The biggest part of the suspension that has the most profound effect on the way the motorcycle handles and behaves is not your forks, or your shock...it is the RIDER.
A 200lb pendulum at the top of a moving motorcycle can make a massive difference in the way a motorcycle performs. As proficient riders it is our job to make sure that we are doing all that we can to give the bike what it needs (or to not screw up what it needs), when it needs it. At the very basic level this starts with how we are perched on our bikes.
Now, street riders happily sit on their cushy seats and put ~80-90% of their body weight there which is perfectly fine. It does not cause any issues because we are using less than 10% of what the motorcycle is capable of when riding normally on the street.
Track riding is a bit different. One of my biggest pet peeves when discussing the sport with non-racers is their understanding of what is involved. I try to explain how physically demanding it is and they all look at me with that 'yeah, right' look. 'Don't you just sit on the seat?'
Not by a long shot, but I digress.
A rider should always have 3 points of contact to bear weight on a motorcycle: Left Peg, Right Peg, and Seat. We also have contact with the grips and our knees in the tank but they are not for weight distribution so they do not concern us for this discussion.
Let's say that a track rider/racer is enjoying one of those rare moments when they are able to sit mostly on the seat. Long straights are about the only opportunity for this and as a racer of, ahem, advanced years I take every opportunity to relax my legs and let that lactic acid out of my muscles. This pushes off fatigue and allows a rider to go further.
Behold my awesome MSPaint skills!
When the rider is centered it is ok to carry the bulk of your weight in the seat but not 100% of it. You still need to maintain some weight on both of your pegs as this allows you to receive feedback which is critical. I would guess that I place about 80% of my weight on my seat and 10% on each leg. This is pretty basic and is simple common sense.
The fun part is when we are cornering. The idea is to get our center mass (center of gravity) as low as possible. This allows the motorcycle to handle better while simultaneously offering us more traction by reducing the lean angle necessary to navigate the corner. We all see people hanging off of motorcycles which is great but if they are carrying the bulk of the weight on their seat they are vastly diminishing the effect of getting off of the seat in the first place. Hanging off the bike is a discussion for another time but we ARE concerned with how to weight the bike while doing it.
Ideally I try to carry as much weight as I can in my feet while just allowing my butt to glide on the seat. This keeps me in contact with the bike and allows me to receive feedback but it serves to lower my center of gravity significantly by carrying the bulk of my weight on the pegs. A rough guess would be 20% on the seat and 40% on each peg.
It is very easy to carry weight on the seat and on the inside peg. The magic happens on the outside leg. How does a rider carry significant weight there? By forcing your outside knee into the tank.
The motion is very much like trying to stand on your tip-toes. With the ball of your outside foot on the peg, use your calf muscle to try to point your foot. This will force your knee into the tank, essentially wedging your leg into a solid position between the tank and peg. Once this is done you can then transfer weight to your outside leg easily.
In the above picture my foot is in my normal riding position.
In this next photo you can see that I have raised my heel (standing on tip-toes) and it forces my knee into the curve of the tank. This is how I support my weight with my outside leg.
By locking in my outside leg like shown above it allows me to evenly distribute my weight into my pegs, effectively lowering my center of gravity.
BONUS! Want to greatly reduce the chance of lowsiding on corner exit?
There are many ways to say this but I will use the phrase we quote at the Penguin Racing School - "Gas on, bike up". What this means is that the moment that you start to feed gas back on after a turn, you also need to start standing up the motorcycle. This gets the rear tire off of the edge and into the 'meat' where you have a lot more available grip. The aliens of the racing world do this as an unconscious event but there are a few clips of it here.
Right in the beginning of the clip you can see Dani Pedrosa (26) as he exits the corner. Note that as soon as you see his right hand move on the throttle he also allows the bike to stand up a bit. It isn't much, maybe 3-4 degrees but it is enough to get it out of the danger zone so that he can safely accelerate.
I accomplish this by pressing down with my outside foot. Literally transferring more weight to the outside peg without changing my body position at all. That last part is key. My body stays exactly where it was relative to the ground and I allow the bike to stand up a bit underneath me.
Try something like this:
Hopefully this will get you thinking about the simplest thing that perhaps we take for granted? We could be leaving a lot of available grip on the table simply by changing how we sit on the motorcycle...
