Knee sliders .. whats the point ?

[Mr Speirs]

1. Track yes
2. Roundabout no
3. Road yes
4. In the wet yes

[Quiff Wichard]

never felt the need to..
angle grinding them to pose is no good as my chick strips give me away .
still wear knee sliders cos they are on there and I not strong enough to pull the velcro off.

[mister c]

I'll be honest & say that in the 30 odd years I've been riding I had never put my knee down. Then I bought a track bike & I pushed harder & harder until it got to the stage where my knee touched Tarmac.... & I sh*t myself because of the noise & promptly picked the bike up lol. But I found out how far I could push myself & how fast I could go round corners (until I crashed in my 2nd ever race ) I have only ever touched down twice on the road, but do still hang off to go around corners at pace as the bike is more upright & it feels more stable. It takes the weight off your arms thus stabilising the bike

For photographic purposes, this was on track. Not bad for an old fat fa*t.


On road

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

I find a lot of the time I'm faster when not hanging off with any mind to getting knee down. Almost certainly due to extra attention paid to setting up the next corner, getting the perfect line etc

+1 - Knee down slower on the road IMO, extra time taken to think and move your body position.

It's for a track where you go round the same corners time after time and have nothing to think about except the fastest way round. On a track you have bags of time to set up your body position before the corner, stay in one body position all the way round.

On the road where you don't know the corner is coming until you get there climbing over the bike like a monkey just makes your corner entry slower and ****es off the rider behind you who isn't bothered about getting his knee down. I suppose though since on the road its a posing thing, it does mean the rider behind gets a really good view of your knee down as he's just been up your chuff on the brakes.

Not particularly safe with road hazards around either, if you suddenly need to change to the opposite direction, your bike is at 50 degrees, your entire body weight is hanging off the inside, and the saddle is under your outside knee, your pretty much fecked!

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

+1 - Knee down slower on the road IMO, extra time taken to think and move your body position.

It's for a track where you go round the same corners time after time and have nothing to think about except the fastest way round. On a track you have bags of time to set up your body position before the corner, stay in one body position all the way round.

On the road where you don't know the corner is coming until you get there climbing over the bike like a monkey just makes your corner entry slower and ****es off the rider behind you who isn't bothered about getting his knee down. I suppose though since on the road its a posing thing, it does mean the rider behind gets a really good view of your knee down as he's just been up your chuff on the brakes.

Not particularly safe with road hazards around either, if you suddenly need to change to the opposite direction, your bike is at 50 degrees, your entire body weight is hanging off the inside, and the saddle is under your outside knee, your pretty much fecked!

You pay your money, you take your choice.

In all fairness I don't think that even not hanging off and you are hot into a corner then need to move over quickly bikes don't tend to like changing direction that fast...

[Mr Speirs]

I think there is merits to both style of riding styles. People that pay money to own and maintain and insure their bike can ride their bike however they like as far as i'm concerned. I certainly won't be critisizing someone for riding their bike a different way to myself.

Personally I find the leany off way better for me however I used to favour the non leany on the SV. My 749 handled better with the leany off style. And my hyper favoured the tip the bike me stay upright supermoto style of riding.

Never been on a track, my riding style is leaning off knee out, can't help it, feels more stable and I feel more comfortable.
It's not for showing off or anything, just how I ride.

Scotland has some very good roads, that I know well, so I can push it a little bit...

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

+1 - Knee down slower on the road IMO, extra time taken to think and move your body position.

It's for a track where you go round the same corners time after time and have nothing to think about except the fastest way round. On a track you have bags of time to set up your body position before the corner, stay in one body position all the way round.

On the road where you don't know the corner is coming until you get there climbing over the bike like a monkey just makes your corner entry slower and ****es off the rider behind you who isn't bothered about getting his knee down. I suppose though since on the road its a posing thing, it does mean the rider behind gets a really good view of your knee down as he's just been up your chuff on the brakes.

Not particularly safe with road hazards around either, if you suddenly need to change to the opposite direction, your bike is at 50 degrees, your entire body weight is hanging off the inside, and the saddle is under your outside knee, your pretty much fecked!

I wouldn't quite go that far as to say it's all posing. There's other times when you just hang off because you can see the corner is clear and you're going a bit tasty like and next thing "kkrrrrrrkkkk oh that would be the floor".

In which case knee down is good because it may have just stopped you highsideing from a dug in peg.

However you seen the state of me when I did that and clipped something in't road!


And alst bit you shouldn't be needing to change direction because that would imply you've seriously stretched your limits of observation...

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Cymraeg_Atodeg

You pay your money, you take your choice.

In all fairness I don't think that even not hanging off and you are hot into a corner then need to move over quickly bikes don't tend to like changing direction that fast...

Hanging off generally puts your CoG lower... hence lower rotational inertia and better direction changing...

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Hanging off generally puts your CoG lower... hence lower rotational inertia and better direction changing...

Chris, the point I think the OP was making was that if you are hanging off right, for example, and needed to turn left sharpish it'd be difficult.

To keep turning right would be easy as you just counter-steer and lean off more, I have had fun adjusting my body position and counter-steering on a very grippy round-about as Wales.

What I was trying to say was that if you are gonna lean off you should know you are safe to do so, but, if crap does happen, you've made your choice, gotta live with it...