A twist of the wrist 2 pdf

Charging In high-speed-entry turns, the most common error is "charging" - If you start slow and going in as far as possible with the gas wide open, then chopping the accelerate you might feel instability, front tuck or it just throttle hard and having to coast in or brake lightly to scrub-off the excess won't track but it could still speed.

Riders always give up far too much speed as a result of this style work at the higher speeds; start slow. And since the largest gains in lap times are made in high-speed turns, charging becomes a huge barrier to lap-time improvement. Approach the turn at a speed you know for sure you can The last thing to try is handle. Let's say this is a sixth-gear turn and the fast guys are charging the turns.

You start out or even rpm under that. You approach the turn at a constant throttle, at that rpm. As you turn in. Remember, this is at a non-threatening speed so rolling on should not produce any panic whatsoever or do anything except make the bike stable. The next pass is done a few hundred rpm higher. Depending on the bike and gearing, each additional rpm produces roughly 10 to 15 mph in sixth gear.

Every time you move up the scale rpm. Each rpm is 1. Continue steps 1 through 3 until you reach your limit or the bike's limits. This gets the speed right and avoids the SR's triggered by "charging". The calm, controlled approach may feel slower but usually it's much faster 2.

Recharge For turns that really aren't wide open, the additional steps to this Some guys think they have to drill are: be just quick but you have to be controlled. Approach the turn wide open but start the roll-off well before you would if you were charging and make it a smooth, even roll-off. Get the throttle cracked open and rolling-on right away. As above, if you are approaching it one step at a time, you will find the limits of this turn in the safest and most controlled way possible.

If it goes out of line or twitches from chopping it, examples where this has worked. In many cases the rider finds he never you can't feel it as easy. Or, he finds he rolls-off but only for an instant, just long enough to know where off is.

Any idea of using the brakes is just a memory. Another SR defeated by understanding throttle control and machine basics. Amping-up your SRs by charging may be exciting but not fast and charging doesn't agree with machine design. Throttle control rule number two: in any fast-entry turn, calculate the roll-off as carefully as you would a roll-on. Does this also agree with suspension design, weight transfer and traction?

Forces produced going in are focused on by braking, accelerating, cornering, etc, are the real stuff of riding. We speed. Many riders have trouble with this point.

Throttle control produces the least of the forces encountered while cornering -when done correctly. As your turn entry speeds come up and you get on the throttle earlier, you will begin to discover just how light a touch mid-turn throttle requires. However, we are talking about machine requirements, not a rider's dreams of factory rides. The Forces At Work Any turn is full of important forces to monitor. Just as in the pain experiment, individually, none of them may be a problem, but two or more together can cause confusion.

Forces are something you deal with while riding. The standard techniques of throttle control put you in command over many of the forces, and one of the by-products is defeating the SRs that accompany those forces. In correctly using the throttle -to set entry speed- you are making it a little easier on yourself and on the bike. Speed is the force that lights up our SRs quicker than anything: throttle control is the way to tame them.

At one track it took Keith 10 years to talk me into using the throttle correctly in the fast turn entries. Gently rolling off and back on at a similar rate can eliminate time consuming complications such as: shutting off the gas, grabbing the brake and just getting it cracked back on just right. Of course, all the riding time I have has helped sort out the different loads a rider feels on the bike but now I feel as though I can sort them equally and not have any one of them consume too much attention.

Another simple but useful tool is knowing these different ways that the bike slows The Forces at Work each of them can be used individually or, sometimes, altogether.

Definitions Force: Strength or power exerted upon an object. Overwhelm: To overcome completely as by physical or emotional force. Fascinating: Having the power to capture interest and hold the attention.

Self-generated: Produced from within. Suspicious: Believing something to be false, undesirable or bad. Calculate: To determine by reasoning, common sense or experience; To figure out.

Gauge: To evaluate or judge. Depend: To rely on. Deceptive: Misleading; creating a false appearance. Sort-out: To find the differences between one thing and another: To clarify.

