Hey, a smidge of Dr. Seuss-inspired thinking never hurt anybody. Moreover, while this article is dropping in May, I’m writing it during the holiday season, and I’m full steam ahead on a speed-train of hot cider and gingerbread treats, so loosen up. Now, where was I about the feet thing? The sugar coma is real.

Oh yes, your feet. Let’s kick it off with a question: When you ride your streetbike, do you ever give much thought to your feet? I don’t mean if they are cold, if they are comfortable, or if you think they look small when people, um, size you up. No, I mean do you use them to gain better control and comfort in slow-speed riding situations? Anyone?

No worries, have a gingerbread cookie and I’ll walk us through some footwork concepts while we initiate maximum carb-load protocol.

Now, if I’m known for one thing in police motorcycle competitions, it’s my extreme lean angles when I counterbalance. A close second is my ability to rapidly transition the motorcycle from one direction to the other. And while there are several techniques at play to make those things happen, a major contributing factor is how I use my feet.

No, I don’t expect you to sign up for any police motor competitions, but developing your footwork will provide you with a higher level of ability and control in street situations.

As discussed in last month’s column (“Which Way Do You Lean?”), when executing slow-speed turns, we benefit from counterbalancing, which “counters” the motorcycle’s weight as it leans over by simultaneously shifting our weight in the opposite direction of the motorcycle. But there are two fundamental challenges riders have with this technique: 1) they don’t counterbalance nearly enough, causing the motorcycle to fall in faster than they wanted yet not as far as would allow for a tight turning radius, and 2) they struggle getting the motorcycle out of the lean once they accomplish the turn they initiated. Not great. But dammit, these cookies sure are, right?

Here’s where my feet come in to save the day. When it’s time to initiate a tight turn and lean my motorcycle over, I use my inside foot to push down on the peg. This not only helps push the motorcycle over, but simultaneously generates a stable platform from which I can push myself into a greater counterbalance position. Imagine we are turning a tight right-hand U-turn. We start to lean the motorcycle over, and the inside peg, along with the seat and bars, are all falling over, causing us to feel as if we are going down with the ship. In other words, everything we are connected to is falling over all at once. But if we use our inside foot to press against the peg as it falls over, we generate force that stabilizes us in the counterbalance position and more easily leans the bike over.

One final benefit to employing our feet is for the exact opposite reason I’ve mentioned already, namely to pick up the bike once we complete the turn. How? By adding force to the outside peg at the right moment. Three more cookies and I’ll land the plane, I promise.

Weighting the outside peg is useful in two important ways. First, by generating force in the opposite direction of the lean via shifting pressure onto the outside peg, I’m helping the motorcycle stand back up. And second, I’m taking my bodyweight away from the overall mass that needs to be picked back up, which further helps get my heavy bike upright and moving in a new direction.

Here’s what this looks like. Say I’m dropped over in a slow, tight U-turn and I am now turned around and want to pull out of the lean. At that moment, I keep my body counterbalanced but concentrate my mass so that when I add pressure to the outside peg, I help lift the bike back up yet avoid “pushing” my bodyweight to the inside of the bike. Think of this technique in the same way as getting out of a car: You step one leg out, but before you add pressure, you ensure your weight is over the foot so you don’t simply fall back inside the car when you add force, then you press yourself up and out.

With your motorcycle leaned over, you place your weight over the outside peg and then press, causing both your leg force and lack of body mass to work together to upright the bike. And just like the car example, if you press without getting your weight over the peg first, you will push your body in the direction the motorcycle is already leaned over (causing you to “fall back into the car”), which will only make it harder to stand the bike back up. Do you need another cookie, or are we clear up to this point?

To get a feel for this, we’ll work some figure-8s to practice both the drop-in and pick-up components of the technique. With your bike in 1st gear, start riding a moderate-sized figure-8 pattern. You don’t need to slip the clutch here, just execute the pattern while staying smooth and relaxed. What you are looking for is awareness of what your feet are doing (or not doing) as you turn within the pattern. Let’s focus on your inside foot first, adding pressure on the peg to gain stability, help the bike lean over, and increase counterbalance range of motion.

Once you can employ the inside foot efficiently and confidently, isolate the outside foot. Concentrate on a stable, balanced push on the peg, making sure that the push doesn’t shift your weight toward the direction of the lean. Remember, you are helping the bike pick itself up here, so shifting your weight to the inside with a bad push only hinders this goal. Once you master it, put it all together.

This technique works just fine whether you have footpegs or footboards. Yes, footboards are farther forward, and you will need to rework your foot placement, but where there’s a will there’s a way. To see this lesson in action, go to Police Motor Training with Quinn Redeker on YouTube and look for “Foot Technique For Better Riding.”

Find Quinn at Police Motor Training.

See all Motor School with Quinn Redeker articles here.

The post Motor School with Quinn Redeker: Left Foot, Right Foot, Heavy Foot, Light Foot appeared first on Rider Magazine.

