How to corner at speed?

[Fab Foodie]

Push all your weight through the outside pedal, trust your tyres and dont touch your brakes.

Counter to popular thinking, quite usefull braking can be done on a bicycle around corners and at pretty high speeds and lean angles too.


On all things cornering, I go with Jobst Brandt:

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/descending.html

 

[Tynan]

motorcyclists take this sort of thing rather seriously but as far as i got on the scooter after some terrible corners in early days was get the speed right before the corner and then watch the vanishing point and accelerate out of the corner

the bike will still make corners long after you give up

 

[Sam Kennedy]

So let me get this straight:
1) Before the corner use brakes to shave off excess speed
2) Lean into the corner, while pushing bars down, and pushing on the outside pedal.
3) Exit Corner

 

[Tynan]

look where you want to go, that one's magic

 

[HLaB]

These might be useful vids on cornering a), & c)

and there's also this one which concentrates on faster downhill cornering.

 

[gbs]

I also push on my inside arm. Counter-intuitive, but it works, particularly with linked bends.

Do you mean push down? If so, that does not seem counter-intuitive to me; downward pressure must contribute to inward lean.

BTW, can any one explain the physics of countersteer. If I understand correctly the theory runs - turn the h/bar R and the bike leans to the L.

 

[Globalti]

Yes, effectively you steer to remove the wheels from below your centre of gravity, which forces you to lean in the opposite direction and begin turning in order to regain balance.

Think about when you make a high-speed change of direction to avoid an obstacle. Without even realising it, you will twitch the bars to one side briefly before turning to the other side.

On cornering generally, your view and use of the road are crucial to getting around corners fast. If you have a good view, swinging out and cutting the apex is the most effective way; like a racing driver you are trying to smooth out the corners. A good view means not only a view of other traffic but the surface of the road and any gravel or mud lying in the middle or at the edges. Potholes and ice and the camber can be added to that as well.

 

[Paco]

Distribution of your weight on the bike is vitally important, depending on the speed you are taking the corner. You can try to explain this scientifically, but the only teacher is experience and imitating those who do it well.

 

[Ian H]

Ye Gods! Countersteering: if you had to countersteer before any turn, you'd obviously have to counter-countersteer to countersteer. And so on ad infinitum. Or to put it another way: it's bollocks. As for where to put your weight, the saddle is generally the best place. OUtside pedal down to avoid grounding and don't panic halfway round. A bike will lean a lot further than most riders can cope with. Sean Yates's advice is best: just go with the flow.

 

[jimboalee]

All the talk and thinking about countersteering and in-leaning?

If you've got it, you've got it. If you haven't, you'll never be a downhill racer.

There's not enough time to contemplate the exact tactic to take on each corner. If it doesn't come naturally, you're in the hedge or crashed and burned.

If it never comes naturally, give up cycling down hills fast.

 

[Globalti]

Ye Gods! Countersteering: if you had to countersteer before any turn, you'd obviously have to counter-countersteer to countersteer. And so on ad infinitum. Or to put it another way: it's bollocks. As for where to put your weight, the saddle is generally the best place. OUtside pedal down to avoid grounding and don't panic halfway round. A bike will lean a lot further than most riders can cope with. Sean Yates's advice is best: just go with the flow.

It's not bollocks. If you took the trouble to read about countersteering and then went out and rode your bike in a straight line through a puddle THEN steered it one way or the other you would see from the wet tyre tracks that without even knowing it you started your turn by steering briefly in the opposite direction, thus displacing the front and then the rear wheels from under your centre line, setting yourself up for the corner.

Cornering fast down a hill you won't do this, you will simply lean the bike and begin the turn.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Countersteering: if you had to countersteer before any turn, you'd obviously have to counter-countersteer to countersteer. And so on ad infinitum. Or to put it another way: it's bollocks.

You may not like it, but it's not bollocks.
You do it to turn, yes even you... it's imperceptible, but it happens nonetheless. Oh, and another thing, whilst going with the flow even Yatesy's countersteering.

So once you're leaned-over 'flowing' around the bend, how do you get the bike upright again to turn the other way?

 

[Fab Foodie]

Cornering fast down a hill you won't do this, you will simply lean the bike and begin the turn.

I think you'll find that you still countersteer to lay the bike over at any speed.

 

[Globalti]

Ah... you actually steer/lean a little further than you need to in order to bring the wheels back into a vertical position under the bike.

A mountain biker will be more familiar with the whole sequence having learned it as a way of avoiding obstacles on the trail. The MTBer will also know that if there's no room for the wheels to move sideways, either because the trail is too narrow or the route looks unsuitable, the only option is to balance the bike with "body English", which means getting out of the saddle and shifting the body weight outside the GC. Watch Danny MacAskill at 1:10 in this superb little video:
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z19zFlPah-o

 

[Fab Foodie]

Ah... you actually steer/lean a little further than you need to in order to bring the wheels back into a vertical position under the bike.

I thank you! It's a 'counter-steer' to come out of a turn as well.

Danny MacAskill skill doesn't count... he's outside of the known universe...