Used to be the thing many years ago ‘have you got your knee down yet’? Well yes I did and have (on the roundabouts 20 years ago). Would I try it now? Simple answer No.
This thread makes me feel a bit less inadequate! Done 10-15 track days since getting my licence a couple of years ago. Had toe down a bunch of times but that’s hardly a badge of honour and more a representation of poor foot positioning. Knee sliders remain resolutely unmarked. Think my personal issue is more around opening the hip up and getting that knee out than cranking the bike over further. But also hard to know with lean angle whether the limit is in your head or real. Never got anywhere near it on the road - you need to know the corner, know the current surface condition, it be exactly the right kind of radius and to have a line of sight that continues for way after the corner. And that doesn’t happen very often!
My 8 grand bike is worth more to me than bragging rights My chicken strips are about 1/4inch either side Seen worse and seen better But who really cares because I don’t I just enjoy going out on my blade
DMC, you have the bike well enough over to have your knee planted into the ground. Your foot looks fairly flat on the pegs which will stop your hip opening to allow your body to angle itself towards the corner. This looks a bit drastic to me but gives you an idea of what to move towards. Having the ball of your foot pivoting on the end of the peg allows easy opening of the hip and the leg/knee extends out far easier. I'm far from an expert so don't take that as a hard and fast rule. This is just what unlocked it for me and something I see alot of people who try to go knee down not looking at.
When i was instructing at track days I would ask the customer what they wanted to get out of the session, as you'd expect i'd get few say "I want to get my knee down" . So i'd ask why, most said it would be cool So my response was always "how about I teach you how to ride the track quickly but safely, we'll also focus on your body position, and if you touch your knee down that will be a bonus, and you will have done it for the right reason"
Another consideration on the road is loose gravel. The local council in my area are absolutely terrible at maintaining and sweeping the roads. Just driving along in the town yesterday in the car I was noticing the amount of loose chipping on the roads. That ties in with the ruined paint on the front V area of my belly pan which looked sandblasted after 1000 miles. I don’t have the confidence to push it over on a road unless i have just ridden it and know that the road is clean...and then there are the tractors and mud
Used to surf the roundabouts years ago and on track days but not now roads have to many holes in them ...I tend to carry a lot of corner speed only on the roads I know well but not knee down don't go looking for it just ride naturally ...
To be honest it's not something I try for or worry about, as long as I get around the corner I'm happy. One thing that did surprise me was counter steering when I saw it on YouTube...I mean pushing the right bar to turn right...there was me thinking, what a load of crap...then I actually took note of how I do corner and realised that is what I do. It's a subconscious thing i guess. Oh and getting a knee down...nah, rather get my head down
I was in a similar thought process when I heard about countersteering. Once I’d plucked the courage to try it I couldn’t believe the difference. I only do it if I’m riding “hard”
Knee down ,,,, hell yeah every time I go out and check the oil Had touch down with the end pipe on the 918 while bottoming out in a corner, ,,, but still no knee down ,,,,, I got short legs I read somewhere that Mike Hailwood never got his knee down (correct me if I'm wrong Nige ) but got through a lot of boots
I know that back in his Honda days he could drift a bike like no other. I don't recall pics of knee down, but then there was very little movement on/across the saddle. Also, those were the days of 'triangular' tyres which meant that the rider had to be either on the centre of the tyre or cranked over on the edge. There was very little transition room nor margin for error.
Personally the main issue I used to see when doing trackday instruction, was that most folks were a 1000% convinced their a**es were totally off the seat, when in fact if they had farted they would have moved more, coupled with nearly every riders upper body was stiff and arms were locked, and at that point the only way to get their knees down was to crash.
Can't be arsed to bother now. Whenever I try to get the knee down I run wide and slower. This is the closest and last time I tried ( the next straight my ABS failed) Bike is cranked over, but a combo of short legs, stiff hips (OK just an accuse for poor technique) and shitting my pants prevented the accolade.
I'm rubbish at it (see evidence below ), I really need to start hanging off to go faster (and also less risk of crashing), I'm a bit cramped on the blade so need to sort out the pegs into a decent position so I can move about better.
This is my best effort. I'm too stiff on the bike, and really feel uncomfortable coming "out of the bike" more. I don't dare to aggressively lean on public roads, and my time on the track to "practice" is scarce, so...
My son had a cbr125 and titanium studded knee sliders and we sore a video of the sparks flying from his knee sliders. Then he got the exhaust to touch, after showing his mum how far over he had to get to get the exhaust to touch, he then got a clip of the ear hole