Quick Turning

By Andy Ibbot
We talked about the ability to use a deeper turn point for a corner to improve your vision into and through a turn and the obvious benefits that brings. However, on some turns to use this drill it might mean that you have to turn your bike a little bit quicker or reduce your corner entry speed, never high on the scale of enjoyment!
The art of turning a bike is the one skill that all riders should be able to do. Whether you ride a Harley, a tourer, sports bike or trail bike there will come a time when you will need to get your bike from upright to leant over (turned) in the shortest distance and therefore the shortest time.
The one thing that has been at the cutting edge of sports bike chassis and tyre development over the past two decades has been the ability to get a bike to turn faster. Stronger, lighter frames, steeper steering head angles, triangulated front tyres, lighter wheels and brakes; all these things are designed to help you to turn quicker.
Imagine you are riding down the motorway minding your own business when a poorly loaded lorry up ahead sheds some of its load right in front of you. Or that car really doesn't see you and pulls out at the last minute. Its not a pleasant though and neither are the options open to you if you can't quick turn. A closer look and assessment reveals that we are most likely to hit the brakes and target fix on the object we don't want to hit. The results of this action aren't too good. We could lock the front wheel and fall off. We could brake too hard and flip the bike and ourselves over the front or there could not be enough room to stop in and hit the object despite our ABS or braking skill level.
If you completely misread a corner and enter it too fast your ability to get the bike turned will be the difference between sitting up hard on the brakes and running off the road or getting around safely. It would be far better to get the bike to change direction and FAST.
This skill is something we need to practise and use all the time so if there is a real need to use it we will over come our natural reaction to grab the brake too hard and lock either or both wheels. If we don't practise it will never replace our braking survival reaction. We don't just get into an emergency situation and suddenly find this amazing ability to get the bike turned - it simply won't happen.
There are natural forces at work here to hinder our quick turn abilities and the biggest barrier is our survival reaction to fast changes of direction. Our bodies are very comfortable with the world when we stand up right or are lying down. A fast transition between the two becomes uncomfortable. Think of tripping over. We put our arms and hands out to break the fall and break or wrists instead! A rollercoster excites us because it feeds on this reaction. It throws us into fast changes of direction with rises, falls and sudden left to right and right to left changes. And we love it.
But ask us to turn a motorcycle quickly and we tense up, fearing loss of front-end traction because of the sudden change in direction. Conversely, it's the tensing up that can cause the front end to let go. Like all inputs to a bike, it should be relaxed.
Keith Code relates to quick turning in Twist of the Wrist II as the ultimate cornering ability. He talks of a scale of turning and places racers as very good turners and most road riders a long way behind. Racers have tools to help them turn such as steep steering head angles and ride height adjustment but we can get closer to them with our plain old road bikes by applying the right technique - counter steering. Whether you believe it or not we all counter steer our bikes at any speed over 35kph. If you need proof then find a quite piece of straight road, ride in a straight line at 60kph, take your left hand off the handlebar and give the right bar a slight nudge and it WILL go to the right even though you have steered left. If we can recognise we are doing it then we can make improvements to our quick turn ability.
You can, of course, pull the bar or even push and pull as any one armed rider can tell you. Pushing is better as it gives us several advantages over pulling. It's easier to push when you are slowing down as your body weight moves forward. It's easier to push and stop than it is to pull and stop when we are travelling at speed. If the bike hits a bump you can stop pushing whereas your pull might be affected by the bump making you pull more. However, all three ways are correct and if pushing and pulling is your way, fair enough.
Here are a few more things to consider.

1. The further you push the handlebar away from you the further the bike will lean over
2. The quicker you can push the handlebar the quicker the bike will lean over.
3. Once you stop pushing the handlebar the bike will stop leaning.

So the key to turning quickly is to push the handlebar a little quicker. The important part of the drill is to RELAX once you have achieved your lean angle. Fail to relax and the front end can tuck or push, as it's not following the corner. Take a look at any road bike in the middle of a turn and see where the front wheel is pointing. It tracks the corner because the lean angle has been set and it needs to do this. The only exceptions are those who use the rear wheel to steer, like Gary McCoy or a speedway rider. First time you try this you could find the bike taking a much tighter line this is because you have used too much lean angle not because you have turned the bike too quickly. Try it again but this time turn the bike to a lesser lean angle, you can turn a bike quickly to 5 degrees or 50 degrees but the 5 degrees takes much more skill as the distance you have to move the handlebar is so tiny.