the psychology of slower bikes…
May 23rd, 2012 by CityBiker1
Riding a fast bike means always worrying about going into a corner too hot. So notice how the bigger bikes zoom past on the straights and brake early and hard for the corners – and these corners are particularly scary at the top of the corkscrew! But on a slow bike you’re less worried about going in too fast, and thinking instead about how to maintain a little extra momentum…
What’s interesting is, the Ninja 250 probably does not *actually* handle better than the 600′s and 1000cc sportbikes that are getting left in the dust here. So it’s not the suspension technology that’s causing the higher cornerspeed, it’s really the rider technology. Because he has less power on the straights he can focus more on setting a good corner speed without worrying about going in too hot.
So how can we get faster on the corners? Professional racers spend years racing low powered bikes, honing their sense of corner speed (so that they don’t need to look at the speedo to know how fast they’re going) – so that when they get to the faster bikes, they can go faster (not slower) in the corners. So one way to get faster is simply to start riding slower bikes with less power.
If that doesn’t work for you, you can work on going slower in the straights so that you don’t have to brake for the corners. Simply ride as though you’re on a slower bike, and spend more time gently working the throttle to set your corner speeds. Try to avoid that feeling of hard braking that messes up your sense of speed – set up a modest speed well in advance so that you don’t need to jump off the throttle or hit the brakes.
Anyway, stay safe out there – it’s the time of year CityBikers really need to focus on being safe. Cheers!
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