Emotional: Of or relating to emotion; involving any of the feelings of joy, sorrow, fear, hate, etc. Abandoning: Leaving or ceasing to operate or inhabit. Centrifugal: Moving or directed outward from the center. Centrifugal Force: The tendency of a body rotating about an axis to move outward. Based on the amount of wiggling, squirming and overuse of controls most riders exhibit, the bike would, if it could, surely ask them to leave.

Hanging-On can be as important as Hanging-Off. The awkward seating position is an attempt to find a stable place to hang on. Rider Technology As an example, most Novice Knee Draggers try to hang off and steer at the same moment. This is a big mistake as it only serves to make the bike wiggle at their turn-in point.

One of the reasons the hanging-off riding style works so well is that your body is already in a low and stable position on the bike when you flick it into the corner. The correct technique is: 1. Get over into position well before the actual steering input, usually just before you roll off the gas and pull on the brakes. Stabilize yourself for the braking but be comfortably seated so you will not have to make any additional body position changes throughout the entire turn.

Clamp onto the bike, just tight enough, with your outside leg or boot pressed to the bodywork or. Apply steering pressure to the handlebars. You're in the turn! The it quicker but start slower and smoother so you finally get to mistake is trying to turn while you're moving from one side to the other side turning it when your weight of the bike and aren't firmly and comfortably anchored to it. There's almost hits the seat. The next four chapters explain how to remain in maximum control of your bike with the minimum amount of effort.

Don't just sit there like a lump on the seat, help the suspension, use your legs like an extra set of shocks. Definitions Counter-leaning: The act of a passenger on a motorcycle leaning in the opposite direction from that of the rider. Esses: Two or more turns in succession, generally capable of being taken at high-speed and laid out in an elongated "S" shape. Transition: Movement or passage from one place, state, stage, etc.

Primary: First: First in order of any series. Contribute: To give money, time, assistance, force, etc. Do your hands become tired during or after spirited corner-carving sessions?

These are two of the main indicators there are many more telling you something is wrong. What are the indicators saying? How you hold onto the bike is quite an art all in itself. In fact, it is actually a separate You have to build confidence technology with its own rules Wouldn't you know it?

Do you need further proof this is a survival reaction? Try this. For most riders, it's the only way to discover exactly what's happening. Generally, riders don't notice their pumped-up arms until they slow down. Is this automatic? Too tight on the bars is survival reaction 2. Survival Reaction 2 Again, by survey of over riders, the overwhelming choice for runner-up in the "unwanted riding conditions" class is: too tight on the bars.

The message is: Please send oxygen, we are overworked and starving. If there was a way to simply hot-wire bypass these reactions, I'd tell you, but there isn't. But we can handle them, using education as our primary tool.

So let's get smart about holding on. Any bike will do it. This system you holding on too tight. When it reaches its limit of flex, the shock and forks understanding of the bike increased the offset we had take over to stabilize the bike. What happens when these two systems fail at the end of the season was to handle the situation? The forks move, side-to-side. They are the next almost 10 degrees less than at the start. Why do they move? When 1 and 2 above have reached their limits the immediate result is weight changes to the tires.

Don't judge your speed from mistakes. A slower entry When weighting lightens up. The fork doesn't making it shake would have quite stop right at the perfect tracking position, it goes slightly past it. By worked better than upsetting it and giving yourself a false this time the tire has hit at least one more surface imperfection and is idea of speed.

That's what shakes the head. Stop Shaking No one is strong enough to stop this from happening. In fact, if you did stop it, the bike would instantly wobble violently and be totally out of control. The good news is that if your bike is basically tight Machine set-up and stability steering head bearings not excessively worn, forks and shock not sticking, help you to stay loose on the bike. The balance is critical: etc. The bad news is that these head shakes are transferred, back get it turned, but no more.

Hold tight and the bike feels totally unstable and ready to crash; loosen up and it goes straight, even though the front end is working back- and-forth. Riding over rain grooves cut in the highway can offer a milder sample of the same principle. The process of Head Shake begins when the tire hits a ripple and, along with the suspension, compresses.

This throws the wheel slightly off-center. When the suspension and tire release, the wheel is light and flicks back toward a centered position, but again, slightly off-center. Still off-center when it loads again from the next ripple; again it is flicked past its centered position.

