Want to learn to haze the rear tire of your sportbike off corners like MotoGP ace Randy De
For decades, aspiring motorcyclists have heard the same advice: "Get a dirtbike." And it's good advice. A small, manageable, off-road motorcycle can provide almost anyone with the essentials of successful streetbike riding at minimal cost.
The development of coordinated motor responses for working the gas, clutch, brakes and handlebars alone make it worthwhile. The simple necessities of maintaining low-speed balance, manipulating the sidestand, finding the starter button and kill switch, mounting/dismounting and so on are troublesome distractions for new riders, and actually remain so until mastered.
On the other hand, assuming that off-road riding is an activity just for beginners would be wrong. Even highly proficient riders learn vital skills from riding dirtbikes. The epic Honda XR100 battles at Kenny Roberts' ranch included such roadracing legends as Wayne Rainey, Eddie Lawson, John Kocinski and Randy Mamola, as well as dirt-track stars like Bubba Shobert. It seemed everyone had an XR then, and today there is an even wider range of suitable choices.
Many daunting facets of riding can be explored with relatively safely in the dirt. The lack of grip compared to asphalt allows riders to explore such things as front- and rear-wheel lock-up with less chance of crashing-and a softer surface to fall on. While there are potential gains in traction confidence from experiencing knobby-tire grip, there is a common misconception on how that translates to street-tire grip. Riders often think they'll come to understand (or become less afraid of) street slides by learning how to do it in the dirt. That's almost true. What you learn in the dirt is more what not to do, but it takes some time to arrive at that point. You have to become comfortable with sliding before doing so is a benefit, and there are some basics to that.
When you see a motorcycle sliding, it is out of its normal track. The front wheel is pointed outward rather than in toward the direction of the turn. As the back end comes around, so does the front in an effort to maintain stability. In other words, in a rear-wheel slide, if the front wheel stayed pointing inward, it would provide a plowing resistance at the front contact patch. That resistance creates a pivot around which the back of the bike tries to rotate. This has the potential to amplify the slide. While a car sliding in the snow goes out of track if the driver doesn't physically turn the front wheels into the skid, motorcycles are different. Except in extreme circumstances, the fork automatically rotates in the direction of the slide and maintains the bike's stability by providing the least resistance.
This is one of the cardinal rules of sliding: The less you do about it, the better. One of the most tangible improvements a rider can make on a dirtbike is to learn to do less.
A small dirtbike has a short wheelbase, which makes it nervous and quicker-reacting than a longer one. What you learn is to not react. What you gain is a negative. The companion negative is learning to chop the throttle during the slide, which is a key element as well. You learn to be calm when you should be and active when it is appropriate.
Supermoto, because it uses roadrace rubber, is a little different. In that arena you can gain a real feel for tire grip and the stages it goes through on asphalt before finally losing traction altogether. But once again you'd have to arrive at the point where sliding doesn't terrify you, and a small dirtbike provides the proper ramp-up to that. As an added benefit, supermoto-style riding can be practiced at a go-kart track, which is slower and much less expensive than a roadrace track.
Is it easy to break our instinctual compulsions to react improperly while sliding? No: We have to work through them. It's similar to learning not to extend your hands to break a fall. In this key area of confidence with traction, learning what not to do may be more important.