[Closed] cornering

Show us a pic and we might be able to help diagnose

no.. you can't really cause less front tyre grip by weighting the front more.. your body position for the particular corner may well be completely off tho..

try looking up more.. towards where you want to go? (ie. the exit of the corner)

Have a look on imbikemag, thete's quite a good video tutorial on cornering.

the key to riding flat corner fast is knowing exactly how the bike is going to react and when its going to break loose.the only way to predict these things is practice.find a corner and session it until you get faster and faster,this wil also give you your body position.another key factor is whether to keep the pedals level or drop the outside one,but this depend on the corner.

I normally find myself moving my weight back on the bike if anything so I can then pump through the corner if I need some more speed.

Horses for courses though as per the pedal setting, some people leave them flat and some people move them to weight up the outer edge.

You may lean far forwards, but what matters is where your weight is. How much are you weighting the bars / cranks. I used to lean forwards by sticking my bum backwards - which felt like I was forward, but my bum just counteracted it.

Hopefully your stood up, not sat down. Outside pedal down, looking at the apex and tipping the bike over. The more the wheel tips the tighter the corner.

Ive recently learned how important foot/hand and head positioning is. Try a few varietys of each and see how it feels.

Dont forget to check your tyre pressures though, they will aid grip.

Thanks, some great advice.

I drop the outside pedal and dont sit down, but I am leant so far forward that most of my weight is over the stem. I'll get out this afternoon for a play and see what I can come up with .

dunno, I just do it without thinking about what I'm doing. I think the entry line into the bend is probably one of the most important things to get right first and I imagine you need some weight over the front to get the tyre to dig in and grip. One of the best feelings is rescueing a two wheel slide out of a bend.

Kev

"most of my weight is over the stem"

I've read than when balanced on the pedals, about 40% of your weight acts through the front wheel. I think you always want to keep your weight pushing mostly through the outside pedal.

The hand pressure I feel is more about levering the bike down into the corner, in opposition to my weight on the outside pedal which is levering the bike upright. This seems to increase pressure and grip through the turn. But I can see the logic of a bit more weight on the bars when entering the turn to make the front wheel turn-in more securely. More tips about this please!

I'm trying to work on pumping so I can enter corners faster. I read that Brian Lopes says that a corner is like a hole on it's side, so pump fast corners just as you would pump a small bomb hole. Easier said than done methinks! Again, more tips welcome!

"One of the best feelings is rescueing a two wheel slide out of a bend"

Panic stations. happened to me once on a very high speed loose corner when the bike was thankfully caught by a bit of trail-edge banking and I stayed upright. Had to sit down for 5 minutes after that incident.

Agree with most of the above but nobody has mentioned fork rebound.
If your fork has a very fast rebound then the fork will try to spring up and wash the front end out - reverse and the front will try to dig in. Worth having a play with rebound settings as well as all the body position stuff.

As above with your outside pedal down with most of your weight on it and lean in. I like to stick my inside knee out moto stylee and the outside knee hugs the frame, seems to make it all feel a bit more balanced.

Losing grip can be down to a few things, and is not entirely due to pressing on the front of the bike or lack of. As pointed out above, you get a lot of front wheel weight without pressing the 'bars at all, because when you have rider weight carried down through the bike via bottom bracket it weights [i]both[/i] wheels.

One thing that makes tyres lose traction is small steering inputs - if you deviate from a smooth arc the little steering inputs challenge the tyre and can break traction. It is a very good idea to look much further away - not just to the apex but right through the trail as far as you can see. Then you are much less inclined to wiggle about and second guess your line, and it will stick more.

I'm working on this at the moment. First step is "heavy feet, light hands" (put all your weight through the bottom bracket). Next step is "Look, Low, Lean, Turn" (look through the corner to where you want to go, get into a low attack position, lean the bike under you and then carve the turn).

One thing that makes tyres lose traction is small steering inputs - if you deviate from a smooth arc the little steering inputs challenge the tyre and can break traction. It is a very good idea to look much further away - not just to the apex but right through the trail as far as you can see. Then you are much less inclined to wiggle about and second guess your line, and it will stick more

That's a very interesting analysis. I have been puzzling why looked further ahead makes such a difference. That explanation makes sense to me.