A 200lb pendulum at the top of a moving motorcycle can make a massive difference in the way a motorcycle performs. As proficient riders it is our job to make sure that we are doing all that we can to give the bike what it needs (or to not screw up what it needs), when it needs it. At the very basic level this starts with how we are perched on our bikes.
Now, street riders happily sit on their cushy seats and put ~80-90% of their body weight there which is perfectly fine. It does not cause any issues because we are using less than 10% of what the motorcycle is capable of when riding normally on the street.
Track riding is a bit different. One of my biggest pet peeves when discussing the sport with non-racers is their understanding of what is involved. I try to explain how physically demanding it is and they all look at me with that 'yeah, right' look. 'Don't you just sit on the seat?'
Not by a long shot, but I digress.
A rider should always have 3 points of contact to bear weight on a motorcycle: Left Peg, Right Peg, and Seat. We also have contact with the grips and our knees in the tank but they are not for weight distribution so they do not concern us for this discussion.
Let's say that a track rider/racer is enjoying one of those rare moments when they are able to sit mostly on the seat. Long straights are about the only opportunity for this and as a racer of, ahem, advanced years I take every opportunity to relax my legs and let that lactic acid out of my muscles. This pushes off fatigue and allows a rider to go further.
Behold my awesome MSPaint skills!
When the rider is centered it is ok to carry the bulk of your weight in the seat but not 100% of it. You still need to maintain some weight on both of your pegs as this allows you to receive feedback which is critical. I would guess that I place about 80% of my weight on my seat and 10% on each leg. This is pretty basic and is simple common sense.
The fun part is when we are cornering. The idea is to get our center mass (center of gravity) as low as possible. This allows the motorcycle to handle better while simultaneously offering us more traction by reducing the lean angle necessary to navigate the corner. We all see people hanging off of motorcycles which is great but if they are carrying the bulk of the weight on their seat they are vastly diminishing the effect of getting off of the seat in the first place. Hanging off the bike is a discussion for another time but we ARE concerned with how to weight the bike while doing it.
Ideally I try to carry as much weight as I can in my feet while just allowing my butt to glide on the seat. This keeps me in contact with the bike and allows me to receive feedback but it serves to lower my center of gravity significantly by carrying the bulk of my weight on the pegs. A rough guess would be 20% on the seat and 40% on each peg.
It is very easy to carry weight on the seat and on the inside peg. The magic happens on the outside leg. How does a rider carry significant weight there? By forcing your outside knee into the tank.
The motion is very much like trying to stand on your tip-toes. With the ball of your outside foot on the peg, use your calf muscle to try to point your foot. This will force your knee into the tank, essentially wedging your leg into a solid position between the tank and peg. Once this is done you can then transfer weight to your outside leg easily.
In the above picture my foot is in my normal riding position.
In this next photo you can see that I have raised my heel (standing on tip-toes) and it forces my knee into the curve of the tank. This is how I support my weight with my outside leg.
By locking in my outside leg like shown above it allows me to evenly distribute my weight into my pegs, effectively lowering my center of gravity.
BONUS! Want to greatly reduce the chance of lowsiding on corner exit?
There are many ways to say this but I will use the phrase we quote at the Penguin Racing School - "Gas on, bike up". What this means is that the moment that you start to feed gas back on after a turn, you also need to start standing up the motorcycle. This gets the rear tire off of the edge and into the 'meat' where you have a lot more available grip. The aliens of the racing world do this as an unconscious event but there are a few clips of it here.
Right in the beginning of the clip you can see Dani Pedrosa (26) as he exits the corner. Note that as soon as you see his right hand move on the throttle he also allows the bike to stand up a bit. It isn't much, maybe 3-4 degrees but it is enough to get it out of the danger zone so that he can safely accelerate.
I accomplish this by pressing down with my outside foot. Literally transferring more weight to the outside peg without changing my body position at all. That last part is key. My body stays exactly where it was relative to the ground and I allow the bike to stand up a bit underneath me.
Try something like this:
Hopefully this will get you thinking about the simplest thing that perhaps we take for granted? We could be leaving a lot of available grip on the table simply by changing how we sit on the motorcycle...