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19 hours ago, Michael Bevilacqua said:

Practice keeping all of your weight on the back tire. Lean back and push out with the outside leg down. Feel free to keep the inside leg off the pedal and out in case you do actually start to slip (great for learning the maximum you and your bike can handle). Turn the bar when pulling back and you'll start to feel the bike turn without much of any weight on the front tire. At least, that's how I do it. 

Don't sweat the gear and setup too much. Physics are physics. Of course, good tires that can handle what you throw at them is a good thing. I use 29er Maxxis Minions (DHR and DHF) 2.3's and they are overkill in all the right ways.

Hope this helps.

I feel like this is the opposite, but Im not cornering expert. I usually want more weight on the front as I go through the corner

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Tires definitely make a difference.  For a long time I rode WTB Nano Raptors which is a great rolling XC tire but sucks on loose or loose over hardpack.  It goes down to the characteristics of the knobs and compound both in how much ultimate coefficient of static friction they have, and how much coefficient of kinetic friction they have (of course the surface is the ultimate decider).  The static is how long it is going to hold until it starts sliding.  The kinetic is how it's going to feel when it starts sliding, and whether it is ever going to regain traction again.  The WTB Nano Raptor had low static coeff. + the side knobs would tear off on rocky trails, and to top it off it had a horrible kinetic coefficient.  Take the coefficient and multiply by the normal force and that will give you the ultimate grip.  

So more weight on that tire means more cornering power.  If you try to brake and turn at the same time though, you compromise one, the other, or both.  http://formula1-dictionary.net/traction_circle.html

I seem to wear out my rear brake a lot faster than my front brake.  I think this is because I use it as an attitude adjustment if I'm going in a bit hot.  Tapping the rear brake transfers weight forward, and takes traction away from the rear tire which will help the bike rotate.  If I was better at it I'd trail brake into the apex in a pre-planned maneuver but I'm always learning and trying to improve and I'm far from being an expert.

On the MTB, I do actively push the inside bar down but nowhere like do on my road bike.  Take a slick tire bike on grippy pavement and play around with how far you can push the bike down, how fast you can go and how tight you can turn to get a good feeling.  It's pretty shocking.  For me, my problem on dirt is having broken my ankle from lack of traction, sliding out and trying to catch it rather than to have worn knee and elbow pads and just slide with it.  That fear is hard to get over.

The motorcycle road racers among us need to say something because if any one group of people have this down to a science it's them.

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17 hours ago, WLemke said:

Now that I think about it, I’m not really too sure where I’m putting my weight. I’m looking at a picture taken recently of me in a turn and it looks like my butt is over the rear but my upper body is leaned more towards the front. IDK. I’m not having traction issues so I guess I’ll not worry about it too much. 
 

not sure what’s up with my facial expression in the attached pic. Lol. 

C1611A17-79B8-4B5B-B7E5-286FD4F2687D.jpeg

That's how I look when I'm trying to squeeze out a fart on the trail 😆

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Weight over the front or back wheel all boils down to if you think you are Jeff Kendall-Weed or not. 😁

There's an old Ben Cathro video where he's coaching a guy to improve his time down a run and it has some good advice in it. Not just for cornering but that is one of the things they tackle. It's a bit long though. Here it is.

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8 hours ago, throet said:

That's how I look when I'm trying to squeeze out a fart on the trail 😆

  1. Can you squeeze one while seated and pedaling?
  2. Can you squeeze one pedaling and off the seat?
  3. Seated and no pedaling?
  4. Or do you have to be off the seat and not pedaling?

I was at #4 but have have trained myself to level #2. When you're riding and thinking of these things, it's a good place to be in b/c you're not worried about all the other mundane/troubling things in the world!

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4 hours ago, AntonioGG said:
  1. Can you squeeze one while seated and pedaling?
  2. Can you squeeze one pedaling and off the seat?
  3. Seated and no pedaling?
  4. Or do you have to be off the seat and not pedaling?

I was at #4 but have have trained myself to level #2. When you're riding and thinking of these things, it's a good place to be in b/c you're not worried about all the other mundane/troubling things in the world!

I think #4 for me. At my age, I have to have complete focus and control to prevent a possible shart. And that's no way to end a ride! 

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16 minutes ago, TheX said:

I still have issues NOT riding like I'm on the Ducati at COTA. Dragging knee hanging off the inside of the bike is bad.

At the BSS Research store, next to the service area, there's a digital photo frame.  In it is a picture of someone that works at BSS.  This picture shows him flat cornering on grass.  Not only is his knee basically on the grass, his handlebar was basically dragging.

