Trying to get rid of my chicken strips

[Ninja Rob]

Originally Posted by Motofool

The tires of this guy show no chicken strips:



The higher the lean angle of the bike, the higher the lateral forces trying to slide the tires and the more reduced suspension compliance:
https://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=119958

Note the different angles of lean for the same exact speed and curve:

From these pictures, is there an ideal position to be in or is it just displaying different ways of leaning?

[adouglas]

Think about that question logically. Better to know WHY you're doing something than just do a thing by rote.

If less bike lean angle gives you more traction, then that's the goal, right?

Which of the above accomplishes that?

How does the one you choose compare to photos of pro racers?

You tell me...



PS: Note that those photos are from an article that apparently is all about looking cool by dragging your knee, which is utter poser BS. The caption "getting your knee down with the bike this upright is not cool" is ludicrous. "Not cool" in this context doesn't mean "bad idea." It means the author thinks it looks dorky.

The objective is not to look cool or get your knee down. The objective is to ride the bike well. Do racers touch their knee on every corner? Heck no. Take a look at Valentino's pucks during races. They really aren't scuffed that much.

Goes back to the question I posed earlier. What's your objective? Bada$$ racer cred? Or to actually BE a bada$$?

FYI they don't show a rider hanging off to the inside AND with head down. Your head weighs as much as a bowling ball. Think about what happens to the C.G. of the bike if you move your head down and inside, along with the rest of your torso.

[allanoue]

You want your bike to be as upright as possible at any given speed. Body position is how you do this. hanging off the bike leaning into a turn means you can go faster though a turn without dragging hard parts of your bike.



^ This is bad.

[Dsheumaker]

At the same time those are really old pics, the knowledge still applies but some stuff has changed. Like how they are almost saying you should be upright when hanging off in the last 2 pics... Now we all know that now we want as much of our body below the center line drawn on the bike.

[adouglas]

Originally Posted by Dsheumaker

Like how they are almost saying you should be upright when hanging off in the last 2 pics...

They're not really saying that IMHO. They're showing the consequences of various positions.

[Dsheumaker]

Originally Posted by adouglas

They're not really saying that IMHO. They're showing the consequences of various positions.

Yea i agree with that, and i didnt see the rest of your post for some reason at first. I was trying to say what you did about the getting your head down, you just said it better haha.

[adouglas]

Also note a few things about this pic:

Outside knee driven into tank.

Outside arm resting on the tank.

Gas cap under the ARMPIT, not under the chest.

Inside shoulder down... center of chest pointed at long axis of bike.

Spine parallel to long axis of bike (not crossed up with the butt way off but not the chest)

Relaxed arms.


I'm not fast and I'm no expert but these are the things I work on at the track.

I have a very long way to go but here's where I was last summer. I think the basics are coming together. Just need to grow a pair and lean the bike more.

[Motofool]

Originally Posted by Ninja Rob

From these pictures, is there an ideal position to be in or is it just displaying different ways of leaning?

The ideal position to be on the bike depends on the type and place of the ride: slow or fast, wet or dry pavement, street or track.
There is much more about riding well than angle of lean or body position.
You can perfectly mimic the body position of a GP racer, still having terrible throttle control, brakes application, poor visual, etc.

Short answer:
For minimum lean of the bike, the ideal position is shown in top-right picture (note the smallest lean angle of the chassis and suspensions).
For maximum lean of the bike, the ideal position is shown in top-center picture.

Long and boring answer:

We have been talking here about making the tires roll over their edges, so the infamous chicken strips are erased, at least temporarily for the rider's meetings (those will come back eventually as you resume normal riding with less-that-extreme lean angles).

In order to achieve that, you should push the bike under you (like the rider of my first single picture), while bending your upper body and head as low as possible, deflating your tires and experimenting with safe speeds that still make the bike lean all the way.




The only thing that hanging-off body position achieves is to reduce some of the angle at which the suspension works respect to the surface of the pavement.
Again, for the same speed and circular trajectory or line, the forces that try to slide the tires out of the turn are exactly the same, hanging off or sitting straight up.

If you ask your suspension, it will tell you that the forces of any turn make you and the bike heavier.
That additional "weight" compresses the springs and makes rebound slower.
That has two bad effects:

1) The contact patches of the tires have a harder time following the irregularities of the road and the trajectory that you ask them to follow, sometimes tend to bounce away from the pavement and sometimes tend to be over-squeezed hard between the rim of the wheel and the pavement.

2) The contact patches of the tires constantly suffer changes in their areas of contact and in the forces that are perpendicular to the pavement, which are responsible for traction (higher normal force = higher traction capability of that tire).

