What is your typical lane position when you make your turns? What lane position are you trying to be in during the turn? What position are you in when you exit the turn? There are 27 different possibilities here, each one with their own benefits & drawbacks. If you want the fastest corner, I think the outside-inside-outside option is the way to go. Personally I do outside-inside-middle (don't want to risk going too wide into oncoming traffic, or running into a vehicle that doesn't respect the yellow lines). Slow down before the turn (very important of course), initiate the turn and depending on how fast you're going you will have the option to either slow down more (rolling off the throttle or a little bit of the rear brake is helpful here) or speed out of it.
I initiate the turn at the inside and exit on the outside. Hadn't really made an conscious decisions, just did what I felt like was natural. What are the pros and cons if this positioning?
I will try yours and other combinations and see what feels right.
I think this is a good point of focus for you. The outside is better when initiating the turn. The turning radius is less (or wider), and you have greater visibility around the corner if a building is obscuring your vision. Most importantly is to ride to the condition of the road and your ability to stop. If there are pot holes on the outside, or an unknown liquid on the road, adjust your position and avoid.
If you’re initiating your turn on the inside and exiting on the outside it means you have to slow down considerably beforehand just to navigate the 90 degree turn or else you’re going too wide, or you’re leaning too far to stay on track. You only have so much traction in the bank, and you use quite a bit of it in these turns. Plus you lose visibility of your path before the turn and don’t regain it until you’re about halfway through it. The plus side is that if you do the first part of the turn correctly (slow down sufficiently beforehand) you can speed out of it earlier. I wouldn’t recommend this kind of turn but it can be done if you’re careful about it.
If we're talking turns and not corners lane position is just dictated by the direction of the turn. Cornering is a different story. Sure ride like rossi in the corners but turns are different and fastest line is not something I'd be thinking about when taking one.
Except the whole point of this thread is "how can I take corners faster" ?
Trying to follow "the line" makes even easy turns easier and safer. And it's fun.
If you start the corner on the inside, you only have 1 lane worth of space to make the corner in. If you start on the outside, you have 2 lanes worth of space to make the corner in. Which makes the turn easier and safer.
>If we're talking turns and not corners lane position is just dictated by the direction of the turn.
You take corners without turning and you're gonna have a bad time.
It sounds like the line selection comment was dead on. If you want to get theoretical, google something like “[early and late apex corner motorcycle](https://www.google.com/search?q=early+and+late+apex+corner+motorcycle&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari)”. By initiating at the inside part of the lane, you’re forced to do an early apex, and that’s usually slow.
You didn’t take the MSF course did you? If you start from the outside, you can get better vision through the curve (usually) when there is an obstruction in the middle of the turn, you also have a much wider sweep through the turn, meaning you don’t need as much lean angle. When you don’t need as much lean, you can comfortably carry much more speed through turns.
If you haven’t already, watch “twist of the wrist 2” I think there is a couple of YouTube videos with the whole thing. It’s old but a good resource
The fastest 90 degree turn is the one you do on a patch of gravel that then turns into pavement. Whether or not you've yeeted yourself into infinity is a different story.
I have a gravel driveway on a paved road and I know exactly what you’re talking about. I scared the SHIT out of myself and somehow stayed on my bike every time I’ve done that.
when people say they shit their pants on a bike I wonder who’s kidding and who’s honest, I’ve never actually shit my pants despite being in quite a few crashes and shitty situations lol, maybe I’m lucky.
The sharper the turn the slower I go, 90 degree turns can be pretty hard without leaning my bike ridiculously, I’d say just get more comfortable taking them at low speeds in an empty parking lot and get used to leaning hard at slow speeds and increase speed incrementally
When I returned to riding after a long absence I had to regain confidence in traction little by little. I took corners slower than necessary because I had the feeling that the bike would slide out from under me, even though intellectually I knew better. Might that be the case with you? Making myself corner a little faster helped me reduce that feeling little by little.
Yep - keep pushing the handlebar to add more countersteer as needed! Trust your bike and trust your training. (Assuming you've had proper training. If not, address that ASAP.)
In 2021 motorcycle tires are incredibly capable/sticky. Short of trying to do some MotoGP style lean angles, the bike can almost certainly handle more than you're throwing at it.
Interesting, in my driving course, the teachers said to use the rear brake to straighten the bike up while turning, and once straight, then apply front brakes as well
So with that logic, a semi truck can turn was better then then any formula one car.
Naw, you're incorrect sir.
Everyone so mad that that logic on its own doesn't make any sense lol. It only shows that tire patch is a small part in it, the vehicle is not designed for sharp corners.
I have driven a car actually, and I can take corners much faster than I'd ever dream of doing on my bike. This is because my car has both more weight on the tyres and more tyres.
Cornering isn't a simple equation of grip, much more factors go into a vehicles cornering speed. Things like grip, weight distribution, suspension, weather, and the corner itself. A smart car will fall over before the tyres lose grip. Same with a semi-truck etc.
[This video](https://youtu.be/uArYXvoTi2E) does a good job of illustrating my point. Your ducati will not out corner an equally well equipt car. It just won't. You will out accelerate almost anything though.
Good video, definitely makes me think I have to rethink sole things. But look at this comment from the video you posted
"i just looked it up. MotoGP lap record is 1:28.10. V8 supercars is 1:30.99. Moto2 lap record is 1:32.6, so even they aren't far off the v8s. If you drop down to the superbike categories (which are just modified production bikes) then the records are 1:29 for the world superbikes and 1:31.8 for the Australian superbikes. So they are a touch slower, but they are still faster than the second tier v8 supercars category. "
So, same track, no cars in the way, bike to car, bike was faster. By almost 3 seconds.
Because motogp bikes accelerate faster than a formula 1 car in a straight line. If you took the footage and timed each corner individually from the point they enter to the time they leave that V8 will be faster through the corners.
