360 degree turn

A bit nifty...

So why, if I take my hands off the handlebars (doesn't matter which bike) while riding, the bike veers off immediately, not always to the same side...I am shit scared of letting go the handlebars because of it.

I think I shall just remain officially, a poor bikermate who can't do these tricks. I'll still get there, if a bit more slowly than the heroes and tricksters and riding Deities.
 
get yourself on a Hopp Training course ... he'll have you doing feet up figure of 8 at full lock left and right:eek::p

I'm not qualified or entitled to - I don't have anything that zips together. Never have had. My jacket is a jacket and my trousers, over trousers, are what I use to keep the rain out when I go fishing... I don't suppose I qualify as a proper motorcyclist then either, because I haven't spent more than a months wages on my riding jacket. I still ride a bike because it is cheap transport.
 
nobody has yet mentioned vision ! when turning point your nose where you want to go, dont look at the floor or front wheel
 
Nobody has yet mentioned struggling to keep your bike upright and fighting the laws of gravity either. Dodgy knees and dodgy strength has to be taken into account - which is why I fell straight over in the car park on one Bike Safe. I hadn't even started the engine yet, just lost it as I got it off the stand. My knee locked up and my foot was still putting the stand up...over I went. Those kind of basics are always at the forefront of my mind.

I applaud all those that can do this kind of fancy riding. Mine is very much more basic and the more I read of others abilities and antics the more I realise I am not cut out to be an accomplished motorcyclist and shall just remain a very basic, get from here to there rider. :bow
 
So why, if I take my hands off the handlebars (doesn't matter which bike) while riding, the bike veers off immediately, not always to the same side...I am shit scared of letting go the handlebars because of it....

Mine is very much more basic and the more I read of others abilities and antics the more I realise I am not cut out to be an accomplished motorcyclist and shall just remain a very basic, get from here to there rider. :bow


So firstly, I applaud (applaud? is that what I mean? I'm sure I could phrase that better ..) your frankness on a forum that often turns into a pissing match and a cock measuring competition .. :D


The hands on handlebars thing ....
Being relaxed on a bike is .... well ... it's probably one of the most important things you've got to be able to do. You know that!

I have never been skiing. If I went, and I was on the nursery slopes at ski school, I'd look like Bridget Jones and I'd be as tense as a tense thing. I'd be locked rigid and my instructor would gently be saying .. 'you need to try and relax'! I know that! (But I wouldn't be able to do it). I know that all of these sorts of sports from skiing to horse riding to ice skating to surfing .... the eureeka moment happens the penny drops and suddenly it all makes sense when you relax and just let it all happen. (with a fair bit of technique thrown in too .. ).

There might be a number of reasons your bike doesn't travel in a dead straight line if you take your hands off the bars, from shaft drive having an effect to say the camber on the road. But ... being able to take your hands off your bars at a reasonable speed (not at walking pace - you'll just fall over !) is actually something you should be able to do. Lets put that another way - if you can't take your hands off your bars at a reasonable speed, then it demonstrates a huge amount of bad tension and probably a lot of stiffness in you, that will in turn feed itself into your steering.
That stiffness - in your trunk, your torso, your shoulders, your hips, thats half the reason that your bike control is by your own admission, not great. Whilst stiffness and tension it's not necessarily the reason for your bike not travelling in a straight line, (when you take your hands off the bars), being very relaxed and using your body weight and moving it about can go a long way to keeping your bike (no hands) in a straight line. (squeeze the tank with yer knees, move yer upper body weight about ... ).

So should you practise this?

Yeah!

In another thread on here somewhere, somebody was talking about an instructor getting their students to ride over planks of wood in a corner to demonstrate how stable their bike is. There was an outcry :D

Whilst I have never done this, and am not likely to, and ... yeah ... that probably is a bit daft, have I got people on a quiet road to stand up and ride? Ride with their left hand in their lap for three or four miles of a nice twisty lane? Ride no handed ?

Yes I have. And they've been the riders who are clearly battling tension and stiffness in (in particular) their arms.

Your arms can be little steering dampers, and they can fight the steering and slow it down. Worse still is when both arms fight each other and you wonder why it's such a struggle to flick the bike about over that small roundabout and through the twisty lanes.

So riding your bike with just one hand down a twisty quiet lane, will teach you so much about how it steers, how you have an input on that, and how, through tension, you can fuck it up yourself !!

Getting your bike up to a reasonable speed and taking both hands off can teach you the same with your body weight, how you can use it to your advantage, how it can work against you when you're tense.

If I went skiing, I would like to hope, that a good instructor would teach me a good technique, but would also play some games with me and get me relaxed. Maybe something a bit inventive that made me see how my body weight and what I did with it, can make all the difference. Maybe some games teaching me how to relax ..

Don't settle for 'just basic'. Anybody can improve. Identify your weakness's (so I'm guessing in this case, slow speed control, a bit of tension), and deliberately go out and tackle those in a safe environment, and in a sensible way. (That was the health and safety umbrella going up .. ).

:thumb2
 
post edit ....

This is also why whenever these questions come up, we bang on about learning on small bikes first, and then transfering those skills up to a bigger bike. Want to learn to off road properly? start on a 250 or the like ... Want to learn how to chuck a road bike about like the video above? Start on a CB500 .... :thumb2
 
Suppose you want to make an about turn in the road. Quite easy if road is flat. But suppose there is a gradient left to right down. Do you make the turn clockwise(high side to low) or anti clockwise?

