Weighting the pegs

[subxero]

TLDR: Not use to weighting the inside peg through turns from years of riding dirt bikes, had an eye opening moment, now I weight my pegs differently than I had been on the street. It's much better


So i'm still fairly new to this street riding stuff, wrapping up my 2nd full season of riding so just over 25months since I got my first street bike. 12k miles (only got 4k in this year )

Haven't hit up the track yet and don't get much time to ride with other people so that leaves me alone to read up the best I can on technique and try things out typically on my commute to work (about all the riding I get in).

One thing you always hear, is light on the bars. Great well if you are light on the bars what are you doing with your weight then? You hear, "support with your core" Great but the core isn't directly connected to the bike so that transitions down into your butt right? No one ever really spells it out, Perhaps I'm just slow sometimes. What about the legs though huh? Don't hear much about your legs...

Many years of dirt riding under my belt seems to help with some things and hurt with others when it comes to transferring technique. It's taken me close to 2yrs to realize that weighting the pegs (particularly in turns) is one of those that doesn't transfer over well

On a dirt bike the only time you are really fully sitting much is in a turn, with your inside leg thrown out front not even on a peg, your ass and outside leg taking your weight. So as you approach a turn you typically sit hard in prep to get into position.

On the street I have always been comfortable with bumps, that comes easy from dirt riding, weight the pegs, pick your ass off the seat and hang on with your knees

Recently I realized on the street I haven't been putting much weight into my inside peg during turns Don't even use the peg on dirt so I never thought about it much, it's just second nature at this point. I was carrying most of my weight through the seat & outside leg in turns, that's what I know

While riding some bumpy roads I was raised off the seat a little with my weight through the pegs, and going through some bumpy turns like this with the pegs weighted much more than my seat I though wow! this is nice, what the hell have I been doing this whole time

Once it dawned on me it changed things pretty quickly as I am already good at carrying my weight through my legs and pegs but I just had to realize that I needed to utilize it in the turns more

With all of this being said, I will still need to fine tune some things. Getting off the bike and weighting the pegs on left handers seems to come very naturally, I feel like I need to work a little more to accomplish the same for right handers. Guess i still need a lot more saddle time, it will come eventually

[LittleRedNinjette]

I love those little "ah-hah!" moments.

[Motofool]

Originally Posted by subxero

.............. So i'm still fairly new to this street riding stuff, ..............

While riding some bumpy roads I was raised off the seat a little with my weight through the pegs, and going through some bumpy turns like this with the pegs weighted much more than my seat I though wow! this is nice, what the hell have I been doing this whole time

Once it dawned on me it changed things pretty quickly as I am already good at carrying my weight through my legs and pegs but I just had to realize that I needed to utilize it in the turns more
..........

Joe,

Sorry, I couldn't understand your description about what peg you weight on the turns.
I do understand that you are doing the best thing that any street rider can do: experiment much and develop a sense for what your machine feels and how it reacts to your body, hand and feet inputs.
When you reach that point in which both, you and your bike flow while you let your mind be free, yet staying centered, you are riding well.

The higher traction that rubber has over asphalt make dynamics different: tires cannot slide or skid around as safely as can be done on dirt.
Naturally, bumpers on asphalt are less dramatic and jumps are rare.
Simply, there is too much grip and the tires should be strictly rolling as long as possible, which is the main job of the suspension: keep the asphalt-rubber contact.

Regarding the first part, yes, during straight lines and even during turns if you wish (not what racers do, but perfectly fine for street riding within legal speeds and normal conditions), the ball of the feet anchor on the pegs, the ankle bones press against the chassis, as well as the knees, your butt rest on the seat: that is your solid frame attached to the pegs, sides and seat.

Above that solid frame, the rest of your body should be flexible and light respect to the other perch: the handlebar.
Using the muscles of your back, you should be able to land as little weight as possible on the handle grips, more as you ride far from performance-demanding-speeds-or-maneuvers.
For hairy turns, rainy conditions, bad surfaces, yes, lighter is better as you input less bad forces onto the handlebar and front tire.

I may be wrong, but have never weighted one peg over the other; I simply don't see the benefit for street riding.
It is very important that you understand that gravity is pulling you and bike vertically down, in line with the suspension, during straight trajectories.
That suspension is composed of air inside the tires, springs and your legs.

Gravity and centrifugal force are pulling your body and the bike down but at some angle.
That angle is dictated by speed and radius of turn, and, without being too inaccurate, we can say that that is the familiar lean angle.
In that situation, more or less aligned with the leaned bike, your weight grows and the effect of bumps get magnified; hence, the suspension has a heavier load to comply with and less free play.
While the bike is leaned, the steering is subjected to lateral impulses that it never felt during straight lines trajectories: your hands have the potential to magnify those lateral or oscillating impulses; therefore, the recommended light touch.

