find those limits, unwilling to fall down, and I quit.

Maybe if I had known about suspension and counter steering back then it wouldn't have been so frightening in the corners. The S3 blew past everyone in the straights at The Bridge, but coming into turn 1 it was white knuckles and I was clueless.

RamonArmstrong said:

Your suggestion would be highly appreciated.

Thanks.

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As Maylar suggests you need to start your own thread under 'Norton Commando Motorcycles', but a Norton Commando should not have stiff suspension so you have work to do to get it working normally.

SteveA said:

Shit....left hander.....they are way more difficult!

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Why do you say that? For me, I'm way more confident in a left hander than right. I think it has to do with our natural sense of balance, the body's equilibrium. Been that way on every 2 wheeler I've ever ridden. I have scraped the left footpeg on my Norton, but never the right.

baz said:

Oh the irony!

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We owe it to him.

We need hobot back. He'd set everyone straight on this topic.

I never think about any of the geometry and physics stuff when I ride. I think about brake points and gear selection to maintain the right power. The rest of it either feels smooth and natural or is scary as hell when I make a mistake. I do take brakes and suspension setup very seriously. Without the right brakes and suspension chances are one would end up in recovery more often than not riding on the street or on the track.

I've never raced on a road course. I knew I could not afford being competitive. I think I could have afforded coming in last every time but didn't make the time to pursue that honor.

Carry on Al... Good read as usual.

maylar said:

Why do you say that? For me, I'm way more confident in a left hander than right. I think it has to do with our natural sense of balance, the body's equilibrium. Been that way on every 2 wheeler I've ever ridden. I have scraped the left footpeg on my Norton, but never the right.

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You oddball

Quite a lot of us get better at right turns than left, simply because on most race tracks you do more of them! Tight or open, fast or slow, clockwise tarmac circuits need more rights, and most tarmac circuits run clockwise. There was a race meeting held in the '60s/'70s annually at Brands Hatch that ran anticlockwise on the normally clockwise circuit, the idea being to limit the advantage of local circuit specialists, but really it just handed opportunity to riders who rode left-handers better. And of course for those of us who grew up riding on the left, in a country with largish roundabouts (traffic circles), we could go round and round in a right turn until we were dizzy! Those who started out on flat track maybe got a head start on left handers, flat track is not a European sport, but grass track or speedway riders also turn left!

But you are not totally alone, multi world champion Marc Marquez excels at left hand corners, always has, but since his major right arm injury even more so compared to rights.

Me?, I have only ever gotten my right knee down, I wear out right toe sliders much more quickly, my right gear lever occasionally touches down!!, but the peg is mounted too high for that, I get more use out of the very right edge of the tyre than the left edge and generally, I just feel more comfortable going right. I would say I am in the majority of European racers.

outawack said:

WOW cornering without counter steering, and the bike standing up when entrance is stuffed up and you freak and hit the rear brake.
I would love to hear more about your no counter steer technique, maybe the rest of us have been doing it wrong the whole time HAHAHAHA

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Once I learned how to 'consciously' counter steer, I have never been able to turn a bike any other way, nor wanted to. People who move about on a bike are very often 'unconsciously' counter steering as they put force onto the bars when they move their body.

Big tourers like Pan Europeans (ST1100) make it more obvious to you than race bikes with shorter bars.

I learnt about counter steering when on an RAF training course at the age of 18, I learn't about gyros......

Fast Eddie said:

The first time I went on the track I was a badly behaved yoof on the verge of a ban on the road, and had therefore become properly paranoid.

I couldn’t get my head around it for a while… no speed limits? No police? No half blind and distracted motorists? No junctions, diesel spills, manhole covers, etc, etc.

Just the bike… the track… and my own limits.

I had no idea that riding around in circles could feel SO liberating !!

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I had trouble adjusting to an old bloke on a Manx Norton just riding round the outside of me!!!

