Developing your skill at cornering and balance
‘Cornering’ means riding a motorcycle round a corner, curve or bend. Cornering is one of the main riding activities and it is important to get it right. When you corner, your bike loses stability and places extra demands on the tire grip available. The faster you go and the tighter the bend, the greater these demands are.
The system of motorcycle control – principles for safe cornering
Correctly assessing the severity of the bend is essential for safety. Applying the system and the safe stopping rule give us for key principles of safe cornering:
- Your bike should be in the right position on the approach
- You should be traveling at the right speed for the corner or bend
- You should have the right gear for that speed
- You should be able to stop on your own side of the road in the distance you can see to be clear
Cornering forces
A motorcycle is at its most stable when traveling in a straight line on a level course and a constant speed. It will continue to travel on a straight course unless some other force is applied to alter its direction. When you steer, the turning force to alter direction comes from the action of the front tire on the road.
When you corner, you need to balance the bike by leaning to the inside of the curve. If you did not do this the bike would fall to the outside of the curve. Leaning makes use of gravity to maintain stability.
You will recall from earlier lessons that tire grip faces competing demands from three actions:
- cornering
- accelerating
- braking
The more you brake or accelerate, the less tire grip you have for cornering. The faster you go into a corner or bend, the greater the tire grip required to keep you on course round it.
The practical outcome of these forces is to cause a bike to continue in a straight line and possibly fall over whenever tire grip is lost. So in a left-hand curve, as tire grip is lost, your bike drifts to the right of your intended course and in a right-hand curve it drifts to the left. The design of the bike with either reduce or accentuate these tendencies.
