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2 WHEEL RIDING 101, Was Dangerous Curves
The phrase "strayed waaay over into the opposing traffic lane" brings
to mind the fact that if this poor guy that GeoB is talking about was still upright when he got smacked he had not used up all of his options. I would guess that he found himself in a "crisis situation" and started to "steer" away from impending doom and only made the situation worse. All of this might be moot since he might have been going so fast that increasing the lean in order to tighten the turn, he might have gone down and crossed the roadway on his side and gotten killed anyway. Most of us learned to ride 2 wheelers as kids. We weren't interested in the "meaning of life" we were interested in riding our bikes. Eventually we got very good at riding without having a clue as to why. Without getting into such things as centrifugal force or precession I will try to explain a bit of the philosophy of two wheeler operation. 1) In order to turn any two wheeler you must first initiate a bank or lean in the direction of the desired turn. This bank or lean can be initiated in various ways. The most common being: A) "Body english" or physically leaning or shifting body weight to the inside of the desired turn. The bigger the mass of the bike the less effective this is. B) Moving the wheel contact point out from under the center of mass of the bike and rider causing the vehicle and rider to unbalance and start to lean or bank in the opposite direction. Since on most bents we are just large bags of water fixed to the seat we can't use much "body english" so we must rely on the contact patch for control. If you want to turn right you MUST "steer" left to initiate the required bank or lean to the right. At low speed this may appear to the instinctive rider as a wobble. The instinct to steer to the right immediately causes the bike to fall to the left that is corrected by an instinctive jerk of the bars to the left which then flops the rider in the proper direction where he/she now can "steer " in the desired direction. The real problems arise when, at higher speeds and in crisis situations, the instinctive rider suddenly starts to THINK and suppresses all that he/she has absorbed from years of instinctive riding. Frantically steering away from impending doom only causes the machine to seem to "misbehave". Not so, the machine is only doing what the rider is telling it to do. Try this the next time you are out on the bike or the Gold Wing. Set up at a moderate pace on a smooth road, downhill if you can manage it and when you are tracking straight and true put a tiny bit of forward pressure on the right handlebar. Make a mental note of the direction your bike moves. Be aware that you have just "steered" left. Fix this in your mind and we won't be picking you out of the radiator of some big truck or off the hood ornament of a car some day. I have ridden a motorcycle for miles on the 4" white stripe on the edge of the hwy without ever coming off. On the other hand, to be fair, I must mention that I had an enduro motor bike that was so unstable that the only way to avoid an obstacle was to try to hit it. That thing NEVER went where it was pointed. Jerry (ex kamikasi horse, bike, motorcycle, Porsche 361C driver) Rhodes. PS Most of my broken bones were from going a$$ over tea kettle OFF road. |
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2 WHEEL RIDING 101, Was Dangerous Curves
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#3
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topic change: a$$ over tea kettle
Likewise to my source of injuries. Flash forward a few years to when I
adopted my dog. I stood teetering at the desk at the SPCA. Should I do this, or shouldn't I ? I hung on that decision for just a second, but it seemed an eternity. I did take him home, and named him...Endo! "Jerry Rhodes" wrote in message om... The phrase "strayed waaay over into the opposing traffic lane" brings to mind the fact that if this poor guy that GeoB is talking about was still upright when he got smacked he had not used up all of his options. I would guess that he found himself in a "crisis situation" and started to "steer" away from impending doom and only made the situation worse. All of this might be moot since he might have been going so fast that increasing the lean in order to tighten the turn, he might have gone down and crossed the roadway on his side and gotten killed anyway. Most of us learned to ride 2 wheelers as kids. We weren't interested in the "meaning of life" we were interested in riding our bikes. Eventually we got very good at riding without having a clue as to why. Without getting into such things as centrifugal force or precession I will try to explain a bit of the philosophy of two wheeler operation. 1) In order to turn any two wheeler you must first initiate a bank or lean in the direction of the desired turn. This bank or lean can be initiated in various ways. The most common being: A) "Body english" or physically leaning or shifting body weight to the inside of the desired turn. The bigger the mass of the bike the less effective this is. B) Moving the wheel contact point out from under the center of mass of the bike and rider causing the vehicle and rider to unbalance and start to lean or bank in the opposite direction. Since on most bents we are just large bags of water fixed to the seat we can't use much "body english" so we must rely on the contact patch for control. If you want to turn right you MUST "steer" left to initiate the required bank or lean to the right. At low speed this may appear to the instinctive rider as a wobble. The instinct to steer to the right immediately causes the bike to fall to the left that is corrected by an instinctive jerk of the bars to the left which then flops the rider in the proper direction where he/she now can "steer " in the desired direction. The real problems arise when, at higher speeds and in crisis situations, the instinctive rider suddenly starts to THINK and suppresses all that he/she has absorbed from years of instinctive riding. Frantically steering away from impending doom only causes the machine to seem to "misbehave". Not so, the machine is only doing what the rider is telling it to do. Try this the next time you are out on the bike or the Gold Wing. Set up at a moderate pace on a smooth road, downhill if you can manage it and when you are tracking straight and true put a tiny bit of forward pressure on the right handlebar. Make a mental note of the direction your bike moves. Be aware that you have just "steered" left. Fix this in your mind and we won't be picking you out of the radiator of some big truck or off the hood ornament of a car some day. I have ridden a motorcycle for miles on the 4" white stripe on the edge of the hwy without ever coming off. On the other hand, to be fair, I must mention that I had an enduro motor bike that was so unstable that the only way to avoid an obstacle was to try to hit it. That thing NEVER went where it was pointed. Jerry (ex kamikasi horse, bike, motorcycle, Porsche 361C driver) Rhodes. PS Most of my broken bones were from going a$$ over tea kettle OFF road. |
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2 WHEEL RIDING 101, Was Dangerous Curves
MLB wrote in message .4.25...
