cornering problems

anyone have a suggestion on how not to run out of front tire when leaning over in the corner i had the front tire slip on me yesterday from leaning over so far in a corner ( my foot was dragging on the ground) the tire is a 110-90-16 i have a rim that is a 17 not sure if that would help though or if there is something else i can do to get more lean angle without slipping

 

slow down?

 

How long have you been riding?
What tire?
How old is it?
What road conditions?
What speeds?
Have you taken a riding course of any kind?

 

Answers to all of these are important. Old could be bad. Brand new also could have it's problems if there's anything on the surface of the tire. I put two brand new Michelin Commander II's on mine. They were great initially, but it didn't take long to get out there after a rain (dry road, but must have been a hint of moisture still there...) and well... let's just say it was not confidence inspiring in the curves... heh...

There could have been residue from the factory, grime from shipping, maybe something from the mount//balancing... who knows.

 

Plus....Eugene....moss does grow on the roads in places.

 

i was heading back roads to cottage grove and i was with two other people trying to keep up (they had an r6 and r1) i was doing about 50 to 55 on 20 and 25 mph corners the tires are ok ad the road was ok i have been riding on the street for a little over a year and on the dirt since i was 3. arrowmax gt501f is the front tire. i did take a riding course that is mandatory to get your endorsement in oregon little over a year ago but i ride all weather every day so its not that i wasnt experience enough in the corner. i do about 1500 to 2000 miles a month and have gone through a few tires this one is not brand new but its doesnt seem old enough to be slipping. would a 17 in rim corner better?

 

down shift and wheelie around the corners

 

lol ya that would be great i can stand it up in first and ride it out i was able to shift mid wheelie and keep going. best feeling on the thing i have had yet

 

or you could ride with flipflop sandals, that would let you know when the lean limit is reached

 

did you ever notice it is not the first dog running across the street chasing a cat that gets hit?
do not let your ego dictate how you ride. I know the reviews say you can lean until the frame is scraping the ground but it is not a good practice.
that part of your tire has had very little contact with the road and could still be a little slick, and you do not want to have any contact with the road.
over confidance is a bad thing. you now know how fast you can not go into those corners. maybe this summer you should take the advanced riders course

 

are your rims non stock?
if its a maxim it is a 19 inch tire up front and 16 inch on rear
seca is 19 inch tire up front and 18 inch on rear

 

what my point was is i was wondering things i can do to the bike to allow it to be able to lean more than it is able to now.

 

so i have a yx600 radian front rim but i have an xj550 rim that should fit

 

if it leaned over any farther, what would you do with your feet?

 

i could move the pegs if need be but the reason is so that i have more traction in a full lean so that it is not as easy to slip

 

Learn the limits of the machine, take a track-riding course, and quit trying to keep up with supersports machines that have 30 years of additional development.

If you want to corner faster you should be learning how to hang-off and keep the bike more upright. You should also consider that there are very few cornering situations on the street where you can be at the traction limit and not be going well over the speed limit (there are exceptions, but not many). There is a saying about old pilots; it applies to motorcyclists too.

On a positive note: lowsides hurt less than highsides (usually).

 

and his bike's

 

I have a reading list for you.

Proficient Motorcyling (1 and 2), by David L. Hough

A Twist of the Wrist (1 and 2), by Keith Code

At the very least get both of the first title in each series.

One more thing: you have a good tire, but it's a sport-touring tire with the emphasis on touring. I'll make an assumption; your friends are not running tires that have anything to do with touring, and everything to do with sport.

 

one is a rain sport tire and the other on the r1 was taking it easy in cruise mode

 

and im hoping to get a novice licence this year for racing in portland but i dont want to have to do the school on this bike

 

There are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old bold pilots.....

Just weird to not hear that coming from my boss....

Anyways... I hang out with lots of guys with Gixxers and R6s, there is no way to can even hope to keep up with them once they decide to make you tiny in their rearview. My bike does well, but like Kmoe said, our machine and equipment just wasn't built for that kinda stuff. It does make me a pretty solid rolling camera platform though!

