Quote:
Originally Posted by 02337
I mainly just wanted to know how do you know when you are pushing it too far? Do you ask yourself the questions above before entering a turn? When does one really know their limit? Certain bike angles?
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The thing is if you push things too far, then it's already too late, there isn't much you can do once you cross the traction limits and aren't prepared for it - the tires will just slide and if it's the front you are looking at a potential low side, and the rear a potential high side. By the way once you do cross traction limits on the streets things will happen so fast if you've never been through it before you will probably go down hard. Everyone likes to think going down will never happen to them, but unless you've been down or seen someone go down you don't really have a good idea just how fast things fall apart.
My question to you is - what makes you so confident through the turns? Is it the fact you accelerated to a certain speed and actually survived? That isn't enough feedback to make a solid judgement, and I think that's why you started asking the questions.
If you don't know what your suspension is doing, how do you know how far you can push things? If you don't know what your suspension feels like just before it bottoms out, or just before it tops out, or even how much traction you think you're using compared to how much is available at any point in the turn - then your confidence may be completely imaginary.
The whole point is you are in charge of managing your traction envelope and understanding what your bike is doing. Leaning over farther uses more traction. Going faster uses more traction. Accelerating uses traction. Braking uses traction. A combination of all these things sets the standard for appropriate speeds around a corner.
It really helps to push the limits of a motorcycle in a controlled environment so you can get a full range of suspension feedback - preferably from a sportsbike with high quality communicative suspension. That's why many people recommend going to the track, where at least if you do go down, you won't slam into a lamp post at 20 MPH risking your spine, neck, and head.
If you are at all interested in high performance fast riding around corners, you owe it to yourself to save for a track day or even a track school.
Another option is taking your bike on some dirt trails, to get a feel for how your bike behaves on low traction situations, but dirt trails and paved streets are very different for many reasons - not the least of which in many ways public paved streets have less predictable traction then a road covered in dirt.