Why has every rider got great bike handling skills?

Anonymous

Concorde wrote:

I think I fall down on the cornering bit? Anyone put in in simle terms. So I don't lean with bike is that right? Just stay up right(ish) ??? Confused a bit!

You need to be going at significant speed to be able to lean yourself over with the bike and corner effectively. It can be done though.
However, on singletrack, you may find that either the banks at the side are too high to allow you to corner, and also that the changes in direction come way to fast to allow you to lean the bike, MotoGP style into the corners.
That is when it's advantageous to lean the bike underneath you. It allows you to change the direction of the bike in less time, since it's just a push/pull of the arms and a turn of the cranks, and the bike has much less inertia to shift, compared to the rider weight.
It also prevents you catching your elbows and shoulders on the bank, trees or whatever is lining the trail.

Popstar, I think you and a few others are confusing bike handling skills with DH riding. Whether you're a cross country rider, an off road tourer or any kind of mountain biker at all, getting the skills sorted can make a big difference.

concorde

Okey dokey. That makes sense yeah. I will focus on it when I'm out see what I'm doing!

Atz

yeehaamcgee - If you're in a berm, for example, the pedal closest to the top of the berm should be down. A lot of people do this naturally, a lot don't.

joshtp

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Concorde wrote:

I think I fall down on the cornering bit? Anyone put in in simle terms. So I don't lean with bike is that right? Just stay up right(ish) ??? Confused a bit!

You need to be going at significant speed to be able to lean yourself over with the bike and corner effectively. It can be done though.
However, on singletrack, you may find that either the banks at the side are too high to allow you to corner, and also that the changes in direction come way to fast to allow you to lean the bike, MotoGP style into the corners.
That is when it's advantageous to lean the bike underneath you. It allows you to change the direction of the bike in less time, since it's just a push/pull of the arms and a turn of the cranks, and the bike has much less inertia to shift, compared to the rider weight.
It also prevents you catching your elbows and shoulders on the bank, trees or whatever is lining the trail.

Popstar, I think you and a few others are confusing bike handling skills with DH riding. Whether you're a cross country rider, an off road tourer or any kind of mountain biker at all, getting the skills sorted can make a big difference.

bang on... often just leaning the bike is all that's needed... in big/fast corners however it's good to get the body down...

bartimaeus

And, especially at slow speeds, the counter-intuitive idea of pushing down with and extending your inside arm to lean the bike (rather than turning the bars) seems to work very well.

I'm gradually improving my skills... I aspire to reach 'mediocre' by the end of the summer.

Anonymous

Atz wrote:

yeehaamcgee - If you're in a berm, for example, the pedal closest to the top of the berm should be down. A lot of people do this naturally, a lot don't.

Ah, I see what you mean. The foot on the outside of the corner, yes. It was your choice of the word "uphill" that confused me!

miss notax

joshtp wrote:

oooh, and I almost forgot...

what's the most important upgrade available for your bike?

GOGOGO! technology... developed by me and a mate when trying to ride a bombhole with some super gnarly run in's.. basically you just block everything out, and say out loud (or in your head if your around other people) GO! GO! GO! it's amazing what you can ride if you have the confidence... but often finding the confidence is very hard... so use GoGoGo! technology to try something that your whole body is telling you not to do... I find forcing my fingers to stay off the brakes so I cannot stop and just rolling towards a feature using GOGOGO tech to do something the first time is awesome.

I like this

blister pus

I've only read bits of this thread and watched the Gee Atherton clip again (gotta love it), and yehaa seems to cover it nicely, so i don't know if it's been mentioned but the right tyres (for you) make the world of difference and can really make or break your confidence to do things at speed. Obviously the rest of the bike as whole package is important, but the right tyres makes a world of difference.

Eg. I usually run an xc alrounder 2.0s, good for the bulk of off road around the Peaks and roll nicely enough on road to get from A-B. But I wouldn't dream of really pushing it and leaning into the heavier 'downhill' stuff with them. I know what will happen and I've lost the psychological battle right there. Tyre change with a big fat (2.3/2.4) sticky effort up front and a 2.2 for the rear and it's a totally, totally different ball game.

concorde

blister pus wrote:

I've only read bits of this thread and watched the Gee Atherton clip again (gotta love it), and yehaa seems to cover it nicely, so i don't know if it's been mentioned but the right tyres (for you) make the world of difference and can really make or break your confidence to do things at speed. Obviously the rest of the bike as whole package is important, but the right tyres makes a world of difference.

Eg. I usually run an xc alrounder 2.0s, good for the bulk of off road around the Peaks and roll nicely enough on road to get from A-B. But I wouldn't dream of really pushing it and leaning into the heavier 'downhill' stuff with them. I know what will happen and I've lost the psychological battle right there. Tyre change with a big fat (2.3/2.4) sticky effort up front and a 2.2 for the rear and it's a totally, totally different ball game.

And even then mroe than half that battle is the psychoological one. I bet the first lot of tyres will do far more than you expect or are prepared to try out. Half the fight is with yourself really aint it. But like you say that fight can be won by having some tyres that you think/know will help you.

blister pus

aye, i pretty much know how hard I can push them before it all goes tits up but i've learnt that from losing control a few times and provided they're predictable when they give way, i'm happy enough with that. But i do know their limitations.

Psychological reassurance is key though, you need absolute confidence in your chosen tyres, you need to know exactly what they can do and how they behave under speed duress. The confidence factor loosens you up enough to go with the flow and actually enjoy the speed.

then you're addicted, then you really are fucked, depending on your personality type.

Northwind

Atz wrote:

I recently had a course with jedi and one of my big problems that he fixed was dropping my shoulder on corners rather than pushing my bike down. That one thing alone probably took 5-10% off my average time down trails.