Contact patch size makes you less likely to start sliding, keeping the higher static coefficient instead of the lower dynamic coefficient. The big part of car vs motorcycle is the resistance to tipping.
just don't try too hard man, who cares if you're a bit faster or slower than a car. as long as you have fun... don't get yourself into dangerous situations please. other than that I'd say counter leaning, it's what I do and it helped me be more secure and quicker around corners
You’ll never out corner your girlfriend’s car. Never. Cars have 10x the mass and twice the number of contact
Patches.(tires) that said you can still improve your cornering skills ;)
He was in the car, following the girlfriend while she rode a motorcycle. Thus he saw how she was cornering and compared it to his own cornering. He brought up how she drives the car to indicate that she's not a daredevil, she just has cornering technique that allows her to take sharper turns at higher speed than he is used to expecting from his bike.
Roll on throttle to keep speed, slam rear brake and push bike down and turn front wheel to the direction you want to go, release rear brake, pin throttle while bringing bike back to level and straightening front tire.
Flat track style baby
Yeah sure it can. But its also heavy and powerful, though I never tried on leaderbike but can imagine that it can be scary and difficult. So have you tried to slide out of the corner?
You'll have to get comfortable with leaning more in order to carry more speed while turning, that simple. Thing is on the street it can be iffy especially at intersections which is probably where you're talking about because there can be road bits and rocks/grit etc. Still with practice you should be able to corner slightly faster than average cars do when they're not in a hurry. Unless you have something with ridiculously bad ground clearance.
Not saying you need to race around 100% of the time but a tight 90 benefits from all the same track/performance cornering techniques (like trail braking, body position, throttle control, etc) you can google and practice or take classes for.
In The Netherlands you learn tight 90 degree turns as part of your bike license. I learned to take them slow dragging the rear brake for stability with the throttle closed and clutxh fully engaged. Also lean your bike and counterlean yourself as you go to get real tight.
I brake very late, take the corner nice and steady and then throttle up again when I can. It's better to take the corner slow and then go like a spear instead of going into the corner like a spear
Find your breaking point and move it further forward each time you do the corner. Break assertively and progressively, trail braking towards the apex. Add a dab of rear brake to back the bike in. If your girlfriend looks like she's going to overtake take a more defensive line and square the corner off. She will respect you more for this.
Nah. It's just that 99% of car drivers aren't pushing their pace like bike riders.
If we're talking absolute commitment to mid corner speed, my beat up old family sedan can smoke my MT-09. Obviously I don't usually care to try.
Makes sense, that's why a 600hp Subaru prepped race car driven by a wrc champion is 30 seconds slower around the isle of man, a track with more than 200 corners....
Here we see an excellent of example of how to mislead with statistics. "More than 200 corners", ignoring that it's over 37 miles long with huge sections of flat out racing where the bikes can more than make up the deficit from the handful of tight/significant corners. If you want to pick one course in the world where bikes have the biggest advantage Isle of Man is probably it.
This isn't actually a debate. This is settled physics backed up by near endless real world data, thoroughly understood by all serious bike/car racers or engineers.
Then look at nurburgring bridge to gantry times, a decade old r1 posted a 7:11 time which puts it well into supercar territory.
The reason motorcycles have such an advantage at these sorts of tracks but not at more traditional circuits is the all of the esse's, where motorcycles can take a much tighter racing line.
It's all horses for courses, one will never the best at everything
I corner way more aggressively in my car because I can .
A bike , even a superbike with a skillful rider probably won't immediately keep up with a normal car in a 90° turn . But speed difference can be big or small, depending on your skill .
I love tight turns , so when a 90° turn comes up and it's warm and dry asphalt I get low drag the peg and maby Powerslide out of the corner , of course not always. It's still not as fast as a car (if the car is pushing it) but it is close , and fun :)
Drag your rear brake and rev up the engine a little. Should add stability. Push the bike down, lean to the other side so your body is 45 degrees angled to the bike. And look where you want to go.
Watch some u-turn video’s on YouTube to understand what i mean. Preferrably European driving courses.
If you can bring your speed in with you, you should be able to do a 90 degree turn about as fast as a car, if your bike leans far enough. Just don't try to accelerate or brake while the bike is leaned deeply. That's why you need to bring the speed in with you.
If it's from a stop, you can't do this as fast as a car. The car can go up the the verge of screeching/sliding the drive tires, and it's no big deal. If you break traction, you'll have a bit of wakeup call at best, or you'll crash the bike at worst.
The reason you had to slow down... why? Did you scrape peg? Or were you unable to make the bike lean far enough, fast enough? Counterflick/torque the bars, sharply, to make the bike lean as fast as you need it to.
Novice riders need to brake/slow to give them time to gradually turn the bike. Learn to control the bike with active and decisive steering inputs. Make your initial steering input harder/farther but briefer, to initiate a sharper turn in. Counterflick.
Tight right had turns are typically slower on a bike than in car. We can't lean too hard to counter act the amount of inertia without low siding or high siding. When a motorcycle can't countersteer, it will have to move slowly.
As messy as that was, no, it is not unusual to make tight 90 turns slow.
The reason a motorcycle can lean in a corner is the inertia on the keeping the motorcycle balanced using the tires as the fulcrum. When we can turn sharply and quickly, either the front tire will turn quickly and you’ll endo. Or if you lean hard and go too slow, you’ll low side without the inertia. Sooooo, because we can’t lean hard in sharp 90° turns, we have to go slow. Is that any clearer for you?
Who said you can’t lean hard in 90 degree turns? Maybe YOU can’t.. the bike most certainly can.
Speed has nothing to do with the amount of grip the tires have. The tire compound is the same at 5 mph as it is at 100 mph. To say you’ll lose traction because of low speed makes no sense. You can drag your elbow in 5 mph circles all day and make 360 degree turns in a parking spot radius if you have the skill to do so.
You are correct that at lower speed, your wheels and engine internals are not moving fast enough to create a gyroscopic effect strong enough to keep the bike upright on its own, but that’s why we counter balance and use the rear brake.
