VOLUME 56 ISSUE 33 AUGUST 20, 2019 P121
effectively what your head does
when you change direction. Your
body is a weight, and the more
you climb all over the bike like
a chimpanzee, the more work
you'll have to do to get it to turn.
"We talk about this all the
time," says MotoAmerica Stock
1000 rider and JP43 Training
coach Michael Gilbert. "When
I ride a motorcycle, I want to
be comfortable as if I'm riding
to the grocery store. So why at
the racetrack do we disconnect
ourselves from the motorcycle
and sit in an uncomfortable
position? It's not efficient. And
more important than that, you're
disconnecting the heaviest part
of your body—your torso—from
the heaviest part of your bike—
the engine—which takes away
your ability to properly load the
motorcycle's chassis and tires."
The science of riding a motor-
cycle really hasn't changed all
that much in the last 30 years.
Yes, at the very top level, riding
styles have adapted to new tech-
nologies—mainly thanks to the
gobsmacking grip of MotoGP-
spec tires and the cornering
forces that come with them—but
since the debut of the radial tire
in the 1980s, you can almost
draw a parallel line between the
intervening decades.
The problem with laying a
motorcycle down so low that you
scrape your elbows and more on
the track is you have the small-
est amount of tire available—right
on the rubber shoulder—to get
the power to the ground. Get-
ting on the gas with huge levels
of lean used to be a one-way
ticket to highside city, but thanks
to modern electronics, this
problem is less of an issue than
it was before (although it's still
present).
That doesn't change the fact
that cranking the bike over ex-
cessively takes more effort from
you and the motorcycle than
required to get around the bend.
In cornering, it's better to work
smarter, not harder.
If you want an almost perfect
study in correct body positioning
coupled with devastating speed,
watch a few YouTube videos of
Eddie Lawson, or Steady Eddie
as he was known back in the
day. The greatest American
MotoGP rider of all with four
500cc World Championships to
his name in an age where one
mistake could see you flying
right into the hospital, Eddie's
style was clinical, ultra-smooth
and seemingly effortless. He
never looked like he was try-
ing (although he certainly was),
never put undue stress on the
tires and thus could maintain
dazzling speed throughout a
race or practice session.
"The thing is, fundamentally,
things are nearly identical," says
Gilbert. "Jonathan Rea sits in
a very neutral position and has
four World Superbike titles to
his name. And in MotoGP, it's
the same. They are on unobtain-
able bikes and tires and leaning
to 66°—of course, their elbows
are on the ground—but if you
break it down and look at their
technique, they are not hang-
ing off the motorcycle. If they
did, their faces would be on the
ground.
"The biggest teller for me is
looking at an outside elbow and
how far it's extended. Look at
Valentino Rossi. His elbows are
so relaxed. Riders slightly pivot
around the gas tank, and that's
about it."
This is the correct way to
ride fast. However, many a rider
these days prefers to try and get
a bike as low as possible, even
though it does next to zero for
their speed on track and dramat-
ically increases the chances of a
crash—especially as they're run-
ning lower-grip street tires and
are not putting the kind of forces
through them that would make
the high-lean angles necessary.
What I want to see more than
anything is a rider uptake in pro-
fessional coaching. I have no af-
filiation with any particular coach
or program—although I have
done the California Superbike
School and Jason Pridmore's
Star School—and both have
been extremely beneficial to the
way I approach track riding.
They have absolutely been of
greater benefit to me than simply
copying what Marc Marquez
does. CN
