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Dry Weather Bends - WOW!! - June 2014
Confidence is a strange thing. Too little you can fail, too much you can fail. Too little you wobble and panic and stress. Too much you over inflate your boundaries and ability. As with everything on a bike it is a balance thing.
So on a lovely sunny morning I am out to improve my dry weather riding. As I have said previously with learning to ride through the winter dry roads are a relative new experience to me.
I had hardly been on the bike for a couple of weeks and I was expecting to feel a little rusty. But surprisingly I felt right at home on the bike straight away. I would go so far as to say ... sush I am whispering this quietly in case fate is listening ... I felt confident.
So in theory such a good feeling on the bike was just what I needed when about to put my new found counter steering knowledge to the test.
The chosen route is through Parbold, Rufford and Mawsdesley. Some nice twisty country roads to be had. With my new counter steering knowledge and my feeling of confidence I was all up for pushing my limit that bit further.
I find myself going faster through the bends than I ever have been before. It is both scary and exhilarating in equal measures. One second I am grimacing and the next grinning ear to ear. Wahoo this is the most amazing fun!!! I feel so daring and speedy.
With a little counter steering the bike turns so much more easily into the bends. I manage to be so much smother with no twitches to put me off. I trust the tyres and the bikes ability to corner and he does not let me down.
By reading the road better and looking ahead and into the corners the bike follows the corners much more naturally. Learning to read the road is something you only can do with mileage and practise. I think the miles I have done are finally beginning to count.
When we stop the bf asks how it felt. I excitedly tell him I felt I was flying, he smiles back and said that was because I was flying. Whoop, whoop. I am so thrilled. I even get rid of a chicken strip.
Some times, some days everything just clicks and feels right. Today was one of those days. I was really buzzing. It feels good to feel the confidence inside me growing but it also scares me. I worry I might become over-confident. I might get too cocky. The last time I got too sure of myself in the wet I ended up going for a little surf on the tarmac. So this is the reason that confidence in myself also causes me to worry. But well sod it for today. Today I felt great, I flew around those bends and it felt mighty fine!!
On a good day a bike can sure make you smile A LOT
Reader's Comments
Jools said :-
Cant get my head round counter steering at all
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
Sharon said :-
Hi Jools yes counter steering can be a funny one to get your head around, you are not alone. The simplest way to describe how to do it it as follows.
To counter steer into a left bend corner turn the handle bars slightly to the right. Do this by very gently pushing down and forward on your left hand bar while pulling up and back on your right. This will cause you bike to lean towards the left.
Or to put it in another simpler way, if you are on approaching a left hand bend you push down on your left hand handlebar.
Right hand bends is obviously the above in reverse ...
This is best done first time around on a quite empty carpark. That way you can learn in relative safety how to get the correct feel of just how little push on the bars you actually require. You only requite slight movements.
The thing with counter steering is that even if you are unaware of it you will be doing it naturally anyway. It is the only way to get a bike to corner. However becoming consciously aware is where the practice will help and improve your technique.
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
Latchy said :-
It's a fact, try it somewhere quiet in a straight line, as soon as you give just the tiniest push on say the left handlebar your bike will instantly bank over to the left. It is a way of inducing a turn very quickly.
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
Ren - The Ed said :-
Also putting over 100 bhp through the back tyre whilst on heavily salted roads will make the bike turn VERY sharply - eh Latchy?
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
kath brooks said :-
Sounds like you had a great time Sharon
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
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