If I were to rewrite this post, I would write it from the angle: “how to overcome the fear of leaning it over.” It’s not natural to lean over sideways, all our natural (walking) instincts force us to try to stay upright as much as possible… on a motorcycle that leads us to push the bike down under us (counter-balancing) dirt bike style. But in order to make good tight turns you need to lean it over…with your body leaning over, head first.

How can you get over the natural survival reaction of not wanting to lean sideways into a turn? The answer is: our brains don’t want to let us lean sideways – but it will let us lean forward…

By turning the torso and leaning forward into a turn (rather than trying to lean further sideways), and putting your weight on the outside peg, and rolling on the throttle – you’ll be able to lean it over further than you have before…

Give it a try and let me know if it gives a different perspective on lean angle.

1. At HIGH speed, leaning INTO the turn with your body helps.
2. At LOW speed, leaning OUT of the turn (counter-balancing) helps.

Really, the position of your COG over the bike permits you to change the lean angle of the bike for a given turn/speed. I suppose you could counter-balance when turning at speed, but that would mean that the bike would have to be leaned over even more to make the turn.

Vise-versa, you could lean INTO a slow turn, but the bike would be nearly (if not) upright, and you’d be feeling pretty unstable, should you have any fluxuations in throttle or road surface.

I did observe that I have a tendancy to keep my body upright, even at highway speeds, letting the bike lean under me. Today I tried actively leaning into turns (just a bit — not knee-dragging, just getting my sholders in line with the tank, or slightly into the turn) and I did notice a difference in the position of the bike.

Jesse