Yes, and you should leave enough room for to be able to dip in further if you have to avoid obstacles or on coming traffic. I ride anywhere from between 20-50% of my ability in the streets because of that. Anything more belongs on the track :biggrin
When, Lean Angle?
As I sit here thinking about my cornering, which I am comfortable with my ability at the moment...I think about my mental barricade that keeps me from getting lower.
You know...that feeling you get when you think that you are over as far as you can go, yet you are still 6" from dragging...of course lots of things come into play (i.e. speed, body position, throttle control etc)...let's just focus on the lean angle for the sake of this thread.
The biggest thing that holds me back I guess in a question is,
"May/can you add lean angle at ANY point throughout turn?"
I ask this in order for the placebo effect to play a role for one of you to tell me yes and my confidence is pushed further.
I am sure a lot of you have felt this feeling...I do all the time...you feel that once you have that line and your lean set in, you need to stay right where you are throughout the turn.
You know...that feeling you get when you think that you are over as far as you can go, yet you are still 6" from dragging...of course lots of things come into play (i.e. speed, body position, throttle control etc)...let's just focus on the lean angle for the sake of this thread.
The biggest thing that holds me back I guess in a question is,
"May/can you add lean angle at ANY point throughout turn?"
I ask this in order for the placebo effect to play a role for one of you to tell me yes and my confidence is pushed further.
I am sure a lot of you have felt this feeling...I do all the time...you feel that once you have that line and your lean set in, you need to stay right where you are throughout the turn.
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Body positioning plays an important role with lean angle as well.
Contact patches are determined by the specific tire design/profile. Regardless of the size of the contact patch, each tire has a certain amount of traction available. You have the most traction available to brake/accelerate when the bike is upright. The further over you lean in a corner and the faster you go, the less traction you have available to use for braking/accelerating. This is why you do most of your braking before corner entry and can trail brake through the corner. On corner exits, you don't slam the throttle wide open, you gradually open the throttle. Throw in a wet road surface and everything becomes amplified.I'm not sure about the "less contact patch while leaning" thing. let me explain. traction is finite.we can use all of it for accelerating or braking while vertical but the more we lean the more cornering forces come into play.as we enter a turn we add lean angle and progressively / proportionally release the brakes.on exits as we pick up the bike we progressively/proportionally open the throttle. so I think it has nothing or little to do with contact patch? In fact track/race tires have more contact patch at lean,right?
Imagine you have a bag full of coins. Braking, accelerating, and cornering all take up a certain amount of couns at any given time. Once you've used all of the coins, you're either crashing you learning how to control slides.
I think you're reading into this too much...Interesting...very...:surprise:
So what would be the point of, say...dropping some Q3's or my S21's down to 29-30 psi for a track day? Does it not really help with grip at all? Granted I'm talking about street tires in this question, but the way I read what you just said it would be pointless to lower the pressures for better grip?
Just carrying on with my ever leading questions as they spawn from y'all's posts...
Reading the posts from you pros really does help me become a better rider...THANK YOU!
The more comfortable/confident I have in my machine and all of it's make-ups, the more comfortable/confident I feel in pushing harder...
In regards to contact patch, "Manipulating the contact patch isn't the primary goal with tire pressure". PSI does affect the traction available. Increase the PSI, tire life increases and traction decreases. Decrease the PSI, tire life decreases and traction increases. More traction (friction) increases the temperature of the tires. What toejam was explaining is the differences between race tires and street tires in regards to operating temperatures.
Really want to try out the different DOT tires, but can't justify switching over until I'm riding over the Q3s abilities. Plus it keeps the costs down a little longer :biggrin
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