PLEASE HELP - Getting your knee down

[menzies3032]

Ok this has now gone beyond a joke.......
I am serious.......
In my life I have learned to do so many complicated things it is now seriously pissing me off I can master this.
Any one that knows me will know I have read books, studies photos done videos as I am desperate to try and get this right.

I am now finding myself in the situation of become upset that I see so many people around me being able to do this with ease and I still can't master this basic riding technic.

So please somebody help me.........

I really want to learn this now........

I have been riding for the last 7 years on sports bike, doing track days for the last 5 or 6 years. I have just done Bedford and was lapping at 2:18 which was on par with Fast group. I am in fast group at Llandow and can hold my own at most UK tracks in Inters. So I can ride....

Ok so I am not daft I get the whole body position. But I don't seem to be able to do it on my bike

Mucking about I seem to be able to get into position but on my own bike and in leathers I can't. Why?

being daft on a kids ride



Trying out a bike at the motor show



Then actually on my bike at a recent track day. As you can see position is terrible in comparison and there is no way I am ever getting my knee down in this position.

All of my weight is on my toes of my inside foot and my legs are working like mad. I try to lock in with my outside leg but it doesn't give me any stability. I can't reach my leg wider then it shows here and trying to move it out or down any further would result in me falling off the bike.

[Scotty]

Accelerate more, brake less, lean further....

I know that it's a sort of rite of passage, but in the overall scheme of things it isn't actually that important. If you took all the effort and concentration that you're expending on trying to scuff a slider and applied it to just going faster and better then it would probably happen anyway.
Back in the mists of the mid-90s during the sportsbike boom it was a really big deal and I know exactly where you're coming from as I was so chuffed when I finally managed it myself. Shortly afterwards I started doing regular trackdays and went racing and it was no big deal at all to get my knee down. I've witnessed plenty of people in your position trying far tooo hard to get their knee down that they end up just looking a total tit, riding more slowly and greatly increasing their chances of crashing. The best thing that you can do is forget about it and concentrate on riding better.

Are you going to Llandow? There are several easy spots to do it there, and it's a very grippy surface. The second right of the bus stop, and the final tight-ish right of the flip-flop section at the top of the track are relatively slow 2nd gear corners where you can flick it in with plenty of lean angle. The fast right onto the back straight is the best corner on the track; carry lots of speed and a steady throttle, winding it on gradually as you pick the bike up (a big handful of throttle will launch you into the scenery). Fortunately it's a short lap so you'll get lots of practice, doing the same corners every 47s or so (if you're trying enough), but forget about getting your knee down, concentrate instead on being smooth and consistent, hitting the same markers every lap and gradually getting quicker. As you do so you'll be leaning further and it will probably happen (and you'll jump out of your skin the first time it does, but stay concentrated and resist the temptation to whoop and holler in your lid like some kind of undignified American, keep your focus and stay on the tarmac, remember what you've learned and do it again in another 47s or so).

Spike Edwards rides with a very tucked-in "classic" style, rarely drags a knee, and nobody could accuse him of being slow....

Edit: your bottom photo hadn't loaded before I replied - was it wet that day? Start by learning to lean it like you mean it. Sorry to sound harsh but if you lean it like a pussy then it's never going to happen. Learn the art of counter-steering first, start riding properly and then worry about the cost of replacing knee sliders....

[billinom8s]

use photoshop

[Gimlet]

I have a confession to make. After dismissing knee-down courses in a previous thread I went on the i2i course at Exeter a couple of weeks ago.
http://www.i2imca.com/KneeDown.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'd made a provisional enquiry about a year before during some idle online surfing and then forgotten all about it. The course organisers rang me up out of the blue and asked did I still want my place? Well I'd just had my 50th birthday so I thought why not. And yes I did get my knee down, both sides and yes it was easy but it was also really easy to get it wrong. It was also physically quite tiring by the end of it. I was stiff as a board next day from riding round and round a circuit holding the hanging-off position for far longer than you would in normal track riding.

