I've seen it before. Very impressive and very irresponsible at the same time. In any case, you can't say the guy doesn't know how to ride because he's obviously good at it. It's where he does it that's bad.
By the way, a Russian guy i know told me that it is actually illegal to chase down street racers in Russia, because they don't want them going even faster to outrun the police.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 5./JG27.Farber
Ive seen that before and remember thinking WHooAA! But now I watch again, I think its speeded up. There are some places where he filters and goes left then right. If that was anywhere near the speed it looks I dont think he would make it... That bike weighs about 100 kilos or 16 stone... You can throw the light weight 125's around with you hips but not the big bikes... The faster they go the harder they are to throw like that. Maybe Im wrong but my instinct maybe right.  Look at 4:08 for about 20 seconds... At 4:16 to 4:20 hes dipping his wing mirrors under and over the cars wing mirrors on each side.. and again around 4:40. I think you will find 5:20 more like actual speed.
Would be nice if you could see the lights change or something, then maybe I could prove it. |
I'm a rookie rider on a used Honda FMX 650 (it's like a supermoto but with much weaker engine). The bike weighs 163 kilos when it's fueled up and i can comfortably weave it around a manhole cover with a diameter of 70cm or so while doing 50km/h, starting the weave about 3 meters from it. In fact, whenever i am on a stretch of empty road i always practice swerving and emergency braking on imaginary obstacles, because these are the kind of skills that save your life as a bike rider.
If i can do that, i think it won't be that hard for the nutcase in the video to throw around a racing bike that's built for tight turning at speed.
The trick to make the bike lean fast and accurately is to forget about leaning by shifting your weight and use the handlebars. Body and weight positioning is always important in a bike, but there are more ways to skin a cat.
Due to the gyroscopic effect of the rotating wheels, from a speed as low as 20-40km/h (depending on the bike geometry) the bike can be leaned by using a technique called counter-steering. If you want to lean left, you turn the wheel slightly to the right, opposite of where you want to lean. The mnemonic rule is "push left to go left, push right to go right" and you condition yourself to think of initiating turns by pushing the handlebar in the direction you want to lean.
For as long as the wheel is turned, the bike will keep leaning to the opposite direction. So, what you do is to momentarily push where you want to go and once you get the lean angle you want to achieve, you straighten it out again. This is also used to straighten up the bike after negotiating a curve: turning inside the curve will make the bike go form leaning to standing straight up.
I've been using this for the past 3 months and it's safe to say that the only time i use my weight is actually to counterbalance the bike when i'm taking a corner in a small radius and i lean a lot. My bike's got a high center of gravity and if you want to lean a lot at slow speeds you will find it wants to drop on the ground, so what i do is lean the bike into the curve with counter-steering and lean my body outside of it to balance it. The bike still turns in a tight radius with quite a bit of lean, but i don't have to be rolling on the throttle like crazy to stabilize it.
However, i almost never lean the bike into a turn by shifting my weight around anymore. Counter-steering is much more efficient, accurate and instantaneous, because at city commuting speeds all it takes is a 2cm forward motion of your arm to make the bike lean. In fact it's so instantaneous that the first time i practiced it on an empty piece of road, i actually got scared i would drop the bike and i was only going 20km/h or so
Plus, at higher speeds the force you need to push the handlebars increases as well, so it's hard to over-lean the bike by accident when going fast. In fact, professional race drivers have been known to occasionally bend or even break their clip-ons, it takes that much strength to counter-steer when going 250+ in a race track.
It's a perfect case of using physics to make things work for you in an easier way. It's also something i recommend to all new bike riders, learning how to do it is an essential skill not only for cornerning, but most importantly for obstacle avoidance.
EU and US studies show that the vast majority of motorcycling accidents (about 90% or so) happen in residential areas within 6 minutes of getting on the bike. In other words, someone (a kid, dog, neighbour's car) just popped out in front of you from behind corner or parked car and you don't have enough time to brake properly and stop the bike. In such a case, people either brake too hard, lock up their wheels and fall, or try to swerve but they don't do it fast enough and end up crashing on whatever's in front of them.
Using counter-steering however, it's possible to brake to the full of your bike's capabilities and when you see that it's not enough, you have bought yourself a few extra seconds to just swerve around the obstacle by rapidly and precisely leaning the bike over. I think it's the most useful skill any rider can possess
