Sliding your bike

Unfortunately for highsider, sliding on the pavement is very different in feel to any of the other ways to practice. I slid in the dirt all through my childhood, and nothing could prepare me for that incredible pucker when sliding on pavement. I has taken me a few years and multiple crashes to get used to it, but it feels good now.

I think the dirt helped, but there's no comparison. IMO it's just much harder to do on pavement. Much higher traction means you have to control a lot more force. It's especially difficult on a sportbike that has a pivot point in front of your center of gravity.

Motards have a big advantage because the pivot point is further back, pretty close to the COG. I'm guessing it will still require throwing it down the road a few times before any kind of feel will be developed.

BTW, just because you crashed doesn't mean you got anywhere near the limit. It just means you screwed up... See Peter's post...

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Originally posted by Paul_E_D
Unfortunately for highsider, sliding on the pavement is very different in feel to any of the other ways to practice. I slid in the dirt all through my childhood, and nothing could prepare me for that incredible pucker when sliding on pavement. I has taken me a few years and multiple crashes to get used to it, but it feels good now.

I think the dirt helped, but there's no comparison. IMO it's just much harder to do on pavement. Much higher traction means you have to control a lot more force. It's especially difficult on a sportbike that has a pivot point in front of your center of gravity.

Motards have a big advantage because the pivot point is further back, pretty close to the COG. I'm guessing it will still require throwing it down the road a few times before any kind of feel will be developed.

BTW, just because you crashed doesn't mean you got anywhere near the limit. It just means you screwed up... See Peter's post...

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This was my other fear. :D

I really feel stupid riding around on my bike, because I have no idea where this elusive "limit" actually is; I just do things, and if they work, yay, and I guess if they dont, I crash and burn. (Though I've not yet ever crashed a motorcycle *knocking furiously on wood*).

Maybe a track day in the rain will provide some lower speed slides that will be easier to handle. :dunno:

Is it even necessary to slide a sportbike as you learn to go faster?

Rain is good for practice, but has yet again a different feeling. It's certainly easy to find the limit in the wet, and just as easy to surpass it. The good news is that crashing in the rain usually does little damage to body and bike. Not much energy changes hands when you fall in the wet.

I wouldn't worry about it. I think of slides as a RESULT, not a technique. As you try to go faster than your skill allows, you slide.

When your able to use good technique and the bike still drifts, then you are nearing the limit of your set-up. That's when slides become fun IMHO. Your arms are so relaxed that when you slide the bars just fold into a countersteer with no rider input and you hold steady throttle till the rear hooks up and the bars slowly straighten themselves back out. As soon as you feel this start to happen you can start feeding in tiny bits of throttle to start your bike driving out. Woohooo!! NOW you're rocking.

i crashed in turn 2 last weekend. I'm pretty sure it's because I tensed up once i felt the front end sliding. I felt it go, i caught it, it started to go again and out it went.
I think if i was more relaxed in the arms, the bike would have just did it's thing and crash averted.
at least that's what I've come up with for a reason.

Please take this lightly...


I know I'm slow.... But you guys are nuts!!! :lol:

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Originally posted by highsider


I really feel stupid riding around on my bike, because I have no idea where this elusive "limit" actually is;

Is it even necessary to slide a sportbike as you learn to go faster?

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unfortunatly.. there is no set "limit". the "limit" is variable. temp of tires, temp of ground, temp of air, sand, water, rocks, snow, tar,angle of bike, speed, throttle opening/closing, braking force, bumps....all of theses variable change from one turn to the next. what might not be the limit in one turn may be well beyond it in the next. your looking for a definite "when you do THIS you have reached the limit and it will always be this way". Sorry... but thats not how it works. when youve been riding long enough.. youll just know

bump

I have been saved by a slide a few times but never as a tactic

I once flat tracked a KZ1000 a 100 yds with my wife on the back.

I also backed around the entire west bound turn of rt 4 coming out of White River Junction... not intentional

Learn it on a dirt bike use it to save your life on the street.

Slide schmide just lean and lean and lean until something scrapes... thats the limit.

Also note from drag racing maximum forward thrust is generated by a sticky tire spinning somewhat faster then static contact. Actual ADHESION is developed not just friction.

Also the flying W highside is caused by the rear tire breaking and then regaining traction. Weeeee !!!

Good bump, Doc.

Peter Kates has it right (no surprise). Sliding that you should be scared of is usually rider induced. Most slides are from rookies being tense and un-smooth.

Learn to corner like an expert and you'll be surprised at how fast you can go without ever "sliding".

following on Ken's post...

Seems like sliding should not be an end of itself.
Gary McCoy seems to have made it pretty cool.
But seems to me that spinning the tire excessively
is just wasting that motion into heat that instead should be put into forward thrust.

I think its the sensory perception about sliding that's important not the sliding itself. Is that right?
Plus its what you do about it after you sense it that's critical.

I mean Rossi and most Moto GP guys get their best laps without the sliding, dont they?

Well One exception: Toni Elias at the last race, but he was just crazy that day. Rossi called him "a devil".

I am not a racer, (yet) or a very fast street rider, or even all that good in the dirt so this might be wrong...


I am thinking that sliding the rear end to set up for a corner when you are hot on the brakes is a good thing. By swinging it out you have more of a straight angle... If you can get the bike pointed where you want it to go that makes for quicker getting on the power, right?