Source: RiderMagazine.com

I think it’s fair to say there are a few subjects we should all steer clear of if we want to foster a harmonious relationship with other humans. Politics and religion are obvious land mines. And my wife knows that recommending a culling of the herd in the garage isn’t a party‑starter. But it appears I’ve discovered a ripe one you might also have some feelings about. And knowing how domineering and strong‑willed you are, when the dust settles, I really hope we can still be friends. Okay, here goes nothing.

There exists a feverish debate amongst motorcyclists regarding two uniquely different approaches to riding. Of course, there are more than two, but these revolve around the rider’s center of balance (center line) in relation to the motorcycle’s center of balance while navigating turns. Yep, a global hot button, this one. But please don’t ask for the Gold Codes just yet.

When a motorcycle starts to lean over and fall into a turn, its center of gravity shifts inward, causing it to head toward the ground (just go with me here; it’s science). When this happens, we have a couple options. One, we can counterbalance, a technique that shifts our center of gravity to the outside of the bike’s center of gravity, effectively countering the effects of the motorcycle’s weight transfer as it falls in. Two, we can lean our body into the curve, shifting our center of gravity to the inside of the motorcycle’s center of gravity as it falls in, effectivelytrading the motorcycle’s weight with our own as the bike leans over. This on‑road technique applies to paved corners with a good surface.

Hmmm, what to do. Flip a coin? Call a friend? Ask “what would Fonzie do?” Solid options, no doubt.

But before we rush over to Arnold’s and pull Fonzie away from the Polaski twins, I’ll kick off the group share and give you my two cents on the topic. When I do police motor competitions on my BMW R 1250 RT‑P, I employ as many tricks as my tiny brain can remember to execute tight maneuvers in confined spaces. These events are 1st‑gear scenarios, and the speeds drop as low as 5 mph, triggering the bike’s mass to fall like a 650‑lb paperweight. In other words, the bike’s weight is compounded by the fact that the gyroscopic forces and inertia are greatly reduced at slower speeds, while nature’s gravity amp is cranked up to 11. Deep science, yes, but an important thing to keep in mind because it’s a major contributing factor for why we throw our feet down, break into a cold sweat, or abandon ship altogether when speed slows down and our bike leans over. 

These days I do my best to mitigate unplanned and unsettling weight shifts, so I rely on counterbalancing when I slow to walking speeds. By offsetting the bike’s lean‑in mass with counterbalancing, my big Beemer falls over slower, falls over farther, and turns a much tighter radius. All big wins. Yes, clutch control and throttle input are players in my process, but counterbalancing does most of the heavy lifting.

Sounds like we solved the riddle then, and we should counterbalance the bike whenever it leans over? Absolutely, yes. Well, unless your motorcycle has more gears in the transmission than 1st. Let me explain why and how my strategy changes when I click through the gears. 

As an Advanced Riding Clinic instructor for Total Control, I co‑teach clinics where we take students on‑track and put them through advanced concepts and techniques to help manage speed situations on the street. A major challenge we face as riders (and help mitigate as instructors) are speed situations in corners. You know that as speed increases, your motorcycle requires a greater lean angle for whatever radius you are navigating. This can be problematic if you don’t have techniques and a plan to deal with it.

Let’s imagine Future You: It’s a magical Monday, and you’re having a “personal medical issue,” so work is a no‑go. Precisely 27 minutes later, you are fully kitted up, and that pesky walking pneumonia has miraculously vanished as you drop into a long right‑hander. At that precise moment, ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” pours into your helmet speakers, and because this is your jam, mid‑corner speeds unwittingly climb. Suddenly, and without warning, your bike begins shedding unwanted poundage by grinding hard parts along the pavement as your line widens and pushes you toward the double yellows. Not great.

Future You will do one of three things here: 1) Panic and grab the brakes mid‑corner, causing abrupt weight transfer that will stand your bike up and aim it toward the portion of the roadway you are trying to avoid; 2) Eventually drag parts so much that you lever the tires off the ground and initiate a low‑side crash; or 3) Move your body’s center line to the inside of the motorcycle’s center line (leaning in), effectively trading the bike’s mass for your mass, causing the bike to reduce its lean angle, tighten its line, and maintain its speed. Leaning in doesn’t necessitate high speeds or excessive hanging off, but rather positioning oneself toward the inside of the curve for cornering. Let’s go with option 3 on this one.

Let me land the plane here. When you find yourself in 1st‑gear situations, it’s all about counterbalancing, but as soon as the speeds pick up and you click 2nd gear and beyond, shift your body’s center line to the inside of the motorcycle’s center line. If you want a live‑action example, go to my YouTube channel (Police Motor Training with Quinn Redeker) and find the video titled: “Motorcycle Technique: Counterbalance vs Lean (Road Race Style).” It provides a clear visual demonstration and explanation as to why and where I use one style over the other.

Fantastic. You’ve said nothing this whole time, so either we are in total agreement on this or I’ve offended you somewhere along the way. In either case, maybe this will build a bridge of sorts:

“We seldom learn much from someone with whom we agree.” – Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Find Quinn at Police Motor Training.

See all Motor School with Quinn Redeker articles here.

The post Motor School with Quinn Redeker: Which Way Do You Lean? appeared first on Rider Magazine.