As you can see, anybody can ride fast on a straight road or cornering slowly.
Your body can be loose and you can have a dead grip on the handlebar: nothing catastrophic will happen.
Cornering fast on asphalt is much more demanding from the contact patches of the tires: a loose rider's body and restrictions to the natural oscillations of the steering are the worst things that can happen to the performance of those contact patches (already taxed to almost max by the lateral forces, increased weight and reduced suspension effect.
The reason behind the advised smoothness and precision of the control inputs is to bother those patches as little as possible while they try keeping so many pounds attached to the asphalt.
If you have strong legs, you can help with the suspension and release some of that type of work from the tires.
The trick is to learn to feel what your contact patches are going through and help them when they are working hard for you.



The resultant or total force during cornering does not pull you vertically down any more.
If you could hang a pendulum from your hand while cornering, you would see that the angle of the string matches the lean angle and that if you let it go, it will not fall vertically down.
Exactly the same happens to your body, your increased weight points away from a vertical line.
Yes, you can seat in perfect alignment with the lean angle, you can press both pegs equally or not, you can hang toward the inside or the outside; but whatever you do will have exactly the same effect on the bike and your balance respect to the machine than when both are in a vertical position.

Sorry about the long post, I just got carried away.

[alex.s]

what i do is... imagine you are laying in bed and your arms are asleep, but there is a bed on your bed... and you need to get up to that bed, so you put your leg up and pull down... that's the same movement except my leg is over the bike and i'm pulling down on the peg which pushes my outside leg's innerpart into the tank. then my upper body is supported by my back. i also find it easier to grab onto the peg to pull with my foot in the center against my heel.

[ninjamunky85]

I'm no expert either, and IMHO technique comes more down to the type of bike than street vs dirt. When riding a dirt bike on the street you still ride it like a dirt bike.

One thing I always try to remember is that you control the bike with your legs. Not so much by weighting the pegs, but by squeezing and gripping the bike in between your knees. Even when you have one knee, or leg, off the bike you are still gripping the bike with the other leg.

I'm actually trying to get better at riding off road while standing, as it is the preferred style for enduro riding. I'm getting better at it, but it's hard to do without hanging onto the bars. Makes wheelies difficult.

[Motofool]

Similar threads:
http://forums.superbikeschool.com/in...showtopic=4204

http://forums.superbikeschool.com/in...showtopic=4202

[adouglas]

Originally Posted by alex.s

what i do is... imagine you are laying in bed and your arms are asleep, but there is a bed on your bed... and you need to get up to that bed, so you put your leg up and pull down...

[subxero]

I can see where my OP might be a little hard to follow

I think the problem was I wasn't carrying enough weight with my legs through my pegs and most of my weight through my butt on top of the seat, which isn't really that big of a problem and most of the time not at all except for the one or 2 more aggressive turns that I encounter on a day to day basis where I like to get off the side of the bike a little bit.

In those instances I realized that I wasn't putting enough weight on my inside peg. leaving my outside leg and butt to try and keep me secured to the bike, which wasn't working that great resulting in increased weight on the bar inputs which is no good.

I found by just weighting my inside peg a little bit more it really cuts down on the work my outside leg and butt have to do and makes my body feel much more planted on the bike and allows me to be much lighter with the bar inputs which is something I had been struggling with from time to time. All this results in a much more stable feel, the bike feels really planted and stable

In short I wasn't utilizing my legs as much as I should have been. I also feel that when I am weighting the pegs that little bit more than I had been that my upper legs are able to do more work/good when gripping the tank. Which makes sense in my head.

[cadd]

Interesting thread. Subscribed.

I don't have much experience with weighing the pegs as I never experimented with it. However, on a bicycle, going fast (over 20mph) in a corner, I feel much more planted weighing my outside peg.

I have to try this on the ninjette now

[subxero]

Originally Posted by Motofool

Similar threads:
http://forums.superbikeschool.com/in...showtopic=4204

^ I thought the video in this thread gave a good visual

With out weighting the pegs it is hard to impossible to move your upper body around much without feeling the need to use the bars. If you are simply carrying the majority of your weight into the seat like i was, you could be lighter on the bars yet still not have the ability to move much.

Now like when that guy gets off the bike a bit, he is not holding the bars. He is supporting most of his body weight with his leg that has the knee out to screens left, his right. If he was not weighting that peg with this leg through the foot ect... it would be difficult if not impossible for him to get into that position without holding onto the bars.

That was my problem, I was not using that leg enough to hold my weight.
It was just not something I was accustom to.

[Motofool]

Originally Posted by subxero

^ I thought the video in this thread gave a good visual

With out weighting the pegs it is hard to impossible to move your upper body around much without feeling the need to use the bars. If you are simply carrying the majority of your weight into the seat like i was, you could be lighter on the bars yet still not have the ability to move much.