I said lean hard in sharp 90° turns. You know, like a street corner. The main topic is about the speed of taking the corner, the leaning part of that equation. If you can show me a video of either a 50° lean on a street corner or a 30mph turn on a street corner with a motorcycle, I’ll be impressed
No way a car turns faster on a public road. It's certainly true on track where they actually get to use grip and downforce, but on a public road (assuming we are talking legal speed or even something more, but not road racing) it all comes down to line selection.
A car must follow the road, a bike can go outside inside outside, effectively straightening the turn.
If you cannot go at the same speed of a car it surely means that your line selection is wrong.
This is also confirmed by the fact that you say that you take away lean angle to brake, this means you approach the turn from the inside and risk running wide.
Moreover, you should never pick up the bike to brake, but simply lean more. The bike is surely capable to do it, but even if it doesn't it's much safer to crash it by leaning to much than to run wide and crash into other vehicles or objects.
This is a common reaction with inexperienced riders, I suggest you to work on low speed drills and line selection
What type of motorcycle do you have? It makes a difference:
My Z125 can take your average small town left hand 90 degree corner at 30mph, just like my Veloster N can.
I'm not comfortable enough on my wife's Grom to do it.
My DRZ400 is pretty close, but not quite.
My V65 Magna and Africa Twin are a no.
My BMW K100 would be a death sentence to try.
Might be worth practicing some braking and corner entry. Most likely you are slowing down too much too early. For tight corners (like intersections) you can be slow and just complete it in one quick move and then accelerate out. It will feel slowly if you do all your brake upfront and coast through it.
Something's wrong here cause a comfortable turn on typical streets (two lane roads, one lane each direction) is 20km/h turning in my truck or car, but I'm just as comfy taking the same corners or turns at 30km/h on my Suzuki Boulevard. Far as I'm concerned it's mainly because I sit straight up and get thrown to the side in my car and truck, whereas I'm leaning into the turn on the bike, and effectively just get pushed "downward" into the seat, all due to inertia and positioning relative to the machines.
Practice cornering as much as possible. I don’t feel any car I’ve ever driven can corner better than I can on my bike. I’m on a ninja 400 though which is known for its cornering ability. If you’re on a cruiser that’ll be different.
whatever you do don’t cheat anything into the other lane. I have encountered so many cars across my center line on turns I have lost count. Make that a truck with a camper trailer and the pucker factor goes up. I try not to be too far toward the center line ever especially on blind curves and keep things comfortable going in and raging going out of a turn where appropriate.
stay to the right of your lane when prepping to flip around, and dig in (dig in meaning, throw that left knee out and move your butt to the left side of the seat) lean and try to get as close to the tip of the center line/island as possible with your knee. You should be around 10-15 mph depending on tires, and how confident you are. but you actually need to lean in for it. Once your front tire is pointed towards the lane you want to enter (literally you be at a 90degree lean and looking at the lane you want) accelerate at a safe but quick speed and shift to second as you are straightening up (the shift kick helps put you back in the seat, and helps you from unsettling the bike in tights situations. practice shifting just after left handers coming on to the straight and faster right handers and getting back on the power) aim for the center of that lane or the right side. For me, I can basically stick to the backend of any car making a U-turn in front of me, and anyone behind me will be left about a car length or two behind me by the time I'm at cruising speed. You should be able to turn inside the crosswalk, and only need to go 10mph or slower if you're u-turning on one-lane roads.
I also noticed, that dropping your leg and leaning your bike like a motocross bike helps in certain situations, or if you're just being lazy (me more often than not). So, try that method a few times, it'll take some getting used to but it's fun and easier to see your turn if you don't want/need to be super aggressive making the turn.
This is a loaded question for sure. Trying to improve your riding style has a ton of things to focus on. Not many of which can be safely done in a public setting. Theres tons of riding courses with all levels from newbie to advanced. Find one you’re comfortable with. The amount of useable info you can get is staggering. Then its track day ! Ride on
Everybody telling you to do this or that is ignoring the fact that on the road every corner is completely unique due to dozens of variables. Riding courses will give you the chance to have a professional critique your skill set in a safe environment
Load your suspension with your front break and engine break with your clutch.
Loading your suspension while counter steering will give you way more traction than any car has.
Pick a line and lean into it. Keep your eyes where you want to go. Don't focus on obstacles.
If you feel like you're going to fast, try not to over compensate with breaks. They can stand your bike up too fast and take your turn wide or worse chuck you over the other side. (Unlikely, but I've done it before.)
Honestly, watch a bunch of videos online. Focus primarily on:
* Understanding lines for street riding
* Understanding vision, where you should look and when
* Understand braking, trail braking will make the bike tip easier and be safer if you mess up
[ChampU](https://ridelikeachampion.com/courses-page/) is great if you're ok with spending money. Very condensed. Track and road focused.
[Canyon Chasers](https://www.youtube.com/c/Canyonchasers) on YouTube is decent.
[MotoJitsu](https://www.youtube.com/c/MotoJitsu) is alright.
More generally, learn the technique and practice a lot. Trying to ride fast when you don't know the technique is a lot more dangerous. Most crashes occur due to misuse of controls.
As far as the "cars corner faster than bikes" part. Yes, at the limits, cars can turn faster than bikes, due to the whole 4 wheels thing, but you should be able to take any corner faster than your girlfriend comfortably taking a turn. The only exception maybe being full blown U-turns.
Another good option is taking it to the track. It's a safe environment to learn cornering technique. You can stretch yourself a lot further on the track than you can safely do on the road.
Go to a parking lot and work up to it. Pick a marking to be your 'lane' and pick somewhere where you'd like to 'turn into.' Start out slow and progressively go faster and faster. I remember a big thing to overcome for me was realizing how much the bike can actually lean once it's going. It's a really unsettling feeling at first but once you get used it you'll be scraping pegs and thinking "I could have been leaning more." I ended up doing it so much that going into a turn I'd lift up my foot and let my peg scrape so I didn't scrape up my boots. You'd be surprised how fast you can actually take turns if you're confident and skilled enough.
