knee down on a tourer?

[lawrence567]

I watched a tutorial vid on youtube yesterday of MCNS Neevsey teaching 2 guys to get their knees down.
I'm the sort of person who would go round corners sat bolt upright.
I threw caution to the wind, found a big roundabout last night and just went round and round it for about 20mins.
I went from being bolt upright to hanging off the bike & looking through the corner.
I didnt get my knee down but i found the cornering could be done at a higher speed or the same speed,
It felt so much more natural though as your not wobbling or worrying about tipping over.
The positions is a weird one to be in & feels awkward but putting the bike round the roundabout became so much easier.
I even had alittle race with Gixxer 600 and he had no chance as he was upright!
I dont think its all about getting your knee down but it does help a hell of a lot to watch the video as my cornering has improved 10 fold!

[Hyperion]

lawrence567 said:

I watched a tutorial vid on youtube yesterday of MCNS Neevsey teaching 2 guys to get their knees down.
I'm the sort of person who would go round corners sat bolt upright.
I threw caution to the wind, found a big roundabout last night and just went round and round it for about 20mins.
I went from being bolt upright to hanging off the bike & looking through the corner.
I didnt get my knee down but i found the cornering could be done at a higher speed or the same speed,
It felt so much more natural though as your not wobbling or worrying about tipping over.
The positions is a weird one to be in & feels awkward but putting the bike round the roundabout became so much easier.
I even had a little race with Gixxer 600 and he had no chance as he was upright!
I don't think its all about getting your knee down but it does help a hell of a lot to watch the video as my cornering has improved 10 fold!

Sounds like the video I posted at the start of the thread. I agree though, the bike seems to feel more stable and it just glides round the corner without you consciously steering it round.
I find just hanging your body and head into the corner makes a huge difference, without necessarily moving your bum. I find shifting my bum around can lead to a pretty uncomfortable ride as you're always fidgeting around trying to get comfortable again.
Maybe I should have named this thread 'How to take the perfect corner'.
This is what is so great about biking...every day is a different experience and I always learn something new about the bike (despite having ridded bikes on and off for nearly 15 years)...you've got to feel sorry for car drivers who never experience this!!

[AndyDRZ]

dern said:

fergus said:

1) get more of the mass towards the centre of the corner, hence less centrifugal forces acting on the tyres
2) keep the bike more upright, hence on a larger contact patch of the tyre

Surely that's body position and not getting your knee down?

Dern, you are correct but the correct body position for points 1 and 2 = correct body position for knee down so it goes hand in hand.

Hooli, you obviously know how to lean your bike but you may want to start hanging off a bit more (This may result in knee down but this shouldn't be the aim)

From what you're saying, it won't be long before you are getting your pegs down and this is far more likely to result in a crash so it's better to be in a position to get knee down first.

I watched a pretty girl on an R6 get launched on a left hander after her peg touched down

[fergus]

AndyDRZ said:

dern said:

fergus said:

1) get more of the mass towards the centre of the corner, hence less centrifugal forces acting on the tyres
2) keep the bike more upright, hence on a larger contact patch of the tyre

Surely that's body position and not getting your knee down?

Dern, you are correct but the correct body position for points 1 and 2 = correct body position for knee down so it goes hand in hand.

Hooli, you obviously know how to lean your bike but you may want to start hanging off a bit more (This may result in knee down but this shouldn't be the aim)

From what you're saying, it won't be long before you are getting your pegs down and this is far more likely to result in a crash so it's better to be in a position to get knee down first.

I watched a pretty girl on an R6 get launched on a left hander after her peg touched down

To prevent pegs pivoting people off, I'd suggest removing them from the footpegs. You will struggle to get the bike over to the end of the footpegs whilst sat bolt upright anyway, whereas with the pegs in place, this isn't difficult.

[B15TT0]

fergus said:

To prevent pegs pivoting people off, I'd suggest removing them from the footpegs. You will struggle to get the bike over to the end of the footpegs whilst sat bolt upright anyway, whereas with the pegs in place, this isn't difficult.

Do you mean the hero blobs or the pegs themselves?

Not easy to ride a bike without footpegs! I should know having snapped them off crashing at Croft once. Rode back home with my feet on the pillion pegs (and only 3rd gear)!

Yeah, I know i know, I DID look cool as fk.

[lawrence567]

what pegs & what're blobs?

[black-k1]

I’ve never gotten my knee down, and I have no interest in doing so. I have gotten my pegs down on many many occasions and in ‘the old days’ got through (literally) several exhausts from grounding them on corners. (These were the days of narrow cross ply tyres, ‘rubber frames’, ‘naff springs’ and Honda FVQ – that’s fades very quickly – dampers) I’ve also worn through a rocker cover top on an old air cooled BMW. At no point has the bike ever tried to throw me off because something has ‘dug in’. I’m not saying it won’t happen just that it’s pretty unlikely. For those that haven’t yet touched a peg then I would suggest that the risk is pretty minimal.

The advantage of not taking the hero blobs off is that they will tell you that you are getting pretty near the limits of the bike. Most people I have spoken to regarding getting the pegs down found that the first time it happened they didn’t expect it as they didn’t think they were that far over and were not doing the usual knee out antics. Without the hero blobs, their first indication of how far over they were may otherwise have been the gentle drop into the low side as the front tyre let go!

