cornering like a twat

[mic]

i seem to be going backwards with it. ever since i had a little slide on the way to work which took me by suprise the other week (round a large roundabout, 3rd exit then its a sharp lefty opening to a duel carriageway. it was early, wet floor cold bike etc and i had the bike over a fair bit).

where i was confident in cornering and didnt really have to give it much thought, these days i seem to be crap and fix on the corner rather than whats ahead and ive taken a few quite wide. whats i got to do to man up and get on with it? seem to be stuck in a rut with it.

cheers
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zzr600

[FriendlyEllis]

Have a flick through these on Visordown. Loads of articles on cornering and positioning.

https://www.visordown.com/advanced-riding/1.html

There's a few pages of links, so check them all. Each ones a good 5 minutes read.

Really useful.

Go out on a good dry day (tomorrow?) and get your confidence back on some smooth winding roads.

Relax relax relax. Bikes ride better when you don't lock them up with tight shoulders and rigid arms.

Remember, you need no be relaxed enough to flap your arms like a chickens wings!
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Honda CB600F Hornet 2013 -> Kawasaki Z1000SX ABS Tourer 2015

[SQL]

I had the same issue after my off was nervous with lefts I was told by my father to go out and take as many left turns as i could, 20 boring mins later I was scraping pegs again.

[Wonko The Sane]

[gavbriggs]

I find that bending the inside arm helps cornering immensely, I do get excited/nervous on occasion and go rigid in my arms so it all goes stiff and hard to corner.

On the odd occasion when I've gone into a corner a bit too fast bending the inside arm, straightening the outside one and shifting my arse(mainly to allow venting) gets me where i need to be to drag the bandit round a corner.

Not sure if that's the right way or wrong way but it seems to be working for me.

[CaNsA]

Here ya go mate, this isnt a pisstake, watch some of these vids.

https://www.bikechatforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=286410

[barrkel]

Short answer: enter corners slower so that you can power through all the way, and build up speed over time.

The way to increase confidence is to not be getting frights (or SRs, Survival Reactions, as Keith Code calls them). To not get frights you need to go at a comfortable pace and increase your confidence from the bottom up. Every time you get a fright it hits your confidence and will probably make you even more tense if you were to do the same corner at the same speed again.

Concentrate on being relaxed, smooth, comfy, looking through the bend, powering on and you'll naturally get faster over time.

PS: another thing; every time you go out for a ride, have something to focus on, whether it's loose arms in a corner (letting the bike do the corner for you), leaning with the bike, looking through the corner, etc.
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Bikes: S1000R, SH350; Exes: Vity 125, PS125, YBR125, ER6f, VFR800, Brutale 920, CB600F, SH300x4
Best road ever ridden: www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2MhNxUEYtQ

[-Matt-]

[doggone]

It really helps to consciously use counter-steering to initiate the turn and hold the line through it.

[XanderZZR]

Stay loose and keep looking around the corner; use the nice weather at the moment to go on some familiar roads and focus on being smooth not fast.

[Sable]

Recently noticed I dont counter steer. At all. I was told its something all bikers do naturally, apparently I dont.

Spent the first 4 years of my riding life exclussively on the A40 and A406. Didnt ride for fun at weekends. Last year I got into 'biking' more and went to all the big bike events in the South, felt out of my comfort zone on twisty roads on the way there & back. Really noticed how good I was al filtering compared to many at the events, and how truly attrocious I was at cornering.

Skip forward a bit and my commutes now changed to a much less straight road. I now encounter corners on my commute! I pulled out my naffy Muvi camera, put it on my pocket, commuted, watched the playback, and sure enough I did not countersteer in 1 single corner.

I never noticed that before. Never looked for it before.

[Howling TerrorOutOfOffice]

^^^You would be dead if you didn't countersteer.
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[barrkel]

[doggone]

It's easiest to envisage that you are applying pressure down and forwards on the bar which is on the inside of the curve.
Doing this in a positive way will make your cornering feel on rails compared to using basic skills learnt originally on a pushbike.

[Pete.]

[shereen]

[Sable]

Definition of counter steering = pushing bars the opposite direction to the direction you are turning correct?

So when going around a left corner, the left side of the bars move forward and the right side is pulled back?

[bikertomm]

Yeah, I know what you're saying.

You don't have to physically push the opposite side forward for it to work, the theory will still apply, and it just, well, happens.

It's magic

On my first ride ever on a XR 125 I cornered as though I was on my mountain bike. As in, wasn't aware of counter-steering.. I knew something didn't feel right, was going wide and all sorts
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07' Honda Hornet now full powaah! My guide on performing an oil change!

[covent.gardens]

I got through my CBT and did a couple of months riding my CG125 before I learnt about conscious countersteering. It was a revelation.

Like when Diana died and 9/11, I remember where I was the very first time I tried it.

It did not come naturally to me. I'm not sure I would have worked it out for myself either. I'm thinking back a long time here, but I'm sure I thought that I could turn the bars in the direction of travel at low speed, or lean at high speed (which would cause countersteering, but I wasn't aware that was happening). I did not know I could push the bar to cause the bike to countersteer.

[Wafer_Thin_Ham]

Track day?
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[Commuter_Tim]

[shereen]

[Sable]

Observation, if you click reply and scroll down, it shows people you have on ignores posts.

No shereen thats not why i blocked you. I blocked you because your a pratt. Meant to block you a few days ago but forgot. Always feel blocks an underated function on forums. someone you dont like? just stick them on ignore and bobble on with life.

ah, yeah, people getting pissy because a random stranger on the internet blocked them. what is the world coming too?

[chickenstrip]

[Snorty]

Just carry on riding, you'll get back to where you were.

When I slid off my 125 I was doing the same thing. Took me a while to get back to where I was, I just kept at it.
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Current: Yamaha FZ1 '07 | GSXR 750 SRAD

Past: CB125TDC | TZR125 | GPZ500 | CBR600F3 | ZX9-R | GSXR1000 K4