Source: RiderMagazine.com

People ask me if I miss being a motor cop. Let’s unpack that. Do I miss washing off petrol and sunscreen at the end of every shift? Do I miss roadside debates about how “everybody was speeding”? Do I miss the tragedy of consoling parents at a fatal accident in the middle of the night? A hard “no” to all of those.

But what I do find myself missing these days is the incessant verbal abuse our motor unit dished out to each other at every opportunity. It didn’t matter how serious or important the moment; if you screwed up, however slight, you were doomed to receive ongoing mistreatment until the next guy came up short.

And there was no better place to experience the hazing than on the grinder where we trained slow‑­speed skills every month on our motors. What should have been a place of learning, exploring, and honing of one’s skills was instead a schoolyard of insults, jabs, and finger‑­pointing. Simply put, if your bike hit the ground, standby to standby, buddy, your ticket got punched.

Luckily, my bike rarely hit the deck on training days, because I was skilled with my clutch. Don’t get me wrong, my colleagues found ample opportunities to pound me into submission, but sloppy clutch work never made it on the menu.

Now I can’t speak for your sewing circle, but I’d venture to guess you all give each other a pretty rough time on the regular. And just imagine how cool it would be if you had the tools to pull a proverbial rabbit out of your hat every time the speeds slowed down, like for U‑­turns, heavy traffic, and parking lots. Well, I have a few simple training tools that will have you laughing, jabbing, and finger‑­pointing far more than you typically get to do when riding with your crew.

Before we jump into the actual exercises, we need to rewire our brains a bit and start seeing the clutch (not the throttle) as the control that makes the bike go. In other words, when we’re in slow‑­speed environments, we want to have a “set it and forget it” mindset with the throttle and think of the clutch as the primary “gatekeeper” that supplies power to the rear wheel. There are two reasons for this: First, this consolidates two physical tasks of manipulating the controls into one: modulating the clutch. Second, we will have far better mental focus on that singular task, which will improve our sensitivity, dexterity, and control.

Motor School Clutch Control Exercise 1: Driveway Drill

With your engine running at around 1,500‑­2,000 rpm, your bike in 1st gear, and both feet on the ground, position your front wheel at the base of a gently sloped incline on a driveway entrance (or similar). You want a short incline that allows the bike to roll back down on its own when you pull in the clutch at the top. (see photo at the top of the article) Next, smoothly, slowly, and calmly begin to meter the clutch out, adding just enough power to the rear wheel to allow you to slowly “walk” the bike up the incline. Remember, leave the throttle alone here and only work the clutch. Once you are at the top, gently pull the clutch in (don’t fully disengage it) just enough to pull power from the driveline so the bike starts to roll back down to our starting point. Rinse and repeat until you can hold a casual conversation with your neighbor as you roll up and back down the incline without thinking about it. And no wise cracks just yet, Nancy, you’re only just getting started.

Motor School Clutch Control Exercise 2: 2×4 Drill

Place a length of 2×4 lumber down on the ground perpendicular to and touching your front tire. Now apply all the same instructions you learned above, and smoothly and slowly “walk” the bike over the board from a complete stop. Continue until the bike is resting with the 2×4 directly in front of the back tire and do it all again. It sounds easy, but there are a couple of rules here: First, you start from a complete stop, so once you “set and forget” your throttle, you can’t manipulate it to prevent stalling or to change the amount of power transferred to the driveline to help get you over the board. Second, when you ride over the 2×4, you don’t pass go if you “shoot” it out from under the rear tire. That’s to say that the 2×4 must stay in place as you ride over. People often struggle to keep the 2×4 in place because they tend to let the clutch out too quickly, sending too much power to the rear tire as it rolls onto and over the board.

The good news? You got it right on your first try. The bad? I’m only referring to you successfully buckling that helmet. Set it up and do it again while I make some calls to confirm you have a real motorcycle license.

Motor School Clutch Control Exercise 3: Incline Drill

Find an incline, such as a hill, a long driveway, or an abandoned loading ramp. Nothing too steep but something that generates decent rolling resistance. Next, stage yourself for lift off by facing up the incline. Once you’ve set your engine speed, smoothly, slowly take off and put your feet on the pegs. Go as slow as possible, using only your clutch to control your momentum. Once you’ve made it 15 feet or so, pull in the clutch and put your feet down. Here’s the rule: Don’t use your brakes to rest on the incline, instead engage only the clutch, and in the amount necessary to hold you in place on the incline as you reset. When you’re ready, do it again, moving slowly toward the top. A word of caution: Don’t fry your clutch with high revs. If the clutch is getting warm or the engine is getting hot, take an easy lap around the block before getting back to work on these drills.

Well, color me amazed. Just wait till your friends see how much better you control your bike when the speeds ratchet down. Now don’t quote me, but if you get your mind right and really work these drills, I’m confident we can finally hack those training wheels off, slap some Girl Scout patches on your leathers, and have you going freeway speeds in no time!

Find Quinn at Police Motor Training. Send feedback to [email protected].

See all Motor School with Quinn Redeker articles here.

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