Now like when that guy gets off the bike a bit, he is not holding the bars. He is supporting most of his body weight with his leg that has the knee out to screens left, his right. If he was not weighting that peg with this leg through the foot ect... it would be difficult if not impossible for him to get into that position without holding onto the bars.

That was my problem, I was not using that leg enough to hold my weight.
It was just not something I was accustom to.

Now I get it!

The position of the foot pegs is also key.
The spatial location of your center of mass or gravity is around your belly bottom, more forward as you tuck more.
If your foot pegs are on the vertical line of your CG, the effort of squatting does not need to affect the handle bar.
If your foot pegs are forward, you must pull on the handlebar to lift your butt off the seat.
If they are aft, you must push on the handlebar to lift your butt off the seat.

On the same line of thought, when you slide your CG over one side, that peg/foot will feel more of your weight and the opposite peg/foot will feel less.

All that CG relocation should happen before you enter the turn.
At the entering point and during the turn, you should be resting half butt and exterior leg on the seat and the feet rest their weight on the pegs (remember that "weight is pulling down" in line with the bike, rather than vertically).

IMHO, hanging off your butt and upper body is good for the track; unnecessary for street.
If you want to save some lean angle for the bike and suspension while riding on the street, simply lean your upper body and head.

Link to original page on YouTube.

Link to original page on YouTube.

[Motofool]

Originally Posted by subxero

............ I found by just weighting my inside peg a little bit more it really cuts down on the work my outside leg and butt have to do and makes my body feel much more planted on the bike and allows me to be much lighter with the bar inputs which is something I had been struggling with from time to time. All this results in a much more stable feel, the bike feels really planted and stable ............

Another recommended thread:

https://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=100964

[subxero]

Originally Posted by Motofool

No I get it!


IMHO, hanging off your butt and upper body is good for the track; unnecessary for street.
If you want to save some lean angle for the bike and suspension while riding on the street, simply lean your upper body and head.

^all great info in that post and for the last bit

I tend to agree but that doesn't make it any less fun

[adouglas]

I still want to hear more about this whole "bed" thing.

[adouglas]

Originally Posted by Motofool

IMHO, hanging off your butt and upper body is good for the track; unnecessary for street.

Absolutely true.

I can think of one good reason to do it, though:

It's the only time you'll ever get to practice your track skills before hitting the track.

Talk to any track rider (I'm just a noob with only three days, but I keep on hearing this):

"I really need to work on my body position."

I'm not talking about actually dragging a knee (if you're doing that you're undoubtedly going WAY too fast for the street), but "assuming the position" is something that will pay off if you are a track rider, IMHO.

So, yeah... I move off of centerline, put my arm on the tank, get my head down, reposition my inside foot, all of that.

[Misti]

Originally Posted by subxero

I can see where my OP might be a little hard to follow

I think the problem was I wasn't carrying enough weight with my legs through my pegs and most of my weight through my butt on top of the seat, which isn't really that big of a problem and most of the time not at all except for the one or 2 more aggressive turns that I encounter on a day to day basis where I like to get off the side of the bike a little bit.

In those instances I realized that I wasn't putting enough weight on my inside peg. leaving my outside leg and butt to try and keep me secured to the bike, which wasn't working that great resulting in increased weight on the bar inputs which is no good.

I found by just weighting my inside peg a little bit more it really cuts down on the work my outside leg and butt have to do and makes my body feel much more planted on the bike and allows me to be much lighter with the bar inputs which is something I had been struggling with from time to time. All this results in a much more stable feel, the bike feels really planted and stable

In short I wasn't utilizing my legs as much as I should have been. I also feel that when I am weighting the pegs that little bit more than I had been that my upper legs are able to do more work/good when gripping the tank. Which makes sense in my head.

I think you explain this fairly well, that you want to utilize your legs more when riding so that you can keep the excess weight off your arms/handlebars, and also off the seat. Using your legs can help dramatically with this.

I find that using my outside knee to to dig into the tank and get myself "locked on" helps the most dramatically with getting weight off the seat and off the handlebars.

I use the outside peg as a pivot point to press into which helps to push my knee tightly into the tank. I tell my students to imagine that they have $50 bucks pressed between their knee and the tank and that they don't want to relax the pressure on the tank or they lose their $50 bucks. I actually push into the peg with the ball of my foot and lift my heel a little bit which raises my knee up to fit perfectly into the tank. By squeezing into the tank this way my lower body stays locked and connected to the tank and allows me to hang off and move around on the bike with little weight on the bars or on the seat.

There is still some pressure on the inside peg to hold myself up but I'd say that more of my focus is on pressing into the tank with my outside knee and pushing into the peg with my outside foot than "weighting" the inside peg.

Have you thought about what your outside leg is doing when cornering?

