Knee down

[Daniel.p]

After a year of riding i have finally got my knee Down and boy does it feel good!!
How long did it take all you lads to get the courage for it?

[zxrob]

Well done matey

Dont ever bother on the road, on the track is where you should do it

Rob

[RedexRobB]

There's always a time n a place I find

Took me about 3 or 4 years before I finally managed it, n done it on every bike I've owned since, even a cg125

[Tirpitz]

Am very dubious about the wisdom of getting your knee down on the road. Grip on roads is not as predictable as on a track - loose stuff, mud, overpainting, dropped fuel / oil, potholes on your line. All of which mean that if you are riding on the limit you have no leeway to adjust your line if something nasty comes into view. I've never got my knee down and I don't have sliders - neither do I hang about. Mike Hailwood never got his knee down either. With modern tyres on predictable tarmac (i.e a race track) getting your knee down is definitely an option. IMO on the road you stand a good chance of becoming a statistic in the fullness of time.

[edl]

well done! it does fell great first time but dont go hunting for opportunities to get your knee down else you might end up another statistic, i occasionally get my knee down but i wouldnt consider i ever push that hard on the road, always have plenty in reserve to pick bike up change direction etc

[gavinfdavies]

well done mate. haven't managed it myself yet, but in my defense neither bike has chicken lines. my gpz responds well to just sitting and steering (well, it is from that era i guess), but i keep trying to lean off. i don't think i'm going far enough over (bum over seat i mean), since on my track day pics, even round gerards at mallory i didn't look to have shifted at all (in case you don't know mallory, Gerards corner is about half a mile of constant radius right hander, taken at about 90mph+ leant right over, perfect knew down practise area!)

oh, and on the safety line, I tend to practise on a few well done dependable corners on my commute when it's quiet. Better the road you know eh?

[Daniel.p]

Guys i didnt say public road did i ey was on a mini moto track near me

[Tirpitz]

. i don't think i'm going far enough over (bum over seat i mean

I don't think that's the problem. I had a look at this subject a while ago, there's a few vids on U-tube, and they reckon that this is where most people go wrong. Plus they tend to twist their body. What you need to do is to shift your upper body off the bike more, not yer butt. You should only be shifting one cheek off the bike. So you need then to lean your upper body away from the bike and down - sort of imagine you are trying to look around the edge of the screen and under the mirror. You also need to ride with the balls of your feet on the pegs, not your insteps (dunno how people ride with their insteps on the pegs anyway ). Then as you lean like this your knee automatically sticks out. You must grip the other side of the bike by locking into it with your (other) knee. I find it helps stability to increase pressure on the inside peg.

Although I've never been interested in getting my knee down I do follow the above techniques to an extent as the more weight you get off the bike on one side, the more upright it remains, which increases your safety margin. Also, TBH I find the bike just feels all wrong if you sit stock still and lean it right over into corners. Well, it does to me anyway.

The main reason I don't try to get my knee down on the road is because I genuinely don't believe it helps you maintain a higher speed through corners, unless you ride like a nutter. If you are taking the racing line and clipping the apex if you are sticking your knee down on the tarmac then on left handers you stand a chance of knocking your kneecap off on kerbs and drains, and on right handers ditto with cats-eyes or by wiping yourself out with oncoming traffic close to the centre line. So, if you keep away from the apex in order to allow you room to get your knee down you are probably going through the corner slower than you could by following the racing line. The only way you gain by knee down is on a racetrack, where you can safely take the racing line and get your knee down.

I always look at it this way - short circuit riding techniques have less relevance to going fast on public roads than pure road racing techniques. Any of the road racers on here will tell you that if you ride a road like a short circuit you won't be doing it for long. I can't think of more than two or three places in the IoM where the riders would get their knee down and you can hardly accuse them of dawdling about. So if it ain't relevant to them, it ain't relevant to my riding.

I remember watching a Blade rider on a roundabout once getting his knee down. He was leant that far over his vision of the road ahead was so impaired that he didn't see the roadsweeper pootling around ahead and ran into the back of it. Not the fastest way to get on.....

[Mori Man]

Nice one - plenty good vids on the tube to show you how to do it on roundabouts.

Without having a race suit or sliders it's not my cup of tea

I just went for the counter steer more route - you naturally do it otherwise you wouldn't be able to ride a bike round a cornor , for road use its more practical.

Since then I have a chicken strip on my rear but most fronts are run to the edge.

I always find tyre choice makes you confident about leaning way over wether your knee is out or not , had a ZX-9R scraping its peg slider round a roundabout and my knees were well tucked into the bike Sticky hoops rock !

My ZRX400 had a recall for the peg sliders as they were too short - they reckoned you would fall off by the time they did, glad I haven't found out.

[edl]

Its obviously a touchy subject this one, to be fair knee down on the road has NO place but indulging on an empty roundabout well thats another matter. The point of getting your knee down is to shift your body to keep the bike more upright to allow greater corner speed a rider who sit's upright will always grind the pegs before a rider who's hanging off,therfore running out of ground clearance limits cornering speed. as someone who has ground the engine case of his zx6 on a race track i can tell thats the limit!

