Lack of confidence

[Adamjf82]

Only been riding a few months on my 125 and my riding is improving, however my cornering is shocking. I just seem to lack confidence in my cornering. Any advice on how I can maintain my speed while cornering or at least keep a decent but safe speed?

I'm not on about hammering it and getting my knee down but maintaining a good speed would be good

[Stu]

Just carry on as you are and don't worry about it

It will come in time

[Adamjf82]

Just carry on as you are and don't worry about it

It will come in time

 

Went for a ride other day and I was moving nicely along then came to corner just started going round then all of a sudden my brain shouted "NO" and i had force my self not to grab a handful of brake and I backed right off the throttle. As i got round it (slowly) I realised it would have been fine at the speed I was doing and all I'd achieved by slowing down was pissing the car driver behind me off

[Stu]

We have all been there!

its worse if you don't know the road and there is a car behind you that does!

[Hoggs]

Went for a ride other day and I was moving nicely along then came to corner just started going round then all of a sudden my brain shouted "NO" and i had force my self not to grab a handful of brake and I backed right off the throttle. As i got round it (slowly) I realised it would have been fine at the speed I was doing and all I'd achieved by slowing down was pissing the car driver behind me off

I still do this now. wouldn't worry about it.

it's a lot nicer to think "hmm I could have gone round that faster" than "oh crap I'm in a ditch"

[Stu]

Went for a ride other day and I was moving nicely along then came to corner just started going round then all of a sudden my brain shouted "NO" and i had force my self not to grab a handful of brake and I backed right off the throttle. As i got round it (slowly) I realised it would have been fine at the speed I was doing and all I'd achieved by slowing down was pissing the car driver behind me off

I still do this now. wouldn't worry about it.

"oh crap I'm in a ditch"

 

Yup

Done that

[Westbeef]

Build up slowly, there's gonna be a few times early one where you anchor on whilst thinking 'NOPE'. You'll get a rhythm and you won't even think about it soon enough.

[Adamjf82]

Thanks guys. I'm going to go out early Sunday morning and just practice on twisty road slightly building my speed up each time until I get to a point where it feels right.

Glad to know everyone has felt the same

[Westbeef]

I'd also add trying being smooth rather than quick

[tigger004]

The vanishing point moving away or towards you is a good indication of corner speed, get hold of the police motorcycle handbook (available on amazon). It covers all aspects of motorcycling not just cornering. One thing that's big, is continuous improvement. Could be a life saving investment,

Also I've been seeing i2i training banded about as a great confidence booster, Google it!

Hope this helps and good luck.

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[Adamjf82]

The vanishing point moving away or towards you is a good indication of corner speed, get hold of the police motorcycle handbook (available on amazon). It covers all aspects of motorcycling not just cornering. One thing that's big, is continuous improvement. Could be a life saving investment,

Also I've been seeing i2i training banded about as a great confidence booster, Google it!

Hope this helps and good luck.

Sent from my SM-T813 using Tapatalk

 

I shall take as look on amazon, I've just had a look at i2i and there is one not far from me but it's not cheap. I might pop down to training centre and see about a couple of lessons just to build some confidence. The plan is to do my DAS this summer so I want to get this corner confidence thing under control

[tigger004]

The vanishing point moving away or towards you is a good indication of corner speed, get hold of the police motorcycle handbook (available on amazon). It covers all aspects of motorcycling not just cornering. One thing that's big, is continuous improvement. Could be a life saving investment,

Also I've been seeing i2i training banded about as a great confidence booster, Google it!

Hope this helps and good luck.

Sent from my SM-T813 using Tapatalk

 

I shall take as look on amazon, I've just had a look at i2i and there is one not far from me but it's not cheap. I might pop down to training centre and see about a couple of lessons just to build some confidence. The plan is to do my DAS this summer so I want to get this corner confidence thing under control

Time will help but expert help will radically change things, even for seasoned bikers. Biking would become a great pleasure if you overcome your concerns, hope all goes well.

Keep us updated.

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[Lateralus]

I found that just getting out and practicing on twisty roads brought on tangible improvements. On a recent ride with a few other novices, some of whom hadn't been out much at all, I found that I was far from the slowest rider overall, despite being on the bike with the smallest engine.

I also have had a few corners where I've got halfway round and suddenly needed to fight the urge to grab the brakes after nearly bottling it. Interestingly, I read an article in Bike this month about the Bikesafe course, which I've already signed up for, where they say that if there's enough grip to stop an upright bike, there's also enough grip for a bike to get around the corner. After doing the course in July, I fully intend to sign up for some advanced training.

The vanishing point moving away or towards you is a good indication of corner speed,

 

This video provides a decent explanation of this, which I found useful.

https://youtu.be/WkAtWiRq8Q0

[someone]

I still cannot do corners and am super slow on them.

That said, I assume when you are going around them you are paying attention to where you are going rather than the speedo? One thing I have realized is I am often not quite as slow in real terms as I realize.

There was one for me at the weekend where I felt like I almost came to a stop on it, but looking back on video* I only dropped to 25mph!

But also in situations when coming off the throttle approaching a corner only to see it open up, it can feel like I have lost a lot of speed yet when I look down I have only lost one or two mph.

As for frustrated car drivers, I think part of the problem is not necessarily the speed going into a corner but the lack of acceleration coming out on a 125. It takes no time to drop from 60 to 40 to go into a corner, but on a small bike you cannot get that speed back as quickly as you can in a car, so they get frustrated because as soon as it opens up they could have just put their foot down.

Making sure you are in the right gear so you have some acceleration helps. Something I often fail to do, so will be still be in fourth gear when trying to accelerate out from 30, say.

The worst for me though are long sweeping corners, which make me get choppy on the throttle the more time I spend leaned over, and downhill corners. The combination of lean and gravity just makes it feel like I have no control.

