Knee drag

[Rookie]

Not dragging on the ground, I don't go for all that crap.

When I'm going round a corner, I'll often be a bit lazy as I'm not pushing it, and just stick my knee out and draw my helmet level with the corresponding mirror. The thing is, the drag from my knee seems to have a significant affect on the angle of lean, I find myself going round corners with a shedload left to spare.

Is this psychosomatic, or is it something which I should keep in practice? Shifting your weight to alter the cetnre of gravity is renowned as a technique to get a bike round a corner more quickly, but the drag coefficient from simply sticking out your knee isn't really touched upon.

[distortion]

Dont stick your knee out - sorted

Topic closed

[Gazdaman]

When you're cornering you're going to be going < 70mph in most circumstances. When I think you'll find drag coefficient isn't a /huge/ issue.

The overall area of your leg I'm sure is less than an upper torso, shoulders and lid.
Also modern bikes especially 600s have loads of power to overcome the air resistance of a leg. Therefore it's not really an issue.

If we were cornering at 160mph then yes, I'm sure people would not be sticking anything out.

Again, when racers hang off they don't 'stick their knee out' it's a by product of hanging down the side of the bike and there not being any more space.

Think of it this way, you wouldn't tuck in behind your double bubble going down a 30 limit. So why worry about a knee when cornering.



Gaz

P.S you only don't get your knee down because you can't.

[Rookie]

I'm not talking about improving my corner speeds and going round a corner faster, I just wondered if it was a genuine effect or whether it's all in my mind?

[G]

The drag should only effect your speed - you should be on the throttle to give a 40/60 weight distribution to the rear.
Your bike should easily have enough power to overcome the extra drag unless you're really taking the piss. So the drag shouldn't be an issue.

[Rookie]

Again, it's not about the drag being bad. I just want to know whether it's possible it will have a similar, if diluted, effect to hanging off?

[G]

Ah, I doubt the drag would have a significant effect.

You will have moved the bike upright a bit with the weight distribution, but not that much.


Note that hanging off doesn't make you faster per sae, but it does give you a bigger safety margin. It can also make the tyre bike setup better.

[Rookie]

That's what I was thinking. Because when I'm on my commute I tend to just wear jeans etc I can feel the wind a fair bit when I stick my knee out, so it probably exaggerates the sensation somewhat. I'm sure there's something happening, it's probably just the weight distribution as it's kind of half hanging off, I move my head over as well, and I have thick thighs.