Proficient Motorcycling - David L. Hough

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a turn, the CoM must lose altitude. The bike’s inertia momentarily resists the pull of gravity, so the tires will have reduced traction when rolling toward the turn. But when rolling the bike up out of a turn, the CoM must be lifted up again, momentarily increasing traction. As the bike is rolled upright, you may notice that suspension compresses, at least for a moment.

      The practical application of this is that the front tire is more likely to lose traction when the rider is countersteering hard into a turn, and the tire gains traction as the bike is rolled back to vertical. It also explains why it takes more muscle to roll a bike up out of a lean than to roll it into a lean.

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       As the motorcycle is rolled into a lean, the mass has to drop slightly to maintain contact with the road. That can cause a temporary reduction in traction. When the bike is rolled up out of a lean, the bike’s mass has to be lifted vertically, which demands more muscle but results in a temporary increase in traction.

       U-Turns

      If you’re paranoid about slow speed U-turns, you’re not alone. Heavyweight machines can be a handful at slow speeds and in tight quarters. The novice technique is to drag the foot skids, turn the bars to the stop, and feather the clutch to creep around. The novice may also discover that the bike has a larger turning diameter than the space available (often discovered just as the front tire threatens to drop off the pavement onto a loose gravel shoulder).

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       Scott Wilson demonstrates a tight turn. Note that he is slipping the clutch to keep the engine pulling. He has shifted his weight to the outside of the saddle and is looking where he wants to go, not down at the pavement in front of the bike.

      The trick for tight U-turns is being aware that as the bike is leaned over farther, it will make a tighter turn. So rather than drag your boots on the ground with the bike vertical, what’s needed is to lean the bike over to a steeper angle.

      The technique is to place most of your weight on the outside, lean the bike wa-a-a-y over, and keep the engine pulling. It’s OK to slip the clutch if needed to keep the engine from stalling, but squeezing the clutch in a tight turn is usually followed by the sound of a bike hitting the ground. Don’t try to coast around a tight turn; you need to keep the engine pulling to balance centrifugal force against gravity. In tight turns, it helps to swivel your head around like a barn owl and look where you want to go. Staring at the ground three feet ahead of the bike may result in finding yourself on the ground right where you were looking.

      If the bike seems to go wider than you want it to, you need to lean it over farther. Shift your weight to the outside edge of the saddle or stand more on the outside foot peg. Grab those grips and push the bike over. To avoid any confusion over whether you are pulling or pushing on the low grip, imagine pushing both grips toward the turn to lean the bike over more and pushing both grips away from the turn to keep it from falling over or to straighten up. By now it should be obvious that we are using direct steering most of the time and brief countersteering adjustments to help control lean angle.

       Ergonomics

      If you’ve been ho-hum about the subject of ergonomics (how the rider fits on the motorcycle), consider that how you sit on the bike and reach toward the grips has a lot do with steering control. You’ll have better control of the bike when you can reach the grips in a natural position, with your arms slightly bent and your feet braced under your body weight, not forward. So if you find your motorcycle difficult to control, take a close look at the ergonomics. It’s not just an I thing.

      If you ride a cruiser-style machine with the foot pegs or boards mounted far forward, you’ll find it somewhat more difficult to steer accurately because you can’t use your legs to brace against your steering input. Since the feet-forward seating position means you will normally be pulling on both grips to counteract wind pressure, you’ll need to modify your countersteering technique. Rather than press on the grip on the turn side, pull on the opposite grip. That is, approaching a left turn, pull on the right grip.

      The feet-forward seating position also makes it difficult to support your weight on your feet. For tight turns, you can simply slide your butt toward the edge of the saddle. For instance, when making a tight U-turn to the left, you can slide over to the right edge of the saddle.

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       Cruisers with forward-mounted footboards require slightly different steering techniques.

      I’ve got a warm-up exercise for you to practice tight turns. It’s just a long figure 8 about eighteen feet wide and forty feet long. Enter at one corner, make a tight turn at the other end, reverse direction, make another tight turn, and continue out the far end.

      If tight turns make you nervous, this is just what you need to practice. Shift your weight to the outside, push both grips in the direction you want to go, and keep the engine pulling. Slip the clutch as needed, but don’t pull the clutch and try to coast. Most motorcycles can turn a figure 8 within the eighteen-foot by forty-foot area. If you can’t turn within the eighteen-foot width, move the cones out to twenty or twenty-five feet at first, then pull the cones in as you gain skill and confidence. If your bike has independent front/rear brakes, try easing on a little rear brake to give the engine something to pull against.

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       The figure-8 box is an exercise to help you practice tight U-turns. Enter at one corner, make a U-turn at the other end, make another U-turn at the near end, and exit at the far corner. Keep the engine pulling, even if you have to slip the clutch.

      If you don’t have time to lay out the figure-8 exercise, try making a figure 8 before you park the bike at the end of a ride, or practice a few figure 8s as you arrive in the company parking lot each morning. Anyone can ride straight because the bike is doing most of the balancing. It’s in the tight turns where we find out who can ride and who is just going along for the ride.

      Remember back to those statistics about motorcycle crashes, where I mentioned that many motorcyclists aren’t as proficient at braking as they need to be? Let’s consider what’s involved in braking, and then I’ll outline some practice exercises you can use to increase your braking skills.

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       Once in a while, you need to brake aggressively to avoid a hazardous situation.

       Laying It Down

      Back in the old days, lots of people got killed in motorcar and motorcycle accidents exacerbated by weak brakes. Lawrence (of Arabia) didn’t die falling off a camel; he died crashing his Brough Superior into a stone wall as an alternative to plowing into some children who popped into view on the narrow English road. In the United States, the standard quick-stop technique for yesteryear’s motor officers was to throw the black and white on its side and hope it would grind to a stop on the axle nuts and crash bars. Many police academies still teach the technique of laying it down, even though officers may be riding machines with sticky rubber and ABS brakes, which can stop a lot quicker on the rubber than on chrome. Frankly, I’ve always assumed that laying it down is a crash.

      Have you ever heard a fellow rider describe a panic stop during which the tires were sliding? For example, here’s Zoomie Zed explaining a near collision: “I’m cruising along minding my own business when this chickie babe in a Cherokee zooms

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