I'm just back from 2 weeks in the Alps and have a cornering issue.
A couple of the guys I was riding with were much faster than me on a particular type of corner - medium tight switchbacks, the kind that in theory you can just carve round, but that you can't see round - usually rooty and rocky, maybe 8' diameter outside to outside, flat or gently off camber. On the supertight tech stuff I was usually more capable and on the open fast stuff we were all about the same.
Thinking about it more, the corners I always struggle with are the ones where I don't have a clear enough line of sight through them for the speed I'm going. I'm basically not prepared to commit to something that I can't see a line through. In this instance some of the lines the other guys were taking were truly apalling - I was picking "better" ones, but they were still putting 2 or 3 bike lengths into me every corner. They weren't crashing either!
We were all on similar bikes, similar tyres and flat pedals. I think part of the issue is that I'm quite a controlled rider. Even on flats I very rarely take a foot off, and I find it almost impossible to make myself deliberately skid/drift a medium slow corner (can hold a 2 wheel drift at speed on fireroad though!).
Corners of similar tightness, but with a clear view through them and/or once I know the line, I'm much faster at.
So any tips? I know it's mostly a head game, just staying off the brakes and letting the bike deal with stuff that I can't see, but I don't understand how to make that extra step. It just seems to be asking for a monster crash over the edge of a cliff when you tag a root wrong. Alternatively how do you speed up your reactions, so you don't need to see so far ahead...?
Cheers,
Jon
