There is already a controversial and somewhat toxic thread about this. Most people were saying that I’m wrong.
My experience and knowledge, from riding both bikes and and motorcycles, is that different techniques are applied on high friction surfaces where you don’t slide (tarmac) and low friction surfaces where you slide (gravel/dirt).
On loose surfaces, you need to keep the center of gravity (COG) centered, so that you can quickly move your body and manipulate COG when sliding, or you’re falling off.
On tarmac where there’s no sliding, you move your COG to the inside by hanging off to turn the bike more for any given lean angle. When you’re at max lean angle, you can only steer more by slowing down or moving COG inwards. If you’re at max lean angle and lean your body outwards, you’re falling off.
Some supermoto racers use both since they’re often sliding on tarmac.
Look at professional motorcycle riders, dirt and tarmac, explain this while riding on the limit. Everything is applicable to bicycles. The difference in real life is that most bicycle riders are so slow in corners that any technique works, however poor. The people telling me I’m wrong belong to this category.
Also, while researching this topic, look up “trail braking” for tarmac riding. This technique is not applicable on loose surface.
Peg/pedal weighting is a good queue for manipulating COG and securing stability so that you don’t have to grip the bars with tight and stiff arms.
Motorcycle riding is infinitely more complicated than bicycle riding so all things explained in this video aren’t applicable, but the part on body position and COG is.
With this knowledge many accidents can be saved, by riding faster AND safer (!). And I’m not open for discussion since the last thread so don’t bother.
+1 - My riding style when motorcycling changes in exactly in this way when I go from riding on pavement to riding on dirt, and I do the same thing when switching from road cycling to MTB. The reason I do the bike/body separation when riding on dirt is because when I do that, if I start to slide, I can use body english to bring the bike more upright, re-establish traction, and save myself from my own stupidity (I have no idea why this works, by the way). I also do this on my road bike when I think things might be sketchy, but it is hard to do without a dropper post, so I can only do it to a much lesser degree.
You’re mostly correct IMO… except trail braking ABSOLUTELY can be used off road, at the higher levels when traction is being manipulated constantly it’s a must.
Thanks for pointing that out. That kind of off-road riding on a motorycle is beyond my level. Surviving on gravel on my big adventure motorcycle (Suzuki V-Strom 1000) is where my limit is. But sure, even during everyday riding, especially downhill, I might drag rear brake into corners or even some light front brake.
If you got any good videos to share, please do. I like the MOTOTREK videos on Youtube for off-road techniques.
Also, thanks for confirming my post. Judging from your profile picture, you seem to know what you’re doing (or you’d be dead).
Here’s a simple video showing trail breaking with The rear in order to back it in, then adding the throttle to continue that spin and get direction. My friend Aaron runs the school, and coincidentally has some Motorcycling, and cycling championships and even a season in Europe under his belt. He still coaches both motorcycle racing and bicycle racing.
This is on an oval or flat track but the same as applied and other courses as well – where the front brake is also employed
Bicycle: So is the bike rider leaning more than the bike or is the bike leaning more than the rider? It looks like the bike is leaning more but I’m not sure??
On motorcycle at high speed the rider gets weight inside and the bike stays more upright then at low speed parking lot turns, I lean the motorcycle over and I stay more upright.
I don’t think it has anything to do with the tyres or grip. Rather it regards cornering speed, the radius of the curve and its duration. In both cases the initial lean it triggered by the use of the handle bars to shift the centre of gravity, pressing down on the left leans the bike to the left (even though the front then points right – counter steering). On a road bike you then need to hold that lean for a longer faster turn, you still need an aero position; whereas on MTB, the corners are often much tighter, shorter, slower, often switching back in the other direction. The road bike bars and hence body position over the drops are designed to keep you in that aero position. Once in the turn the pedal position is for safety, ie level on MTB, eg, berm banking you need pedal clearance for both, and your body out of the way for say a tree you are rounding; whereas for road you want the inner pedal high. In reality the actual tyre contact point on MTB trails isn’t ‘flat’, nearly always sloped, unless you are on a say a fire trail. Additionally, on MTB you are often off the saddle, stood on the pedals, using much body movement for slight course correction.
Didn’t see this mentioned and it’s not a big deal when descending but I was taught in crits how to keep the bike high so I could pedal through corners without pedal strike. Could be a bit of a hang over from that maybe?
One thing to keep in mind whenever discussing motorcycle vs bicycle technique is they have to be different due to (among other factors) the big difference in weight. A motorcycle is far heavier than a rider, so your body position is just biasing the center of gravity of the bike & rider combo, not completely changing it. You weigh much more than your bicycle, so your CoG is much more important.
Also suspension compression and extension have to be considered. All racing motorcycles have front and rear suspension, with cornering forces affecting that suspension. Road bicycles have no suspension, but most MTB do.
You don’t have to find the limits of traction to improve - which is what most of us are after.
I’m a much better descender on MTB having gotten lots of practice over the past 3-4 years. In that time, I’ve had only one high speed crash, and that was due to inattention more than anything else.
Same on road and gravel - I’ve gotten better, without any crashes. Like anything, practice is so much better than reading the theory of how to corner.
You can improve, but what if you’re already that clost the to limit? If you want to test the theories and go as fast as possible, you need to go past that point, you need to find maximum lean, maximum hang or maximum bike/body separation.
Fine if that’s not what you’re looking for but we’re discussing the theories above and the only way to really test them is to bin it
with regards to moto gp style cornering, the last time it came up this topic really intrigued me. While researching I found this video of Rafael Da Silva, a former motorcycle pro apparently, on a fast descent. I couldn’t come to any conclusions on incorporating this style of riding (so have just opted to go slower) but I think its a good point of reference for those looking into it.
Agreed. Motorcycles are always mentioned in these types of threads and it just complicates things. Theres enough differences between the two for it to limit usefulness of these examples.
If you want to study the correct road bike riding position, just look at other people riding road bikes…
For both MTB and road your hips should be outside the seat and turned toward the exit of the turn.
On the road you will be much closer to on top of your saddle though and only turned a little bit.
On an MTB your hips will be much further off the saddle and will be turned at a greater angle.