[gavinfdavies]

my theory is that your riding style depends on the seat/bar/peg triangle of the bike you're riding. My gpz500 (with clip ons currently 15mm below the top yoke, but they need to drop another 5-10mm me thinks) is much more the early 80s sports bike shape (z1, gpz900 etc) which became the 90s commuter shape. As a result I naturally ride it in the 80s style, sat up (or crouched in my case) without shifting off the seat to much, but getting toe down if i don't keep my balls in place (the balls of my feet...). on foot position, either feels ok, though I tend to balls on forfast riding, instep on for cruising for a little change.
Fast, lazy, and little chicken line.

By comparison the zxr400 has a much more modern sports bike triangle, and as such I naturally ride it leaning and hanging off etc. As fas as feet go, it balls on all the way, and it's dead comfy like that.

And as for steering - the gpz with a twin disc 16 inch front off a gpz600/900 steers ever so lightly, making pot hole dodging a doddle. VERY nippy. The zxr, whilst being exceptionally stable at high lean (a daisy picker if ever there was) needs a shift in body position to steer. Just using normal counter steer makes the steering heavy and slow.


well, that's my theory anyway.

[Jamz]

All of which mean that if you are riding on the limit you have no leeway to adjust your line if something nasty comes into view. I've never got my knee down and I don't have sliders - neither do I hang about. Mike Hailwood never got his knee down either. With modern tyres on predictable tarmac (i.e a race track) getting your knee down is definitely an option. IMO on the road you stand a good chance of becoming a statistic in the fullness of time.

Mike Hailwood was virtually riding under-developed horses, yet his name always crops up in kneedown discussions! Of course he would have been doing it if he was riding machinery capable of it - but that's for tracks anyway so beside the point here.

It's exactly the view about 'being on the limit' that I would use to defend me getting my knees down (it took me over a year, BTW, then once it did finally fall into place it became very easy and very addictive! ). Someone else mentioned that the reasons for getting your knee down is to shift weight to allow the bike to be more upright through a given corner.

So we hear people saying kneedown is too dangerous on the roads, but look at their tyres and they're scrubbed right to the edge. THAT means you're riding on the limit. On my 9r currently you'll see my tyres aren't totally to the edge, but follow me for more than a mile on any given ride and you'll no doubt see me scrape my knee on a few corners. And I still have rubber in reserve, because I'm riding the bike how it's designed to be ridden, i.e. kneedown, whilst keeping something in reserve...

I have a video on YouTube called something like "Acting Innocent - Onboard ZX9R" (i'll find it and post it later) where I come into a roundabout scraping my knee and suddenly see a Police car sat at the next exit looking straight at me. I pick the bike up and sit upright as if I was riding 'sensibly' and carry on past. The interesting part about the video is when I take the very next corner, still upright and sensible, you can clearly see from the angle of my screen against the road that I'm pulling exactly the same lean angle.

So how, exactly, is that safer?

EDIT: here's the bugger:

[RedexRobB]

It's exactly the view about 'being on the limit' that I would use to defend me getting my knees down (it took me over a year, BTW, then once it did finally fall into place it became very easy and very addictive! ). Someone else mentioned that the reasons for getting your knee down is to shift weight to allow the bike to be more upright through a given corner.

I disagree with the point that you have to be on the limit to get your knee down too, or that you are at the limit while doing it. Just because you are doesnt mean your flat out and nothing in reserve. As you rightly say once you master doing the art of knee down, it all becomes quite easy with no effort at all and without having to lean the bike as far as you dare to get the magical contact of knee and road.

But, i think being on the limit does apply when someone new is giving it a go. In which case, 9 times out of ten someone will be leaning it as far as they can and quite probably positioned akwardly that none of it lends itself to getting a knee down, then when something takes them by surprise and all thier focus is on a knee down, thats when they get into trouble.

Obviously to learn how to do it,you have to do it, where and when is always the matter of debate.

[Neosophist]

I can do it but I don't do it. I can't remember when I did first did it. I see it more for showing off purposes than being of actual use on the road.

But then again I think it depends on the riding style.

You dont need to lean over very far to have knee down (i.e. you can have big 'chicken strips' but still knee down) leaning off the bike lowers the centre of gravity so you actually keep it more uprights (allowing faster corner speeds to get maximum lean)

Plus you don't always need to be anywhere near the limit or on the road, a car-park will do fine [see example below]



I think it can be useful to determine how far over the bike is, and for the extra lean you can get but I don't push the bike to the maximum on the road it's far too risky.

I dont have any of the 'chicken strip' (i hate this name as it is just dependant on riding style and speed) as I dont lean off so have to lean further per corner/

I'm not all about speed anyway else I wouldnt be riding a 400

Glad your chuffed with getting the knee out but whatever you decide to do, dont become obsessed by it.. too many people constantly going around islands trying to get the knee out as if something magical will happen if they do!

Ride safe take care

[gavinfdavies]

hmmm, the video seems to show the guy/gal moving so his right cheek is on left edge of seat pad, whilst dropping low onto said knee. This might explain my problem - my gpz has realatively low pegs, and i've got short legs (28" roughly the same as my friend who is a 5'2" lady!) so whilst i can move that far over, I always seem to run out of leg!