What's wrong with my body positioning? | GTAMotorcycle.com

What's wrong with my body positioning?

Corsara

Corsara

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<Moderator, please move this to appropriate section, I wasn't sure where to post it>

So, snapped a video this morning in my "good morning and wake up" ride. Took some frames out (see below)---I'm very much confused---when I'm riding, it almost feels like my knee is going to touch ground, but then when I looked at the video---there's like a whole ft or more between my knee and the ground. What am I doing wrong? Is my positioning that bad? What has to be corrected? I don't necessarily want to touch knee, but rather I'd like to know what I'm doing wrong. This is just the parking lot, but I do the same body position on the on-ramps at speed, and if you see something apparently wrong in the positioning, could you please tell me?

Oh, and yes---I'll take some classes soon, I just want to get a headstart :)

Body_positioning.jpg
 
Your body position shouldn't be the same at every cornering speed. For the speed you're doing your position looks fine to me. To get a knee down at that speed you'd have to be doing something wrong.

In other words, you're just slow :)
 
I'm far from an expert, but I did recently drag knee in a lot and my first few tries felt/looked exactly as you described. If dragging knee is what you want to do, here are a few things that helped me.

Make sure you're doing this on a hot day with warm pavement that is clear of grates, cracks, debris and sand. Little tire slips from going over that stuff will make this a lot more freaky and harder to accomplish. You're not at track speeds, so your tires will not have the same temps/grip, but it is still very doable.

1- If you are trying to lean in further and the bike starts to "fall in" suddenly, you are probably not going fast enough. Speed up while keeping the same radius. Get used to a speed, then bump it up a notch again and again until you scrape.
2- Get one butt cheek off the seat towards the inside of your turn (can't tell if you are doing this on the pics)
3- Make sure your toe is pointed outwards on the peg which will help you get your knee out a bit more. Because the tires are less grippy at these temps, I found it safer to stick my knee out a little more than in perfect track form. Your knee does not seem to be very far out in the pics.

See how this rider's hanging off a lot more than you are?
http://blog.motorcycle.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Aprilia_RSV4_IMG_6375.jpg

I'm probably telling you something you already know here, but remember that knee dragging in a lot is not the best way to practice cornering technique. It is however a useful drill to make you more comfortable with lean angles, more used to pushing your bike and is a relatively safe environment.
 
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For street speeds (that wont get your bike impounded) you probably dont ever need more hang off then that, form looks good so what becomes more important now is where you're putting your weight. Ideally most of your weight should be supported by your outside leg, with as little weight as possible on the inside peg, and absolutely no weight on the bars. If you have weight on the inside bar with the bike leaned over, when you hit a bump you'll literally push the front right out from under you (okay at track speeds at least). A little tip that just occurred to me this season from watching the pro's is that they all shift their outside foot so that the arch of the boot is on the peg. You'll notice that this ever so slight change of foot positioning shifts your contact point at the tank from just your knee touching, to the entire inside of your leg touching. Gives you a much more secure point to anchor from to get weight off the rest of the bike, altho i will say that i find the shifting my feet around to take a fair bit of attention at the moment, so maybe use it sparingly until it becomes second nature.

For the track, well look at this picture of stoner. If you're trying to find the limits of cornering speed you could be about twice as far off the bike as you are. Check out how far he is off the bike, how leaned over the bike is and his knee still isn't on the ground (okay it could be if he wanted it to be, but thats almost part of the point). With good form my knee doesn't touch the ground on race tires at the track until i'm approaching the edge of the tire which has more side profile then even your hypersport tire. So dont worry too much about touching knee, it shouldn't happen on the street unless you're trying to make it happen.

Casey+Stoner+MotoGp+Portugal+Free+Practice+ph0szLhZ7eol.jpg



See how this rider's hanging off a lot more than you are?
http://blog.motorcycle.com/wp-conten...4_IMG_6375.jpg
Click to expand...

That picture is a great example of how bad body positioning makes you have to lean the bike way more then necessary. See how bolt upright he is versus the stoner picture? dragging knee does not = going fast. Thats why it drives me nuts when experienced riders tease new riders about chicken strips and undragged knee sliders, if you do it wrong it is really easy to achieve those things, but you're also way closer to falling down then is necessary for the corner speed you're carrying.
 
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Looking at pictures really helps, but in this case the images are very small and hard to make any real evaluations based on them.

For you speed the lean angle looks good, one thing I find with most people "trying to touch" a knee, is that in and of itself. You should be working on proper form and then if you get over far enough it will happen. "Trying" to touch a knee canlead to bad posture and eventually bad habits.

If you do not feel comfortable and in control of the bike there are a couple things you should work on ahead of anything else you do.

1. Vision. You need good vision, looking well through the turn and not looking down in front of you. No peeking either. Make sure that when you are leaning the bike you are not leaning your head. Your head should always be level with the horizon.
2. Throttle control (Often tied to vision) if you do not have the smooth throttle control the bike will not "feel" right and in turn will not work right under you.
3. Body Position. I find a lot of people start by moving the Butt half off the seat. This is not correct and often times leads to riders being what we call "crossed up" this is bad for many reasons. Always lead with the shoulders and get the knee turned in. this will help to rotate your body into the turn, it will also result in better vision and more confidence.

From what I can see in the pictures you are doing pretty good with most of these things but like I said since the pictures are small it is really hard to tell.

One thing I find with many students, they are sitting to close to the tank and as a result are not able to move down enough to help lower the cetner of gravity (combined center of gravity) and in turn cannot lean to the indise far enough either as your reach is limit and works on a pivot, Lower with the chest means that your have the ability to also move further to the inside of the bikes cetner line. Try to make sure that you slide you Butt back in the seat to the bump pad, then lean forward and close to the tank, then move your body inside the bikes centerline. Get your head almost all the way to your hand.