* One thing I did early on was buy a cheap camera (an SJ4000) as a learning aid and mount it on the handlebars to include the speedo so I could then review things, such as mistakes and how I took corners. I do think it has helped me a lot.

[Lateralus]

Downhill corners are very disconcerting!

[JRH]

* One thing I did early on was buy a cheap camera (an SJ4000) as a learning aid and mount it on the handlebars to include the speedo .

 

I moved my camera.

[tigger004]

I found that just getting out and practicing on twisty roads brought on tangible improvements. On a recent ride with a few other novices, some of whom hadn't been out much at all, I found that I was far from the slowest rider overall, despite being on the bike with the smallest engine.

I also have had a few corners where I've got halfway round and suddenly needed to fight the urge to grab the brakes after nearly bottling it. Interestingly, I read an article in Bike this month about the Bikesafe course, which I've already signed up for, where they say that if there's enough grip to stop an upright bike, there's also enough grip for a bike to get around the corner. After doing the course in July, I fully intend to sign up for some advanced training.

The vanishing point moving away or towards you is a good indication of corner speed,

 

This video provides a decent explanation of this, which I found useful.

https://youtu.be/WkAtWiRq8Q0

Thanks Lateral us a great supporting video of what I was saying.

Another thing is smoothness and where you are looking, a good source of info is a guy called Jerry Paladino (motorman), he is a bit cheesy but his stuff is from many years of being an american police biker.

He talks about "head and eyes" i have been riding since 1976 and it helped me improve a little. I also like his slow riding stuff with a feathered back brake.

Lastly, a lot of bikers brake or stand a bike up mid corner in panic, both actions have a bad outcome. Usually if you are not being nutty the bike would have got around the bend and the smoother the better. Throttling off / braking affect suspension at any time, doing it mid corner is not a good idea.

One of the other posts says about riding a road you know and increase confidence which is a great idea, something I did was use an empty car park.

Find one that is in good condition, pick a nice day, start off with a low speed and practice circles, figure eights and braking.

The advantage to this is that you can stand a bike up and ride out of an intended course of action without running out of road or worry of other vehicles (a bit like the CBT I guess)

Sorry I'm waffling now, but you enjoyment and safety comes with proper handling and control, get out and practice [emoji41]

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[Bananaby]

Im a new rider on a CF125 in the same position I dont thinks its normal for bikes to be going slow enough to annoy cars but I started like that!

[Albrynmair]

I passed my big bike test last year and travel to work 2 - 3 times a week over about a 9 month period and I am still nervous about some corners on my commute. In particular there is one windy section for approx. 2miles, which has trees either side and not much sunlight, so it tends to have leaves, sticks, loose gravel and mud just where I want to ride (between the car tyres) so I tend to go around these corners on the left hand side and rather slowly I'm not sure if I will be able to gain enough confidence to push that little bit harder.

[Westbeef]

If the road surface is crap then don't even bother trying to go quicker, just take it easy and get there safely. I wouldn't say that's a lack of confidence, that's being sensible.

[Bender]

See if you can find a quiet industrial estate with a few roundabouts and have practice at seeing just how well your bike can corner, start off slow and just add a few more mph, my instructor put a lot of effort into cornering and ridding the bike out of the corner to keep it stable, he got me to follow him the first few times and built the speed up, after about the 4th time round the same little route going round quite a large roundabout i had an epiphany, I realized that i hadn't really being paying attention to just how fast or more to the point how far over i was leaning the bike, ohh my i thought, OK it might have included a few

more choice words than that.

He then got me to do a little slalom type maneuver and managed to get me to do 2 opposite maneuvers at the same time, not describing that very well but it was just to show me how it would feel if you try to confuse the bike, it was like trying to steer against a brick wall, the bike wanted to do what the bike wanted to do.

I think where i was going was, professional help is probably going to be the most beneficial for you, as has been said.

[ozzuk]

As a complete noob I didn't like corners - stumbled upon 'countersteering' on here and now they feel much more natural.

[GONKO]

Understanding counter steering help me hugely. Need to tighten the line, push the inside bar etc. Learn the concept then try it consciously on a ride. The bike will grip....but instead of speed being the limiting factor, counter steering will take over as your main thought. Also if shit goes wrong mid corner, my instructor said a dab of rear brake very gently applied, can sit the tail down and get the bike through......but he did say its not best for newbies to test it unless "absolutely needed".

[Guest]

As a complete noob I didn't like corners - stumbled upon 'countersteering' on here and now they feel much more natural.

Learn to countersteer and use it consistently - you will find you have a much better sense of being in control of the bike - making it do what you want, rather than just sitting there hoping for the best.

Also use it to straighten the bike again - you will have a much more positive, in control experience. Don't go mad at first - just a gentle pressure on the bar on the side you wish to turn to will make the bike progressively bank over.

You will soon get the hang of it. Also, don't bother hanging off the bike - no need for it on the road at this point in your riding career. Plenty of time for all that in future.

[Guest]

One contributor to cornering confidence is a feeling of being in control and having fun.

There are two ways of initiating the cornering, one is to try to steer round the corner, the other is to use opposite steering. If you are not using this method I recommend trying it, it makes cornering more fun and controllable.

Try this, while riding in a straight line in an empty road with plenty of space or on an empty car park simply apply forward pressure to the right grip, the bike will instantly lean and initiate a corner, push back the other grip to bring the bike back up.

With practice you will develop complete control and the ability to instantly initiate a corner, and to be in complete control throughout the corner. Make sure you have plenty of room when you try this.

I know most riders will be doing this, and you may already be, but if you have not yet discovered this way of initiating and controlling the bike during cornering you may find it useful. And its great fun.