But they still CAN'T quite get to experience the Scrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtchhhhhh when they can drag their knee on the road on their favourite bend - let alone at will on any corner.
I was there, too, once.
I'd convince myself that i COULD do it, but had read things that said you can corner faster without it (
), and that the tiny scuffs on my knees weren't made by tiny morsels of gravel flipped up by the Fiat Uno pulling away in front, but were, in fact, where my knee had scraped.Then all of a sudden i could turn into ANY corner and drag my knee through the whole corner so much that i'd find myself lifting my knee off the road to save my sliders!!!
So what happened???
Easy. I rode another bike for a considerable ammount of time, then went back to my ZXR.
In my case, i bought an old Jap import factory streetfighter 1988 Honda VFR750 FG - raised bars, narrow tyres - the lot. For the first few weeks i was terrified that on every corner my exhausts and centre stand would ground out on every corner and kill me. The front end was all wobbly and unsettled compared to the awesome roadholding of the ZXR. I was like a scared little girl.
Then i built up confidence in it and after a few months i got my knee down for real and knew it!!!
Although i now think going knee down on this bike is irrelevant to the point of this thread... read on...Then i got the ZXR back on the road after a year.
First time i took it out it felt plain weird compared to a bike on narrow tyres with high bars.
It was like i was holding the front axle between my hands, and it either didn't turn at all, or wanted to lay flat on it's side! Once again, i was a scared little girl...So i took it to The Cloverleaf (basically my favourite corner in the world, for those who don't know it
), and i entered it at a very moderate speed so as not to bin it.... leant it over a bit and hung off.... and SCrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! ALL the way around the corner!!!! We're talking about a 20-30 sec CONSTANT knee-down here!!!!
I couldn't believe how easy it was!!!! It wanted to do it everywhere - so i obliged!!!
And this was my first time out on it for 12 months!!!The reason i only write this now, is that i've been riding an ancient Suzuki crosser on knobblies for the last 2 weeks, and took my ZXR out today for a final blast.
Scary at first cause again the handling felt weird - but got EXACTLY the same feeling of it wanting to lay down in every corner!
So i think all you need to do, if you think you're close (or maybe even if you don't) to scraping your knees - borrow a bike with raised bars and narrow tyres and ride that every day for 2 weeks!!!!
Then when you take the ZXR out again, spend 20 mins getting the feel for it again before you head straight for your favourite bend. You WILL now be able to get your knee down with ease and confidence!
If anyone else has the means (i.e. another bike) to try this theory, or has found it themselves - i'd love to hear if you think i'm onto something here!
