To initiate lean angle....the rider must first countersteer. If you are not familiar with the term....do some research on the net. When you understand countersteer..then you can practice it on the road.

 

lol cd

 

My way is probably not proper but my main concern is not going down - especially with Cecil. I mostly stay centered on the seat, but lean my upper body and stick my leg and foot out through the turn. This allows me to compensate for uneven road surfaces and unexpected hazards quickly. When you move over on the seat it takes much longer to react to the unexpected. If the tire lets go my foot is already out and I can attempt a push off save. You do not have much time when leaned into a turn and the front tire hits a rock and slides out. We had that happen about a month ago on the Dorsoduro at about 40mph leaned over pretty good around a sharp turn. Within 2/10ths of a second from when the tire began to slide my leg and foot already pushed us back up (in 2/10ths of a second the front tire had already slid about 8'). The tire finally grabbed after the bike lifted up and then we leaned back over again and exited the turn near the outside of the lane. I mildly sprained my ankle, but it was completely healed in 3 days. Our friend was behind us and filmed it all with his gopro.

This way isn't going to win many races though, the more weight you shift the faster you can take a turn. But if something unexpected happens you may need to reverse that weight shift in a big hurry to save your life. There is a big difference from track riding and street riding.

 

That is how you blow a knee out. I did it racing motocross. Steady throttle will result in a controlled slide, feet on the pegs here, always. I taught myself to lap a motocross track with my feet on the pegs to improve my street riding skill. Also, I move around on the seat quite a bit.

 

Just my opinion but before pushing this bike hard enough to need to ask this question step 1 would be ditch the pos Dunlop tires it came with, step 2 would be straighten out the suspension, step 3 would be flash the ecu so a mode isn't a bucking bronco. I've been treating mine like a muscle bagger so far, might change once I have tires that I trust.

 

Countersteering. 100%

You can't fool Mother Physics.

 

Don't know if it's proper, but I tend to only roll off the seat slightly and lean forward, knee out, lining my shoulder up with the (stock) mirror. I find this moves my weight forward enough to get decent feedback from the front end. It feels very natural for me, but YMMV.

 

1. Counter-steering is a must or the bike won't lean no matter what you are doing with your body on the bike. (Plenty of video on youtube - Search CA Superbike Schools)
2. You can sit on the seat or slide over and hang a cheek off the seat. Hanging off will keep the bike more vertical. If you take the same turn at the same speed...you can have the bike lean less if you hang off. This will give you more traction because your tire is in a better contact patch.
3. Lean forward and get your helmet in the mirror and "kiss the mirror" if you want more traction (more speed is attainable in this position too)
4. Stay smooth and don't upset the bike with body movement.
5. Smooth on the throttle = faster through the turn.

That's all I got. YMMV

 

5. Smooth on the throttle = faster through the turn.

We must be riding different bikes

 

I don't think you will get great answers by asking the Internet, but I'll join in.
I lean the bike under me for slow speed, and lean with the bike for fast stuff.
It is like a big motard.

 

Don't think, just do. +1 for CD and River Get the suspension set up for you, it might require new springs and a new shock on the rear the older ZX-10 and ZX6R shocks work if you are budget conscious, get that ECU flashed if you haven't already but if you have a newer model it should already be done. From what I've read Yamaha's fix is pretty good relative to what it was for the first year. Lastly definitely make sure you have a good set of shoes, I've been using the PR4's and I haven't had any issues but I'm not a track guy, nor am I an expert just an average enthusiast. If you know how to counter steer and go around corners in a bike then you shouldn't have to think about it just go around the corner.

 

In addition to the above I would recommend the Aussie O2 controller to help with low speed engine surging. Also practice cornering using the look-ahead technique, it really makes a difference. Start easy and stay safe.

 

I'm currently running Q3s on it. It falls into turns a helluva lot quicker now. I swapped the rear shock about 2k miles back for a Ohlins ZX10 with a 610 spring (230lb rider). I've got a mechanic dropping new springs in the front with 10w Maxima fork oil for me today, and unless I shell out the dough for some cartridges, my suspension will be set. As for the ECU, I've got a 2015 model and it hasn't been too bad, most of my bikes have been literbikes with the exception of a 'Busa. Throttle finesse had to become a survival skill

Counter steer is how I initiate my turn, adding/reducing to pick my line. It's going to be nice once the springs are in. Should eliminate that brake dive and keep the front end from wallowing towward the outside. I guess I could've shed a few pounds to improve the suspension, but springs are cheaper and easier

 

Please report back on how you like the new springs. I already have the zx10 shock so I have a feeling you are very happy with that. I have read conflicting reports on how effective the springs are for controlling the brake dive since there is no compression dampening. I am currently on the fence between new springs and cartridges with compression and rebound as well. Thanks and ride safe

 

30 years ago when I had to go through a rider education course to legally ride at the age of 16 the instructor taught counter steering and leaning with the bike. I see that many motorcycle police are taught to sit upright and lean the bike underneath themselves much like motocross riders. I suppose that once you get the bike sorted out and you find yourself dragging your footpegs it may be time to learn how to properly drag a knee to reduce your lean angle.