Once you are getting pegs down on a regular basis then, by all means, take the hero blobs off.

[lawrence567]

I understand how to & the theory of getting your knee down & that essentially to go fastest round a corner your kneee doesnt have to be down, it's just an indication as to how far down you are.
I'm just curious as to what hero blobs are?

[lawrence567]

i've googled it now and found out what it meant

[black-k1]

lawrence567 said:

I understand how to & the theory of getting your knee down & that essentially to go fastest round a corner your kneee doesnt have to be down, it's just an indication as to how far down you are.
I'm just curious as to what hero blobs are?

The bit that sticks out from the bottom of the footpeg.

[alfa daley]

Well I have never got my knee down, in fact I've taken the sliders of my trousers as they looked a bit daft all shiney and pristine, however I'm pretty sure it's far over on the deck when cornering, as I used to scrape the pegs on the old hornet and the R1 has no chicken strips at all on the back and just a smidgeon on the front.

Just be careful where you do it! I was trying to get rid of that last chicken strip on a local roundabout and each revolution would go a bit faster until on my 6th time around a car pulled out at quite a leisurely pace and I had to stand it right up and haul on the anchors.

I've hardly seen any riders getting knee down on a regular road corner.

[dern]

alfa daley said:

Just be careful where you do it! I was trying to get rid of that last chicken strip on a local roundabout and each revolution would go a bit faster until on my 6th time around a car pulled out at quite a leisurely pace and I had to stand it right up and haul on the anchors.

...always character building

[lawrence567]

I've always wanted to do it, but i watcehd the vids posted on here of the MCN guys teaching some people how to do it o a round-about.
I then went straight home and had a go.
When i got there i realised its easier said than done!
I went round the roundabout for about 20mins, although i didnt get my knee down, that 20mins and watching thevids & understanding of cornering i feel so much more confident going into the corner as i was usually the upright cornering biker!
If just to improve your cornering abilitly i'd recommend watching the videos.
Try going to youtube and typing in how to getyour knee down or MCN - how to get your knee down, it's very worthwhile!

[jjr1]

Just lean over till your knee goes down and don't forget to stick it out

Pic of me 2 days ago at Oulton practicing what I preach

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y111/JJBlade/Oult...

[Hooli]

AndyDRZ said:

Hooli, you obviously know how to lean your bike but you may want to start hanging off a bit more (This may result in knee down but this shouldn't be the aim)

i cant remember exactly what i put back there & too lazy to look. i sort of half do the body movements. my arse does move a bit across the seat so effectively my upper leg is pressed on the bike with my bodyweight - seems to hold the bike in the bend without bar pressure. i also have my shoulders off to the side of the corner, id say when trying i'm half off the bike shoulderwise. describing it now, its probably not too far off a kneedown style (if not lean) but i dont bother to hang my knee down. if i wanted to do that i'd have got a sportsbike.
oneday i will get around to doing something like CSS. not that i really fancy trackdays BUT because learning how to do that with a bike will give me a lot more confidence. i want to know that im riding at 50% so got plently in reserve for emergancies rather than all out & jsut having 'oh bugger' in reserve. of course more important is looking & not meeting an emergancy as you saw it ages ago.

[C8PPO]

I test-rode a KTM 990 Supermoto recently and had my knee solidly planted on the deck for lap after lap of a large m-way interchange roundabout.

On the basis that the KTM is about 8 feet off the ground to start with, I'd say you can knee-down just about anything. Mind you, I was hung off the thing like a gibbon!

[StevRS]

The thought of leaning that far scares me silly! I've done about 1000 miles now and my tyres have big chicken breast fillets, rather than strips

Will a GPZ5 on skinny (by modern standards) tyres touch the pegs down in the dry with enough grip left to deal with road undulations etc or is this something I need to leave until a track day on someone else's bike?

I've started to lean and get my head near the mirror in the direction of travel, especially in the wet as I'm terrified the bike will slip out from under me, but this reduces the lean angle, so my chicken strips remain untouched & my knee and blobs are miles from the tarmac!

Edited by StevRS on Wednesday 10th September 10:54

[black-k1]

StevRS said:

The thought of leaning that far scares me silly! I've done about 1000 miles now and my tyres have big chicken breast fillets, rather than strips

Will a GPZ5 on skinny (by modern standards) tyres touch the pegs down in the dry with enough grip left to deal with road undulations etc or is this something I need to leave until a track day on someone else's bike?

I've started to lean and get my head near the mirror in the direction of travel, especially in the wet as I'm terrified the bike will slip out from under me, but this reduces the lean angle, so my chicken strips remain untouched & my knee and blobs are miles from the tarmac!

Given that I used to be able to get the pots down on my old BMW R100RS, which I think ran about the same size wheels as the GPZ5, with cross ply tyres of the early ‘80s, I don’t think there will be any ‘technical’ reason for not touching down the pegs on the GPZ.

[mojitomax]

i got rid of most of my chicken strips through fairly enthusiastic road riding, but still had about 10mm on the front and 5ish mm on the rears. no matter what i did, i couldn't get them off (or get my knee down). Did my first track day at mallory a couple of weeks ago and managed to destroy those chicken strips after the first 'hot' session without getting my knee down.

Got my knee down eventually but paid a fairly high price though. the back end let go out of edwinas and i ended up sliding down the road behind my bike. Still, at least my sliders are worn now