Motorcycles Today Our system for sensing movement and balance has three components: visual, muscle/ joint position and an inner-ear mechanism called the vestibular system. All three are used to sense and respond to changes in our orientation to earth and things in our environment.
Among its potentials, this three-part system allows us to track both moving objects and our own movements in relation to stationary ones with accuracy. It's like an organic accelerometer that allows for the visual tracking of objects. We would be unable to ride or walk or coordinate our movements very well if it didn't operate like that. We'd look like birds that, without this system, must move their heads in quick, jerky motions to gain accurate references to coordinate their motion through space.
With our internal guidance, tracking and coordination systems in mind, consider one of every sport rider's dilemmas: lean angle. What is the average rider's sense of it? Where, on a
k1200 backrest scale of confidence from 1 to 10, would he place himself in relation to using all available lean angle?
Since we can't ride around looking down to see how close our bikes' hard parts are to the ground, our heroes of the past have come up with an alternate and helpful adjunct to
k1200gt backrest assist: dragging our knees. That action gives us a fourth layer of data gathering. Without it, many of us are "blind" when it comes to lean angle. At track days, riders look at photos of themselves with great interest, trying to get a sense of how far over they are--the farther, the better, of course!
What it feels like compared to what the
World-class MotoGP racers such as Ben Spies so much time at extreme lean angles that the ably don't think much about dragging their kn But they're always out there, skimming the cc
photos show is often quite sobering. Despite our great system of balance ar orientation, we suffer from a lack of hat data while riding. Even if we could ride heads-up displays across our helmet vi showing how far over we're leaning, chz are it would still feel scary and weird to over farther.
Thirteen years ago, when I discovere my Lean-and-Slide training bike complel bypassed any fear of leaning, I was at c both delighted and terrified. Riders jum on the bike, apparently abandoning any Without a thought they took it to 45-plu degrees of lean, half again farther than of them had ever been before. Trust in 1 bike's outriggers was implicit.
Back on track on a normal bike, they showed marked but incomplete improve ment. Off the practice pad, they were si shy of leaning over "all the way."
Truth is, no one wants to be at max I for very long, or very often. Understand those limits helps.
Those limits include tires, but they're of a problem these days; modern premi rubber displays excellent grip at extrem lean angles. The problem remains the as before: cornering clearance and reds suspension compliance with every degr lean we add.
For riders, it's a point of confidence. you know where you are in the lean-ang game, you have an idea of how much sl lean you may or may not be able to add any given corner.
Although lean is not an absolute gau of traction, it does provide the rider witr indicator of what chances he may be at to take.
For riders coming up, who don't have mous confidence in traction, the knee € offers more information to reckon with. riders gain a consistent feel for knee cc tact, and are not experiencing any side-problems, that indicator alone announc that they've still got some lean and grin reserve. The knee is a reliable gauge o' once you get its "telemetry" wired to yc other senses.