Originally Posted by Litespud

This - if you look at racing motorcyclists cornering hard, they don't just drop their inside knee, they shift their whole body over, so their ass is hanging off the seat on the inside. By shifting their center of gravity to the inside, that can keep the bike as upright as possible and maintain maximum grip in the corner. Cyclists can't do that - if the outside pedal is down and their outside leg is at close to full stretch, they couldn't shift off the saddle even if they wanted to, but their inside knee drops and I imagine they shift as much body weight to the inside as possible to achieve the same thing - move the COG of the rider/bike combination to the inside, so that the bike can be held as upright as possible to maximize grip.