If you ask your suspension what you could do to help, other than slowing down or describing a wider trajectory, it will tell you that working as close to vertical as possible (because gravity pulls down vertically) would alleviate some of its hard burden and that, because of that, it could help the tires do their work a little better.

A little better performance from the suspension and tires is all GP racers need to save tens of a second per each curve that could make then win a race.
Hence; after mastering other fundamental skills, high performance rides go to extreme body positions.

The designers of high performance motorcycles go to extreme designs that help those racers achieve that.
They know that narrow profile tires would help the bike lean much less, but they need to provide enough rubber to transfer all those HP down to the asphalt.
They also know that a higher center of gravity would help the bike lean less, but they need to provide for less aerodynamic drag and for the agility of the bike to be flicked all the way and quickly from one extreme lean onto the other side during chicanes (less moment of inertia).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_of_inertia





All of the above can be overlooked when your bike and your ride are not of high performance types.
At legal street speeds on dry and clean asphalt you don't really need to be that proficient with throttle control, brake application or body position.

That is simply because your tires and your suspensions are using only a fraction of their capabilities and have a big safety margin, which is able to accommodate most rider's mistakes and lack of smoothness.
As not always conditions are ideal, it is good to learn and practice those things that can not only make you a more proficient rider but a safer one.

[Panda]

Originally Posted by Motofool

That is simply because your tires and your suspensions are using only a fraction of their capabilities and have a big safety margin, which is able to accommodate most rider's mistakes and lack of smoothness.
As not always conditions are ideal, it is good to learn and practice those things that can not only make you a more proficient rider but a safer one.

This is a great point. None of this really matters when it's 80 degrees out and your tires are warmed up and it's dry.

But it suddenly matters a lot when you come across that tight 270 degree you normally take at 20mph when it's cold and wet out.

[rojoracing53]

Don't listen to all these na sayers about how chicken strips don't have a direct correlation to skill level. If I wasn't such a Pu$$y I would have won 4 out of the 4 ninja 250 class races my first weekend racing the little bike. Instead I only set a new course record and won 1 race because I was afraid to lean over the bike. Yes that is the rear tire I used during the races but the pic was taken two weeks later after a few canyon rides.




In all seriousness I raced professionally at the the world level for 7 years and didn't hear the phrase chicken strips until I joined this forum several years after my retirement from racing. I don't drag my knee sliders on the street or racing ether so even that isn't a show of skill.

[SLOWn60]

Originally Posted by rojoracing53

In all seriousness I raced professionally at the the world level for 7 years and didn't hear the phrase chicken strips until I joined this forum several years after my retirement from racing. I don't drag my knee sliders on the street or racing ether so even that isn't a show of skill.

100% agree. But this forum (and many sport bike forums) often have a large number of new or newer riders and many of them express an obsession with getting a knee down and/or eliminating their chicken strips and most are attempting to do so on the street.
These threads are great, especially here on Ninjette, to try to educate & temper their enthusiasm and hopefully prevent a few rides into the rhubarb or worse!

[WolFeYeZ]

Originally Posted by SLOWn60

100% agree. But this forum (and many sport bike forums) often have a large number of new or newer riders and many of them express an obsession with getting a knee down and/or eliminating their chicken strips and most are attempting to do so on the street.
These threads are great, especially here on Ninjette, to try to educate & temper their enthusiasm and hopefully prevent a few rides into the rhubarb or worse!

This thread is so much better than the ones you see on the big bike forums, lol

[rojoracing53]

Originally Posted by WolFeYeZ

This thread is so much better than the ones you see on the big bike forums, lol

Pretty much the only reason I continue to drop a helpful hint every now and then. Anyone willing to ride a 250 has enough modesty to listen to others. Unless we're talking about that one chick who swore she needed a $1000 rear shock setup for her wieght to fix her bike uncontrollable stability problem, we couldn't help her at all

[choneofakind]

Originally Posted by rojoracing53

Pretty much the only reason I continue to drop a helpful hint every now and then. Anyone willing to ride a 250 has enough modesty to listen to others. Unless we're talking about that one chick who swore she needed a $1000 rear shock setup for her wieght to fix her bike uncontrollable stability problem, we couldn't help her at all

that was eppiiicccccccc. The stubborn was strong in that thread. I don't even remember what their user name was at this point.

[tfkrocks]

Originally Posted by choneofakind

that was eppiiicccccccc. The stubborn was strong in that thread. I don't even remember what their user name was at this point.

I just remember that she insisted no one understood her problem because they weren't a small female like her yet she didn't listen to two similar sized females with the same exact bike, one of whom lives in the same area and rides the same roads.