The cycle of flicking back and forth repeats as the front-end seeks to stabilize through this automatic and necessary self correcting process. Relaxed on the bars allows the front-end shake to remain in the front. Stiffening on them, transfers it, through your body, to the whole bike. Tight and Wide Holding too tight onto the bars also makes the bike run wide in On a fast track you want more fork angle or more turns.

Because of this self-correcting, back-and-forth action of the front- offset for stability. Slow end and the outward-bound cornering forces, the bike winds up going tracks: When you steepen wider than it should. Also, the inside bar is the most accessable to hang head angle you also soften the spring.

Steering Dampers What about steering dampers? Well, they don't stop head shake When the bike is working right AND you are working completely, but they do limit the travel and intensity of the head shake.

Taking it one step further, if the steering damper was very long and anchored at the back of the bike, it would transfer the head-shake to the entire bike. The steering damper is not another device to reduce the effects of SRs: If you are stiff the bike will shake with or without a steering damper. You have to ask yourself, "How bad can head- shakes from spinning and shake get? Remember to relax. Overcoming the "too tight" SR is the hard part. Allowing the front to "work" is a standard riding technique which agrees with machine design.

Too tight on the bars is the most common source of motorcycle handling problems. Bending the elbows and wrists instead of straight arming the bike will set you up to be in a more friendly and relaxed position on the bike. I only vary the grip when I'm making steering changes: Outside of that; my grip is as equal and relaxed as I can make it.

Treat the bike like a friend and it won't work against you. Definitions Areas: Field of study, or a branch of a field of study. Automatically: Starting, operating, moving, etc. At-speed: As fast or nearly as fast as you could be or should be going. Sole: Being the only one; Only. Inclination: A liking or preference. A disposition or bent, especially of the mind. Influences: Things with the capacity or power to be a compelling force on another thing or person.

Realize: To grasp or understand clearly. System: A combination of parts, assemblages, etc. Flexes: The act of bending. Track: To follow the course or progress of. Dazzling: To impress deeply. Principle: A primary law or truth from which others are derived. Counter-steering: To guide in an opposing manner or direction. The act of initiating a turn by cocking the handlebars in the opposite direction to the way you wish to go.

Sufficient: Enough to do the job. Leverage: The mechanical advantage or power gained by using a lever. Steering-head: The forwardmost section of the frame which holds the bearings, steering stem and triple clamp assembly by which the forks are attached to the bike.

Relatively: Compared to others. Essentially: Basically. Is it just cosmetics? Does your machine have design functions you're not using? However, a good rider can benefit from using such paraphernalia. SR 2 Solutions A number of features have evolved to assist the rider in becoming less of a bad influence on the motorcycle. Some of these solutions are: High-backed racing style seats anchor the rider more firmly, reducing the need to hang on by grabbing the bars tightly.

Large tanks provide elbow or forearm rests during cornering. Knee slots on the gas tank's side provide a more stable way to hold on, allowing the rider to use the bars less. Tall tanks can also provide a chest rest. Wind Riding Most riders become anxious about being blown around in the wind and tighten on the bars. The bike is then being steered by the wind! Ride loose and low, and the wind's effect on the bike is reduced by at least 75 percent.

Some design features help reduce unwanted bar pressure High-backed seats. Tall tanks for torso rest. Arms rest on large tank. Knee "slots" in tank. Rear-set style footpegs. Cruiser style bikes rely on the bars as a primary pivot point.

Auto Throttle Other key rider jobs are similarly affected. Riding through bumpy turns and being stiff on the bike tends to roll the throttle on and off: the bike bucks even more as you bounce up and down on the seat. Both suspension and traction are affected because standard throttle control is not maintained. This can be quite dramatic. Solution: Use the "elbow check" in turns.

If you can easily and loosely move your elbows, you aren't too tight on the bars. Unfortunately, the inside bar is the handiest thing to hold on to. The problem created is that the bike will go to the outside of the turn because you are counter-steering pulling on the inside bar toward the outside of the turn.