Aye, that's my biggest problem too, too many years on motorbikes where the entire game is to keep the bike as upright as possible, then you jump on a pushiron and that doesn't work. Hard to unlearn things.

Anonymous

Northwind wrote:

on motorbikes where the entire game is to keep the bike as upright as possible,

Not sure I follow what you mean



The different technique I mean is on tight twisty trails, where the speeds are a fair bit lower, and you simply cannot lean, for various reasons.

Anonymous

Atz wrote:

yeehaamcgee - If you're in a berm, for example, the pedal closest to the top of the berm should be down. A lot of people do this naturally, a lot don't.

I tend to when I'm not thinking about it, but mess it up when I do. Usually because people have told me something like "outside" and I've never been good with inside and outside. It's the same with cars. My driving instructor would talk about inside and outside and never had a clue what he was on about. I went with instinct instead. Still passed my test first time though

Though outside is easier to visualise on a bike when leaning into a corner. With a car in a straight line it just makes no sense. Middle of the road could mean inside to me as much as the side of the road. Just say left or right side or lane, that'll do me.

Northwind

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Not sure I follow what you mean

Can't remember, do you ride motorbikes? The riders are way off to the right in order to move the centre of gravity and reduce the amount that the bike has to lean. It might look like they're leaned way over but actually, the riders are doing everything they can to reduce the angle of lean- those bikes are all leaned less than they would be otherwise.

So here:



The story in that pic isn't how far it's leaned over, it's how far it's not- if he was sat up on the bike like a policeman, it'd have to lean still further for the same result and he'd run out of ground clearance and crash. (also grip is involved but that gets complicated very fast)

popstar

Yeeha that Mtber you've shown, imagine what speeds would he do if he leaned that bike and did hit that exact riding line?



I meant 2nd version of countersteer* ... am I wrong to achieve that in every possible corner on a MTB?

Version 3 however is so wrong!

Atz

What they call counter steering is not really counter steering as that's usually used when steering into a slide (say in a car) to control it. It is, however, what I was talking about; bike does more leaning than you do.

concorde

It's called counter steerin coz you have to put force against the direction of lean otherwise the wheel will turn in even more and you'll fall off

Atz

That's counter weighting, rather than steering

cooldad

Concorde is actually correct. On a motorcycle you actually move the bars very slightly in the opposite direction to the turn as you lean in, which tips the bike into the lean. If you turned the bars into the turn the force acting on the bike makes it straighten up a bit.
It's imperceptible, but there.
Watch a nasty highside on Motogp for an exaggerated example of what I mean.

Anyway it's called coutersteering and is old road racer technique for getting large diameter front wheel to react quickly.

Northwind

Atz wrote:

What they call counter steering is not really counter steering

It really is. As named by Orville Wright in about 1895

Anonymous

Northwind wrote:

leaning malarkey blah blah blah

Ah, I get what you mean yes, I just didn't get your explanation of it.

I haven't ridden street bikes (honestly, guv ), but I have ridden a fair bit of MotoX. One thing is for sure though, I've never leaned a bike that low! In fact, I'd always assumed that the rider had to lean into the bend that far to hold the bike from springing upright due to cornering forces :oops:

Anonymous

popstar wrote:

Yeeha that Mtber you've shown, imagine what speeds would he do if he leaned that bike and did hit that exact riding line?

That's me at Glentress.
On that long sweeping bend, you can easily get enough speed to crank the bike over. If I wasn't leaning into the bend at that speed, I'd be flung off. When trying to get round it faster and faster, it became harder and harder to actually pull the bike over.

Northwind

yeehaamcgee wrote:

I've never leaned a bike that low

Funnilly enough neither have I

beverick

warm18 wrote:

best advice is ride with people faster than you. by following them you can pick up a lot and gain confidence

Totally agree. When you're riding on your own you tend to stay well within your ability and tend not to improve. Adding a bit of competitiion does wonders for your performance improvement programme.

I used to apply the same philisophy to distance running. I used to try to 'draft' someone who was running marginally faster than me. Even if I couldn't keep up for the full distance I could usually manage to knock a few minutes off my finishing time.

Bob

beverick

cooldad wrote:

Concorde is actually correct. On a motorcycle you actually move the bars very slightly in the opposite direction to the turn as you lean in, which tips the bike into the lean. If you turned the bars into the turn the force acting on the bike makes it straighten up a bit.
It's imperceptible, but there.
Watch a nasty highside on Motogp for an exaggerated example of what I mean.

Anyway it's called coutersteering and is old road racer technique for getting large diameter front wheel to react quickly.

The most obvious use of countersteering is speedway riding:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rnQd9rkYqw

AKA "drifting" on four wheels.

Bob

Northwind

It's not really the same, that's just steering into a slide just like you would in a rear wheel drive car. I'm not sure about corner entry, Keith Code says the only way to initiate a corner is countersteering but then, he's a knob.

Anonymous

Northwind wrote:

It's not really the same, that's just steering into a slide just like you would in a rear wheel drive car.

Erm, and that's called "countersteering" in a car too.

Northwind

Sometimes it is, yup, but it's not the same thing, and it's most commonly used to describe turning a motorbike (google it and see what happens frinstance)

joshtp

counter steering on a bike is called, well, counter steering... whatever it's called though... it's definitely something that's used by many... just watch Sam H... It's the only real way to control a fast 2 wheel drift.

Anonymous

Northwind wrote:

Sometimes it is, yup, but it's not the same thing, and it's most commonly used to describe turning a motorbike (google it and see what happens frinstance)

Steering into a slide is the same on bikes and cars, and is called countersteering.
So, is the technique of cornering a bike.

Some people maintain though that you countersteer naturally before a bend, without realising it, whereas others insist it must be a forced thing.