snip PS - WHY would you ride for miles on the notoriously slippery painted line????? Lower rolling resistance? Fragg |
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2 WHEEL RIDING 101, Was Dangerous Curves
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#6
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2 WHEEL RIDING 101, Was Dangerous Curves
MLB wrote in message
It's called countersteering and while it is of course the best way to steer it's fair to say that MOST motorcyclists will never even HEAR of it, much less do it. That lack of awareness of basic physics is what results in so many dead neophite "two wheeler" operators. Takes a lot of practice to make it a habit. Actually it takes a lot of THINKING on the part of the rider to cultivate the HABIT to ignore his/her "automobile induced instincts" of driving his/her bike like a car. A fatal flaw. and it really is only efficient at high speeds. Actually, it is the ONLY way you can change direction quickly on a two wheeled vehicle that depends on balance to stay up right. Even at low speed the same principle applies. It is an immutable law of cycling. I had an interesting and eye opening experience on an EZ-3. We had just assembled it out of the crate and I jumped on for a first spin. It's a bicycle, Right??. NOT!!!!! I promptly tried to control it like I control my EZ-1 EC Lite and promptly shot off into the grass. I had to surpress my bike habits and drive it like would a car. I was never really comfortable riding it so I turned it over to the proud new owner. PS - WHY would you ride for miles on the notoriously slippery painted line????? Boredom and curiosity. Where I grew up, the road went straight for miles on end and it hardly ever rained so the white line was just a white line. I was finally able to ride my Suzuki the length of 40' of 2X4 (layed sideways) using what I had learned on the white line. I personally knew 8 persons that rode straight into an object because they didn't understand the basic physics of 2 wheeled control. Some died, including my baby brother, (who, by the way, "knew everything"), some were maimed and the ones who survived told me things like, "I started toward the edge of the road and the bike took control and I couldn't make it turn and I went through the fence". I really don't have many miles on the motorcycles, maybe 300 or 400 thousand. Starting with a Safety Cycle, Cushman Scooter, Vespa, Triumph Tiger Cub, Triumph T110, Aeromachi 500 cc single, Suzuki 250 street bike, Suzuki 250 dirt bike, Honda Trail 90. And then there were the bicycles..................What a life!!!!!! Ordinary non-cycling folks would have to live several lifetimes to have as much fun as I have had. Jerry |
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2 WHEEL RIDING 101, Was Dangerous Curves
Perhaps the dirt crowd is unfamiliar with countersteering, but the
performance community is well aquainted with the concept. Re. Keith Codes books and numerous articles in the enthusiast press on both sides of the Atlantic. It is very intuitive if you think of the concept as: push right to go right. In other words, push the handlebar on the side you wish to turn towards. I have been riding motorcycles since 1976 and this has saved me more than once in a "panic" situation, although it usually happens so fast that the panic sets in afterwards. One other thing to think about is "target fixation", the tendancy to go where we are looking.....try not to fixate on the obstacle, but on the clear path to safety. I practice this on my P-38 by trying to dodge pebbles and other things on the road. If I stare at the rock, trying to avoid it, I invariably hit it, but if I look at the space between the stones I usually get through them. |
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2 WHEEL RIDING 101, Was Dangerous Curves
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2 WHEEL RIDING 101, Was Dangerous Curves
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#10
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2 WHEEL RIDING 101, Was Dangerous Curves
this poor guy that GeoB is talking about was
still upright when he got smacked I gave that impression, but later news stories indicated that he was down on the pavement. I suppose he was sliding, he had just come off. B) Moving the wheel contact point out from under the center of mass of the bike and rider causing the vehicle and rider to unbalance and start to lean or bank in the opposite direction. I know this is how I effortlessly turn 600-700 lb motorcycles. A) "Body english" or physically leaning or shifting body weight to the inside of the desired turn. The bigger the mass of the bike the less effective this is. I was thinking about this today as I whizzed around a corner. I noticed I tilted my head to the right, then once the bike was leaning to the right, I steered to the right around the corner. I may have put a tiny bit of turn on the handle bar but I didn't notice it. |
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