Or are we talking about "power slides" where your on the throttle laid over and the rear spins up with some control (like on a dirtbike). That is just sick on a roadbike. :)

There are all sorts of slides, including:

brake slides (skidding)- bad

corner entry slides (diving into a turn, pushing the front tire) -max. entry speed, just before picking up the throttle

mid-corner slides (with both tires sliding)- high corner speed

Power slides (spinning the rear tire driving out of a corner)- careful, highside city!


The top racers slide, because they're at the edge of traction. Doc mentions rear tire slides that lead to "Backing it in", which is a technique for "squaring off" the turn for a theoretical early drive, but is used mostly by motards.

Personally... I hate sliding the tires... especially on the street.

BUT...

When it does happen, I have mostly learned to relax and go with it...and rarely go down.

While the dirt and street (or track) are not the same, I absolutely feel that the sensation is the same.

Getting comfortable with a bike that is sliding, as opposed to rolling, is something that dirt riding teaches you.

Whether or not you can carry this over to when it happens on pavement?

:dunno:

Having said all that, I agree with some of the previous comments about slower riders sliding the tires.

I'm always amazed at riders that are lapping 6 seconds slower than me on similar bikes ... and talking about how they are sliding in every corner.

That's bad technique...

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Originally posted by 35racer
I'm always amazed at riders that are lapping 6 seconds slower than me on similar bikes ... and talking about how they are sliding in every corner.

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a HUGE +1 to that... makes me chuckle when i hear new trackday riders talking about that... reminds me of when I was there :D

But even experienced racers that I respect talk to me about chatter, pushing, sliding etc... I'm getting close to their level but I really dont get a whole lot of that tire movment they're talking about & have no idea why :dunno:

I don't think they're slow and I'm SURE they're not using bad technique (I don't think anyone here can say that anyone doing 1:24's or less on an EX500 is using bad technique, do you?) but I really don't feel alot of bad things happening with my tires when i'm doin 26's, 25's or even that one '24 on my bike :dunno: I mean yeah, my bike squirms & wobbles underneath me and it does some pretty funky things, but i don't really feel the tires sliding around a whole lot. Yes I feel it from time to time, but not often. I'm sure that'll change pretty quick next season once i start dropping a few more tenths. we'll see.

The only big slides I can think of on my EX was one in turn 2 at a trackday after a brief sprinkle (that was a big moment)... once when I got together with a 125 going into turn 1 (that was another big moment) and of course my highside comin outta 12 (obviously the biggest "moment" i've had). Other than that, I can't think of many times where i've felt the front end drift away from me a whole lot.

My back end steps out on me as i downshift going into turn 11, but i attribute that more to poor downshifting technique (no clutch)

In your case, is it possible most of the "give" to the bike is being made in the frame/suspension, since its that horrible, as opposed to the "give" happening at the tires?

People love to talk, even if they don't know what they're talking about.

Damn tootin.

I'm not a slider (by choice). I did my typical 1:23-24 lap times on the MZ without sliding, but once I edged near and into the 1:22s, I could begin to feel the tires working to stay hooked up.

Every bike and rider is different and the tires will begin to slide earlier or later due to these differences (chassis flex, suspension setup, rider smoothness, body position, throttle control, etc.)

As far as dirt riding goes, I EXPECT to slide in the dirt, I don't on the street or on the track, so when it happens, it's tought to not tense up. It is helpful to know what it feels like, though.

Some guys that have chatted to me about sliding refer to what they are seeing right after it happens.

It was something like... trees, pavement, trees, sky, trees, pavement, trees, sky... and so on. :lol:

This is coming from an EX 500 racer so take it for what it's worth!

I have come to rely on the front sliding. I run a Michelin soft front, as I was tired of the chatter from the Dunlop. The Dunlop is just too grippy on the EX for me. Obviously others can ride through it, I just choose not to.

For me it is most obvious in turn 1 at Loudon. I have learned to let the front scrub speed before getting back on the gas. I can tell it's sliding because I have played a little bit with "course correction". Going a little slower lets you feel the front and corrections are more immediate. When it is sliding the bars are very light and corrections are sluggish. I pushed it a little harder in practice this fall (pun intended) and proceeded to lose the front over one of the pavement changes there. A mellow, but fast, lowside. I felt the front "letting go" as if in slow motion, I can still feel where it lost traction completely in my mind.

I can do this in 9 and 11 pretty consistently, too. (The sliding, not the low siding ;-)

Now the rear is another thing. The michelin rear was all over the place sliding. Not a comfortable feeling for me. The Dunlop feels totally planted on the EX, but I know it is sliding, because when someone is in front of me I am saying "holy crap they're gonna lose it". But I am staying right with them and know my rear is doing the same. I just don't have the feel for the rear as much as the front.

Mark Dages

Mark, have you run the Pirelli's? That's all i've run on my EX & people say they feel numb... I haven't noticed that, but then again I dont have any other experiences to draw from, they're all i've run on my EX.

Here this will teach you how to slide your motorcycle.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/52704/gp_moto_crashes_5/

After seeing that I don't think I want to go race anymore...


At least I know I will not be going that fast. :D

heh... yea i like to talk too even if i don't know whta the hell im talking about. so sue me. why don't you try the burn out? do it at 5-10mph and go from side to side? i'll tell you, the big shitty tunnel in boston is very slippery but it was fun. just a small amount of throttle will get it going. i mean what the hell can you do in a slow traffic? :)