Road Cycling - cornering at speed......

photo worth thousand words....
bike lean, countersteer and knee out.

I dunno how safe it is to do that on cobblestone... I always fear it'll just skip across the stones and I'll end up on my fat butt.

knee in. that's how lance does it.

sd

I agree on 2 out of 3. I don't like the knee out method. I find it easier to press the inside knee against the top tube, which allow you to get your hips and torso more upright over the bike.

Here's some backup to this theory: http://www.bicycling.com/article/0,3253,4886,00.html?category_id=364

I think those kinds of pictures have to be taken with some understanding of the fundamental difference between Lance and us. The philosophy behind this technique is at least possibly irrelevant to your riding unless you've got a similar riding personality to Lance, or setup or just simply a bike that you know inside out and is as good as it gets. Countersteering surely depends on immense control, feel, frame rigidity, grip and guts? I agree with the knee on the top tube philosophy because it gives you more control if you shimmy because when you naturally tighten up, your position doesn't change and neither does your balance point.
If you look at the way people like Gronholm fling a rally car around without a second thought, it's stunning. But I won't be trying it. some rally drivers steer with the skid when they are on snow and 100mph. Anyone want to try that one?

This whole "well, thats how Lance does it" is so silly.

Last year at the Ironman WC in Kona, I attended a seminar/Q and A session with several athletes/past winners etc... The question was asked "What do you eat for breakfast on race day" One of the woman answered "An energy drink and then I usually just have a pop tart" to which a few chuckles were overheard. Some Dolt asks "what flavor?" I think she said cherry, but what i really remember was all the people scribbling down cherry poptart on their notepads.... I wanted to stop by the grocery store the night before the race, just to laugh at the empty space in the poptart section.........

Freddy has won 2 races in as many weeks. And this is his 3rd time winning the US Pro Championships, I think he knows how to turn his bike, and what works best for him.

I dunno how safe it is to do that on cobblestone... I always fear it'll just skip across the stones and I'll end up on my fat butt.

#1 reason I suck at descending right there. I can't get over the image of my wheel jumping as I lean and then going into a nice slide across the pavement on my side. However on flat ground I usually don’t have a problem with tight corners if the road is a little rough.

knee in. that's how lance does it.

sd

Well if LANCE does it...

#1 reason I suck at descending right there. I can't get over the image of my wheel jumping as I lean and then going into a nice slide across the pavement on my side. However on flat ground I usually don’t have a problem with tight corners if the road is a little rough.

I sure have done that before, and to tell you the truth i think i would do it again, cornering at that speed is what i live for! The road rash was not so nice, but you have to be confident and (for lack of a better phrase) just do it. Lean your bike over and trust yourself the road, and the bike to keep you rubber side down.

I also agree with the knee to the top tube, but isnt this a relativly recient style of cornering?

photo worth thousand words....
bike lean, countersteer and knee out.

i hate to pat my own back, but that's how i do it. knee out. just feels natural for some reason. need to work on countersteer though...that doesn't feel too natural yet. must be doing it wrong. :(

The knee in/out is not a "style", but a technique. The next time you are riding a slight downhill and coasting, point your knee out and your bike should naturally drift to the side that your knee is pointing to. Now try going through a turn (at a safe speed) and point your inside knee out, you will carve the turn on a tighter radius. The knee acts as a counter balance to correct a turn. If you ever have the opportunity to follow well experienced descenders in a vehicle you will see their knees popping in and out (sometimes several times) in the apex of a turn to correct their line through a turn.

Thanks
Buddy B

Well if Lance jumps off a cliff... so will I. :D

There's a reason these guys stick their knee out... and it has nothing to with looking like someone else.
http://www.jarrotts.com/fogarty.jpg

There's a reason these guys stick their knee out... and it has nothing to with looking like someone else.
I'll start sticking my knee out when I can get Pearl izumi bike shorts with a steel plate on the outside of the knee.

It's not a steel plate, Its a hard plastic puck. Sometimes its hardend leather. We got some free oneday from Marietta Motorsports because they were "a little softer compound than they had expected" Not only did I shred the slider all the way down in an 8 lap, 16 mile race, another racer came over and asked me to please fix whatever oil leak I had. HHAHAAA, I wasn't leaking, it was the smoke from the melting slider.

The best ones we ever had were home made. A few of my racing friends work at Gulfstream Aerospace. Gulfstream will not sponsor us, but we have managed to have a fair amount of "aerospace grade" fittings and brackets on the bikes. The sliders are made from a Teflon impregnated bearing plastic. These are rivited to a swatch of scrap leather from the interiors department, which in turn is bonded to some industrial grade velco. The leathers we wear all come with the loop part of the velcro on the outside of the lower knee. Most the sliders on the market are expensive, and do not last nearly as long as our home made ones. Although they last a long time, they are very slick and take some getting used to. We have a friend who runs in the AMA, and he uses them. I have a photo around here somewhere of him, from amasuperbike.com with him wearing them. We also have a few custom helmet bags, with real sheepskin lining, thanks Gulfstream!!

Some of you may be interested to know that we also wear toe sliders on the outside edge of our boots. And calf sliders on the outside of the upper leg. There are some Pros who can drag their elbow at some tracks like Mid ohio, and Road Atlanta.

typical manufactured sliders

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/4898/pair.jpg



Rich wearing our home made "Aerospace Grade" partsbin/trashcan/scrap sliders

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/368/gulfstreamrich.jpg

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/5638/gulfstreamrich2.jpg

leg in, leg out I say do what feels natural. If you want to try the other method, try it and decide for yourself. I learned to decend fast the old fashion way, I had the old campy delta brakes, I mean speed modulators. These only slowed my speed a little and I went through the corners very quickly and learned to find the line on the road on mt. tam in marin. Mt. Tam's turns and switch backs had many that were off camber and coming down was tricky. :rolleyes: