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Cornering Basics

By David L. Hough

(missed part 2 - CLICK HERE)

I’ve known more than a few very experienced motorcyclists with questionable cornering habits. Riding with one well known rider several years ago, I was amazed to see her cross the centerline making a simple right hand turn from a stop. She apparently didn’t know how to make the bike turn tighter to stay within her lane. Considering that she had traveled for years all across the country, I didn’t have the nerve to suggest her cornering tactics might need help. Fortunately, other drivers could see the big pink Harley-Davidson going wide, and get out of her way.

I’ve seen other riders with the same inability to make tighter turns, and it’s not uncommon to hear of fatality reports in the news media. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, motorcycle crashes were often collisions with car drivers who weren’t paying attention or didn’t believe motorcycles deserved the right of way. But over the past few years the pendulum has swung over to "single vehicle" crashes, where apparently it’s the motorcyclists who haven’t been paying attention. Roughly half of all motorcycle fatalities in the USA are "single vehicle" and the majority occur in curves.

I’m sure my riding friend was a bit embarrassed at not being able to control her bike better. But rather than figuring out how to make it go where she wanted, she had simply accepted that it took a lot of room to get her big Harley-Davidson turned. Today we have more tools available, including DVDs by veteran motor officers showing how to practice tight turns on heavyweight motorcycles.

A big part of cornering is looking where you want to go. The experts call this "visual directional control". The simple explanation is that we subconsciously steer the bike in the direction we are looking. Or, more correctly, you steer your bike in the direction that your nose is pointed. Turning your head to look at your intended path of travel makes it much easier to get there. It’s also helpful to keep your eyes level with the horizon as the bike is leaned. That helps the brain compute the shape of the curve and the position and speed of the bike.

Pointing your chin toward where you want to go helps the bike get there. And keeping your eyes level with the horizon helps the brain compute the shape of the curve.

Although looking where you want to go is helpful, what makes the bike turn is steering the front wheel to cause the bike to lean ("roll"). It’s very important to understand that accurate two-wheeler steering is a matter of pushing on the handlebar grips, not just leaning weight in the saddle. To lean and turn left, momentarily press on the left grip. The momentary out-tracking of the front tire forces the bike to roll. If you believe that you’re pushing the bike over just by leaning your weight, notice that leaning left while holding onto the grips steers the front wheel away from the curve.

In a turn, you can control the direction of the bike by small adjustments to steering. To turn a little wider, push the grips a little more away from the curve. Press right to roll more right. Press left to roll more left.

To steer the bike a little wider, press the grips away from the curve. In this situation, pressing the grips more toward the right rolls the bike more upright, and the bike follows a larger radius line. Rolling on more throttle also lifts the bike up, but only with an increase in speed.

Most riders find countersteering intuitive, but our brains don’t all work the same. Sometimes a rider’s brain subconsciously confuses the issue, signaling the left and right hands to do different things. It’s not uncommon for a rider to be pushing on one grip to lean the bike, and subconsciously resisting that push with the other arm. If it sometimes seems that your bike just doesn’t want to lean even when you are pressing hard toward the direction of turn, it’s a hint you need to get your hands coordinated.

Relaxing your "non steering" arm helps to avoid subconsciously strong-arming the opposite grip and resisting your steering input. If you’re having trouble only with left-hand turns, it may be because you’re strong-arming the right grip as you manage the throttle. Try flapping your elbow a bit to help relax the "non-steering" arm.

Leaning your upper torso toward the curve seems to pull the bike over more smoothly. What leans the bike is mostly a result of the front tire out-tracking. But body steering can help get your arms synchronized, and smooth out the turn.

If corners make you nervous, it might be helpful to divide up a corner into the basic steps, which we’ll call "Slow, Look, Lean & Roll." "Slow" means getting the bike down to a speed at which you can turn the bike in and carve the rest of the corner without panic. "Look" means figuring out the shape of the curve, imagining a line of travel, and getting your chin pointed at your intended line. "Lean" is getting the bike turned in, and "Roll" is easing on the throttle to help maintain leanover clearance and traction.

Slow isn’t where you start to decelerate, it’s where you want to have the bike down to cornering speed. Let’s say a rider is attempting to learn how to corner faster, just by riding at faster and faster speeds. The tendency is to turn the bike in without slowing much. Of course, the bike doesn’t want to turn easily at a speed that’s too fast, and if the bike is drifting wide, the rider tends to panic, reverting to survival reactions that are inappropriate for the situation. For instance, a rider who panics at mid-corner may snap the throttle shut and jam on the rear brake—which too often results in a low side crash.

Avoiding mid-corner panic is mostly a matter of entering a turn at a reasonably slow speed. The ideal corner entry speed is whatever will allow you to ease on the throttle through the rest of the corner. If you have to reduce speed in a turn, it’s a sign you went in too fast. If speed is your goal, sage advice is to go in slower, which allows a faster exit speed due to a better line..

Whether your goal is faster speed or reduced risk, you can decelerate more quickly to an ideal speed by using the brakes rather than just rolling off the throttle. Using the brakes to slow for a corner is a good habit, because if a hazard pops into view you’re better prepared for a quick slowdown.

Looking through the corner is more than just staring as far ahead as you can see. You need to be mentally calculating the shape of the curve and camber of the surface, looking for traction problems such as loose debris, and watching for other vehicles and wild animals. Before you lean the bike in, you should have a cornering line imagined, or at least the general location of your apex (where your tires will come closest to the inside of the turn).

Once you have a cornering plan in mind, continue to swivel your head to point your nose toward your imagined line. And as you turn the bike in, tilt your head to keep your eyes level with the horizon. As the corner unwinds, you may need to make small corrections to your line or speed, but the ideal is to make one smooth turn rather than a sequence of quick turns.

There are two temptations you should resist: looking down at the pavement right in front of the bike, and staring at the white "fog" line at the right edge of the lane. Looking down too close in front of the bike will help you see surface hazards, but you can’t do anything about what you see 30 or 40 feet ahead of your front tire. You need to spot surface problems far enough ahead that you have time to change speed or line. Focusing on the fog line (the white line at the right edge of the pavement) is hazardous, because it leads you to apex way too early, and that leads to offroad excursions in the last half of the corner.

As you reach your planned turn-in point, press on the grips to lean the bike. Press both grips to the right to turn right. Press left to turn left. And, as you lean the bike, start rolling on the throttle. The ideal is to ease on more throttle all the way through the curve, to maintain leanover clearance and traction. As you reach your apex, rolling on a bit more throttle will help stabilize the lean angle. And as the exit comes into view, rolling on more throttle will lift the bike up.

Why ease on the throttle as you lean the bike? Consider that the tire contact rings shrink in diameter as the bike leans over. So, easing on the throttle helps increase engine RPM to match bike speed. A leading throttle also helps keep the bike up on the suspension, maintains rear/front weight bias on the tires to avoid traction changes, and stabilizes the lean angle.

One final note about accelerating out of the curve: It may be tempting to gas it once you realize the tightest part of the curve is over, but cooler heads squander a second to take a good look at the road ahead before increasing speed.

David L. Hough is a veteran road rider and moto-journalist, living near Port Angeles at the far northwest corner of Washington State. He has traveled extensively on several continents on both two-wheeled and three-wheeled motorcycles. Dave has contributed skills columns to various motorcycle magazines for many years, including Motorcycle Consumer News, Friction Zone, BMWMOA Owners News, and Sound RIDER!. He has received considerable recognition for his work, including two awards from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, and induction into the AMA Motorcycling Hall of Fame. He is the author of several motorcycling books, including Proficient Motorcycling, Street Strategies, and Driving A Sidecar Outfit. Hough is a retired MSF motorcycle safety instructor and past Chief Instructor of the Sidecar Safety Program.

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