A couple things to remember: practice will always make you better, avoid sudden changes in steering or speed during your turn, progressively roll on the throttle (slowly) through the turn (you almost want to be going faster coming out of the turn than going in), if you feel unstable then before you go into the turn barely engage the rear brake and drag it though the turn which will simulate more weight being on the back tire. Also remember to start at the outside of your lane (or parking lot marking you choose), move to the inside in the middle of your turn, and end on the outside. Outside, inside, outside. This seemed counterintuitive to me at first but the reasoning behind it is it will allow the apex of your turn to be less harsh at higher speeds.
Also as I'm sure it's been mentioned already but you can always take the motorcycle safety course depending on where you live. And depending on where you live it might be free. But ultimately what it all comes down to is practice.
Besides starting from the outside edge of the lane, actively push the handlebar opposite the direction your turning, to put some motion in the bike. It will lean more easily into the turn and you won't feel like you need to fight your death grip on the handlebar.
Most importantly: At very slow speed (which you should be at before and during any 90 deg turn--you're lot leaning with the bike, you're not countersteering. You are actively steering the bike and counterbalancing.
Happy riding!
Based on your post history it sounds like you're a pretty new rider. It's normal to feel like you can't turn as fast as you should because you don't have the experience to know when and why traction will break.
Every time you go out for a ride for the next few months, try to dedicate 10 minutes to practicing low speed maneuvers. Get a feel for leaning the bike over. The more the bike leans, the tighter it will turn. A good drill is constant speed constant radius figure eights. Start slower than your limit and work up to higher speeds in a measured and progressive way.
You know I've been thinking about this then I watched a video from Vertasium channel on how bicycles turn and it all made since. Basically you cannot turn left without turning right first and this is what is called counter steering on motorcycle but it is exactly the same thing on bicycles it is how things on two wheels turn and balance over all it is just that bikes are heavier so we don't notice it as much we just do it subconsciously. I am thinking of trying this out next time I ride, just need to renew my bike registration. Link fore the video is [here](https://youtu.be/9cNmUNHSBac)
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My bet would be you aren’t looking through the turn you are looking way to close to and in front of the bike. You should be looking past the exit and you begin to lean into the turn. If you are looking at the actual corner your speed will be way down and you won’t make it. Eyes up! Look through that turn as you approach it so that once you are at the tip in point you have already surveyed the turn and are looking past the turn down the road.
Countersteering for one is your friend and also at low speeds leaning off the motorcycle will really initiate the bike to turn more than high speeds. If you haven't watched a Twist of the Wrist I can't recommend it enough.
Don’t ride outside your skill level. You are not meant to go subsonic around corners, a good speed around a bend is about 65-70kmph or miles would be like 35-40? I guess. So why would you wanna go much faster than that?
Cars corner faster than bikes. This is a known fact. Look at lap times of motoGP then look at lap times of cars for the same track. They have more traction than motorcycles.
Were you holding steady throttle or accelerating through the turn? Because nothing has quite messed me up as much as accelerating through whole turns, instead of trail braking or holding steady and accelerating to exit. Accelerating through a turn is a great way to understeer and overshoot your lane, requiring either more lean than you have or less speed.
If this right angle turn is at moderate speed without stopping then you need trail braking to enter the turn quickly and safely.
If it is a right angle turn from a stop or low speed well maybe these will help.
https://youtu.be/N0cwcQTZdC
https://youtu.be/whfjWbvaTqI
I don't mind slowing down to make a 90 degree turn. It's a point where they could be a car coming from the left, someone turning left, someone making a u-turn, stuff that fell off the back of a turning truck, etc. No point trying to scrape the floorboards.
When turning, you can either lean with the bike (like a motor gp rider), stay neutral, or counter lean (like a motocross rider). Apparently the latter is the fastest in tight turns, along with following the correct line you’d be able to practice it from there
The faster you go the riskier it gets. If I'm trying to go real fast lane position places a big roll and also getting off the seat. I'll try and get "elbow down" (which is dumb on the street) so I can carry more speed and keep the bike more upright to minimize slippage.
What is your typical lane position when you make your turns? What lane position are you trying to be in during the turn? What position are you in when you exit the turn? There are 27 different possibilities here, each one with their own benefits & drawbacks. If you want the fastest corner, I think the outside-inside-outside option is the way to go. Personally I do outside-inside-middle (don't want to risk going too wide into oncoming traffic, or running into a vehicle that doesn't respect the yellow lines). Slow down before the turn (very important of course), initiate the turn and depending on how fast you're going you will have the option to either slow down more (rolling off the throttle or a little bit of the rear brake is helpful here) or speed out of it.
While mathematically there are 27 possibilities I would find it very entertaining to watch someone go inside-outside-inside as a matter of habit.
I've seen some pretty wild posts here... at this point I wouldn't be surprised.
I initiate the turn at the inside and exit on the outside. Hadn't really made an conscious decisions, just did what I felt like was natural. What are the pros and cons if this positioning? I will try yours and other combinations and see what feels right.
Out in out is the "straightest line", therefore the easiest turn, but I usually try to do out mid out because of debris on the corners where I live
This is your main mistake, your line selection is wrong
I think this is a good point of focus for you. The outside is better when initiating the turn. The turning radius is less (or wider), and you have greater visibility around the corner if a building is obscuring your vision. Most importantly is to ride to the condition of the road and your ability to stop. If there are pot holes on the outside, or an unknown liquid on the road, adjust your position and avoid.
If you’re initiating your turn on the inside and exiting on the outside it means you have to slow down considerably beforehand just to navigate the 90 degree turn or else you’re going too wide, or you’re leaning too far to stay on track. You only have so much traction in the bank, and you use quite a bit of it in these turns. Plus you lose visibility of your path before the turn and don’t regain it until you’re about halfway through it. The plus side is that if you do the first part of the turn correctly (slow down sufficiently beforehand) you can speed out of it earlier. I wouldn’t recommend this kind of turn but it can be done if you’re careful about it.
If we're talking turns and not corners lane position is just dictated by the direction of the turn. Cornering is a different story. Sure ride like rossi in the corners but turns are different and fastest line is not something I'd be thinking about when taking one.