Get buy yourself a copy of the [url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-Mountain-Skills-Brian-Lopes/dp/0736083715/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303400254&sr=1-1-fkmr0 ]Lopes and McKormack[/url] book for a well written and illustrated guide to just about anything you would want to do on a MTB, including a lot of detail on cornering. £12 very well spent

That's a very interesting analysis. I have been puzzling why looked further ahead makes such a difference. That explanation makes sense to me.

The above is all good (outside foot dropped, cocked inside leg, looking through the turn) but no one's mentioned bike lean yet.

On a berm it's natural to drop low with the bike keeping your body in the same vertical plane as you went in; you and the bike lean the same amount. This keeps the weight over the tyres due to centrifugal force.

On flat this would make you wash out, Lopez (his book's great) recommends more bike lean than body (combine with leg posture and looking) on a flat corner to keep your weight above the tyre contact. Bring your outside hand further in towards your body to make use of the traction. This also means you are set for whatever comes next.

If you are riding flat pedals you could try out the one footed moto corner which may feel more comfortable when pushing it as you can dab. Chris Kovarik is a great person to watch for this.

And of course, stop braking once you are turning as it messes up the physics of the corner "slow in fast out".

More great replies, thanks so much!

Currently I am tryingto get my brain converted from motorcycle road riding, where I hang off the inside of the bike. I do seem to have acquired the habit of sticking one foot out motox style, but I doubt its doing me any good.

Perhaps I am trying to lean over too much? I'm using high rollers, and seem to corner on the flat part of the should knobs. I am assuming I should be able to get it over onto the 'sharp' edge of them on the edge of the tyre?

I bought a copy of Clive Forths Mountain Bike Skills manual, he recommends keeping the pedals in the flat 3 / 9 o'clock position as you approach the corner, try to lean the bike through the corner as opposed to steering it and keep your weight over the middle of the bike.

He argues the dropped pedal through the corner approach comes from road cycling where you are seated through the corner, this does not apply to mountain biking. You will still drop the pedal but timing is crucial, if you drop too soon then you will actually force the bike wide, think about it, if you stand over your bike, and press down on a pedal you make the bike lean that way, if you do that in a corner too soon you'll shift your weight to the outside and force your bike to drift wide.

You drop the outside pedal to the 6 o'clock position as you hit the apex of the corner and remember slow in and fast out in the correct gear to accelerate away. Also try not to brake in the turn, tires don't do traction and braking very well at the same time. I know this sounds counter intuitive but i've tried this recently and noticed it really works, i've been 'gapping' some of my mates where i never was able to in the past.

He also suggests rolling your foot inside your shoe to help shift weight thereby increasing grip further, just like a skier would roll the inside of a ski on a turn.

Clives book is very good and well worth a read. I've been riding for years and picked up quite a few useful tips from it.

I'm using high rollers, and seem to corner on the flat part of the should knobs

high rollers will only grip if you're leaned over, they require an aggressive style. when you lose grip they will slide out but then grip in a predictable but unnerving way if you're not used to it
you could try a tyre with more progressive grip
also second the rebound thing, slow it down a bit and it can make a big difference to grip

your using the best cornering tyre available,so thats a good start 🙂 high rollers allow you to get the bike right over.as for having your foot out ,as i said earlier, when you can predict when and how your gonig to loose traction better ,you will be able to keep the inside foot on the pedal more and just use it when you need it.
with more pratice you should be able to two wheel drift with both feet on the pedals in a a controlled fashion.

"You drop the outside pedal to the 6 o'clock position as you hit the apex of the corner"

An interesting refinement I must think about!

"Also try not to brake in the turn, tires don't do traction and braking very well at the same time."

Yes this was made abundantly clear by Stu at forest freeride and is completely true - you can either brake, or find grip; never both together.

I used to suffer badly from front wheel wash. The more I convinced myself it was going to happen, eg; on damp or loamy corners, the more I'd mince in as upright as I could so the front wheel wouldn't give up. Not making use of the sideknobs, bad body position, bad footwork, more chance of it happening.....