Holding onto the bike with one leg or both legs eliminates this often baffling problem. Resting the elbow on the tank can help and having the seat section short enough to use as a pivot point for the body can also be a workable solution. Fast Turns In very-high-speed turns the wind is trying to twist you back off the bike, especially if you have a knee out; the knee acts like a sail. Staying as low as possible on the bike helps. Hanging Off The hanging-off riding style has an unfavorable side-effect in store for riders who don't understand handlebar inputs.

Moving up and over from one side of the bike to the other by pulling on the handlebars immediately makes the bike wiggle, especially under acceleration. But pulling yourself back onto the seat by using your outside knee or leg against the tank reduces handlebar inputs and and avoids the problem.

The bike shakes because you're holding on tight. Also consider good throttle control; a nice, smooth, even roll-on is very difficult when you have a death grip on the bars.

Wheelie The very same principle applies to setting a wheelie down. Tight on the bars and wheel not lined up with the bike's direction at set-down produces the shakes. False Speed Holding on tight also transfers more engine vibration to your hands and arms. False Suspension Here again, holding on too tight makes the rider receive too much input; the rider senses every movement of the bike when it isn't important.

The tighter you hold on, the bigger the bumps seem. SR 2 makes them all worse. They're uncomfortable on the bike in one or the other and are simply holding on too rigidly, on their "bad" side. Blurred Vision Riding rigidly can shake your helmet and head enough to blur vision. The more you try and hold your head still, the more it moves in short, choppy jerks that blur the vision and make your neck sore. SR 2 Conclusions Confusion is the result of too much input to the rider at one time.

Holding on too tightly could cause up to 11 bad effects in one single turn, possibly even all at once. SR 2 creates an exhausting chain-reaction of unwanted input and corrections to the machine.

By being comfortable and having the idea you fit on the bike, your body position will be more conducive to making it easier to control the bike and use good riding technique. In this way you're not fighting yourself. It's most important to use the footpegs to unweight the body while changing positions on the machine. This holds excessive handlebar useage down to a minimum and reduces upper body fatigue. Definitions Rigid: Not bending; inflexible. Aftermarket: The market for replacement parts, accessories and equipment for the care or enhancement of the original product after its sale to the customer.

Pa r a ph e r n a lia : Equipm ent or apparat us used in or necessary for a part icular act iv it y. Pivot : A pin, point or short shaft on t he end of which som et hing r est s and t urns. Poin t : A part icular spot. Bu ffe t in g: St r iking or pushing against repeat edly. Fa vor a ble : Advant ageous; giving advant age, opport unit y or convenience. Fu n ct ion : The kind of act ivit y proper t o a person or t hing, The purpose for which som et hing is designed.

Sa il: A piece of canvas or clot h spr ead t o t he wind t o cause a vessel t o m ove. An ch or : To secure fir m ly as if by an anchor. I m pr e ssion : A st rong effect produced on t he int ellect , feelings, et c. Am plifie d: Made larger or m ore powerful: I ncreased. Re solve s: Reaches a solut ion t o: Solv es. Ex a gge r a t e : To incr ease or enlarge abnor m ally; t o m agnify. How do you save it when the front or rear tire gives up traction?

Why don't the fast guys crash when their bikes slide? While wiggles and shakes are distracting, there is a far more dramatic and deadly result from SR 2 that you should fully understand and it has to do with sliding. Put the bike into a slide to see if it's true.

Does the motorcycle feel stable to you when sliding? It should, if you're doing it right. In the most typical of slides, you have the back end "coming When it slides, that first around. You stand it up. In a rear end slide the front end turns toward the direction the bike is actually going -into the slide.

The main mass of the bike is moving outward and the front wheel turns just the right amount to stabilize it. This feature comes free of charge with every motorcycle.

In a car, if the back end comes around, the front wheels turn to the inside of the turn, creating a pivot point for the car's mass, and it spins out.

Learning how to drive a car in the snow is mostly a matter of understanding that you have to manually turn the wheel into the skid to stabilize it.

You don't on a bike. When the bike slides and SR 2 is triggered, the rider with good If you don't raise it up in a reactions and a strong back is in trouble. If the rider is successful at slide, the back end just keeps holding the bars tight enough that they don't turn into the slide, the bike on coming around. More little slides have turned into far worse situations than you would care to know, because of this dramatic result of SR 2. I suppose it pays to be slow and weak in this circumstance.