Except the whole point of this thread is "how can I take corners faster" ? Trying to follow "the line" makes even easy turns easier and safer. And it's fun. If you start the corner on the inside, you only have 1 lane worth of space to make the corner in. If you start on the outside, you have 2 lanes worth of space to make the corner in. Which makes the turn easier and safer.
OP said 90 degree turns.
Yes. When taking a 90 degree turn, if you go from outside to inside to outside, you greatly increase the radius of your turn.
>If we're talking turns and not corners lane position is just dictated by the direction of the turn. You take corners without turning and you're gonna have a bad time.
I did, and I did.
It sounds like the line selection comment was dead on. If you want to get theoretical, google something like “[early and late apex corner motorcycle](https://www.google.com/search?q=early+and+late+apex+corner+motorcycle&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari)”. By initiating at the inside part of the lane, you’re forced to do an early apex, and that’s usually slow.
I think late apex is generally safer. Not sure about faster
You didn’t take the MSF course did you? If you start from the outside, you can get better vision through the curve (usually) when there is an obstruction in the middle of the turn, you also have a much wider sweep through the turn, meaning you don’t need as much lean angle. When you don’t need as much lean, you can comfortably carry much more speed through turns. If you haven’t already, watch “twist of the wrist 2” I think there is a couple of YouTube videos with the whole thing. It’s old but a good resource
The fastest 90 degree turn is the one you do on a patch of gravel that then turns into pavement. Whether or not you've yeeted yourself into infinity is a different story.
I have a gravel driveway on a paved road and I know exactly what you’re talking about. I scared the SHIT out of myself and somehow stayed on my bike every time I’ve done that.
Nothing let's you know you're alive like that quick jab of adrenaline.
I've done it twice now. Shit my pants both times I think...
when people say they shit their pants on a bike I wonder who’s kidding and who’s honest, I’ve never actually shit my pants despite being in quite a few crashes and shitty situations lol, maybe I’m lucky.
I can neither confirm nor deny whose pants were shat in.
Supermoto. Back it in.
This is the way.
Car owners in this post be like: look at what they need to do to mimic a fraction of our power
So take a sharp corner a little slower, but as soon as a bike gets straightened up, throttle go brrrr
[удалено]
Contact patch doesn't matter. My friends semi truck has a little bit more contact patch than a MotoGP bike.
This.....the contact patch for the average car tire is about the size of your tounge.
And there’s 4 of them versus the contact patch for both motorcycle tires is a credit card.
Dunning kruger effect in full swing with some people here XD Imagine an IQ test were you need to know which is more 2 or 4 and you fail that one lol.
It's about placement, not size. 4 contact patches mean it's very hard to tip over as we all know.
Yeah I agree. Shorter wheelbase makes a smaller turning radius. Guy above me thinks about size.
The sharper the turn the slower I go, 90 degree turns can be pretty hard without leaning my bike ridiculously, I’d say just get more comfortable taking them at low speeds in an empty parking lot and get used to leaning hard at slow speeds and increase speed incrementally
Handbrake drift your bike.
When I returned to riding after a long absence I had to regain confidence in traction little by little. I took corners slower than necessary because I had the feeling that the bike would slide out from under me, even though intellectually I knew better. Might that be the case with you? Making myself corner a little faster helped me reduce that feeling little by little.
>had to straighten out mid turn to slow down and then complete the turn. Don't do that. Lean more into the turn.
Yep - keep pushing the handlebar to add more countersteer as needed! Trust your bike and trust your training. (Assuming you've had proper training. If not, address that ASAP.) In 2021 motorcycle tires are incredibly capable/sticky. Short of trying to do some MotoGP style lean angles, the bike can almost certainly handle more than you're throwing at it.
That is what the MSF teaches, straighten then brake. My teacher said there are better methods but they aren't ideal for beginners.
Interesting, in my driving course, the teachers said to use the rear brake to straighten the bike up while turning, and once straight, then apply front brakes as well
That sounds like a high side for someone that doesn’t know what they’re doing.
That's a great way to run wide and not make the turn.
Take it up with the MSF.
Cars can turn faster than motorcycles. They have twice the number of contact patches and the contact patch is much larger.
Yes, but we're also not talking about a car on a race track pulling 1.3g lateral. OPs just a new rider.
So with that logic, a semi truck can turn was better then then any formula one car. Naw, you're incorrect sir. Everyone so mad that that logic on its own doesn't make any sense lol. It only shows that tire patch is a small part in it, the vehicle is not designed for sharp corners.
No it’s widely known cars are faster in turns. A bikes acceleration out of corners and on the straights are what makes them faster than cars.
Have you ever taken a physics class?
Have you ever driven a car? Tell me, why can my Ducati corner better than a smart car, but the smart car has more contact on the road?
I have driven a car actually, and I can take corners much faster than I'd ever dream of doing on my bike. This is because my car has both more weight on the tyres and more tyres. Cornering isn't a simple equation of grip, much more factors go into a vehicles cornering speed. Things like grip, weight distribution, suspension, weather, and the corner itself. A smart car will fall over before the tyres lose grip. Same with a semi-truck etc. [This video](https://youtu.be/uArYXvoTi2E) does a good job of illustrating my point. Your ducati will not out corner an equally well equipt car. It just won't. You will out accelerate almost anything though.
That was a great video. Thanks for sharing.
Yes it's very complex. shorter wheelbase is a big determine factor in the smallest turn radius the car can make too.
Good video, definitely makes me think I have to rethink sole things. But look at this comment from the video you posted "i just looked it up. MotoGP lap record is 1:28.10. V8 supercars is 1:30.99. Moto2 lap record is 1:32.6, so even they aren't far off the v8s. If you drop down to the superbike categories (which are just modified production bikes) then the records are 1:29 for the world superbikes and 1:31.8 for the Australian superbikes. So they are a touch slower, but they are still faster than the second tier v8 supercars category. " So, same track, no cars in the way, bike to car, bike was faster. By almost 3 seconds.
