How To Corner On A Harley Without Being AFRAID. #HarleyDavidson #StreetGlide #Motorcycle

can't have more fun than riding your Harley hard around corners they can but it's up there with one of the best things to do that's excellent what's more fun on your Harley than going around corners and why are people actually afraid of cornering on a motorcycle let's get into it had a corner on a Harley without being afraid hi welcome to the channel my name's aim and today we're going to talk about Corners I'm bringing this up because I noticed on the last few group rides people hesitate going into Corners it's like they're scared of them so today we're going to discuss how to take Corners the correct way to do it also what you can do to make it safer how to stop Fear creeping here we're gonna go through seven common cornering mistakes that Harley Riders make and I'm going to show you what to do instead and make sure you stay to the end of the video where I'm going to discuss the most advanced tips including how to get around that minor problem of Harley's not having enough lean angle let's see if we can do something about it last but not least I'm going to throw in a little bit extra just for the fun of it now you can safely say there is no motorcycling without Corners maybe on a drag strip but I find that a lot of the funny motorcycle is taking Corners I think for most New Riders corners of the um are the hardest part of motorcycling I know it was when I first started but I found over the years that once you understand the mechanics behind a motorcycle taking a corner and you practice some of the techniques that are required cornering becomes the most fun part of motorcycling now we're riding on the road with all of the associated problems and hazards that road riding has so I'm not going to discuss how to take a racing line or anything like that because often that's not really practical on the road you can't use the whole of your lane a lot of the time there's oncoming traffic and all sorts of things that prevent you doing that so a lot of Corning mistakes can be overcome just by doing things smoothly accelerating smoothly using your front brake smoothly probably obvious to most people slow down approaching a corner I'm leaving that one out because that's boring so let's discuss some of the other things around corners now one of the worst mistakes Harley Riders make is Target fixation Target fixation is where you focus on an object or an obstacle that's in front of you on the road and you lose sight of the actual path that you want to travel along essentially this is going to make you drift towards the obstacle and you might hit it or crash now the reason Harley Riders do this is because of stress or a survival Instinct that kicks in if you haven't actually practiced consciously looking at the path where you want to go so you naturally want to steer or focus on a perceived danger or threat because subconsciously you think that by keeping your eyes on something that's a threat threat or a danger it's going to keep you safe that's not true if you want to avoid a hazard on the road but the opposite's true you want your eyes on the path around the obstacle classic example of this is a head-on collision on the dark country road at night people are driving driving along it's dark there's nothing happening they see some lights coming in the distance instead of focusing on the road ahead they go into a hypnotic state where they focus on the lights that are coming towards them and their car drifts towards the other car it's a very dangerous situation to be in don't do that you need to consciously practice looking where you want to go the clear path ahead you've also got to remember the lack of experience higher speed momentum will exaggerate or make it harder to break Target fixation number two this is closely related to the last mistake and this is when you don't look through a corner I often see Harley Riders looking just ahead of their front wheel with their eyes fixated on the road ahead of of them and this really is a type of Target fixation because you're looking at the wrong area of the road now your Harley's going to go where your head points not your eyes your head so you need to turn your head in the direction that you want to go looking through the corner at the exit now of course you still need to check for hazards like gravel and potholes on the road so when your head's turned you can actually use your eyes to glance down at the road occasionally but generally speaking your head and vision is turned wet to where you want to go I see a lot of Harley Riders not using that technique at all try it for yourself it makes a huge difference now the third mistake is not counter steering people seem to get confused by the technique of counter steering to put it simply if you want to turn right push your right handlebar to the left so you're pushing your handlebars to the opposite direction of the turn so if I want to turn right I'm pushing my right handlebar to the left which is the opposite weight of the turn that means my front wheel is going to turn a little bit to the left which is going to cause the motorcycle to fall or to lean and turn to the right now the faster you go the harder you're going to have to push on the handlebars to make that happen and the faster you want to turn into the corner the harder you're going to have to push on the handlebars to make the same thing happen that brings me to the fourth mistake that people make and that's turning in too early in a corner if you're turning too early in a corner what you're really doing is you're making the radius of the corner appear longer and this is going to potentially cause you to run wide correct way to do it is to turn later into the corner or go deeper before you actually turn your motorcycle and that's going to straighten the corner a little bit and it's also going to give you the ability to potentially see the exit sooner because if you turn in too early you're not going to see what that corner is doing up ahead you're just going to have to continually go with it so that was the first four ways to take the fear out of cornering your Harley the last three ways are more advanced and I'll get to those in a minute but I want to bring up something about life's Corners you see life also has its corners and bends you think you're on a straight road and out of nowhere a corner appears now that could mean you lose your job or your relationship fails or it could be that you have a minor mishap and your bike dies and you can't afford the funeral now sometimes and for some people these Corners are deliberate I've personally been a corner Seeker for most of my life new relationships new jobs new businesses pushing the boundaries wherever I can find them but it's often when we pursue our dreams goals aspirations that Corners pop out of nowhere it's almost like the creators sitting up there on his old Chopper laughing and saying now this is going to test see if he really wants it and that's a good question do you really want it a lot of fear is taken out of Corners if you prepare beforehand prior preparation can be the key to success so if a relationship ends take the responsibility and assume that it's all you're doing now don't take the blame take the responsibility you see you analyze what happened and you learn from those mistakes then you take active measures to improve yourself so that the next relationship is better you take the risk out of business ventures by learning skills asking for advice using mentors I'm always surprised at how many people go into Ventures without any preparation at all there are a few Simple Rules that'll take the fear out of the corners in your life I've already said take full responsibility for everything not the blame responsibility life is a reflection of you it's there to show you who you are it reflects back at you so that you can see exactly what's happening and you attract what you are and your reflection shows you this you move towards what you focus on not what you want and you always get exactly what you deserve to get based on your internal thought habits and last but not least don't allow your dreams to slip away or to be squashed or to be lost to the mundane parts of life now if you want help with this type of thing life lessons how to apply them to your relationships friendships career business the links in the description have a look at the end of the video and number five is releasing the front brake too soon some would call that an advanced technique some people call that trail breaking now a lot of motorcycle instruction runs along the lines of you're approaching a corner break slow to the speed that you want to take the corner at and then take the corner there's nothing wrong with this especially at slower speed but you can brake much later and you can continue braking into the corner and there's a reason for doing this you just need to know how anyone who's been to a track day will probably really understand this you're breaking as you're approaching the corner and there's always somebody faster who goes as you're braking they go flying past you because they're breaking later and deeper into the corner and they appear to be taking the corner much faster than you and of course they have a much faster lap time now the trick is to use the front brake smoothly and deeper into the corner you do most of your braking with the front brake while you are upright and you slowly release more and more of your front brake as you are leaning so it's pretty simple as your lean angle increases the pressure on your front brake decreases now this is not just about speed when you're using your front brake your front suspension is compressed and a little bit of pressure on the front brake is therefore loading up your front tire and this is going to give you increased grip it's a similar rule to using your throttle the less lean angle that you have the more throttle you can use the more lean angle the less throw model same applies to the front brake as you lean you need to smoothly release the front brake more lean less breaking number six riding in the wrong gear can affect your ability to control your motorbike in particular going around corners right you very simply avoid this by downshifting to the right gear before you get to the corner and of course you're picking a gear that's appropriate for your speed now of course Harleys are pretty forgiving they've got a lot of talk so you can do the incorrect thing a lot of the time I can take off from the lights in second gear on my Harley and I could probably take Corners one gear either side of the crack gear all the time but they're bad habits to develop and you could argue that riding a Harley or a motorcycle is so dangerous that you want to do it correctly as often as you can now there are a few reasons to do it properly into being that correct gear when you're taking a corner you've got engine braking which happens when you're downshifting to a lower gear and that engine braking effect is going to help slow down the motorcycle so that you don't have to rely on just using brakes engine braking helps you control your speed and that allows you to maintain a smooth and consistent line through the corner and that's what Corners are all about being smooth and not doing anything to upset the line of the motorcycle you want to accelerate as you exit the corner and being in the right gear allows you to accelerate quickly and smoothly out of the corner without having to change gears mid Corner sometimes a gear change in the middle of a corner is going to negatively affect your balance or traction so being in the correct gear is going to determine how well power is delivered to your rear wheel if you're in too high of a gear of course you're going to struggle to accelerate out of the turn and if you're in too low of a gear sometimes your bike is going to be too responsive and that's going to cause you to lose traction as you're accelerating out of a corner now of course with engine braking if you have a slipper clutch on your bike that's going to be no dramas at all for you basically means you can downshift and I don't know how they work the mechanism inside the clutch is going to account for the fact that the revs don't match and it will give you some leeway and the back wheel won't lock up if you downshift too aggressively and you're not matching the revs of the engine the back wheel potentially can lock up and that's going to cause at the very least a little bit of a loss of control so be careful when you're downshifting aggressively unless you've got that beautiful slipper clutch now number seven cornering is a lot easier when you use your body to lean as your lean angle and speed increases that's a mouthful so when you're cornering a Harley it wants to move to the outside of the turn if we're turning left your bike wants to go to the outside of the turn it's the fact that you have rubber on the road and the center of uh mass is moving inward that's keeping the bike moving forward and turning so if you position your body to the inside of the turn off center from your motorcycle all it means that your bike doesn't have to lean as far for a given speed or Corner radius so in other words potentially your bike is more upright and that makes it safer you're moving the combined center of gravity lower and to the inside of the Turning Circle so using your body to minimize the lean angle and that also makes the corner safer you're going to have more clearance and a larger patch of rubber on the road now to be practical at Street speeds you're not going to have to hang your body off the bike like Valentino Rossi in a Grand Prix all you really need to do is to lean your upper body off center and that's often all that's required if you want to get more aggressive with leaning besides moving your upper body to the inside of the turn also rotate your hips put put the weight of your body onto one of the hips lift your butt cheek don't forget to turn your head and look in the direction of the turn so Corners are a lot of fun all it takes is a little bit of knowledge and stacks of practice which is fun but again you need to really make a conscious effort to put these or any other techniques into practice so what I mean by that is when you're out riding taking a corner make a conscious effort to go through particular things that you've learned and put them into practice fear goes once you apply this knowledge and you've got a few kilometers of practice under your belt now of course in my opinion we can all learn more we all need to practice continually the application of the things I've discussed today are going to benefit not just beginners but even more experienced Riders you would just take it to a further degree or ride harder and there are plenty more things to learn if you're interested have a look at my video which I'll link here somewhere the three deadly mistakes you new Harley Riders make don't forget to like And subscribe if you want to support the channel we've got some merchandise now the Links down in the description and thanks for watching

Channel: Old Not Dead

Views: 582,382

Keywords: Harley Davidson Street Glide Special, Harley Davidson, Street Glide mods, essential Harley mods, must do Harley mods, Street Glide Special, M8 114, Harley M8, Harley 114, Street Glide M8 114, Harley Australia, Harley Davidson Australia, Fear, Mistakes Harley riders make, motorcycle mistakes, Harley buying mistakes, Harley riding mistakes, Harley Life, motorcycle cornering, Harley cornering fast, Harley cornering techniques, Harley cornering mistakes, Harley fast curves

Id: to97DPyOLWs

Length: 14min 47sec (887 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 12 2023