 

I lean in with my hips elbow, and shoulders (point where you want to go). My arms do little to no work. Your lower body should control the bike and your arms support you. When you use the handle bars to initiate and control a turn typically the result is less than smooth transitions and not very smooth riding in general. I still shift from side to side on my bikes to turn out of habit from racing. I'm sure it looks silly on the street to people behind me but it works and reduces fatigue. The whole knee slinging trend looks cool but isn't necessary. I rarely put my knee down racing unless I was unsure how far I was leaned, it can be a good reference at times but doesn't assist in keeping the bike any further upright than if your knee is tucked.

 

... My arms do little to no work.... When you use the handle bars to initiate and control a turn typically the result is less than smooth transitions and not very smooth riding in general.

Not sure if they still offer this, but take a look at the "NO-BS" bike. You are using you hands and handlebars more than you are admitting here.

I still shift from side to side on my bikes to turn out of habit from racing. I'm sure it looks silly on the street to people behind me but it works and reduces fatigue. The whole knee slinging trend looks cool but isn't necessary. I rarely put my knee down racing unless I was unsure how far I was leaned, it can be a good reference at times but doesn't assist in leaning the bike any farther.

Putting your knee out.. or leaning any body part off your bike at all is not intended to lean the bike farther, it allows less of a lean angle for a given speed. Take a corner leaning the bike underneath you at a fast pace, you will see the bike leaning to the edge of the tire, and you are almost at the max speed for that body configuration. Take the same corner at the same speed while leaning off the bike, extending your knee/elbow and you will see the bike is much more upright than the last pass, meaning you could take it faster now that there is more room to lean the bike over.

 

Feelers touch easily on the FZ. I tuck in the inside foot tight to the peg so it doesn't drag. Shift my body weight to keep the bike more upright and keep better tire contact patch. The rest is keeping smooth inputs and enjoying the physics of riding a bike!

 

Feelers touch easily on the FZ. I tuck in the inside foot tight to the peg so it doesn't drag. Shift my body weight to keep the bike more upright and keep better tire contact patch. The rest is keeping smooth inputs and enjoying the physics of riding a bike!

View attachment 15314

Nice form Buck! Great pic!

I'm an avid fan of riding in my DC shoes as well, but after a car hooked a left in front of me on a 2 lane stretch and my shin taking the worst of it, I've switched to SDI riding boots. They definitely instill extra confidence & quite comfy.

 

Trail brake into the turn, then you should be off the brake and neutral throttle by the apex. Knee out some, cheek off the seat, chin up looking through the turn. I prefer moving around over staying rigid on the seat. It makes the ride more fun and keeps the bike from doing all the work. I feel more confident this way.

 

Haha I love how tone can't be expressed in text so people immediately assume anger and that you're attacking their ego...

 

That's whys my gf and I always fight hahaha I say something like"I don't care" in the most relaxed way through a text and she thinks I'm giving her and attitude lmao that's why they invented emojis I guess lol

 

Not gonna single anyone out but to the original poster, take this thread with a grain of salt, it contains both really good and really poor advice. If just no bs bike doesn't pull it up try California superbike school no bs bike or Keith code no bs bike. If you have never seen it you may be very surprised. For the possible internet trolls, I have no racing pedigree, but mr code has trained over 50 national and world champions, at least for me, I take anything he says about a bike to be the facts

 

One of the quickest riders I ever rode with sat bolt upright on a dead stock Bandit 1200. He was smooth and very fast. I never saw him out of control or making multiple steering corrections. There have been many others though that do lean off the bike to varying degrees. Some of those laughingly so. Then there are those friends of mine that ride dirt bike style, pushing the bike underneath themselves. All of these styles I've observed on everything from super tight and technical roads to slightly more open and sweepy stuff. I'm not sure which style suits me. I'm too stiff and weak in the legs to do any hanging off, or even much shifting of my hips. Thus I'm working too hard to keep pace with any but the somewhat conservative rider. I worry too much about sketchy surface conditions and what may lay around that blind corner to fully commit.