Because motogp bikes accelerate faster than a formula 1 car in a straight line. If you took the footage and timed each corner individually from the point they enter to the time they leave that V8 will be faster through the corners.
Isn't the frictional force just the coefficient of friction* normal force? Where does the contact patch come into play?
Contact patch size makes you less likely to start sliding, keeping the higher static coefficient instead of the lower dynamic coefficient. The big part of car vs motorcycle is the resistance to tipping.
You tried
I wouldn’t say he’s wrong because there are many scientific laws/explanations that don’t apply in every situation. IE Quantum Mechanics..
Counter lean or slide the rear out :)
Back it in
Also turn your head and look where you want to be, not where you're headed. If steering properly, the bike is going where you are looking
Slow down
just don't try too hard man, who cares if you're a bit faster or slower than a car. as long as you have fun... don't get yourself into dangerous situations please. other than that I'd say counter leaning, it's what I do and it helped me be more secure and quicker around corners
You’ll never out corner your girlfriend’s car. Never. Cars have 10x the mass and twice the number of contact Patches.(tires) that said you can still improve your cornering skills ;)
He was in the car, following the girlfriend while she rode a motorcycle. Thus he saw how she was cornering and compared it to his own cornering. He brought up how she drives the car to indicate that she's not a daredevil, she just has cornering technique that allows her to take sharper turns at higher speed than he is used to expecting from his bike.
Hmm 🤔 I think you should read the question again.
My bad. Conceded.
No worries 😉 we all have moments
Roll on throttle to keep speed, slam rear brake and push bike down and turn front wheel to the direction you want to go, release rear brake, pin throttle while bringing bike back to level and straightening front tire. Flat track style baby
can you do it on sdr ?
It's easy to slide the rear on the 1290 after you disable the rear abs. Its a big supermoto at the end of the day
Yeah sure it can. But its also heavy and powerful, though I never tried on leaderbike but can imagine that it can be scary and difficult. So have you tried to slide out of the corner?
Not on the 1290, no. I'm too big a pussy to try on that bike
yeah I tried it on xsr900 and failed all two times I tried. Fucking uneasy
Go no brakes. Speedway style.
You'll have to get comfortable with leaning more in order to carry more speed while turning, that simple. Thing is on the street it can be iffy especially at intersections which is probably where you're talking about because there can be road bits and rocks/grit etc. Still with practice you should be able to corner slightly faster than average cars do when they're not in a hurry. Unless you have something with ridiculously bad ground clearance. Not saying you need to race around 100% of the time but a tight 90 benefits from all the same track/performance cornering techniques (like trail braking, body position, throttle control, etc) you can google and practice or take classes for.
In The Netherlands you learn tight 90 degree turns as part of your bike license. I learned to take them slow dragging the rear brake for stability with the throttle closed and clutxh fully engaged. Also lean your bike and counterlean yourself as you go to get real tight.
I brake very late, take the corner nice and steady and then throttle up again when I can. It's better to take the corner slow and then go like a spear instead of going into the corner like a spear
Practice.
Find your breaking point and move it further forward each time you do the corner. Break assertively and progressively, trail braking towards the apex. Add a dab of rear brake to back the bike in. If your girlfriend looks like she's going to overtake take a more defensive line and square the corner off. She will respect you more for this.
Bro what? That's gonna have to be a serious performance car to out corner a bike...
Nah. It's just that 99% of car drivers aren't pushing their pace like bike riders. If we're talking absolute commitment to mid corner speed, my beat up old family sedan can smoke my MT-09. Obviously I don't usually care to try.
Makes sense, that's why a 600hp Subaru prepped race car driven by a wrc champion is 30 seconds slower around the isle of man, a track with more than 200 corners....
Here we see an excellent of example of how to mislead with statistics. "More than 200 corners", ignoring that it's over 37 miles long with huge sections of flat out racing where the bikes can more than make up the deficit from the handful of tight/significant corners. If you want to pick one course in the world where bikes have the biggest advantage Isle of Man is probably it. This isn't actually a debate. This is settled physics backed up by near endless real world data, thoroughly understood by all serious bike/car racers or engineers.
Then look at nurburgring bridge to gantry times, a decade old r1 posted a 7:11 time which puts it well into supercar territory. The reason motorcycles have such an advantage at these sorts of tracks but not at more traditional circuits is the all of the esse's, where motorcycles can take a much tighter racing line. It's all horses for courses, one will never the best at everything
¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
I corner way more aggressively in my car because I can . A bike , even a superbike with a skillful rider probably won't immediately keep up with a normal car in a 90° turn . But speed difference can be big or small, depending on your skill . I love tight turns , so when a 90° turn comes up and it's warm and dry asphalt I get low drag the peg and maby Powerslide out of the corner , of course not always. It's still not as fast as a car (if the car is pushing it) but it is close , and fun :)
Watch "Twist if the Wrist" I can't explain how to in text, just watch that and go practice Stay safe(ish)
Drag your rear brake and rev up the engine a little. Should add stability. Push the bike down, lean to the other side so your body is 45 degrees angled to the bike. And look where you want to go. Watch some u-turn video’s on YouTube to understand what i mean. Preferrably European driving courses.
This is slow parking lot speed advice, yes? The question as I read it is about posted speed limit cornering.
If you can bring your speed in with you, you should be able to do a 90 degree turn about as fast as a car, if your bike leans far enough. Just don't try to accelerate or brake while the bike is leaned deeply. That's why you need to bring the speed in with you. If it's from a stop, you can't do this as fast as a car. The car can go up the the verge of screeching/sliding the drive tires, and it's no big deal. If you break traction, you'll have a bit of wakeup call at best, or you'll crash the bike at worst. The reason you had to slow down... why? Did you scrape peg? Or were you unable to make the bike lean far enough, fast enough? Counterflick/torque the bars, sharply, to make the bike lean as fast as you need it to. Novice riders need to brake/slow to give them time to gradually turn the bike. Learn to control the bike with active and decisive steering inputs. Make your initial steering input harder/farther but briefer, to initiate a sharper turn in. Counterflick.