 

ya i get that i wont be able to keep up i was just wondering if there is anything i can do to the bike to help it corner better that may have not been done in the factory

 

in its stock setup the factory did a fine job

 

Darren. I think you're probably asking the wrong audience. This is (primarily) an old guy site for old guys who like fettling old bikes (well that's my take) - it's also the politest (most polite?) forum I visit. I suspect you're probably younger than most. The advise thus far is good, no-one is going to recommend anything that might end up making stuff worse however.
The only suggestion I might have is to contact the guy who made the GSXR front-end swap and get his view. A lot of work really (so you might just as well get another machine) but if you're determined...

 

52 is NOT old!
I prefer mature, or sophisticated, or ripened with wisdom.
Unfortunately I usually get, crazy old coot.

Just to throw my 2 cents in;
Your foot will do nothing but get mangled if you really start sliding, so keep it on the peg (which I think is where Polock was pointing to).
Your old bike with it's older front end suspension probably isn't giving a top performance pre-load to the front tire, hence the slip (as so many others have said).
Find a track with banked corners, then you will get better turning performance, but your buddies will still smoke you.
So ride it for what it is, not what you wish it was (again like so many others said)

Well given that I guess you could call me a dusty old parrot . . .

 

Stop trying to over-ride the bike. Stop trying to over-ride the road. Stop trying to over-ride the laws of physics.

You may be used to riding dirt bikes/etc......your on a street bike now, and you need to learn what the new limitations are.

You WON'T corner like a crotch rocket....

You're asking questions like: how can I get my 3500 dually to corner as tightly as a corvette?

You want a bike to keep up with you friends who are going too fast, you'll need more common sense....

 

Remember when we were in our twenties and we thought being 50 was old? 50 is 2 years away for me but we're OLD here...Gurgle, ghasp, grunt.Members who are 60+ still riding must be considered Ancient. Embrace the gray!

Gary H.

 

your all youngsters to me.

 

Not really; not without essentially turning it into an entirely custom machine. The Maxims were never intended to be sportsbikes. Even the sportsbikes of that era were a handful to ride fast in comparison to the machines we have today (or even 20 years ago).

The best thing I think you can do is work at improving your skills on the street, then look at moving on to a different machine. Even an EX500 will out-corner what you have now (and that may be just the thing for you at this stage of your stret-riding career).



a100man, Your take is pretty well correct, but I wouldn't say that the majority are done with riding aggressively; we're just a bit smarter than we once were about the when and where of it.

 

Old is a state of mind

http://www.svt.se/nyheter/96-arige-olle-kor-fortfarande-isracing

 

I'm glad I didn't start riding until I was older. I looked at bikes in my senior year, but never made the purchase. I probably would have killed myself. Now, with two years to go before I hit 50, I go nice and easy around the corners. I just don't think casket is a good look.

 

I sold my RD350 last year. It was a fast, fast bike, and cornered like a dream. I am a very experienced rider, and under 60mph I could run rings around less experienced riders on new sportbikes. The bike was light, fast and it turned so well it was borderline twitchy at speed. I lowered the front end, put stiffer springs in, longer shocks out back, stripped it down to the bare essentials, etc.

My point? I had some close calls at speed, and the old bike was a maintenance wh*re, so I happily "upgraded" to my XJ. It doesn't turn like the RD, and its like riding atop an aircraft carrier by comparison. If you have a Maxim and not a Seca, you have a long way to go. Better turning prowess will be had by altering the bikes geometry to allow for more weight on the front wheel- like raising the forks in the triple clamps to drop the front end a bit. Some thicker oil and stiffer springs up front will go a long way too. But you're sacrificing comfort in a big way. My RD was nimble and fast but after about 100 miles you were looking for a rest. I have a fork brace for my Seca, some new shocks on order, I put thick oil and preload spacers in the forks...it turns ok. The brakes need some attention as slowing the behemoth down is a bit of a chore as well.