[Sirref]

What was her actual problem? too tight on the bars?

[tfkrocks]

Originally Posted by Sirref

What was her actual problem? too tight on the bars?

Some of the highways here are just grooved that way and it's going to be a bit bumpy

[Sirref]

Oh, that explains the "small female" argument

[tfkrocks]

I don't think we ever really got to the bottom of it because she flounced lol

[SLOWn60]

I'd love to read the thread. If it hits you at 2 am: be sure to post the link!

[tfkrocks]

I think that can be arranged

Edit: turns out I don't post much about suspension so it was easy to find
https://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=126888

You know you ****ed up when even Alex doesn't want to deal with you anymore

[Ninja Rob]

Originally Posted by tfkrocks

I think that can be arranged

Edit: turns out I don't post much about suspension so it was easy to find
https://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=126888

You know you ****ed up when even Alex doesn't want to deal with you anymore

I read some of that post. Wow.

[SLOWn60]

Originally Posted by tfkrocks

I think that can be arranged

Edit: turns out I don't post much about suspension so it was easy to find
https://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=126888

You know you ****ed up when even Alex doesn't want to deal with you anymore

I dated that girl. Turns out I'm an a-hole that doesn't listen or understand and all because I don't weigh 110 lbs.
I'd love to talk shop with her "mechanic"!

That Is the most incredulous thread I've ever read!

She certainly doesn't fit the profile of this forum but for pure entertainment it probably would be fun to follow her posts!

Thanks for digging up the thread!

[toEleven]

Originally Posted by tfkrocks

I think that can be arranged

Edit: turns out I don't post much about suspension so it was easy to find
https://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=126888

You know you ****ed up when even Alex doesn't want to deal with you anymore

Thank you for digging that up.

She certainly seemed overly sensitive and exhibited perhaps the most intense confirmation bias I've ever seen in print. On the other hand, something like 70% (based on scroll bar position, don't hold me to it) of the second page of that thread is dog piling. When posters are no longer asking for clarification or offering advice, I can see how someone wouldn't get the warm fuzzies this forum usually provides. Perhaps self inflicted wounds are particularly good at attracting sharks.

[Dsheumaker]

That was fun to read through haha

[QuickSiR]

Like it's been said. It is impossible to safely get rid of chicken strips on public roads.

I did a famous road while riding a good 20 mph over the speed limit in curves and never came close to putting the knee down.

I'm not risking my life and a huge ticket to be able to brag about not having chicken strips.

["A"]

Actually, you can get rid of chicken strips on public roads.. it's not impossible, just depend on the traffic flow.
I can get rid of them in an empty parking lot without traveling over the speed limit in a figure 8 path.

[Dsheumaker]

Originally Posted by QuickSiR

Like it's been said. It is impossible to safely get rid of chicken strips on public roads.

I did a famous road while riding a good 20 mph over the speed limit in curves and never came close to putting the knee down.

I'm not risking my life and a huge ticket to be able to brag about not having chicken strips.

I ride a very famous road on the regular, i can go about five over the speed limit and be knee down with limited chicken strip if i feel like it. Or i can go about 20 over the speed limit and not put my knee down and have huge chicken stripes.... Speed is not the only limiting factor... You can get rid of the strips and get knee down with ****** BP well within the limits of the law

[SLOWn60]

The point we're trying to emphasize is: who cares about chicken strips on the street!
Knowledgable & skilled riders will not be impressed that you have no chicken strips on the street, only Squids, Idiots and those that don't know better.

Those on the track will see how good a rider you are without needing to see your tires!

[toEleven]

Originally Posted by SLOWn60

The point we're trying to emphasize is: who cares about chicken strips on the street!
Knowledgable & skilled riders will not be impressed that you have no chicken strips on the street, only Squids, Idiots and those that don't know better.

Those on the track will see how good a rider you are without needing to see your tires!

[attemptedhumor]
Well sure, knowledgeable riders won't be impressed, but what about ladies (specifically those who aren't knowledgeable riders)? That's why you guys ride, right? For the ladies?

Off to go buy a ducati monster, remove chicken strips, and park it at starbucks.
[/attemptedhumor]

[SLOWn60]

Originally Posted by toEleven

[attemptedhumor]
Well sure, knowledgeable riders won't be impressed, but what about ladies (specifically those who aren't knowledgeable riders)? That's why you guys ride, right? For the ladies?

Off to go buy a ducati monster, remove chicken strips, and park it at starbucks.
[/attemptedhumor]

Well to quote you; those ladies wouldn't know what a chicken strip is! You'd probably impress them more if you Armour-All'd them!

(Note to n00bs: do NOT Armour-all your tires!!!!)