 

One of the quickest riders I ever rode with sat bolt upright.... I worry too much about sketchy surface conditions and what may lay around that blind corner to fully commit. As if that extra 12 mph would make much difference in surviving contact with a surprise impediment. But I do manage to have my fun.

Bingo!
Genuinely enjoying the ride without having to push the limits...there's much to be said for that.
Stretching for extremes tends to scream what's lacking in the participant.
But...to each his own.

 

I hope this will be universally agreed upon, regardless of the style you choose, ride your pace, "friends" pushing you to keep up to their pace our no friends at all.

 

 

The problem with this video is that when you move on the bike you are inputting to the bars as well. The premise of body steering (which uses counter steering) is that you are not consciously and solely using the bars to negotiate turns on a motorcycle. When taking a turn, you smoothly shift to the side you are turning to. This shift naturally provides the required input the the bars and chassis of the motorcycle to initiate your desired turn. Stabbing away at the bars around town works just fine. Stabbing away at the bars on a spirited mountain ride is tiresome and inefficient. People took my words previously as if I was ignoring the bars completely. That's impossible, as shown above. My point was that when you are riding with your lower body instead of bar stabbing you will have a much smoother experience. Minor adjustments mid turn using your lower body are less disruptive to the suspension and reduce the likelihood of unsettling the suspension mid turn. More abrupt steering, such as evasive maneuvers, would require bar input. The OP asked about cornering. We were taught, and I've had, a lot of success and more fun limiting the direct use of the bars while riding. When you lean towards your turn you are pulling the opposite bar and pushing the inside bar, which is a counter steering input. But it's not initiated by the arms, it's initiated but the transition of your body from side to side based on the direction you're trying to go. Seen plenty of high sides caused by over input to the handlebars at near full lean. Once that suspension unsettles you're left trying to pick up the pieces to prevent yourself going wide or low siding. It's simple concept, input at the front will cause an exponential increase of input at the rear where as input closer to center provides a more even distribution of force reducing the likelihood of unsettling the suspension. Bar input is kept to small, minimal corrections leaving the brunt of the work for your lower body. This mainly helps with fast transitions.
People are looking at polar opposites and not considering that the correct method utilizes both. Instead they saw "use your body to initiate the turn" and "I rarely use my bars" to mean I ride around without my hands on the bars and never input. At all. Which is far from correct. My point was when riding you want to be smooth. To be smooth you use your body to initiate turns and leave the minor corrections and slow speed turns to to the bars as leading the bike into turns will naturally input to the bars, make you a smoother rider, reduce fatigue, and reduce a fatal over input mid turn.

 

Most people that have issues with turning are not looking far enough ahead. Always try to be scanning at least 4-5 seconds ahead but more is even better!

 

#1. Countersteering is what turns the bike.

there are a number of different ways to accomplish this, as evidenced by the discussions/arguments that always ensue whenever a question like yours is asked.

Me? I ride mostly sitting on the bike, sometimes sticking a knee out left or right to initiate a gentle turn, which in turn changes the amount of force you are applying to the handlebars, which causes the front tire contact patch to change relative to the rotation of the tire, etc, etc, etc.

I almost never 'hang off' my bike, I never push it that far, preferring to keep that as my 'safety margin' if something does go south in a turn I can still 'hang off'. Mostly I use my bars and my torso weight, while still staying (mostly) on the seat. (try to remember head mostly over your mirror that's inside the turn)

If you aren't familiar with countersteering, and quick emergency maneuvers, (hint; always try to turn the bars towards an object you wish to avoid) I recommend Keith Codes Twist of the Wrist 1 and 2. He's talking about racing, so not everything applies, but the basics and the forces all DO.

The No BS bike was an eye opener back when he first built it, now it's mostly accepted how/why a two wheeled device steers.

You do it on a bicycle, which is why the very first time you tried to ride a bicycle, you crashed. It seems counter-intuitive but to turn right, you turn the bars (slightly, very slightly at speed) left to initiate counter-steering.

(edit to add)
What ryderJ said is exactly correct in the post previous to mine. I didn't read it until after I'd posted.

 

I started riding long before I heard the theory of counter steering to initiate a turn. Apparently, I must be doing it, but it doesn't require consciously thinking about it.

If you're running reasonably sticky tires and have your suspension well sorted, hanging off should only be necessary for on track speeds. If you're running that hard on the street, you're asking for trouble.

+1 to all the comments about being smooth. Abrupt inputs might be fun sometimes, but smooth should be faster.

 

...hanging off should only be necessary for on track speeds. If you're running that hard on the street, you're asking for trouble...

