Cat Dailey said:"Don DeMair" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:"Cat Dailey" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:I went to a women's cycling clinic this weekend where we spent some time
doing cornering drills. Cornering has always been a weakness of mine
and
Quoted message said:no
Quoted message said:one has ever really "taught" me how to corner. I noticed that in
initiating
Quoted message said:the turn, I push down on my inside hand, which seems to tip the bike
into
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:the turn. When I asked the coach about this, he stated that pushing
down
Quoted message said:on
Quoted message said:the inside hand was "old school" turning and that he recommended pulling
up
Quoted message said:on the outside hand (outside leg is down and weighted in both styles).
I
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:tried his way, which felt really awkward and sort of naturally
gravitated
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:back to my "old school way". With the other pointers that he taught us,
my
Quoted message said:cornering improved dramatically and I felt really confident in the
turns.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:Later, another woman asked him about countersteering, which he said was
what
Quoted message said:I was doing by pushing down on my inside hand and that he could teach
her
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:about it later. So what is the right way to weight the bars, or not?
And
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:is there a consensus on a new, improved way to corner?
Cat
PS-I crossposted this to rbr
As usual, Sheldon Brown covers this topic. See countersteering here:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gloss_cn-z.html. No one needs to "learn"
countersteering as we all do it for all but very slow speed turns. It
comes
Quoted message said:so naturally (once we learned to ride a bike) that we don't consciously
realize that we're doing it. It is helpful, however, to understand it.
What we should be aware of is how to corner effectively and Sheldon covers
this too, here: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brakturn.html
I think one of the previous posters got it backwards, but don't take my
word
Quoted message said:for it, visit Sheldon's site.
Ride on, even if counter-steering is counter-intuitive,
Don
It doesn't seem counter-intuitive at all, in fact, it just happened that
way. What I was wondering was, is it right or wrong, or is there a newer,
better way like he implied? And I think the counter-steer article is
correct, you really are pushing forward, since your hands are in the drops.
I think the idea of a "newer better" way of cornering is pretty far
fetched. People have known everything practical there is to know about
balancing or cornering bikes for roughly 100 years. We have no new
physics, no new knowledge - we just have a (relatively) new Internet to
talk about the same old stuff.
While in a turn, you center of mass (body + bike) will have to be leaned
over at a certain angle. Depending on your speed and the radius of your
turn, there's only one possible angle. This is fundamental physics, and
nothing you can do will change that. Leaning the body more or less than
the bike does nothing practical and doesn't change cornering speed. (It
will put worse side loads on your wheels, though. Wheel side loads are
zero if your body stays in the plane of the bike.)
Countersteering is the fastest way to get into that necessary lean
angle. I wouldn't describe it as pushing _down_. Instead, it's
physically turning the handlebars - just for a moment - in a direction
opposite the way you're going to turn. It's a backwards _steering_ motion.
When you physically steer right, the bottom of your tires move right.
Your body's inertia makes your body go straight. The result is a
leftward lean. After steering right for about 0.2 seconds, you'll
automatically correct by steering left, but by this time you'll be
leaning left and turning left.
You can demonstrate this by balancing a broom, brushy side high, on your
hand. "Steer" your broom handle right (move your hand right). The
broom tips left. If you're coordinated enough, you can very quickly
follow the broom left. That's what a countersteered fast turn is like.
Countersteering and rapid turning is a good thing to practice
(carefully) in a big empty parking lot. It's good to know as an
emergency maneuver on the road, not only as a racing move.
--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]