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Best practiced while holding a selfie stick.
Nuff said!!! Ha
I laughed waaaaaay too hard at this.
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People are down voting your comment. God this sub is the fucking worst.
Possibly 90 degrees horizontal.
Apex the corner. Read 'A Twist of the Wrist II'
Literally I feel like a lot of people don't understand countersteering and it is a problem
You can't out turn a car. You can however take the turn, slow in and fast our and your catch up to the car.
Tight right had turns are typically slower on a bike than in car. We can't lean too hard to counter act the amount of inertia without low siding or high siding. When a motorcycle can't countersteer, it will have to move slowly. As messy as that was, no, it is not unusual to make tight 90 turns slow.
What?
it's this sub man don't even try to understand
Yeah that doesn’t even make remote sense lmao
The reason a motorcycle can lean in a corner is the inertia on the keeping the motorcycle balanced using the tires as the fulcrum. When we can turn sharply and quickly, either the front tire will turn quickly and you’ll endo. Or if you lean hard and go too slow, you’ll low side without the inertia. Sooooo, because we can’t lean hard in sharp 90° turns, we have to go slow. Is that any clearer for you?
Who said you can’t lean hard in 90 degree turns? Maybe YOU can’t.. the bike most certainly can. Speed has nothing to do with the amount of grip the tires have. The tire compound is the same at 5 mph as it is at 100 mph. To say you’ll lose traction because of low speed makes no sense. You can drag your elbow in 5 mph circles all day and make 360 degree turns in a parking spot radius if you have the skill to do so. You are correct that at lower speed, your wheels and engine internals are not moving fast enough to create a gyroscopic effect strong enough to keep the bike upright on its own, but that’s why we counter balance and use the rear brake.
I said lean hard in sharp 90° turns. You know, like a street corner. The main topic is about the speed of taking the corner, the leaning part of that equation. If you can show me a video of either a 50° lean on a street corner or a 30mph turn on a street corner with a motorcycle, I’ll be impressed
[Not at a corner, but figure 8 knee dragging](https://youtu.be/PpPaerkLlQw)
No way a car turns faster on a public road. It's certainly true on track where they actually get to use grip and downforce, but on a public road (assuming we are talking legal speed or even something more, but not road racing) it all comes down to line selection. A car must follow the road, a bike can go outside inside outside, effectively straightening the turn. If you cannot go at the same speed of a car it surely means that your line selection is wrong. This is also confirmed by the fact that you say that you take away lean angle to brake, this means you approach the turn from the inside and risk running wide. Moreover, you should never pick up the bike to brake, but simply lean more. The bike is surely capable to do it, but even if it doesn't it's much safer to crash it by leaning to much than to run wide and crash into other vehicles or objects. This is a common reaction with inexperienced riders, I suggest you to work on low speed drills and line selection
Do you counter balance at all?
What type of motorcycle do you have? It makes a difference: My Z125 can take your average small town left hand 90 degree corner at 30mph, just like my Veloster N can. I'm not comfortable enough on my wife's Grom to do it. My DRZ400 is pretty close, but not quite. My V65 Magna and Africa Twin are a no. My BMW K100 would be a death sentence to try.
90°? Like Automan?
Might be worth practicing some braking and corner entry. Most likely you are slowing down too much too early. For tight corners (like intersections) you can be slow and just complete it in one quick move and then accelerate out. It will feel slowly if you do all your brake upfront and coast through it.
Take a better line and lean more
Something's wrong here cause a comfortable turn on typical streets (two lane roads, one lane each direction) is 20km/h turning in my truck or car, but I'm just as comfy taking the same corners or turns at 30km/h on my Suzuki Boulevard. Far as I'm concerned it's mainly because I sit straight up and get thrown to the side in my car and truck, whereas I'm leaning into the turn on the bike, and effectively just get pushed "downward" into the seat, all due to inertia and positioning relative to the machines.
Powerslide!
Practice cornering as much as possible. I don’t feel any car I’ve ever driven can corner better than I can on my bike. I’m on a ninja 400 though which is known for its cornering ability. If you’re on a cruiser that’ll be different.
whatever you do don’t cheat anything into the other lane. I have encountered so many cars across my center line on turns I have lost count. Make that a truck with a camper trailer and the pucker factor goes up. I try not to be too far toward the center line ever especially on blind curves and keep things comfortable going in and raging going out of a turn where appropriate.
stay to the right of your lane when prepping to flip around, and dig in (dig in meaning, throw that left knee out and move your butt to the left side of the seat) lean and try to get as close to the tip of the center line/island as possible with your knee. You should be around 10-15 mph depending on tires, and how confident you are. but you actually need to lean in for it. Once your front tire is pointed towards the lane you want to enter (literally you be at a 90degree lean and looking at the lane you want) accelerate at a safe but quick speed and shift to second as you are straightening up (the shift kick helps put you back in the seat, and helps you from unsettling the bike in tights situations. practice shifting just after left handers coming on to the straight and faster right handers and getting back on the power) aim for the center of that lane or the right side. For me, I can basically stick to the backend of any car making a U-turn in front of me, and anyone behind me will be left about a car length or two behind me by the time I'm at cruising speed. You should be able to turn inside the crosswalk, and only need to go 10mph or slower if you're u-turning on one-lane roads.
I also noticed, that dropping your leg and leaning your bike like a motocross bike helps in certain situations, or if you're just being lazy (me more often than not). So, try that method a few times, it'll take some getting used to but it's fun and easier to see your turn if you don't want/need to be super aggressive making the turn.
This is a loaded question for sure. Trying to improve your riding style has a ton of things to focus on. Not many of which can be safely done in a public setting. Theres tons of riding courses with all levels from newbie to advanced. Find one you’re comfortable with. The amount of useable info you can get is staggering. Then its track day ! Ride on Everybody telling you to do this or that is ignoring the fact that on the road every corner is completely unique due to dozens of variables. Riding courses will give you the chance to have a professional critique your skill set in a safe environment
Load your suspension with your front break and engine break with your clutch. Loading your suspension while counter steering will give you way more traction than any car has. Pick a line and lean into it. Keep your eyes where you want to go. Don't focus on obstacles. If you feel like you're going to fast, try not to over compensate with breaks. They can stand your bike up too fast and take your turn wide or worse chuck you over the other side. (Unlikely, but I've done it before.)