For dirt riders, this is the main tool for cornering. Many small slides turn into much worse situation from excess rider input. The normal result of chopping the gas when throttle chop will make it stick and launch you over. This is the first stage of a highside crash.

If you catch it before the back is too far out, usually it isn't a problem; the bike just shakes a bit as the wheels come back into alignment. If you don't go completely off the gas, the bike is far more stable than if you do!

You get to appreciate the guys who can keep it sliding, Controlled, tire-spinning, acceleration drifts like our heros do on the bring it up just the right 5OOcc GP bikes, would not be possible if they were very tight on the bars amount and take it to the paint, on the gas.

That's or if they chopped the throttle. You have to be able to overcome both of impressive to me and Freddie these SRs to do that yourself. Now we see why 5OOcc GP guys get paid was the best at it. I was watching a race on TV one day and a pro rider I know If the rider tenses up or crashed.

As I thought about it, he had been crashing quite a lot recently. The wheel snapped back to "normal" position and then he crashed. Front-end push isn't as nice and not as common. It Front-end slides usually occur because too much weight forces the happens because the bike's tire past its traction limit.

It is possible to have it slide when underweighted; wrong, not set up right, or the tire is wrong. Manually turning the bars one direction or the other causes what I saw on TV described above to happen. With a pushing front-end, turning the bars back to a "normal" position is counter-steering, which would make the bike lean over even more, which is also what happened. Letting the bike "do its own thing" opens more doors for escaping the above than it closes.

Most importantly, the pushing front-end is slowing the bike down at a rapid rate and as it slows the forces are lessened and the bike tends to stand up, get back in alignment, and continue through the turn. That's what you want. Far, far more front-end and rear-end slides have been "saved" than lost.

In a very real way you are dangerous to yourself as long as this SR can grip you in its claws: But it can be overcome. Take control It has taken me years to be able to keep from chopping off the throttle when sliding.

I hold a steady throttle when a slide starts or even continue to roll into it. Standing the bike up just a little also works to get the bike "hooked-up" smoothly. If you chop off the throttle when the front-end pushes, it will transfer even more weight to the front and then you need a small miracle to save it.

Keep your head and a steady throttle. Use your knee to hold the thing up if you have to. Definitions Stable: Resistant to sudden change; steady; reliable. Compensates: Makes up for or offsets; Acts as a counter-balance.

Stunned: Stupefied, astonished; astounded; amazed. Front-end: The fork assembly including the front wheel of a motorcycle. Are changes on the bike until they predictable or unpredictable? What part do you play in this? And his problem is with the SRs that are same bike, conditions change, suspension doesn't triggered, nothing else. But, from talking to most riders, you can easily get always perform the same. I'll give work. Every Four Laps At a national event, one of my private students told me this: "About every four laps the bike shakes violently going through the kink about a mph turn leading onto the back straight , the front-end comes off the ground heavy chatter and I can't figure out what suspension changes to make.

Only riders do. So, loosen up on the bars through the kink; it will stop shaking". It did. In fact, to prove the point, his left clip-on handlebar broke off about three taps from the end of the Superbike race and he still wound up fourth and only running 2.

You certainly can't hold on too tight with only one handlebar. Holding On and Traction Riders have a variety of ways they make this type of thing happen. When you brake hard, stiff Basically, all that results is a loss of traction and stability but those two armed, you can get the idea parts of riding are the biggest attention getters SR triggers there are.

Weight transfers on the bike are an obvious source of traction reduction, as we have seen in the throttle control chapters. But this business of holding on has a huge effect on traction as well. There are a number of ways to minimize this effect, once you understand it. Braking is a good example because most riders go pretty stiff when they get on the brakes and thus transfer more weight onto the front than is needed.

Taking some of the weight of braking-deceleration against the tank lessens the amount of weight on the bars and the result is: 1 You have the rear wheel on the ground in really heavy braking a little longer: and 2 in less-than-all-out braking the front end has more travel to work with the pavement ripples, maintaining better stability and traction. Stiff Corners After braking, some riders stay stiff-armed on the bars; the upper body is driven forward by a deceleration force of about 0.

