1. The approach
As you come up to the point where you want to turn, you want the bike settled, so get your braking and gearchanging over and done with in plenty of time. We’ll assume a right hand turn for the moment.

2. The turn-in
At your chosen turn-in point, either pull gently and briefly on the left hand bar, or push gently and briefly on the right hand bar. This momentarily sends the front wheel in the wrong direction, so the bike starts to steer that way, but will lean the other. If you were to keep pointing the bars in the ‘wrong’ direction you’d lose control and crash, but in fact the gyroscopic effect of the spinning front wheel and the effect of the front suspension geometry will make the front wheel want to centre itself in the direction the rest of the bike is pointing (as a shopping trolley wheel should centre itself as you push it along), so the bike will ‘fall’ in the opposite direction to the way you first pointed the handlebars - in other words, you’ve now got the bike leaning to the right.

3. The turn itself
Now that’s fine and dandy, but you’re still falling to the right, and if you don’t do something to balance that you’ll just fall over! What you do is use the throttle to get everything back in equilibrium. As soon as you’re committed to the turn, get back on the throttle gently - you’ll notice an immediate improvement in feel from the front tyre, and you’ll stabilise the bike. As you pass the apex and start to get the bike more upright again, you’ll be wanting to apply proggressively more throttle and to drive harder out of the corner.

4. But I can’t do that!
Oh yes you can. In fact you probably already do, but subconsciously. If you want proof, just go and get a ride on a sidecar outfit. Because they can’t lean, you have to steer an outfit in the direction you want to go, same as you would a car. Put a normal biker on an outfit and nine times out of ten either they can’t steer it at all and go straight on, or they go in the opposite way to where they intended!

Braking, Lock it dont lose it!

Faced with an emergency, many riders’ reaction is to panic and grab the front brake hard. All too often that results in the front wheel locking up, and from that point you have a split second to let the brake off or you’re going to land in a heap.

There’s no time to think - letting off the brake has to be an automatic reaction to the first squeal from the tyre. There’s only one way to make sure you react in the right way and that’s to practise it until it’s second nature. Fortunately practising is fun!

Here's how


Find a quiet, dry, straight road without too much camber. Ride up and down and do some fairly hard stops to warm up your tyres and brakes. Then ride along at about 30mph, and really grab the front brake hard, then immediately release it. The first few times you probably won’t lock the tyre, but eventually you’ll get a squeal of rubber, but because you’ll be ready for it, you’ll already be letting off the brake before the tyre really starts to slide. Even if it does start to slide and the front starts to tuck, as soon as you let the brake off the bike will run true again.

Keep practising and eventually you’ll be able to leave a dotted black line on the road. And the next time you’re in an emergency and grab too much brake, or hit a slippery patch of tarmac when you’re stopping hard, you won’t need to think about it - you’ll let the brake off and get a second chance.

Anatomy of a corner

Unless you’re a drag racer, corners are what bikes are all about. They’re the holy grail and the bread and butter of biking, but few riders really understand them in depth. You can tell the ones who do - they’re faster, safer and have more fun than the unenlightened.

Every corner has its own unique nuances and subtleties, but every corner in the world can be broken down into three main parts - Entry, Apex and Exit. How you deal with each one is important, but how you put them together is crucial - you’re looking for a smooth transition between each part of the bend.

1. Entry
This can be subdivided further into Approach and Turn-in. The Approach is where you get down to a speed and gear that seems about right, and position yourself in the best place to tackle the bend. That means giving yourself the best visibililty, so for a left hand bend you’ll be as far over to the right as is practical, and for a righthander you’ll be as far over to the left. On a racetrack you can use the whole width of the tarmac but real roads have oncoming traffic, potholes, gutters and white lines which will mean you have to modify your line to suit.

The closer you get to the turn, the more you’re looking for your turn-in point. This is the point at which you really make the bike steer, rather than just following the road - on a very long or tight curve you might get three-quarters of the way round the bend before you actually turn in.
The way to spot the turn-in point is to know where the exit is, then draw the shortest practical line between where you are and that apex point. On a racetrack you know where the exit is because you have as many laps as you like to learn it, so you can work out a turn-in point in advance. On the road, you have to actually see the exit before you can identify the apex, which means you end up going deeper into the corner before you turn in.

2. Apex
This is the heart of the bend, where you’ll be leant over further than anywhere else in the bend it’s the balance point between the way in and the way out. You hear racers talk about hitting an apex, and they’ll mean hitting it consistently within an inch or so, lap after lap. On the road accuracy is still important, otherwise you’re wasting time. On a left hand bend the apex will be as far over to the right as it’s practical and safe to go, on the right it’ll be as far over to the left.

3. Exit
From the moment you hit the exit, you should be concentrating on the exit, and concentrating on getting there as fast as possible. That means getting the power down, which means balancing available tyre grip with increasing throttle. That’s a balance that changes from corner to corner and from bike to bike, but the crucial thing is to feed the throttle in firmly and gently, not just crack it on full in one go. The further you’re leant over, the less throttle you can apply, but as you gradually ease the bike upright you can apply correspondingly more throttle, until by the time you’re halfway back up to upright again you’ll probably be close to full throttle, powering out of the bend and on towards the next one

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