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18 hours ago, AntonioGG said:
  1. Can you squeeze one while seated and pedaling?
  2. Can you squeeze one pedaling and off the seat?
  3. Seated and no pedaling?
  4. Or do you have to be off the seat and not pedaling?

I was at #4 but have have trained myself to level #2. When you're riding and thinking of these things, it's a good place to be in b/c you're not worried about all the other mundane/troubling things in the world!

Seated one cheek sneak🥴

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On 6/17/2020 at 6:47 PM, AntonioGG said:

Tires definitely make a difference.  For a long time I rode WTB Nano Raptors which is a great rolling XC tire but sucks on loose or loose over hardpack.  It goes down to the characteristics of the knobs and compound both in how much ultimate coefficient of static friction they have, and how much coefficient of kinetic friction they have (of course the surface is the ultimate decider).  The static is how long it is going to hold until it starts sliding.  The kinetic is how it's going to feel when it starts sliding, and whether it is ever going to regain traction again.  The WTB Nano Raptor had low static coeff. + the side knobs would tear off on rocky trails, and to top it off it had a horrible kinetic coefficient.  Take the coefficient and multiply by the normal force and that will give you the ultimate grip.  

So more weight on that tire means more cornering power.  If you try to brake and turn at the same time though, you compromise one, the other, or both.  http://formula1-dictionary.net/traction_circle.html

I seem to wear out my rear brake a lot faster than my front brake.  I think this is because I use it as an attitude adjustment if I'm going in a bit hot.  Tapping the rear brake transfers weight forward, and takes traction away from the rear tire which will help the bike rotate.  If I was better at it I'd trail brake into the apex in a pre-planned maneuver but I'm always learning and trying to improve and I'm far from being an expert.

On the MTB, I do actively push the inside bar down but nowhere like do on my road bike.  Take a slick tire bike on grippy pavement and play around with how far you can push the bike down, how fast you can go and how tight you can turn to get a good feeling.  It's pretty shocking.  For me, my problem on dirt is having broken my ankle from lack of traction, sliding out and trying to catch it rather than to have worn knee and elbow pads and just slide with it.  That fear is hard to get over.

The motorcycle road racers among us need to say something because if any one group of people have this down to a science it's them.

TLDR version. You want some weight on the front wheel to keep traction. Much better to lose rear traction than front while turning. So get that weight at minimum over the bottom bracket(center of gravity) or even better a bit forward.

I have some experience with motorcycle road racing and it's totally different from MTB so I'm not sure how much will translate except weighting the front wheel. You want traction on that front wheel so you don't want it light. It's much easier to lose grip on the front if all your weight is on the back and once that happens, you have little to zero steering control and you're most likely going to low side if it happens mid turn although the really good riders can ride it out. The rear wheel is different. It's perfectly fine to lose grip and slide the rear wheel as you can control it with throttle and steering(because your front end still has grip). In fact, if your rear wheel starts spinning and sliding, you want to keep on the gas to keep it spinning. Otherwise you have good chance to high side if you're out of sorts when it regains grip.

In a turn while road racing, you basically want to "kiss the inside mirror"(or where the mirror would be if your race bike had one). That means you are hanging off the bike to the inside of the turn and getting your weight forward. The goal of hanging off the bike is to change the center of gravity and keep the bike more vertical to increase the contact patch(and grip) of the tire. In short, you can take turns faster.  In my case, when I'm in tight turn on the track, my head is nearly over my inside handle bar and basically only my outside thigh is on the seat. I put my weight on the outside peg so I have more flexibility on the inside leg but I know guys that weight the inside peg as well so that seems to be personal preference.

This isn't my best form but you can see my body position is off the bike to the inside in a leaning forward position to keep the front wheel weighted for grip into the turn.

wTM8Tu6.jpg

Dirt bikes are completely different but I'm no expert there. I rode them as a kid but had no instruction or racing experience. However from what I remember they are more similar to MTB in that instead of hanging off the bike, you push the bike underneath you in turns to get the side knobbies gripping the dirt.

I struggle on the MTB still because I want to hang off to the inside in turns. I also nearly always clip my pedals on the ground because I'm so used to accelerating out of a turn once I've hit the apex. So I start pedaling at the apex and of course clip a pedal on the ground because I have the bike leaned underneath me. Old habits die hard.

In short, you want weight on the front to maintain grip and control.

 

Edited by quixoft
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On 6/18/2020 at 7:37 PM, TheX said:

I still have issues NOT riding like I'm on the Ducati at COTA. Dragging knee hanging off the inside of the bike is bad.

lol. Same. I smacked my shoulder on a tree on Peddlers Pass trying to hang off like I was at the race track. Old habits. I'm slowly getting there but I still have to think "push the bike underneath me".