I favour anti clock wise but just wonder what the forum thinks!

Where is this road, built on the piss?
 
No hands!

Going back 50 years or so.

Owned a Capri 80 scooter and worked in Millwall docks. Leaving work one day I was riding up to the dock gate putting my gloves on. The Dock Policeman was not happy, gave me a hell of a telling off.
Around the same time was visiting a friend and saw his brother driving down the road in the opposite direction. I rode onto the wrong side of the road waving both hands above my head only to realise it wasn’t my friends brother!
That scoooter was the only bike I was fully confident on riding no hands.

One problem with modern bikes is the strong throttle return spring(s) you take your hand off the throttle and immediately decelerate. Throttle friction screws seem to be a thing of the past.

Tom
 
I'm not qualified or entitled to - I don't have anything that zips together. Never have had. My jacket is a jacket and my trousers, over trousers, are what I use to keep the rain out when I go fishing... I don't suppose I qualify as a proper motorcyclist then either, because I haven't spent more than a months wages on my riding jacket. I still ride a bike because it is cheap transport.

" I don't have anything that zips together." --- Ahh.. thats where you need to read Martins web site. You don't need a zip together combo, you don't need a set of leathers, nor specific boots. It is an instructional / teaching day, not a balls out 'lets pretend to be racers' sort of track day.
 
" I don't have anything that zips together." --- Ahh.. thats where you need to read Martins web site. You don't need a zip together combo, you don't need a set of leathers, nor specific boots. It is an instructional / teaching day, not a balls out 'lets pretend to be racers' sort of track day.

I think Phooey is going to point me in the right direction when I next see him. Can't get on the early Bike Safe this year, it's booked already, but I'll do a later one.

Giles - I can do the slow speed stuff, it is when people start going fast I get worried. Walking pace I can do the slow riding bit, and often do on approaching traffic lights, so I don't have ot worry about which foot to put down, I stay upright and time my approach so I can just snick it into gear and keep on rather than have to move off. Same in slow traffic, drop back and give myself room to roll into. OK it doesn't always work if the stoppage is longer than the room I have ahead, but that is the plan. The tension thing - I can ride one handed and do for mile after mile when on long runs, sometimes laying on the tank to help rest on my way, arm across tank leaning on my forearm, even on country A roads (I am not a hooner, never really have been, never been wealthy enough!) But the hands off, I have never been able to master it - the bike veers off violently, not a little bit. Yes I think the shaft has something to do with it, but I haven't tried it on the lightweight 650, although the single does virtually come to a grinding halt if you let go the throttle, which isn't conducive to rolling hands off.
 
:thumb2

Yeah .. shaft drive bikes do seem to veer off course a bit .. !!
 
On the other hand riding a borrowed enduro bike down a rutted Scottish firetrack whilst stood up with one hand on the throttle and doing a hand signal with the other hand can cause serious tension when the front wheels hits a pothole, the steering throws the bike to the left, and the bike heads off towards a deep firebreak. Don’t ask how I know this:eek:

On a more informative note in addition to the excellent advice from Giles and others I picked up another tip from the BMW demonstrator at the NEC whilst listening to his spiel. Make sure when you put that slow speed lock on you turn not only your head in the direction you want to go but also your shoulders. That allows you to retain a relaxed posture with both hands and arms. Try it in a safe spot. It works.:thumb
 
Cruise control at 30 mph through villages on the gs , hands off bars was my chance for a relaxing stretch.
Never felt it had a particular bias in any direction.
 
Cruise control at 30 mph through villages on the gs , hands off bars was my chance for a relaxing stretch.
Never felt it had a particular bias in any direction.

So what am I doing wrong? Because whatever it is, I have been doing it for a very long time and many miles and not been able to iron it out. I am getting a complex about this now, as a result I am off first thing to the wildest parts of the Lake District at sparrowfart and have a bed booked in a remote YHA.....I shall see if I can put something into practise while I am out and about. I shall try and take a decent piccy while I am up there, but I am also taking a fishing rod, far more important. Beer is in the panniers, of course, only a couple if I am riding, I wouldn't want to be irresponsible, but I am not being a supercilious, PC, dry and boring prat either.
 
It could still be your bike ?! My Job RT won’t go straight unless I lean off it at about 45 degrees! (Although that’s probably the sea-side bucket of a siren on one side that’s doing that ..).
Put it on cruise control, squeeze the tank with your knees, and then do the rhumba with your upper body swaying from your hips ..!
(And let us know how you get on!)


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As for the 180 deg turn on hills, put some weight on the outside foot peg. And for those of us who tour on the mainland, practise U turns to the left. You might need it :D

A technique I use to relax when either training, playing a game or riding the bike is to breathe, when your upper body stiffen up just concentrate on breathing and the body loosens up a bit. Good core muscles helps with posture on the bike which in turn helps the upper body to relax which also stops you from hanging on to the bars which then makes the steering so much better.
 
It could still be your bike ?! My Job RT won’t go straight unless I lean off it at about 45 degrees! (Although that’s probably the sea-side bucket of a siren on one side that’s doing that ..).
Put it on cruise control, squeeze the tank with your knees, and then do the rhumba with your upper body swaying from your hips ..!
(And let us know how you get on!)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

What the hell is cruise conrtol on a motorbike?

I am posting this from A&E in Penrith ........ :D :D
 


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