Body position was ride on the balls of your feet - never on your arches - with your inside foot slightly over the ball of the footpeg so your toe slider touches before the peg (your early warning that your body position is wrong), push your arse back in the seat to give yourself room and keeping your spine parallel to the axis of the bike slide sideways until the the seam of the seat is in the crack of your arse, the inside fork leg is in line with the middle of your chest and your head is turned to look through the bend and lead the bike around the turn. Your outside arm is stretched across the tank, your inside elbow is sticking out so it doesn't impede your body. Your outside knee locks into the tank and your inside knee flops outwards and points through the turn like your head. You just have to keep it there and steer the bike positively through the bend and you knee pad will touch.

It feels slightly perilous doing it at low speed because you haven't really been leaning as far as you thought. I think its easier at higher speeds because the suspension squats, and although there's more slippage there's also more down force but slow speeds really show up how most riders instinctively fight the physics of turning.
The key thing to come out of the course was understanding your core balance. Assuming you understand positive steer and counter-steer already, most people don't realise how much their core being - the pendulum in their chest and most especially the little voice in their brain - is fighting the bike's need for lean. This was brought home when the instructor rode tight figure of eights on a bike with the throttle screw wound in and his hands behind his back, steering only by bending at the waist and leading the bike into the turn with body weight alone, allowing the castoring front wheel to flop into turns as it needed to. Try it (not on the road...) and it aint easy. You're using the bike's positive steer and when it wants to go you're not ready for it so you fight it, you become disorientated and you make the bike feel unstable - which it isn't, its you. Its hard to overcome your instincts and trust what the bike is telling you it needs to do.
Your brain needs to be taking the lead and turning ahead of the bike. You need to be looking through the bend and leading the bike into the turn with your body, counter-steering to get the bike over to follow you, not just hanging on following it round unwillingly and fighting it. And you have to commit to and hold that posture through the bend not dip in and out of it. When you keep doing that you'll be carrying the speed and the lean angle you need. When your actually scraping, especially if your maintaining contact all the way round, that contact gives you huge confidence, not because it feels like your knee is stopping the bike from falling over (it isn't) but because suddenly you've got an exact fix on where you and the bike are in relation to the road and all disorientation goes and you really feel plugged in.

Good course. Worth it. That balance thing is the biggie. It sounds like jargon but its key. It was about a week later before I realised how much of it had sunk in and changed the way I ride on the road and the way I commit to corners.

I still don't try to get my knee down on the road though. Too many hazards and distractions and rarely possible to follow the line you really need because only half the road is yours to use.

So all in all, yes the course is worth it and whether you choose to stick your knee out and make contact or not, its getting the other stuff right which allows it to happen that makes the difference to your riding.

[MellowYellow]

This was brought home when the instructor rode tight figure of eights on a bike with the throttle screw wound in and his hands behind his back, steering only by bending at the waist and leading the bike into the turn with body weight alone, allowing the castoring front wheel to flop into turns as it needed to. Try it (not on the road...) and it aint easy. You're using the bike's positive steer and when it wants to go you're not ready for it so you fight it, you become disorientated and you make the bike feel unstable - which it isn't, its you. Its hard to overcome your instincts and trust what the bike is telling you it needs to do.

I guess that 'everyone' has done that on a pushbike as a child. Also wheeling it by holding the saddle and cornering by leaning it. Simple.

Not quite so cocky on a 200 kg m/c though.

[billinom8s]

but how much was the course?

go on, tell them

[Gimlet]

£250.
To be fair we started at 9:30 and didn't stop til just before 5:00. No lunch break, tea and biccies provided - help yourself grab a bite to eat as and when.

It was a birthday present to myself.

Its a lot of money and his other courses aren't cheap but to concentrate so intensely on one aspect of your riding would take 5 track days, always assuming you're doing it right to begin with which is where the one to one supervision comes in.

[Gimlet]

I guess that 'everyone' has done that on a pushbike as a child. Also wheeling it by holding the saddle and cornering by leaning it. Simple.

Not quite so cocky on a 200 kg m/c though.

Same principle but a very different reality. Wind your bike's tickover up to 3000 rpm, stick it in third and try riding a figure of eight round two cones 25 yards apart with your hands behind your back. He did it sitting on the pillion seat as well..

Before you head for the car park to see how easy it is, we were using his bike, not our own. It was fitted with massive and very well worn crash bungs...