What are the most notable advantages of using your legs to keep yourself locked onto the bike and the weight off the seat and bars?

[alex.s]

Originally Posted by adouglas

Absolutely true.

I can think of one good reason to do it, though:

It's the only time you'll ever get to practice your track skills before hitting the track.

Talk to any track rider (I'm just a noob with only three days, but I keep on hearing this):

"I really need to work on my body position."

I'm not talking about actually dragging a knee (if you're doing that you're undoubtedly going WAY too fast for the street), but "assuming the position" is something that will pay off if you are a track rider, IMHO.

So, yeah... I move off of centerline, put my arm on the tank, get my head down, reposition my inside foot, all of that.

i dragged elbow on the street one time.

my bike didn't look so great after that.

[kdogg2077]

Well this thread escalated quickly.

[adouglas]

Misti, as always you explain things so well.

I've read many times about "weighting the outside peg" which never made any sense to me at all. Took months (and some helpful guidance from a track coach) to realize that what that really meant was what you describe... pushing on the outside peg with the ball of your foot to drive your knee into the tank.

In my mind that's not the same thing as "weighting" it, because if I'm hanging off the inside, then my weight is, well, to the inside.

What I'm now trying to work out is finding purchase for my knee. Sportbike tanks are flared to help with this, but I'm a short guy and my knee doesn't come anywhere near that handy ridge in my tank. I do have grip pads but they're not doing a lot, probably because I didn't get the truly aggressive ones.

[dcj13]

Originally Posted by adouglas

Misti, as always you explain things so well.

I've read many times about "weighting the outside peg" which never made any sense to me at all. Took months (and some helpful guidance from a track coach) to realize that what that really meant was what you describe... pushing on the outside peg with the ball of your foot to drive your knee into the tank.

Yeah! I felt the same way when learning how to ski. Finally I realized it meant to slightly lift my "inside" ski.

No tank when skiing, however...

[Sirref]

Originally Posted by alex.s

i dragged elbow on the street one time.

my bike didn't look so great after that.

seconded, mine still doesn't but I've grown to love the scars

@Motofool that "chance to drag elbow at 100mph" pic is badass

[CC Cowboy]

Originally Posted by subxero

TLDR: Not use to weighting the inside peg through turns from years of riding dirt bikes, had an eye opening moment, now I weight my pegs differently than I had been on the street. It's much better




Haven't hit up the track yet and don't get much time to ride with other people so that leaves me alone to read up the best I can on technique and try things out typically on my commute to work (about all the riding I get in).

One thing you always hear, is light on the bars. Great well if you are light on the bars what are you doing with your weight then? You hear, "support with your core" Great but the core isn't directly connected to the bike so that transitions down into your butt right? No one ever really spells it out, Perhaps I'm just slow sometimes. What about the legs though huh? Don't hear much about your legs...

Many years of dirt riding under my belt seems to help with some things

Street riding is almost just the opposite of dirt riding. However; dirt riding helps so much for control.

Imagine your street bike is a missile and you have to control that missile with your body lanuage (hanging off). Your legs are what gets you from side to side. Your hands on the bars have to be light as to not move the steering as your body is in motion. This is your core motion, so you don't disrupt the suspension. Hanging off will create a drag on the side your body is hanging off causing the bike to turn to that side. It also naturally causes causes your weight to be on the inside (turn) peg since your body is leaning in that direction. Countersteering is the same on your dirt bike and street bike.

Although you really don't need any of this unless you are at speed, once you learn the physics of this you will use it second nature in turns. Become one with your bike.

I rode street first and took up dirt riding to stay in condition on the off season from roadracing and I know how you feel about it being completely different ( the opposite in most situations). You will also find yourself riding your steet bike as a dirt bike in some situations. Knowing how to ride both is a major advantage.

[Misti]

Originally Posted by adouglas

Misti, as always you explain things so well.

I've read many times about "weighting the outside peg" which never made any sense to me at all. Took months (and some helpful guidance from a track coach) to realize that what that really meant was what you describe... pushing on the outside peg with the ball of your foot to drive your knee into the tank.

In my mind that's not the same thing as "weighting" it, because if I'm hanging off the inside, then my weight is, well, to the inside.

What I'm now trying to work out is finding purchase for my knee. Sportbike tanks are flared to help with this, but I'm a short guy and my knee doesn't come anywhere near that handy ridge in my tank. I do have grip pads but they're not doing a lot, probably because I didn't get the truly aggressive ones.

Thanks! Glad I could help Now, you say that you are a short guy and your knee doesn't come anywhere near the ridge in your tank. Let me ask you a few questions....are you sitting right up against the tank? What happens when you scoot back a fist length and lift your outside heel? Does that help?

[subxero]

http://www.sportrider.com/sportbike-...cle-riding-tip