caloso

For the love of Eddy, people! Haven't any of you ever raced -- or for that matter, witnessed -- a criterium?

lukasz

Are you implying that the heavier an object is the less likely it is to lose traction?

A friend expressed this once when I voiced concern at how he was driving through the Rockies in a car laden with 5 people and their luggage. Luckily I was able to give a very quick lesson in the laws of gravity before we flew off a cliff.

DScott

Davis Phinney taught NOT to lean the inside knee out, but in fact, said to keep it tucked in along the top tube when cornering. Sticking the knee out is not necessary to turn fast/sharply. Some disagree with this approach, but it seemed to work pretty well for him.

Previous discussion: https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=133731

There's more, but you get the idea...

AEO

yeah, that's the one.

jwible

Motorcycle tires are designed to be sticky - at least race tires are. They're toasted after 20 or so laps at race pace. they're also designed to get heat into them to increase their tackiness right out of the pits. I kept my warmers set at 175 degrees for an hour before heading on the track. MC tires are also elliptical in profile so as to increase the contact patch when leaned over. Traction is a finite condition with tires. You can use 100% of available traction to accelerate or to corner, but not both

Bicycle tires are designed to reduce rolling resistance more than anything. In other words they ain't sticky. you could probably get pretty good lean angles on a BC but I've washed out the front end too many times in college doing stupid stuff to try any more. I know that my lean angles then weren't close to the angles on an MC.

Oh, and sticking the knee out on an MC and hanging off is to move the COG off center line so the bike itself can remain more vertical and have a lower risk of dragging hard parts.

Now this is lean angle:

saratoga

A sportbike has a 180-200 mm wide rear tire which is comparable to a pencil eraser in hardness. A motorcycle also has the ability to apply power to the rear wheel while leaned over which is used to shift weight backwards, along with the rider leaning inside-> increases centripetal force, allows the rider to lean further and decrease turn radius while taking said turn faster. Keep in mind hanging off the seat in turns is not something that typically takes place in street riding unless you have a strong desire to lowside.

I think it would be physically impossible to hang off the inside while turning on a bicycle, because your outside leg is almost fully extended. To hang off, you'd have to shift your weight forward past the saddle which is not something I'm trying at high speeds.

Voodoo76

All good explanations saratoga. Another reason for knee out on a MC is as a gauge of lean angle, helps you know where you are.

Look, you can go around 95% of the Crit corners you will ever encounter centered on the bike and pedaling , or at worst missing 2 or 3 revolutions of the crank. Much faster than shifting back and forth. So while you may get some incremental improvement in pure cornering ability, bottom line is you would be slower out of the turn, meaning you now have to accelerate (acceleration = match burning).

Village Idiot

I take it you've never been to my mountains.

saratoga

Notice I said "typically"

Village Idiot

Not that you'd have to half ass the seat and place yourself all the way off the side, but a shift in body weight.

Holding more speed through a corner = less acceleration to be done afterwards. And of course, it couldn't be on an uphill turn.

Voodoo76

If your competition is pedaling you will come out of the turn slower if you do not. Keep in mind you are typically on a wheel into a turn so you can't enter faster/coast thru/come out the same or faster. You will save much more energy staying in line with the least ammount of change in speed.

nycphotography

I have theory that the real reason not to stick your knees out is usually AERODYNAMICS.

Unless you're racing crits, the only reason you're near the limits of traction is because you're barreling down a descent. In that scenario, the aero losses of leaning off the bike outweigh the "cornering speed" gains.

I arrived at this theory by starting out riding my bike like I used to ride my motorcycle which worked not so well.

merlinextraligh

Phinney was in his hay day when I was learning to race, so I read all he wrote about turning descending and tried to emulate.

FWIW, I think the key to his approach is pushing down on the inside handlebar; learning to initiate the turn by pushing the bike over, and adjust the turning radius by how much you push the inside handlebar down.

IMHO, where you point your knee, is kinda secondary, and less important than the basic point of what makes the bike turn,and how you can adjust your line.

In summary, I think Phinney's approach is right, but some of the details that people quibble with are not central to the basic point.

DScott

I think you're right on the money here. It's more an issue of whether you: 1) lean the bike more than your body, 2) keep the body in line with the bike, or 3) lean the body more than the bike. I seem to do pretty well with 2) and 3), depending.

I don't often find it necessary to hang the knee out, but a bunch of racer types I followed down a winding road seemed to like doing that. They were faster than me, but what prevented me from keeping up was nerves, not my knee position.

logdrum

Photoshopped?

Mose

I'm pretty sure the kids are stationary.

Boostland

Yes I have raced plenty of them, I love the high speed cornering and intensity of them, I prefer to race on a 42 degree banked velodrome however as you can sprint full speed in the corner without the worry of clipping a pedal.

msincredible

I see a lot of sticking their knees and butts out...however most of them are riding all crossed up.

woodduck

bit silly to be riding in a way you need to have your knee out on the road.

in a race situation, crit for example, you more or less pedal through the corners, apart form maybe one or two depending on the speed, stopping pedalling means you are slowing down which means you have to get back on again, you don't need to slip up under anyone and overtake them in a corner. Speeding up and slowing down around evey bend in a race is a good way to piss off everyone racing there.

going down a hill on a road bike well, you can sort of go as fast as you want to.

But for most the risks of doing so are not worth it. Unless you are racing to pay the bills then there is no need to take a lot of risks on downhill sections.

Some bikes have fantastic stable geometry that will allow you to corner with lots of speed on downhill sections, hardly touch the brakes, just use you body as the brake by moving around and catching wind, it's a great feeling and in my opinion motorcycle riding does not even come close to the feeling of a nice long flowing downhill on a roadbike.

I enjoy riding much more.

G60

Blossom

Gah! The Phinney corning method versus shifting butt/knees inside debate!

Phinney's method of leaning the bike underneath the rider can initiate a turn very quickly and you can start pedaling very quickly afterwards. However it is not optimal in terms of amount of traction.

Pointing the inside knee and sliding your shoulders and butt towards the inside of the turn allows the bike to be less angulated which tends to increase the traction at the cost of the turn being slower to initiate and recover from.

So do you want to initiate the turn quickly or are you praying that you don't slide out on the turn? This will determine which turn style you chose.

shaun3000