I like that, and agree with one proviso. Learning how to be fast is equivalent to learning how to be smooth, and how to be coordinated on the bike. And that's a desirable goal for all riders, and can be practiced at medium / safe / street speeds. If you don't know how to ride in the twisties with your weight centered on the bike and your body mass only on the balls of your feet, your knees on the side of the tank, and nothing but a light touch on the grips, your skill set has room for improvement. And improving skills can increase safety.

The best post in this thread is #110 on page 11 by Tunnelvision. http://www.fz09.org/forum/6-fz-09-general-discussion/7060-how-do-you-lean-your-fz09-properly-11.html#post131102

I'm going to try to expand on what he said so concisely, but probably won't do as well.

First of two basic skills: After using countersteer to set up the turn, all riders should know to minimize their weight on the bars and ride fast with a very light touch. What a good rider should be shooting for (as early in the turn as possible, as he/she sets up and holds a stable line and lean angle) is to loosen his/her grip enough that the tire can choose it's own angle. On it's own, it will likely point slightly more toward the outside of the turn than a heavy hand would hold it. But learning to balance and control the rest of your body enough that you don't need your hands to balance or hang on lets the bars settle into the angle they want to be - it's a magic and smooth place that's faster and offers a higher level of grip than you could find with a heavier hand. All racers ride like this, but only a minority of street riders do. The real bonus is if you do hit oil, gravel, or sand and are relaxed enough to let the bars do what they want once that front tire slides the chance of recovery doubles or triples (if the tire is allowed to recover on it's own). All the weird physics forces out there incline toward stability. Your job is to stay out of the way and let the round rubber do what it wants to: keep rolling. Ideally, you'll get to a place where this is your regular way of riding. Keith Code has written about this extensively.

The second involves hanging off the bike. As Tunnelvision stated, a really important part of riding well in a turn is front / rear balance. A simple analogy is jumping a bicycle. You can land on the front first, or the back first, but when you land on both tires at the same time, you get the benefit of splitting the landing forces between the two tires equally. Leaning around a turn on a motorcycle is like that: there's the friction needed to keep turning (which is accelerating even without throttle), and you need to split that friction equally. The problem is that most bikes which are also under throttle acceleration in a turn shift the balance too far toward the rear. So getting up and off the seat is properly used as a way to shift your own weight forward to put more traction on the front rubber. If you can manage to balance the rest of your body well enough that you aren't using your hands on the bars to balance, and you experiment on how far forward you're getting your butt forward around the tank, you'll find a sweet spot where you're splitting the suspension load between the sweet spots in the front and rear springs. The bike will feel suddenly right, and more capable than it ever has before. Generally, you can't get there sitting centered on the tank, and for sure not in an uphill turn. It's a really great sensation, best practiced on a track but you can work on it on a smooth and familiar curvy road. If you've never experienced the sensation, your skill set has room for improvement. Working on it will make you a better, safer rider.

 

weird, post the link and it 'auto embedds' skip to 12:55 and
right here is one of those 'witness' locations. watch this (beautifully banked) 180 degree turn. as it straightens out, (when you are facing the closest mountain dead on at 13:24) on the right side is a drainage grate. It is recessed 4-8" from the height of the road, so if you don't know about it, and are running hotter then you should be......You're gonna have a bad day. In 2002 I was following a group of riders through this, and was the tail of the group on this curve, which is safe @70 and the hotshot who was second in line cut too sharp, ran over that grate, ping-ponged back and forth from curb to curb, and by the time we all had stopped and gotten off our bikes, he was just realizing that his thumb was gone. Right thumb, sitting in the middle of the road. No, they couldn't re-attach it.

Of course back then the impalement spikes on the sides of the road weren't there either, else he'd probably have been dead.

p.s. I love that video.

 

Push right, go right. Push left, go left. Look where you want to go. Look at the line you want to take and you will go where you want to go. Don't target fixate. This bike turns tight and will easily go exactly where you want to go.

Sport Riding Techniques by Nick Ienatch is a good book. People may disagree with me, but I don't think you should need to drag knees on public roads. Save it for the track.

 

Cecil if you are losing traction with the front wheel as often as you say, there something seriously messed up about your riding. Either you are riding too fast for your skills or for the available traction or there is something seriously wrong with your technique.

I ride briskly on the street and even faster on the track and I haven't had a front wheel slide on pavement for over 20 years.

I'm NOT saying you can't throw a foot out to catch yourself but if you are needing to do it often, something is wrong and I suggest you strive to figure that out before you fail saving a front end slide and you get hurt.