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I never rode motorcycles (Son of a Dr., he used to say he'd buy me one if it came with a casket), but I always wanted to.  I love watching MotoGP.

Glad you mentioned the high-side quixoft.  I high-sided once at Walnut Creek on the BMX trail, rear wheel slid then caught on a root.  Probably one of my longest lingering injuries on the MTB.

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Got quite a bit of track time on MX, Supermoto and sport bikes and agree that sportbike cornering technique does not translate to MTB.  The weight the front and slide the rear of MX/supermoto (Pic) are better proxies minus the inside foot out part unless you're washing out.  High side crashes suck but I've got some nice hardware to show for it.

Mastering supermoto | MCN

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I've watched some supermoto racing on TV years ago.  It seemed like the rally cross equivalent for motorcycles.  One of my racing friends kept telling me I should get one of those bikes.

That's interesting.  I never thought about how putting the leg forward is actually transferring weight forward.  Pretty cool.  

Aren't the GP guys changing how they ride now?  I watched a MotoGP documentary a couple of years ago and it mentioned how the riding is changing, with them not riding under the bike on turns as much instead riding on the bike, and they pop their leg out some.  I think mainly the younger guys were doing this.  I watched so many motorsport documentaries that I don't remember which one talked about this.  Maybe the Casey Stoner or the Marc Marquez documentaries.

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3 hours ago, AntonioGG said:

I've watched some supermoto racing on TV years ago.  It seemed like the rally cross equivalent for motorcycles.  One of my racing friends kept telling me I should get one of those bikes.

That's interesting.  I never thought about how putting the leg forward is actually transferring weight forward.  Pretty cool.  

Aren't the GP guys changing how they ride now?  I watched a MotoGP documentary a couple of years ago and it mentioned how the riding is changing, with them not riding under the bike on turns as much instead riding on the bike, and they pop their leg out some.  I think mainly the younger guys were doing this.  I watched so many motorsport documentaries that I don't remember which one talked about this.  Maybe the Casey Stoner or the Marc Marquez documentaries.

It could have been Hitting the Apex but if I'm wrong and you have not seen it the documentary is definitely worth a watch.  

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10 hours ago, AntonioGG said:

I've watched some supermoto racing on TV years ago.  It seemed like the rally cross equivalent for motorcycles.  One of my racing friends kept telling me I should get one of those bikes.

That's interesting.  I never thought about how putting the leg forward is actually transferring weight forward.  Pretty cool.  

Aren't the GP guys changing how they ride now?  I watched a MotoGP documentary a couple of years ago and it mentioned how the riding is changing, with them not riding under the bike on turns as much instead riding on the bike, and they pop their leg out some.  I think mainly the younger guys were doing this.  I watched so many motorsport documentaries that I don't remember which one talked about this.  Maybe the Casey Stoner or the Marc Marquez documentaries.

The leg dangle has been a thing in MotoGP for many years now.  I believe Rossi (definitely not one of the younger guys) started it, and many of the top riders followed.  There has been a lot of discussion and speculation as to why they do it at the GP level with nobody ever really confirming why, but it has stuck.  In general body positioning in GP racing has changed a lot vs. decades ago, I think the inside body positioning has gotten a lot more significant to the point where the top riders like Marquez are now dragging elbows on the track.  It's funny seeing this topic come up here because I've often speculated that riding a sportbike is definitely not helping with my MTB cornering.  Seems I'm not alone.

Edited by pjs32000
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Over the past 6-8 yrs I've spent a good amount of time on an MX bike riding in the woods.  I've done some hare scrambles and enduros during that time.  By far the biggest adjustment I had was in weighting the INSIDE peg to turn the motorcycle (when standing).  After spending 20yrs on a bicycle this was completely foreign and awkward to me.  Very counterintuitive.  I run my brakes 'normal' on both my MX bike and MTB and I never get confused....but my first few minutes of riding my MX bike in the woods and I'm consciously having to readjust my weight transfer for my feet.

Cheers,
CJB

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On 6/25/2020 at 4:31 PM, quixoft said:

Dirt bikes are completely different but I'm no expert there. I rode them as a kid but had no instruction or racing experience. However from what I remember they are more similar to MTB in that instead of hanging off the bike, you push the bike underneath you in turns to get the side knobbies gripping the dirt.

Rode dirt bikes from 12 to 25 and I still want to do this on my MTB in turns: Hump the gas cap and swing the inside leg out. The Endura Race Cornering clinic was SO good in retraining my brain for MTB. 

image.png.73d3547301a7ac50b11e8b2242d2ce93.png

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