[menzies3032]

OK Scotty and Gimlet thank you for taking the time to write the above. I think this helps to reinforce what I think i already perhaps knew but have not been able to put into practice. I have to change my body position and counter steering. Lean more and be in the right body position so that the bike is stable.

Easy to say difficult to do.......

Just to say I am not some rooky and do take this seriously. I am the man that has bought twist of the wrist II and read it cover to cover, I have watched the 6 episodes on you tube from California Superbikes school and have gone to both police bike safe and also British Superbike School to try and improve me as a rider not only on track but also on road. I guess all of this training is either not that good or I am a bad student

in the overall scheme of things it isn't actually that important. If you took all the effort and concentration that you're expending on trying to scuff a slider and applied it to just going faster and better then it would probably happen anyway.

Scotty I get where your coming from with this and this has been my approach for years. My riding is faster and the bike is a lot more stable. I now go quicker and I am in more control then ever before. My lines and visibility have improved over road and track and as a rider I'm defiantly better then I have ever been however this said good body position on a bike improves you as a rider and for me getting my knee down is more about confirmation I have the correct riding position than about braging rights. So there is method in my madness

Are you going to Llandow? There are several easy spots to do it there, and it's a very grippy surface. The second right of the bus stop, and the final tight-ish right of the flip-flop section at the top of the track are relatively slow 2nd gear corners where you can flick it in with plenty of lean angle.

Yes I am going to Llandow I have been going every year since 2011 and I am in fast group. This 2nd corner is the closest i have ever come to getting my knee down and actually managed to get my boot toe slider down but not my knee.

Check out this vid to give you an idea
https://youtu.be/TSK0nTNlqfQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

your bottom photo hadn't loaded before I replied - was it wet that day? Start by learning to lean it like you mean it. Sorry to sound harsh but if you lean it like a pussy then it's never going to happen. Learn the art of counter-steering first, start riding properly and then worry about the cost of replacing knee sliders....

This is a very sound point. This is a Photo from Bedford where the corners are very open and sweeping therefore I run well here. I do not do as well in tight corners or hairpins and I would agree that I do not lean enough. When riding i feel like a Moto GP boy but the pictures don't lie. I defiantly need to figure this out also as I think i use more my body weight to turn rather then counter steering an therefore my lean angles are limited and my mind is getting in the way of going any lower. So valid point thanks....

Body position was ride on the balls of your feet - never on your arches - with your inside foot slightly over the ball of the footpeg so your toe slider touches before the peg (your early warning that your body position is wrong), push your arse back in the seat to give yourself room and keeping your spine parallel to the axis of the bike slide sideways until the the seam of the seat is in the crack of your arse, the inside fork leg is in line with the middle of your chest and your head is turned to look through the bend and lead the bike around the turn. Your outside arm is stretched across the tank, your inside elbow is sticking out so it doesn't impede your body.

Yup do all of that and confirmed my photos

Your outside knee locks into the tank and your inside knee flops outwards and points through the turn like your head.

I struggle to get support from my outside knee and would not call it locked in all of my weight and balance is on the ball of my inside foot. My leg does many wrong things but it never flops. Strains under the pressure might be a better description.

The key thing to come out of the course was understanding your core balance. Assuming you understand positive steer and counter-steer already, most people don't realise how much their core being - the pendulum in their chest and most especially the little voice in their brain - is fighting the bike's need for lean.

Yes got this i am low to the bike and move my upper body off the bike to the inside. however I think i use this as my primary means of steering the bike rather then counter steer so never seem to really be cranked over.

[Gimlet]

Easy to say difficult to do.......

Nail on head.

Body position was ride on the balls of your feet - never on your arches - with your inside foot slightly over the ball of the footpeg so your toe slider touches before the peg (your early warning that your body position is wrong), push your arse back in the seat to give yourself room and keeping your spine parallel to the axis of the bike slide sideways until the the seam of the seat is in the crack of your arse, the inside fork leg is in line with the middle of your chest and your head is turned to look through the bend and lead the bike around the turn. Your outside arm is stretched across the tank, your inside elbow is sticking out so it doesn't impede your body.

