[Closed] Cornering

Yes you need to explore the limits of your bike and tyre. Try to get plenty of weight over the front too, and whatever you do don't brake in the corner!

Inside pedal high!

i wouldnt!

dirt is so much less predictable than tarmac surely?
and youve bugger all weight to push down into the surface with, like you would on a motorbike?

ive never ridden a Motor bike, but if i wouldnt crank right over without a berm to lean on myself.

I was under the impression that on flat turns you should weight the outside pedal, and lean the bike over more than you lean yourself. Also push down on the bike to dig in the tyres at the crucial point of the turn.

On a mountain bike you need to lean the bike over a lot more than the rider i.e. you're shoulders stay upright whilst the bike leans. Road motorcycles seem to work differently to this, the rider stays 'inline' with the bike or even hangs off the inside.

weight on outside pedal improves grip and yes I think you do need to trust the tyres which is something I struggle with.
I recently tried to weight the front more when cornering on fast singletrack and I'm sure it made a big difference to how far I could lean the bike over - how much of that was actually an improvement in grip, as opposed to an increase in belief the tyres would grip is an unknown!

Because on a bike you weigh less, so the CoG is high, on a motorbike which weighs a lot more than it's rider the CoG is far lower. Makes sense really, I'm terrible for leaning me and not the bike though!

Rode decent motorbikes for some time before taking to the light-side, how much you can lean with the bike depends a lot on the camber available - i.e. pretty much in-line with the frame (pedals level) on berms, much less so in flat corners. The Dirt School DVD has excellent breakdowns for cornering (+ many other aspects...)

no two corners are the same, just keep going faster and faster into various corners (muddy, gravel, tarmac, off camber, bermed, ones with a crest halfway round, ones after a jump, ones before a jump) and see what works. Practice makes perfect.

Just look at the pro's riding downhill, they all take different lines, and with different body positions, yet come out with the same time at the bottom of the hill, so there's more than one correct way of doing it.

I have never seen anyone get anything like the lean angle on a bicycle - road or mtb that you can on a motorbike on the road.

Motorbikes easily go to 45 degrees and often significantly further. Racing motorbikes to 60+ degrees. Bicycles seem to be more like 30 degrees maximum

Yep definitely, because of the centre of gravity, makes sense really.

This is quite a long way over, and doesn't appear to have added 'MBR Rad xxxxXxxxtreme factor'.

[img] [/img]

[i]"On a mountain bike you need to lean the bike over a lot more than the rider i.e. you're shoulders stay upright whilst the bike leans" [/i]

Satisfactory science required. Doesn't compute.

Thanks for the replies gents, most helpful 🙂

Probably because road motorbike tyres rely mainly on a large contact patch and very little tyre flex, MTBs tyres flex and the knobbles provide and unstable contact patch.

mountaincarrot it puts more weight through the tyre giving more grip. Also, imagine what happens if the tyres slide and you're leaning as much as the bike, the whole thing slips away from you. If you lean the bike more than you and it slides you're more on top and able to stay with it.

Weight your outside pedal + inside bar and the rest should improve by itself I reckon.

Just my tuppence worth like!

njee - good picture - thats about as far over as I have ever seen a bicycle.

doug - how can your position alter the amount of weight? You have fixed amount of weight to put thru the tyres.

I believe the lean in / lean out thing is about camber thrust which is what makes you go round corners - the further the bike is leaned over the more camber thrust is generated. Push the bike down into the corner by keeping your shoulders outside the line of the bike you generate more camber thrust than you would get if you leaned inside the line of the bike - therefore it corners better.

[url= http://www.mtbtechniques.co.uk/FundamentalsCornering.html ]Cornering[/url]
[url= http://www.mtbtechniques.co.uk/AdvancedCornering.html ]More Cornering[/url]

TJ, you asking or telling? I think that you're not altering the ammount of weight, altering the position of it. If you're in that position (bike leaned more than rider) then your weight is through the outside pedal isn't it?

Don't know what camber thrust is tbh, last time I rode a motorbike I was about 8 and I crashed! The bike can turn 2 ways I think, leaning and turning the bars.

One of the skills guys would be able to explain it a lot better. I just pick up things that make sense to me / people show me 🙂

Be sure to get off the saddle and weight the inside handlebar when pushing the limits of a turn. You have to really feel like you are putting weight on/through the handlebars, otherwise you won't be getting as much traction as you otherwise could.

Leaning the bike and dropping the outside pedal are important, but for me the biggest traction/confidence increase comes from weighting the inside bar properly.

Outside foot and inside hand.

You should have all your weight on your outside foot, heel dropped. Once the bike is leaned over, the pedal is more or less directly over the tyre contact patches, so you're really pushing the side knobbles of the tyre into the ground.

You then use the inside hand to push the bike down away from yourself to control the turn - helps keep the weight on your outside foot too. Keep your outside elbow bent out too - helps pull your weight forward onto the front wheel to make it grip more.

Once you start to reach the limits of traction when you're cornering like this, because you're more or less balanced over the contact patch you'll find the tyres will tend to drift controllably rather than suddenly wash out and ditch you on your face.

(oh - and it goes without saying, get your braking done first!)

Pull up on the outer grip to put even more pressure on the inner grip and outer pedal.

Doug - your first post sounded like you were saying more weight not altering the position of it.

There is a lot of black art and nonsense spoken about cornering - I admit that i don't understand it all 🙂

[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camber_thrust ]Camber thrust[/url]is the mechanism whereby a bike turns by leaning over - effectively the tyre acts like a cone - imagine rolling a cone - it goes round in circles. The more you lean the steeper the effictive angle of the cone so the more the turning force. On a motorcycle at high speed all the turning comes from this and none from the steering angle as it is usually zero once you are in the turn. ( until you start to spin the rear)

You have to balance the centripetal force that pushes you to the outside with the gravity pulling you inside the corner. If you lean out from the bike ( pushing the bike down into the corner) the tyres are at a greater angle to the ground than if you lean in - so for the same corner speed you generate more cornering force thru the camber thrust.

Then there are the effects from the width of the tyres - as you lean over the contact patch moves from the centre line of the bike - this is wy weighting the outside or inside pedal changes things as you move where the centre of gravity is compared to the centreline of the bike and also alter where on the bike your weight acts.

Its all horribly complex and hard to both explain and understand. Add in the black magic of gyroscopic precession and the effects of both slip and slide and its a good job we don't have to think about these things to ride otherwise we would just fall off!

some good tips on this thread. turning your body/feet to exit too

Pump any lumps in the corner to maintain even traction through the corner

Pump through shorter corners. Push down on the pedals (lift your body) as you brake just before the corner. As you start to turn allow your weight to drop down again so that your weight is coming down on the outside pedal once the bike is leant over, your bodies downward momentum it adds extra downward force to the pedal and tyres hence more grip. Push your weight back up as you exit the turn to get the same effect.

Weight up the front end a little more on loose turns then lean back slightly as you pedal out to get better rear wheel traction.

Go light as you change turning direction making it easier to swap the lean of the bike over whilst adding pressure to the next turn.

Use any proud roots or ruts running parallel to your line for a little extra grip.