Hi Oldfox,
Okay now even I am a little bit confused So if I understand you correctly, it is the tangential forces rather than the reducing contact patch of the tire of your leaning bike that reduce traction at a given corner and hanging off the bike in turn helps you counter these forces. Please correct me if I am wrong and help me get this right.

If the road is well banked then you obviously don't need to hang out as much as you would on a more flatter road. Also in my opinion more contact does not reduce speed when you are leaning a fair bit. In fact, the more contact patch you have after hitting the apex the earlier you can open the throttle and the faster you can accelerate through the corner. This is precisely why you see motogp hanging off their bikes a lot more in the last few laps of a race to maintain their speed because by then their tyres are offering very little traction.

^Rightly said there Oldfox. hanging off is always a Trade-off.
Simply love the way you put things in words

Sagar: There is a common mis-conception about the basics of 'friction'. That friction depends on the area of contact. It does not. It depends upon the weight over that area of contact. One reason why you get more effective braking from the front wheel than the rear. And also why the rider is aked to squeeze the front brake lever rather than grab a handful of it for max braking. The point is to have a substantial weight transfer onto the front tyre before it is expected to provide a large braking force. And the 'one' reason why, even with a larger contact patch, the rear tyre cannot provide braking anywhere close to what the narrower front does.

Getting back from the digression, less lean allows you more traction reserve: true.

But the reason is not a larger contact patch. Modern symmetrical design tyres give you an alomst similar contact patch over the useable lean angle range. Hanging off keeps the bike relatively upright and this reduces the tangential component of the force that tries to slide the bike out of the turn, i.e. going off on a tangent to the turn's curvature. The steeper the lean angle - the greater is the tangential force that the traction has to counter. So, steeper lean angles of the bike allow you lesser traction reserves. Hanging off, and so 'un-leaning' the bike, gets you a 'traction-credit' that you can encash in case the already loaded suspension bottoms on a bump, the roads' coefficient of friction changes for the worse (shiny tar, old oil residue, gravel n dust etc etc) or you need to tighten the turn still further.

Hanging off though is a trade-off, as killer and joel have repeatedly reiterated. In that the rider is not in the ideal position to control the bike, to receive feedback from his 'seat-of-the-pants', his feet are not where they can provide maximum weight transfer and the arms are unsymmetrically stretched. BUT the 'traction-credit' is SO VERY important to get that this trade-off does not actually seem like one.

But for high speed cornering, u need good lean angles as well. Its not always that the bike is upright, but yes you need to keep the bike as upright as possible.
Bikes can easily lean beyond 45deg but it depends on the speed you carry. Else you'll spill it.

Yes it makes sense, dont know what I was thinking.

Anyways what I wanted to say is that just by hanging more & leaning less you cant increase the speed because the banking of road also comes into play.

Btw more contact also means more friction & hence less speed

As you lean your bike, the contact patch of your bike's tyre goes on decreasing. The lesser the contact patch, the higher the risk of you low sliding in case you brake hard or lets say the road is wet and hence offering very little traction. Hence to counter that you can hang off the bike and thus restrict the lean angle of your bike. This riding technique allows you to quickly change your bike's direction and the comparatively wider contact patch of your tyre allows you to take the corner more confidently and much faster. However, as Joel was saying, on the track its not just about putting your knee down. You need to know the correct leaning technique which allows to open the throttle as soon as you cross the apex without losing your rear. Hanging off too much from your bike on the track can slow you down and is not the ideal way of going about the business. However, on public roads, where you are obviously not carrying the same pace as on a track, this technique can prove to be quite handy. Hope this helps

Less leaning of bike would mean more road contact naturally, as the contact is maximum at 0 degree Lean (straight).... It's hard to explain exactly, but easy to imagine for anyone ... I mean, while cornering you don't get high contact, as Tyre is not exactly circle shaped ...

and yes, the person should lean more, so as to substitute for the centrifugal force acting on while high speed cornering ...


Well, I think that means that people with longer hands, etc will be helped by this, provided that they put in their maximum properly ... does it? Maybe ...

@Sagar- I am confused why would hanging out more & less leaning of bike increase contact patch?

Thanks for your input man. I am saving up for my first track day and should be visiting Coimbatore or Chennai very soon. I have come to realize that the oncoming traffic, gravel and oil spills on our public roads are some of the main reasons behind my "hanging off the bike" riding style. I had a very small slide on my R15 a few months ago and it still cost me around 1k to replace the damaged fairing. I definitely cannot afford such crashes man and hence as a precautionary measure I hang out a lil' more on the corners. This as you know reduces the leaning angle of the bike and increases the contact patch of the tyres which still allows me to take corners faster and also break more confidently in emergency situations.

you need to work on getting the body position right. More than attempting to scrape, corner speed should improve. Its just a matter of time for things to fall in place. MAke sure its all done in a safe zone. Nothing like a race track for this stuff. I'd never dare a lean in streets/ghats, in any case.

That would be me! Don't expect fireworks though, cause I'm a novice at shooting bikes!

Thanks Sameer. I'll work on your pointers on this weekend ride to Lavasa. A friend of mine just got a new Canon DSLR. So will tag him along to get some good action shots. About the track man, you know how badly I want to hit the track. It's my new years resolution and I will defi come to Coimbatore if not Chennai, as I am really looking forward to share the track with you.

@SAGARR_46 - had no idea we were talking about you either

You need to work on getting your upper torso down and low. Aim to have your head in a position as if to kiss the inner mirror. Right now your posture looks a bit crossed up because you're pivoting around the tank trying to get the maximum reach to get your knee down. While its common for beginners to exagerate their body position initially in order to get used to it, it shouldn't be done at the risk of incorrect posture that can become a bad habit later. In all honesty i would recommend hitting a track to improve your technique further.

@winzee- thanks

@Technocrat- It sure is a very small world