Yup do all of that and confirmed my photos

But do you? You're doing it on the stationary bike but are you doing it when you're riding? What your brain is telling you you're doing and what you're actually doing may be two different things.

Your outside knee locks into the tank and your inside knee flops outwards and points through the turn like your head.

I struggle to get support from my outside knee and would not call it locked in all of my weight and balance is on the ball of my inside foot. My leg does many wrong things but it never flops. Strains under the pressure might be a better description.

Are you sitting far enough back in the seat? Push yourself into the seat hump. If you sit forward your knee won't lock into the tank indent and you'll be trying to support yourself on your inner thigh which is hard work, not secure and makes your body twist.

[TLS-Moose]

......... and I still can't master this basic riding technic.

So please somebody help me.........

It's not a "basic" technique. Not in any way. I would go as far as to say that it's not even necessary .... do you also dangle your leg out as you brake/lean into corners? There are plenty of fast riders out there who have never got their knee down

There are plenty of pics out there of people leaning off bikes like monkeys just to get their knees down, with people nicely tucked in riding around the outside of them ........ It is also likely to get you nicked for dangerous/careless riding if spotted by the plod

Basically, why worry so much about an irrelevance? You'll probably find that the very reason you haven't managed to do it yet is because you are so worried about doing it .....

[Gimlet]

Your outside knee locks into the tank and your inside knee flops outwards and points through the turn like your head.

I struggle to get support from my outside knee and would not call it locked in all of my weight and balance is on the ball of my inside foot. My leg does many wrong things but it never flops. Strains under the pressure might be a better description.

When I started on that course my right hip was in agony trying to force my knee out. I didn't think I'd be able to do it but by the midpoint I must have relaxed and strained less and leaned more because I was touching down without any pain. Most of the other guys had the same issue.
I found it was all too easy when straining to push my knee at the tarmac to actually push my body back up out of its correct position. Rather than forcing my knee out further and straining till my hips hurt it came easy when I made a conscious effort to stop trying to dislocate my hip and instead push my upper body further out into the bend to tighten the turn. That probably corrected my position to where it should have been if my brain wasn't fighting it. I can feel right now sitting in a chair what I was doing when it all came together because I still have the muscle memory but its hard to explain. The best way I can describe it is to say don't strain for the ground with your knee so much as reach out for the corner with your upper body and your knee will follow.

I think there is a point to all this beyond bragging rights. Riding at the weekend I was finding I was turning later and tighter and looking through the bend better and I'm sure that comes from doing the above over and over again in a car park until my body remembered it.

[menzies3032]

Basically, why worry so much about an irrelevance? You'll probably find that the very reason you haven't managed to do it yet is because you are so worried about doing it .....

Its a valid question Moose and one that has been said time and time again.

My answer is simple.

I do not care about getting my knee down....... Well ok I do

However I care very much about having good body position on the bike, keeping the bike stable and being able to advance my riding so that i can apply the correct visibility, line, lean, speed, brake and acceleration. A key part of this is body position and if this is wrong you are never going to move forward.

As I say this is not about bragging rights. That conversation is long gone......

[menzies3032]

When I started on that course my right hip was in agony trying to force my knee out. I didn't think I'd be able to do it but by the midpoint I must have relaxed and strained less and leaned more because I was touching down without any pain. Most of the other guys had the same issue.
I found it was all too easy when straining to push my knee at the tarmac to actually push my body back up out of its correct position. Rather than forcing my knee out further and straining till my hips hurt it came easy when I made a conscious effort to stop trying to dislocate my hip and instead push my upper body further out into the bend to tighten the turn. That probably corrected my position to where it should have been if my brain wasn't fighting it. I can feel right now sitting in a chair what I was doing when it all came together because I still have the muscle memory but its hard to explain. The best way I can describe it is to say don't strain for the ground with your knee so much as reach out for the corner with your upper body and your knee will follow.

Thanks Gimlet. Helpful

[Ruffian]

Dropping a knee is fun and is clever!

Nah only messing,
I usually only glance a slider off the floor rather than bed it in and usually ffind I'm faster when not scuffing knees.

As for body position your near enough there, but as we have disussed be fore it's more like your pushing your knee forward rather than out and round.