Potentially, up to pounds of weight is transferred to the front end when that weight could be on the seat or tank, 24 to 36 inches further back. Forgetting to relax is all this really is.

Stiff-armed while braking and in turns can make your job more difficult by transferring extra unwanted weight to the front-end. Smoother Throttle Another advantage of relaxing comes when you get back on the gas. If the rider is already relaxed on the bike, there is up to pounds you don't have to transfer, front to rear, with the throttle.

That makes the transition, from off-the-gas to back-on-the-gas, much smoother, right from the beginning of the throttle action. Allow your body to relax immediately after the steering action is completed.

In fact, ideally, you would be loose right when the fires "bite", at the moment you are at full lean angle. It is a Try to keep your weight off the seat except on the Technique borrowed from dirt riding and horse racing. This applies to any rough road surface. Use your legs to hold your weight up; don't overuse the bars to hold your weight up or to hold onto the bike.

Tankslapper Damper Picking your weight up off the seat if the bike wobbles violently or slides and catches also works to reduce the effect of your body mass being Weight off the seat lets it so high on the bike. This allows the bike to correct and stabilize itself much shake as much as it wants.

The less of a "whipping back and forth" mass you become, the Sometimes it will shake your feet off the pegs but that's quicker the bike will stabilize. Sit Still Suspension set-up is done for a given amount of Being up off the seat when weight in a given position, not the bike slides and catches for a variable amount of can reduce your chances of crashing.

All it means is that the bike can't "think" with you moving around on top of it. One of the most obvious things about a GP bike It's better to get your weight is that you can't move very far in one place on the bike and forward or backward on the seat.

It can be I ran into a problem with weight confusing if you move around on it. I like to sit forward. In an attempt to Any way you sit on it is fine: fully relax on the bike. I took to laying my just make it the same. It improved the handling in a number of places on the track, especially the slow-to-medium-speed turns.

I didn't realize how much moving the weight, which was now transferred to the front, was unloading the rear wheel. When my lap times got good, I unexplainably "lost" the rear end in a fast turn. I experimented with this on other bikes and found the same thing, without crashing ; the back-end gets loose much easier, on most bikes, with your upper body weight on the tank. The bike was set-up fine for my body weight, it just didn't like where I was putting it and I wasn't smart enough to adjust the suspension to my new body positioning.

Weight Transfer With your feet on the pegs, weight shifts forward and back depending on your upper body's position. A little more if you rest on them. For the purpose of traction, that is significant. However, after the clutch is dropped in the classic race type start, with your body over the tank and legs pointed back, no additional weight for antiwheelie ballast is actually on the front-end — until you get your feet onto the pegs.

Because of acceleration force it's still the most comfortable position; but get the feet up quick. Sweeper Weight In fast turns, it is particularly difficult to stay back on the seat because wind drag on your body is trying to tear you off the bike. Most riders find themselves pulling forward on the bike in an attempt to hang on, reducing rear traction to a degree.

Staying low on the bike and keeping your knee tucked tight to the bike helps. Adjustments can also be made to the suspension, transferring more weight to the rear if it is a problem. Lowering the rear, raising the front, raising the whole bike and moving the rear wheel forward are four adjustments which will transfer more weight to the rear. But here again, the basic action of pulling back on the bars can create an adverse effect on the bike, making it shake and run wide in the turn.

Not what you want. Rider Input Suspension can be adjusted to a variety of road and track conditions. Mismanaged rider input creates an unpredictable factor which cannot be adjusted for. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. A twist of the wrist Item Preview. EMBED for wordpress.

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Original instructional manuscript read by author Keith Code. For nearly two decades A Twist of the Wrist has been the high performance rider's bible of cornering. Enthusiasts worldwide have used Keith Code's unique perspective on the cornering art to improve their own skills and enjoyment. Both advanced and beginning. Highly recommended for libraries with a motorcyclist clientele," Library Journal.

Narrated by author Keith Code. Discovering the art of cornering has been Keith Code's life work. His descriptions of riding techniques and fundamentals have set the standard in motorcycle rider training. American Motorcyclist magazine, the official journal of the American Motorcyclist Associaton, tells the stories of the people who make motorcycling the sport that it is.