Do us a favor and post some bigger pictures and we will be able to give some more realistic advice based on what we can actually see in them.

Also do yourself a favor and sign up for the Total Control Advanced Riding Classes Where there can pin point any problems and help you improve one step at a time in a safe and controled environment.
 
Outlaws Justice said:
3. Body Position. I find a lot of people start by moving the Butt half off the seat. This is not correct and often times leads to riders being what we call "crossed up" this is bad for many reasons. Always lead with the shoulders and get the knee turned in. this will help to rotate your body into the turn, it will also result in better vision and more confidence.
Click to expand...

Twist of the Wrist 2 says the opposite (get butt half off before entering the turn so you're not shifting during the turn and adding to instability). Could you elaborate on what you mean by getting 'crossed up'?
 
bboySushi said:
Twist of the Wrist 2 says the opposite (get butt half off before entering the turn so you're not shifting during the turn and adding to instability). Could you elaborate on what you mean by getting 'crossed up'?
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Their arse is off the bike but their head is still over the tank. Looks like they're trying to take a dump while riding.

Open your hips into the direction of the turn before sliding your backside off. It becomes almost physically impossible not to get your shoulders and head off the bike too then.

As for the OP, your shape doesn't look too bad. Remember though, that body position isnt the same for every corner.
 
Fiery254 said:
As for the OP, your shape doesn't look too bad. Remember though, that body position isnt the same for every corner.
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Very good point. For street speeds i always opened my inside foot and hips, shoulders slightly inside and very much using the "triangle" method where you pop you knee way out and turn your inside foot. For the track and max corner speed it's completely different, inside foot stays mostly inline and you just hang off the inside of the bike like stoners doing in the pic i had up. I find that the knee out "triangle" style only works to a point of hanging off, and then you end up with all of your weight on the foot peg, so it doesn't work as well for max lean.

Funny downloading IOM TT video's and watching how little they get off the bike.
 
Lol, guys, I really didn't expect to get so many replies :) I will read and re-read the thread to filter out all the advice you're giving, I'm really grateful!

Sorry, but I don't have a better quality pictures right now---what I did was to take a few frames from the video, and crop just the place where I am, so the actual me is very low resolution. I'll try to figure out and get better soon though!

Regarding Total Control course---I'd love to take it, I'm not sure right now if the dates will work for me, but I'll definitely register if I can!

FriendlyFoe said:
Ideally most of your weight should be supported by your outside leg, with as little weight as possible on the inside peg, and absolutely no weight on the bars.
Click to expand...

This is absolutely new to me! In fact, I was doing exactly the opposite, putting weight on my inside peg (the one inside the turn), lol! Thank you! I guess I thought that I'd rather have the weight closer to the ground?! What is the logic behind having the weight on the outside leg/knee/foot?
 
What's wrong is your brain. :)

"Learn to ride like a woman."

Re-read Outlaws Justice's post and you'll need knee sliders real soon.

Not quite a DeVinci code, but you ain't gettin' it for free. :p
 
Corsara said:
This is absolutely new to me! In fact, I was doing exactly the opposite, putting weight on my inside peg (the one inside the turn), lol! Thank you! I guess I thought that I'd rather have the weight closer to the ground?! What is the logic behind having the weight on the outside leg/knee/foot?
Click to expand...

Going to quote this again.


Fiery254 said:
. Remember though, that body position isnt the same for every corner.
Click to expand...

There will always be weight on the inside peg, you just need to get the general concept here. The whole idea is to be so loose on the bike that the suspension can work without you translating extra forces into the bike. When the bars bang if your arms are loose it sorts right out, if you're tight you put the bike in a tank slapper. Same thing with your suspension, if you have weight on the bars or on the footpeg, when you go over a bump with all of your weight on the pegs now you're translating a jarring force into the peg.

As i was pointing out for the street your body positioning (in the pictures) looksfine, it makes sense to turn your inside foot out to open yourself up, lean off a little and go for a nice spirited ride doing a bit over the limits. In this scenario most of your weight will be supported by the seat, with a little on your outside leg and a little on the foot peg. Now think whats going to happen if you try to lean the bike over like in the stoner picture with your leg turned out and your body way off. All of your weight would be on the inside peg, which is not only physically exhausting, all of the weight of your body is going to translate into the suspension via the peg, and it will be a jarring force as you go over bumps (which we have a lot of at our tracks in ontario). Again with the stoner picture look at that sort of lean angle and think is there any way he could possibly support his body weight on the inside peg? Of course not, this is why you see them more tight to the side of the bike and hanging from their outside leg.

Different things work in different scenarios, it's all about understanding different techniques that are available to you and playing around with what works best where. It's nearly impossible to convey this stuff in a meaningful way over the internet, one of many reasons that there is so much value in taking courses whether it be parking lot or held at a track day.
 
With the bike more upright you will have weight on the inside peg, the farther you lean the bike over the more weight you need to be supported by your outside leg. The most important thing is not to be supporting ideally any of your weight on the bars, because that will crash you.

Same rider, different techniques for different corners
Josh-Hayes-1.jpg

146_1104_01_z+yamaha_r1+josh_hayes.jpg
 
FriendlyFoe said:
Casey+Stoner+MotoGp+Portugal+Free+Practice+ph0szLhZ7eol.jpg





That picture is a great example of how bad body positioning makes you have to lean the bike way more then necessary. See how bolt upright he is versus the stoner picture? dragging knee does not = going fast. Thats why it drives me nuts when experienced riders tease new riders about chicken strips and undragged knee sliders, if you do it wrong it is really easy to achieve those things, but you're also way closer to falling down then is necessary for the corner speed you're carrying.
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That picture also shows where knee dragging is appropriate and safest..... the track.
 
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