Jedi sorted me in an hour by getting me looking up, and around the corners, and by getting my footwork right he found grip that I didn't know my tyres had.

[img] [/img]

Then he taught me to jump too.......

internetidiot - Member

More great replies, thanks so much!

Currently I am trying to get my brain converted from motorcycle road riding, where I hang off the inside of the bike. I do seem to have acquired the habit of sticking one foot out motox style, but I doubt its doing me any good.

An issue to me. You need to lean the bike more than you- it generates turning force from camber thrust ( google it) which you get from leaning.

On a modern sports motorbike you lead in with your shoulder and knee inside the line / below the bike. Do this on an MTB the bike runs wide / washes out ( until you get to downhill race speeds GW_)

What yo need to do is get the bike below you / push it into the turn. It feels very unnatural if you have learnt to ride a modern sportsbike.

Ok very exaggerated but this is what you need to aim for - bike leaning more than you / head outside the line
[img] [/img]

I bet yo are doing this
[img] [/img]
as it is the natural /best position on a motorbike and if you are anything like me its totally ingrained in your muscle memory

Unfortunately if you adopt that sort of position on a MTB on a flat corner the tyres are not leant over enough to generate the camber thrust /cornering force you need

I spent a whole day at glentress repeadedtly cornering and have mainly eliminated this from my riding. You need to push the bike down into teh corner and keep your head outside the line, it will make a difference,

you are not eh only motorcyclist converting to mountainbikes that has found this

your using the best cornering tyre available,so thats a good start high rollers allow you to get the bike right over.as for having your foot out ,as i said earlier, when you can predict when and how your gonig to loose traction better ,you will be able to keep the inside foot on the pedal more and just use it when you need it.
with more pratice you should be able to two wheel drift with both feet on the pedals in a a controlled fashion.

I really dislike my high rollers, took them off in fact. Slid out too easily and several times washed out on me completely on corners I never normally struggle with on other tyres, at lower speeds. Totally trashed my confidence for a while, I just couldn't work out what I was doing wrong. Everyone told me you need to push them to the point where they grip again, but they never did for me, they just slipped un-nervingly and then let go spectacularly. Felt a bit like powersliding a car, if you're messing about trying to look cool it's ideal but trying to get somewhere fast you're better off actually gripping properly.

May I just say, without getting all ghey, that this forum doesn't appreciate TJ's input enough - real world experience, backed up with know how (and in this case, pictures!).

And to the OP, I remember a ride many moons ago in the Aberdeenshire rural idyll, where a mate kept disappearing over the edge of every corner we went round. I remembered an article I'd read in MBUK about cornering - the journalist recommended 'rag-dolling' it round corners - getting the weight over the BB and just relaxing; tensing up is not conducive to getting round bends / berms. I gave my mate a quick synopsis of the article. After a quick hissy fit, the rider in question was flying round the corners.

So make like a floppy doll - keep the weight on the BB, and look well ahaead! All the advice above is also very valid.

@ coffeking
its the most used tyre by proffesional and privateer downhillers so i'm sure they will disagree with you. i'm sure they are not just trying to look cool when they are racing with hundredths of a second between riders and its not just about sponsorship.
what tyre would you recomend?

High Rollers (and other 'square' tyres) are essentially expert tyres. Tons of grip once they're leant right over but if you don't have the skill/confidence to lean them hard then they won't grip well because you'll end up in the no tread area between centre and side knobs.

cornering is fun eh. GRF, i love that corner 🙂

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ukbikeskills/5586381301/

I dislike Highrollers too (been racing and riding DH for over 15 years).. it's not because they have a square profile tho.. I only like square profile tyres.. just not Highrollers.

just as well we're not all the same, eh?

@ cheifgrooveguru
thats spot on! they are a tire that has to be pushed.

I think ppl on here expect highrollers to grip like your on rails. Imo they work really well at lowerish psi and the softer compound. And I don't find I have to lean over more or whatever.

I guess the clue's in the name with High Rollers; you've got to commit for them to work well.

I agree with mushrooms that they they don't require more lean, but I do think the transition from upright to leaning/turning needs to be snappier with them to get through the no-knob zone.

Hesitance will hinder.