Cornering motorcycles faster

When I started motorcycle racing, back in the nineteen-sixties, tyre technology only let us bank the bike over about 45° and the preferred cornering style was "body in line with the bike, sit centrally on the seat, knees gripping the tank". We would put our boots on the outer side of the footpegs and feel for the asphalt when cornering. I would just scrape the edge of my boots lightly, but the professional racers might finish e.g. the TT races with bloody toes, see the photo (left) of Mike Hailwood's post-race boot! For each race he needed new boots!

Sometimes we might lower the knee on the inside of the curve, maybe sliding our backsides across the seat a little (see photo right). The purpose of this was to keep the bike a little more upright for better grip whilst cornering. This is the style I still use when riding on public roads. Note that the knee is still several inches above the road surface. The rider is nevertheless wearing sliders (that black patch) velcroed onto his knees should he touch down. The photo below shows this style, inside knee still well off the ground. Reinforced boot-edges tho'.

Over the years, as tyres got much more grippier, riders learned to posture themselves by moving the upper body and head towards the inside of the corner (see photo below). This kept the bike itself more upright while the line from the tyre contact patch (about the size of a credit card, but oval) through the centre of gravity was banking about 60 ° from the vertical. Note that the inside knee is now touching the asphalt which is why we wear protective sliders! Note in the photo that this is a road bike! Most racers use this style on the racetrack now.

This final photo (below) shows the extreme style used by the fastest riders (such as Marc Marquez); this rider has tucked his inside knee back inwards somewhat and is feeling for the asphalt with his elbow! See the elbow-slider's sparks! So racers now wear sliders on their elbows too. Marquez achieves a lean angle of 70° sometimes, using this body posture.

There is an old video online showing the 64° lean angle achieved 7 years ago by then world champion Jorge Lorenzo here. Scary, huh?

If you want to learn the body posture for fast "knee-down+" cornering, there is an instructional video online here. Perfect Cornering Posture for Street and Track.

Comments (1)
Keith (IOM) admonishes me "You shouldn't be cornering that hard, there might be dirt on the road on or around the corners!" True, 50° is plenty for public roads. On race tracks however, you do multiple laps, so can remember what each corner was like from the previous lap. But there is even an instructional video about coping with dirt on the road online too :-)

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on May 18, 2021 permalink Comments Email

Career plans ruined :-(

One of the side effects of the Corona Pandemic is that there is much less travel. In particular air travel. So there is a glut of airline personnel. So much so that e.g. Lufthansa has about 1000 pilots too many (my guess). Lufthansa also shut down the schooling of new trainee pilots (ca. 700?). So there are 25-30 year olds who have invested €40K - €100K of their own/borrowed money to get an ATPL (airline transport pilot's licence) and several years of their lives on training (which they now cannot finish) to get a career as an airline pilot. And can earn no money to repay any debts incurred :-(

As the pandemic recedes and air travel takes off (groan!) again, first the 1000 superfluous pilots in this example will gradually get back on the line. However, some of their ratings may have expired too, so they need retraining. Only after this phase will the schooling of trainee pilots be restarted, some of whom may have given up and taken on jobs elsewhere. I know of some who have become e.g. engine drivers for the national railway here, giving up their aviation dreams :-(

In the longer term there may be a dip in pilot employment again (due to the Corona now) and airlines will be screaming for more pilots. As it happens, I am rated as a flying instructor, (before I retired) so maybe I need to restart, to help retrain these young guys/gals :-) That's a joke of course, I'd need to rehone my own skills. For example, look at the photo above ; you have six seconds to tell what's wrong lest you and your passengers die.

Let's hope the airlines make long-term planning for personnel, lest trainee pilots start reading books about alternate careers.

What would you do as an unemployed ex-trainee pilot whose career appears to have gone tits-up ??

Comments (2)
Pergelator wrote " I know what's wrong: there is nobody flying the plane. Oh, wait, they are sitting on the ground, so everything is fine, except the parking brake isn't set and the plane is fixing to roll down the hill, into the ditch, catch fire, explode and kill the stowaway hiding in the landing gear compartment." He, He!
Karl (D) has decided "I'm going for another job; it'll be a long time until pilot jobs become available again :-(" May be 2023?

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on May 15, 2021 permalink Comments Email

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Sunday, May 9, 2021

Respect : Sophie Scholl @ 100

Sophie Scholl would have been 100 today if the Nazis hadn't executed her (and others) for treason on Febuary 22nd 1943. She was very active in the White Rose movement against Hitler. Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, as well as Christoph Probst were executed by guillotine four days after their arrest. During their farcical trial, Sophie interrupted the judge multiple times because no defendants were given any opportunity to speak. In all, they had distributed 6 different flyers in about 15000 copies, that's all.

The photo shows (l2r) Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on May 9, 2021 permalink Comments Email

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Friday, May 7, 2021

Wolf in our woods :-(

Scary! There are now wolves in the woods nearby. Don't know who was more surprised, him or me. So I shan't be walking the dog near there (Kleinenberg) anytime soon, even in broad daylight :-(

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on May 7, 2021 permalink Comments Email

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Monday, May 3, 2021

Another old friend gone :-(

Sadly, I report the death last week of yet another old friend, Prof.Dr.H.G.Monissen. Hans-Georg was seven years my senior, if I remember correctly. We met in 69/70 in Constance where we were both members of the shooting club there. He was a pistol/revolver man; I was better with rifles although I also had a TOZ-35 free pistol. At the time, Hans-Georg was teaching economics at the university of Constance. He went on to become professor of Economics at Würzburg university, where he wrote quite a few papers and several books on monetary theory. Mostly over my head, as suggested in this famous cartoon by french artist Plantu (now retired).

In friendly rivalry, he probably wrote as many books as I have, so now I have a chance to overtake ;-) His wife Bettina and son Stephan wrote too. I remember that Bettina and Hans-Georg were good friends with the 1986 Nobel Prize winner James M. Buchanan, whom I sadly never got to meet.

We last met several years ago at one of my decade-birthday parties. Later, I dropped by their house on one of my motorcycle trips through Bavaria, but there was no-one home, probably out at a shooting competition?

Hans-Georg is survived by his wife Bettina and adult children Nicola and Stephan, my condolences to all three. RIP, H-G. Another good man gone :-(

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on May 3, 2021 permalink Comments Email

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Link to the previous month's blog.

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