Style !! 'Crossed up' V the New boys.

I think also the American riders of the time nearly all came from a Flat track backgrounds so their style (Roberts in particular ) was informed by that........

I think I'm proper old style in so much as I ride 'body English' ie sit fairly upright and push the bike down beneath me but then my background is dirt bikes/Supermoto, I've never owned a sports bike and I'm a slow rider......

Interesting thread though :thumb2

Andres

Interesting you say that as I thought the same and had been googling images of Dave Aldana.
 
That's me fecked then :D
Two questions though.

Do you think riding 'crossed up' particularly on the road where grip levels are not quite known to the extent of a track may cause a rider to subconsciously feel they're able to weight the outside of the bike?

Oh Goodness! I am no expert in all this !! I wonder how much of this is the journey a bike takes to evolve - the darwinism of a motorbike if you like? Go back to Mike Hailwood or Roberts on his flat track bike and did tanks have scallops in to lock into with your knees? Probably not. (certainly not by todays standards). Did their crossed up style actually have its roots in gripping the tank with both knees ? So rotating hips and sliding an inside knee forward kept you locked in?

I think to answer your question, rotating your hips (sliding inside knee forward) will help you weight the outside peg on a bike with little 'knee purchase' for want of a better phrase.

A better way to weight the outside peg on a modern sports bike though (modern = scallops in tank), is to jam your outside knee into the scallop of the tank so you have something to press against - like doing a calf raise in the gym you can drive through your outside peg from your knee that is jammed into the tank. But clearly thats not going to happen or difficult to do on a non scalloped tank like a KTM 950 :D



Secondly, road bends are often relatively blind and even though position should give the view, another subconscious act could be to put the head where we feel we can see further?

So all the more reason to turn your chest into the bend and come away from crossed up style where your shoulders are pointing one way, which hinders your head turn?!

Just a thought as I, like most of us probably are unable to ride fast enough to benefit from change.....or perhaps that's partly why we can't ride fast enough :D

Ha! I think theres is most definitely a sliding scale, where at certain speeds a lot of 'technique' is fairly irrelevant.
So for example, we all counter steer, whether we're thinking about it or not. At 30's 40's 50's we probably don't think about it much. But take a bend at 100 and you probably need to consciously 'steer' the bike.
I also think bikes should be fun. So if you want to hang off at 60 round a bend, where you clearly dont need to, but you want to .... then do it and have fun!

I think also the American riders of the time nearly all came from a Flat track backgrounds so their style (Roberts in particular ) was informed by that........

I think I'm proper old style in so much as I ride 'body English' ie sit fairly upright and push the bike down beneath me but then my background is dirt bikes/Supermoto, I've never owned a sports bike and I'm a slow rider......

Interesting thread though :thumb2

Andres

Yeah .... see lots of riders that push the bike underneath them, and most of them have some sort of history on dirt. The downside is, that you'll run out of ground clearance very quickly pushing the bike under you, and to a certain extent your dilute any counter steering ...

<iframe width="950" height="534" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vFRSMIifKS8" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

1min 25 !!!
 
..........



Yeah .... see lots of riders that push the bike underneath them, and most of them have some sort of history on dirt. The downside is, that you'll run out of ground clearance very quickly pushing the bike under you, and to a certain extent your dilute any counter steering ...

.......

1min 25 !!!

Yeah, when I first watched that vid I was very aware of 'oh, that's what I do!" and have been working on it since. It still doesn't feel natural but I'm sticking at it, if nothing else I enjoy learning something new (especially if it's worthwhile).

Andres
 
(I am interested ... sorry to be a power ranger bore :D :D ....)

Here's some more pics, and maybe a better way to really see the difference is to look at the riders alignment on their bike, compared to the bike itself; let's draw a line through the centre of the bike, and down the spine of the rider ....

Doohan;

<a href="https://gileslamb.smugmug.com/Bike/i-WgR3xcZ/A"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Bike/i-WgR3xcZ/0/57a6d604/M/IMG_1537-M.jpg" alt=""></a>

<a href="https://gileslamb.smugmug.com/Bike/i-2bGpfCt/A"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Bike/i-2bGpfCt/0/b48cbba1/M/IMG_1537-M.jpg" alt=""></a>


<a href="https://gileslamb.smugmug.com/Bike/i-nSFZ596/A"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Bike/i-nSFZ596/0/8d6f524e/O/IMG_1538.jpg" alt=""></a>

<a href="https://gileslamb.smugmug.com/Bike/i-nkgjCzT/A"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Bike/i-nkgjCzT/0/e0c7dd8e/O/IMG_1538.jpg" alt=""></a>


Rainey;


<a href="https://gileslamb.smugmug.com/Bike/i-nr8ZqfS/A"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Bike/i-nr8ZqfS/0/78bbb260/M/IMG_1539-M.jpg" alt=""></a>

<a href="https://gileslamb.smugmug.com/Bike/i-fD3KQKX/A"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Bike/i-fD3KQKX/0/a15ad882/M/IMG_1539-M.jpg" alt=""></a>


And now look at the modern boys and their spine, in line with their bike ....