 

He's running a smaller front wheel, so his front-end geometry is already adjusted for quicker turning. There might be a bit more to gain from moving the forks a little though.

The big advantage he has is all those years of riding dirt. Every bit of that skillset is transferable (exccept for putting a foot down), and he has an advantage over someone who only learned to ride on the street when the tires start to slide.

 

Yup, 100%. I've been riding Enduro and MX since I was just a little tot on a Mini Trail 50. Riding offroad teaches you to be completely comfortable with the tires moving around underneath you/the bike. A little slippage is totally cool.

I didn't realize that the front wheel he mentioned was smaller. But for sure, geometry plays a huge part here, I would argue larger than the tire profile. Gotta be able to get that weight forward. Like MX guys that get their cojones up on the gas cap when cornering.

 

I wonder where @Darren is? Is he riding? Is he reading? I hope that he sticks around.

 

ya im still here so i have the front forks and rear swing arm off a radian so its no the stock maxim set up

 

i guess at this point its really just a radian with a 550 frame lol

 

Show us a good side view of the machine (photo).

 

Oi! I'm still riding like a hooligan.

 

it looks just like a radian it just has an xj550 frame for cheaper insurance

 

So would over riding cause the front to shake (I use that word loosely, it is a slow rhythmic head shake) while in a mi speed corner?

And getting up on the tank to put weight forward does help a bike turn. Rode San Diego mountains last weekend and was in a challenging pace by my brother. Who knows when I'm pushing too much and will slow down!

 

Well the request for a photo was more for analyzing the stance of the machine rather than the aesthetics.

 

That's funny (not laughting at you, but at the insurance company) because the Radian was manufactured using the 550 Maxim frame.

 

Not sure what you mean by "over riding".

When you want to make a bike turn a bit faster, you make attempts to steepen the steering angle. Without cutting the frame neck, this can be simply accomplished by lowering the front end (small amounts make a big difference- a 1/2" is very noticeable) via the fork position in the triple clamps. Conversely, you can also raise the rear a bit with an increase in shock preload, or longer shock(s). But beware of the driveline issues that this can lead to in extreme circumstances.

When you do successfully steepen the steering angle, however, you give up straight line stability. Like I mentioned about, my RD350 would turn on a dime and give back $.08 change...but at 75+ mph the potential for a tank slapper was real (headshake, when the front wheel wants to wag). This is scary to an experienced rider, and possibly deadly to an inexperienced one. So proceed with caution.

 

By over riding, I guess I mean too much steering input or too fast (not crazy more like not knowing the corner and having it be a 2 apex turn that tightens up) mid corner and trying to correct that mistake by other ways versus braking.
And I know all about the head shake issue, I'm STILL trying to remove the brown stained seat from my behind when I almost had a tank slapper at 80 changing lanes.... Cue the song "Oh, what a lucky man he was..."

Cheers and as always you guys are great!

 

Front shake can be caused by:

Unbalanced forks
Unparallel forks
Old/worn/cupped/etc.... tire
Bad steering stem bearings
Bad wheel bearings
Warped brake rotor
Worn swingarm bearings
Worn rear tire


Any single or combination of the above can cause that

 

I mean, not disputing any of that. That doesn't make what I said any less true...

 

The only item on that list that I don't know about see the stem bearings. Every other item is good, as they have been checked, replaced, or repaired.

I will check those bearings in the coming days.

Thanks again.

 

You could try changing the vicosity of the fork oil. I recently switch to 15wt because it was readily available compared to the recommended 20wt. Some might say to stick with the recommended weight because that's how it was designed but I do have to say, I think the front end feels a whole lot better than before. I also managed to fill both fork at the same time with the right amount of air since I have air forks. But anyways, you could try changing the fork oil and possibly testing different fork pressures if you have air forks.

 

Fork oil viscocity effects the damping rate. It won't have any effect on headshake.
15 wt is what a lot of people end up with. The specified fok oil assumes that every rider weighs the same and rides in the same way; e.g. the "average rider" that is used because manufacturers have to put something in there before the bike gets shipped.