Body Position And Weighting The Pegs

I've been reading Keith Code's book, 'A twist of the wrist II' and he mentions weighing the outside pegs in order to turn faster. I am not a racer but as all of us here am after improving my riding technique or if anything trying to understand what makes for a more controlled ride.
I'm not really sure of what he means by weighing the peg. Does this mean pushing it down, you certainly cannot put your weight on it when your body is on the inside of the turn. In practice, on my supermoto I've tried to push down on the outside peg and is effective although concentrating on doing so is distracting me from keeping a relaxed grip and posture. OK, I'm sure by time things will improve but doing the same on the SV is harder still having higher and further back pegs.
Can anyone shed more light on the subject?

Originally Posted by zunkus

I've been reading Keith Code's book, 'A twist of the wrist II' and he mentions weighing the outside pegs in order to turn faster. I am not a racer but as all of us here am after improving my riding technique or if anything trying to understand what makes for a more controlled ride.
I'm not really sure of what he means by weighing the peg. Does this mean pushing it down, you certainly cannot put your weight on it when your body is on the inside of the turn. In practice, on my supermoto I've tried to push down on the outside peg and is effective although concentrating on doing so is distracting me from keeping a relaxed grip and posture. OK, I'm sure by time things will improve but doing the same on the SV is harder still having higher and further back pegs.
Can anyone shed more light on the subject?

I think he means that you carry your weight on the outside leg. Your knee/thigh gets wedged into into the tank and in order to do this, you push down on the outside peg. It's not so much about transferring weight; more carrying your body weight on that leg and through the tank, so that you aren't pushing yourself up on the inside peg.

If you watch the motogp guys when they lose the front - like that Colin Edwards clip recently (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1UlEQtdUGc) As soon as they lose grip with their outside leg - the body drops and their weight that was being held on the tank transfers to the inside leg.

If your weight is on the outside peg in the corner the force will be more straightdown through the bike rather than if your weight is on the inside peg the force from your weight and the bikes weight will be angled outwards.....wont it?

However I get myself confused analysing what actually is happening.

Originally Posted by the white rabbit

However I get myself confused analysing what actually is happening.

Haha, you're surely not the only one. Thanks for the honest replies guys.

It is getting more natural the more I do it. The fact is that the style is to be used (in a conscious manner) in hard quick corners, I was trying it all the time. When done consciously, counter steering, moving your bum off the seat, trying to put the knee down etc you are not in a relaxed state so are not fully tuned to what you're doing. I believe that techniques have their full advantage when they become second nature and you're not thinking of what you're doing.

This reminds me when I used to train martial arts, we used to learn how to block, how to hit, punching etc. When you think of what to do you do them slowly and they consume much of your reaction time, thus making you slower. By time though you will start to react subconsciously in the way that you've been trained. That's when the benefits are gained.

In this case I just want to be sure it's the right technique and that I'm not starting a bad habit However, reasoning and experience are showing me that it does work and as lukemiller pointed out well, racers do weigh the outside peg and by the way that video footage of Colin is simply awesome!

Why the outside peg? Won't that make the bike turn in slower. I don't think it it is possible to get more than 50% of your weight on the outside peg weighted if youre hanging off correctly.

Originally Posted by Zombie Jesus

Why the outside peg? Won't that make the bike turn in slower. I don't think it it is possible to get more than 50% of your weight on the outside peg weighted if youre hanging off correctly.

I think that the basics is that you weight the inside peg to make the bike turn and the outside to make the bike grip. I dont know about percentages you can get a decent amount of weight on the outside peg if you try.

TBH I think you need to be going really really quick to need to weight the inside peg to make the bike turn if you are hanging off and countersteering hard.

Yeah, it's hard to get the weight on the outside peg, I've found, as somebody who's recently read that book as well, but when you do get it, it makes the bike feel more stable in the corner- if you have weight on the inside peg it's like you're pushing the bike away from you, putting extra load on the edge of the tyre.