<a href="https://gileslamb.smugmug.com/Bike/i-sLQfxdr/A"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Bike/i-sLQfxdr/0/298bd35b/M/IMG_1534-M.jpg" alt=""></a>


<a href="https://gileslamb.smugmug.com/Bike/i-PGf4qFr/A"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Bike/i-PGf4qFr/0/139c13c2/M/IMG_1534-M.jpg" alt=""></a>


<a href="https://gileslamb.smugmug.com/Bike/i-NzJ9ksM/A"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Bike/i-NzJ9ksM/0/4535770b/M/IMG_1535-M.jpg" alt=""></a>

<a href="https://gileslamb.smugmug.com/Bike/i-d4svGkQ/A"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Bike/i-d4svGkQ/0/86e63fb2/M/IMG_1535-M.jpg" alt=""></a>


<a href="https://gileslamb.smugmug.com/Bike/i-LRxwvQt/A"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Bike/i-LRxwvQt/0/b456e1ea/M/IMG_1536-M.jpg" alt=""></a>

<a href="https://gileslamb.smugmug.com/Bike/i-nVf8HQX/A"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Bike/i-nVf8HQX/0/af27e9c7/M/IMG_1536-M.jpg" alt=""></a>

:beerjug:
 
When I started riding my Suzuki Hustler in 1973,aged 17,I was chuffed to scrape my foot around roundabouts.....I can't do any of this knee down stuff for sure!!!;)
 
OK, been out riding and thinking about this today. Its the opposite of skiing where you jam legs across the slope but torso downhill and look. To me it seems if you push the bar to counter steer you are setting yourself up to cross, especially where more input is needed. Unless you're very supple. And you'll probably have less torque for pushing as your body angle changes downwards and forwards to look through. Maybe they are leaning in and able to pull more effectively to get the steer on, also leaves longer levers to get it into the corner? I noticed that just turning my shoulders and head on a fixe axis to look through the corner felt better and smoother (albeit on usual minor / A roads :))) But the trigger to get this could be to open the inside knee (left for left corner) which pulls your torso/back round to the 'not crossed' position. Maybe the leg lifting off the pegs initiates this at higher levels
 
To me it seems if you push the bar to counter steer you are setting yourself up to cross, especially where more input is needed. Unless you're very supple. And you'll probably have less torque for pushing as your body angle changes downwards and forwards to look through. Maybe they are leaning in and able to pull more effectively to get the steer on, also leaves longer levers to get it into the corner?

So good, that you are thinking about it! I genuinely mean that and hope it doesn't come across as condescending! We're all in it together so to speak, and half the journey of biking is sharing experiences and all that guff!

Next time you're out, try your counter steering and leaning into the corner at the same time, so its one fluid motion of head and body into the turn with a little push of that inside bar at the same time.

As Timolgra made reference too, food for thought is your outside foot. You could experiment with ideas of using that foot as a platform to push against for your counter steering push.

Imagine a long garden hose or rope lying on the floor, and you pick up one end and pulse or flick a ball of energy all the way down the rope / hose to the other end. Your counter steering might be thought of like that maybe? Starting from your outside foot, and pulsing up your leg, over your shoulders and into the opposite hand ?


:D
 
edit ...

What I'm saying here Don, is that your counter steer push shouldn't push you back. It should push the bar forward.
Also worthy of note is that if your fore arms are parallel or almost parallel with the road, then your push is very much into the direction of the bars and will be very effective. If you push at 45 degrees (ie, a bit forward but also a bit down into the ground) then a lot of that push will i/ dilute the counter steering so it won't be as effective, and ii/ it may well just push you back ..

if that all makes sense!
 
Oh it makes sense. I was just trying to think of a trigger. I seems the leg on outside could be but to me, going into a left hander, as you push the right leg and move forward and nudge the bar out with left arm (slight extension) your left shoulder will automatically move ahead of your right shoulder, which crosses you..it has to be a more conscious signal to turn shoulders in before beginning the counter steering, however infinitesimally small or timed. Most definitely a dynamic learning excercise that has to become fluid.
 
Here's a few pictures of the same guy using different styles; the NSR was the big bang engine and not the prefered screamer that Doohan liked; i was going to say engine characteristic; they only have the throttle hand as traction control on the NSR and tyre grip today is way beyond what it was years ago; this may have determined the styles; Rossi looks very Hailwood like on the NSR; but is using 2 differing styles on the bike trying to move with the times; the bottom picture he's crossed up and leading with the shoulder and arm.
 

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Oh it makes sense. I was just trying to think of a trigger. I seems the leg on outside could be but to me, going into a left hander, as you push the right leg and move forward and nudge the bar out with left arm (slight extension) your left shoulder will automatically move ahead of your right shoulder, which crosses you..it has to be a more conscious signal to turn shoulders in before beginning the counter steering, however infinitesimally small or timed. Most definitely a dynamic learning excercise that has to become fluid.

I agree in so much that when you initiate counter steering you're, automatically, putting yourself into a "cross" scenario so, presumably, you should line yourself up as one or slightly before counter steering. I think I'll just stick to counter steering and let my body go where it always goes!

I'm not trying to be a power ranger now - I'm a few decades too late now!
 
Nothing's new.:thumb
 

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Nothing's new.:thumb

Just looking at the bottom picture at Quarter bridge; he did'nt even have the ball of his right foot on the peg; almost like feeling for a skim to find the limit.
 
But should we all be using the "Doctor's Dangle" to help in slowing before a corner and aiding turn-in?
 
I admit since reading this thread I have been trying to turn myself into the bend instead of the "shoulder forward" thing. No ditches have been encountered yet.
 


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