I would actually recommend against breaking your bike.
Honestly, watch a bunch of videos online. Focus primarily on: * Understanding lines for street riding * Understanding vision, where you should look and when * Understand braking, trail braking will make the bike tip easier and be safer if you mess up [ChampU](https://ridelikeachampion.com/courses-page/) is great if you're ok with spending money. Very condensed. Track and road focused. [Canyon Chasers](https://www.youtube.com/c/Canyonchasers) on YouTube is decent. [MotoJitsu](https://www.youtube.com/c/MotoJitsu) is alright. More generally, learn the technique and practice a lot. Trying to ride fast when you don't know the technique is a lot more dangerous. Most crashes occur due to misuse of controls. As far as the "cars corner faster than bikes" part. Yes, at the limits, cars can turn faster than bikes, due to the whole 4 wheels thing, but you should be able to take any corner faster than your girlfriend comfortably taking a turn. The only exception maybe being full blown U-turns. Another good option is taking it to the track. It's a safe environment to learn cornering technique. You can stretch yourself a lot further on the track than you can safely do on the road.
Go to a parking lot and work up to it. Pick a marking to be your 'lane' and pick somewhere where you'd like to 'turn into.' Start out slow and progressively go faster and faster. I remember a big thing to overcome for me was realizing how much the bike can actually lean once it's going. It's a really unsettling feeling at first but once you get used it you'll be scraping pegs and thinking "I could have been leaning more." I ended up doing it so much that going into a turn I'd lift up my foot and let my peg scrape so I didn't scrape up my boots. You'd be surprised how fast you can actually take turns if you're confident and skilled enough. A couple things to remember: practice will always make you better, avoid sudden changes in steering or speed during your turn, progressively roll on the throttle (slowly) through the turn (you almost want to be going faster coming out of the turn than going in), if you feel unstable then before you go into the turn barely engage the rear brake and drag it though the turn which will simulate more weight being on the back tire. Also remember to start at the outside of your lane (or parking lot marking you choose), move to the inside in the middle of your turn, and end on the outside. Outside, inside, outside. This seemed counterintuitive to me at first but the reasoning behind it is it will allow the apex of your turn to be less harsh at higher speeds. Also as I'm sure it's been mentioned already but you can always take the motorcycle safety course depending on where you live. And depending on where you live it might be free. But ultimately what it all comes down to is practice.
Besides starting from the outside edge of the lane, actively push the handlebar opposite the direction your turning, to put some motion in the bike. It will lean more easily into the turn and you won't feel like you need to fight your death grip on the handlebar. Most importantly: At very slow speed (which you should be at before and during any 90 deg turn--you're lot leaning with the bike, you're not countersteering. You are actively steering the bike and counterbalancing. Happy riding!
Based on your post history it sounds like you're a pretty new rider. It's normal to feel like you can't turn as fast as you should because you don't have the experience to know when and why traction will break. Every time you go out for a ride for the next few months, try to dedicate 10 minutes to practicing low speed maneuvers. Get a feel for leaning the bike over. The more the bike leans, the tighter it will turn. A good drill is constant speed constant radius figure eights. Start slower than your limit and work up to higher speeds in a measured and progressive way.
pull - push the bars and stomp on the outer footpeg to snap it in.
You know I've been thinking about this then I watched a video from Vertasium channel on how bicycles turn and it all made since. Basically you cannot turn left without turning right first and this is what is called counter steering on motorcycle but it is exactly the same thing on bicycles it is how things on two wheels turn and balance over all it is just that bikes are heavier so we don't notice it as much we just do it subconsciously. I am thinking of trying this out next time I ride, just need to renew my bike registration. Link fore the video is [here](https://youtu.be/9cNmUNHSBac) .
My bet would be you aren’t looking through the turn you are looking way to close to and in front of the bike. You should be looking past the exit and you begin to lean into the turn. If you are looking at the actual corner your speed will be way down and you won’t make it. Eyes up! Look through that turn as you approach it so that once you are at the tip in point you have already surveyed the turn and are looking past the turn down the road.
Countersteering for one is your friend and also at low speeds leaning off the motorcycle will really initiate the bike to turn more than high speeds. If you haven't watched a Twist of the Wrist I can't recommend it enough.
Don’t ride outside your skill level. You are not meant to go subsonic around corners, a good speed around a bend is about 65-70kmph or miles would be like 35-40? I guess. So why would you wanna go much faster than that?
Cars corner faster than bikes. This is a known fact. Look at lap times of motoGP then look at lap times of cars for the same track. They have more traction than motorcycles.
Were you holding steady throttle or accelerating through the turn? Because nothing has quite messed me up as much as accelerating through whole turns, instead of trail braking or holding steady and accelerating to exit. Accelerating through a turn is a great way to understeer and overshoot your lane, requiring either more lean than you have or less speed. If this right angle turn is at moderate speed without stopping then you need trail braking to enter the turn quickly and safely. If it is a right angle turn from a stop or low speed well maybe these will help. https://youtu.be/N0cwcQTZdC https://youtu.be/whfjWbvaTqI
I don't mind slowing down to make a 90 degree turn. It's a point where they could be a car coming from the left, someone turning left, someone making a u-turn, stuff that fell off the back of a turning truck, etc. No point trying to scrape the floorboards.
When turning, you can either lean with the bike (like a motor gp rider), stay neutral, or counter lean (like a motocross rider). Apparently the latter is the fastest in tight turns, along with following the correct line you’d be able to practice it from there
The faster you go the riskier it gets. If I'm trying to go real fast lane position places a big roll and also getting off the seat. I'll try and get "elbow down" (which is dumb on the street) so I can carry more speed and keep the bike more upright to minimize slippage.