A few years ago, four or five of the writing staff of a US mag - 'Motorcyclist' I think it was - responded to a letter which said "surely you're wrong in your article that says 'standing up lowers the centre of gravity' - surely it raises it"... they all told the writer he was wrong. Rather scary, that.Julian_Boolean wrote: ↑Thu Nov 19, 2020 12:37 pm "another classic is saying "standing up lowers the centre of mass" - they obviously never got past Physics 101 if they really think that."
Agreed, there's no way standing up while riding a bike lowers the centre of mass, but it does make it easier to ride a bike at low speed, I've no idea why, possibly a leverage thing or maybe because you're using your feet to balance and not your bum.
I try not to think too much about my riding and how I do things because I end up over analysing it and then worrying about whether I'm riding correctly rather than getting on with enjoying riding a bike, I learnt by trial and error - there was a lot of error, but it was mostly on a YZ125 that didn't really get damaged and I was young and recovered quickly.
I think I've gone off at a complete tangent on this thread so feel happy to ignore my posts and go back to talking about using the rear brake mid corner, I think I understand what Spin is saying on this and if I do I agree with him, I don't know if I could practically do it, and in the wet I'm far more concerned about the front slipping than the back, so anything that takes some load off the front tyre is good
I agree that we can over-analyse but OTOH there are techniques which work... and if something works, someone sooner or later asks "how". And by the same coin, there are techniques that people say work, and don't - at least, not how they are explained to work.
I too am far more concerned about the front slipping on a wet corner - this was exactly what my CB900F racing buddy was talking about, and how in the wet they had to change riding styles. In the dry they could use the normal racer - brake deep into the corner, then power out - technique (even on Avon Roadrunners!) but in the wet the skinny fronts had virtually no grip, so the danger was that it would let go and they'd be off in a flash. The solution was to shift the point at which they got back on the gas much earlier in the turn, thereby lessening the risk of losing the front on the brakes.
But given that the rear had no grip either, the traction issue switched to the rear - there was danger of a mid-corner loss of grip via a combination of lean and power. The lean would cause the rear end to go sideways, the throttle would cause wheelspin, and the tyre would keep sliding out of line. Because it took a moment to get OFF the gas and take away the power element of the loss of grip, the rear end had often gone sideways enough to result in a highside.
What he figured out was that although he was still trying to get round the corner as fast as possible by mixing lean and drive, by using the rear brake he could control the wheelspin IF the rear slide sideways, thereby slowing down rapidity with which it got out of line... which gave him a far better chance of recovering before the slide turned terminal.
I figured out fairly early on in my despatching career that turning into wet bends on the brakes had a significant risk of ending badly. I did save a couple of front end slides - one memorably with a size 9 boot planted in the tarmac, which kept the front up at the expense of a severe wrench to my knee ligaments - but I lost a lot more than I saved. By contrast rear end slides were pretty easy to control if I wasn't on the gas at the time, but I also learned that as the bikes got more powerful, it was far easier to spin the rear end right round.
I damn nearly highsided the GSX-R on a group ride I'd organised some years back. A mate was leading, I was trolling round at the back behind a very nervous lady on an XV535. It was a lovely sunny afternoon but there had just been a 30 second shower. I was watching the scenery rather than the road, and a left turn caught me a bit by surprise, only to discover a metal sheet laid over a trench halfway round. I was in a high gear at low revs when I turned the corner, which requires a relatively large throttle opening. The road was dry, but the metal was colder and still wet. The rear hit the wet metal, the tyre lost grip, the throttle opening spun the rear wheel up, which slid sideways before I could react. Of course, as soon as it slid back onto dry tarmac it gripped again. The near-highside threw me out of the seat and I landed on the tank.
The rear brake wouldn't have prevented the slide... but it might have prevented the rapidity it got sideways and the violence the reaction when the tyre gripped again.