But, all race tracks are not equal, Pau Arnos, it has some blind bends, in fact several, and, no diesel maybe, but plenty of oil possibilities, I still cannot fathom how we were into lap7 of a 20 minute race when two guys found the oil that had by that time been there over 4 hours, and the guy in front of me then found it too, and I ran over him......

And I still recall racing on old airfields, perhaps Gaydon in particular, where there was a manhole cover on the apex on of a particular bend! If you didn't run over it you were off-line for the next bend! It was easy to see, real shiny, someone must have spent hours polishing it!

gortnipper said:

I am happy we have a race cornering thread where this topic can be safely discussed, without threat of crashing other threads.

Trail braking. Yep.

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Good post, thanks. And what is "BP"?

SteveA said:

I had trouble adjusting to an old bloke on a Manx Norton just riding round the outside of me!!!

But, all race tracks are not equal, Pau Arnos, it has some blind bends, in fact several, and, no diesel maybe, but plenty of oil possibilities, I still cannot fathom how we were into lap7 of a 20 minute race when two guys found the oil that had by that time been there over 4 hours, and the guy in front of me then found it too, and I ran over him......

And I still recall racing on old airfields, perhaps Gaydon in particular, where there was a manhole cover on the apex on of a particular bend! If you didn't run over it you were off-line for the next bend! It was easy to see, real shiny, someone must have spent hours polishing it!

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Having just read Guy Martin’s autobiography, he talks of using the kerb/gutter deliberately right at the exit of a corner ( only a few particular corners!!), I think mainly the rear wheel as it drifts a bit!! ( this is road circuits)

maylar said:

Good post, thanks. And what is "BP"?

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Braking Pressure?

maylar said:

Good post, thanks. And what is "BP"?

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What Ken said.

jan nelder said:

Having just read Guy Martin’s autobiography, he talks of using the kerb/gutter deliberately right at the exit of a corner ( only a few particular corners!!), I think mainly the rear wheel as it drifts a bit!! ( this is road circuits)

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Damn. Berming on a road race. :-o

When racing a bevel Ducati, it is normal to be faster on the high line in corners. They are very stable when on full lean at high speed. The only other bike I rode which felt as though it over-steered slightly was a 1961 500cc Manx Norton. When I got a bit off- line with that, it liked more throttle. It felt positive, where most other bikes of he time could feel light and airey in corners.. I think that with the Manx, the trail has been increased as much as it can be with that 24.5 degree rake. A normal Manx or Triton handles better with 19 inch wheels than 18 inch. But because of the different weight distribution, a Triton never handles as good as a Manx. With a Manx, the weight is further forward.
But mostly when you are cornering fast it is usually a very delicate balance before you start to slip. With my bike I can be much more heavy-handed, because it stays more vertical.
The self steering effect is not something I created by design. I just happened to discover it by accident. As I was accelerating earlier in corners, I noticed the bike starting to turn as I gassed it. Then I took the bull by the horns and grabbed a big handful of throttle mid-corner. It is not something which I would normally do.
These days when I ride, I just flick the bike into the corner as I brake, then just get straight back onto the gas. The bike does the rest. As soon as the rear of the bike squats, the bike self-steers in the direction in which it is leaning. It does not happen quickly, it is a smooth transition. The setting of the rear suspension affects the way it happens.. I have about 3 inches of travel on the back.
When I approach a corner, it does not really matter where I am on the track - high or low - as long as there is no-one else directly in front of me. I must always brake into the corner before I get hard on the gas. When the back goes down, the bike steers in the correct direction. It does not run wide. And it is all controllable.

jan nelder said:

Having just read Guy Martin’s autobiography, he talks of using the kerb/gutter deliberately right at the exit of a corner ( only a few particular corners!!), I think mainly the rear wheel as it drifts a bit!! ( this is road circuits)

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Wasn't that one of Hailwood's tricks to get round some of the bends on the island with the Honda six?