Turning at high speed on track

Oh I get that. But keeping your knee against the tank without the leverage your foot against the peg affords just seems strange. Thanks for responding though!

 

Happy to have made a bit of a talking point here, seems you guys have mastered turning without even thinking about it too much...

I did a coaching day with BSB rider Christian Iddon and it was him that told me when turning have 100% of your body weight on the inside peg, in my head that meant I was to use the inside footpeg as a kind of pivot, well that worked great while I had my gsxr 750 but as soon as I got my R6 this way of turning seemed to be impossible.

Also on my gsxr I used to hook my arm into the curve on the tank, and on my 675 as well actually and that allowed me to drop my head and elbow, the R6 tank will not allow me to hook my arm in I think because the seat is too high and the pivot off inside pegs will also not work.

What I'm taking off you guys is dig my boot into outside peg and outside knee into tank, brake and countersteer into apex, moment before apex release brake and drop head and elbow into apex while anchoring outside foot and knee, find exit point and back on the gas smoothly.

I'm on Portimao Friday and it has some fast long corners and plenty of space for me to make some errors, this gives me some things to try and work on, I believe riding an R6 is all about corner speed and corner speed is something I just haven't mastered yet.....

Cheers for the replies

 

Because you are Using Your Core to control the leverage.. Core is Key.

 

100%

 

Were you able to stay light on the bars while hooking your outside arm? I was working on getting my head lower and an instructor asked me “have you tried just straightening your outside arm a little?” It worked! Hopefully this thread keeps going.

 

I think hooking my arm in the tank did take the weight off the bars, I think you have a very good point there though, I think I'm holding onto the bars for my life and making everything too
Rigid and stiff, hence why I also get very tired like I'm sprinting a marathon....

 

Where are you looking? We know the bike "goes where you look", one of my tricks when I find myself wide of apexes is to look at the grass or concrete or whatever is INSIDE the actual apex were you want your bike's wheels to be. Helps tighten it up. Just don't forget to look UP once you're on the right trajectory so you can get on the gas!

 

Keeping your inside arm stiff is a great way to miss apexes. If you can’t flap it around when your knee is on the ground, you are too stiff.

But even then, the brake will have a much larger effect on your line and corner speed. Rushing a corner, ie trying to brake deep for little reason, is a great way to blow apexes and kill corner speed. An easy way to up corner speed and have better control over apex location is to brake sooner and lighter. This helps you freak out less and be less stiff. You’ll have more control. And lighter can help you up the corner speed. Once you master this, then you can try braking deeper.

 

Yes! Learned braking sooner and lighter from Ken Hill. Takes the stress out of hard braking corners.

 

I know what the OP was getting at, as I had an issue fighting the gyroscopic effect of the bike with the high-speed left hand bend following the Bend going into Canada Corner (T 12) at Road America. The bike would constantly push wide. Outer knee into the tank, counter-steering.....seemed to help, but once and awhile it made for a butt puckering experience and it just wanted to push wide. Now, that being said, I was never set up on a tuned cycle. Just my road to track day converted Ducatis (748/749). I can't recall if I had the same issue when I rode G97's issued R1 or my subsequent Triumph 675. But I know it was an issue on my Ducatis. I do recall riding G97's R1 and loving every second of it, feeling that was the kind of bike I should have been on.

 

try drag racing

 

Setup is so important at the track, and more-so the faster you get. Often, the best solution to a bad setup is to go slower. For a truly bad setup thats well out of range, slower is likely the only solution. And this may be part of what the OP is dealing with.

My first day on an R6, I rode 2 sessions with the stock geometry. I already had the bike properly sprung and damped, but I wanted to feel the difference between stock and race setups. After those 2 sessions, I moved the forks 10mm taller and practically rode off the inside of every corner. The bike did everything better. And it would be silly to even think of racing on the stock geometry. The forks looked stupid sitting 5mm below the top triple, but there were fixes for that too.

 

Okay I've now completed my 3 days at portimao, my cornering issues are with 2nd gear corners, I go wide ever time and it then makes me cock up the next section of the track, I'll need a coach to get this sorted I think now, it's went on for a couple of years now and it's especially highlighted when I'm at the bigger faster tracks....

 

I'm not qualified to give anyone riding advice, but here is what I've noticed with my own riding, and has been helped with some coaching.

When I was running wide on exit corners it was because of not using my eyes properly and being too heavy on the bars (even though I was hanging off.

I wasn't transitioning my eyes to my next marker at the right time and that was causing me to go where my eyes were still looking...wide.

Partly because the bike wasnt going where I wanted it to, and partly from bad execution of body position, I was too stiff on the bars which wasnt letting the bike turn. A better lock in to the tank and a bigger focus on using my core allowed me to have my arms loose. This let the bars move freely and allowed the bike to lean where it wanted to, thus turning better.

Now... my degree of application is miles away from actual fast guys, but when I execute these 2 things better I dont find myself running wide on exit corners...granted I also didnt FUBAR my entry.

 

I generally keep my outside foot on the heel and my inside foot in the toe, keep your hand steadily increasing the throttle while lightly stepping in the rear brake to keep you pointed inward while theottling out. Counter steering on the hands. Light grip. I step on the outside peg with my weight to keep the spin from sending me to the moon while full throttle still hanging way off the bike. This of course varies with track/turn

 

Yeah I forgot to reiterate what others ha e said. Work out your core and keep your outside knee dug into the tank

 

Have you tried a later apex? Often times this can fix the problem temporarily. You may then find you don't need setup changes at all. Try apexing with the rear wheel- effectively moving your apex 3-4 feet later and see if that solves your exit problems.

 

I have footage from my cam mounted on the tail which shows quite a lot, from what I can see it doesn't really look like my outside leg is even locked into the tank, I'll. Get it loaded up and see what if you can see where I'm going wrong.

 

If this is true, then it's a bike setup issue...