Have you ever had a struggle performing a u-turn?
Maybe you have a really heavy bike, which just feels about to tip over, maybe your U-turns
end up a bit too wide for your taste, or maybe you just don’t feel very confident and in
control, while turning your motorcycle?
If so - make sure you are not making one of those very common mistakes, which we will
be discussing today.
Let’s see all 5 of them, plus at the end of this video I’ll share 1 little secret,
which most of the other instructors won’t tell you!
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First on our list is using the front brake.
Here is how it usually happens.
For a lot of riders the go-to instinct in any confusing situation is to brake.
And I wouldn’t say it is completely wrong instinct.
However, in this particular situation, when we’re going through a u-turn grabbing the
front brake usually results in tip over, and if we need to brake here - we better use the
rear brake.
The front brake is normally much stronger than the rear one.
Rear brake is this tiny disc, and the front one is not only 2 times bigger, but frequently
there are 2 of them on the front.
More so, when we slow down (regardless of which brake we use), the weight of our bike
goes from rear to front, so when we brake - the front brake becomes stronger and the
rear one - weaker.
At slow speed if we apply the front brake even just a tiny bit too much - our nose dives
down and we instantly lose all our speed and drop the bike.
If you want, you can even try it yourself with this really simple exercise, you don’t
even need to start the engine.
Walk your bike, turn the handlebars left and apply the front brake.
You’ll immediately feel how your bike wants to tip over.
Just be careful and don’t drop your bike.
To be fair - we still can use the front brake if we are really careful, but we have to be
much more gentle.
Rear brake is just much easier to control at slow speed, which is why it’s a better
idea to use it.
Even if we apply it too much - we’ll get a little slide like this, and that’s it,
no big deal.
Next very common mistake is relying on our legs too much.
In this case the u-turn looks somewhat like this.
Rider sticks his feet out like this, with the intention to catch the bike if it starts
to tip over.
And it works to a degree on small, lightweight bikes, but it is useless with big ones.
Our legs are simply not designed to support 600-pound adventures and 800-pound cruisers.
Good thing is we don’t actually need to support our motorcycle with our legs, otherwise
bikes would probably look somewhat like this.
Our motorcycle is a self-stabilizing system, and all we have to do is to know how to use
it.
As long as our bike moves forward - it stabilizes itself, it can’t fall.
So, when our bike starts to tip over because of going too slow - all we have to do is to
increase our speed for a moment.
On normal bikes it is done with the so-called friction zone of the clutch, when we keep
our throttle slightly opened and use our clutch to accelerate or slow down.
Once you feel you’re about to tip over - just release the clutch a little bit, and your
bike will immediately stand up.
You can learn more about the “friction zone” on my channel - it’s an incredibly powerful
tool for riding at slow speeds, you definitely want to learn it.
On automatic DCT bikes you can achieve the same effect with a combination of your throttle
and rear brake.
Keep your throttle slightly opened and adjust your speed with the rear brake.
To slow down apply a bit more brake, and as soon as you start losing your balance - release
the brake, your bike will accelerate and stand up.
By correctly using the friction zone of your clutch or throttle and brake combination in
case of an automatic bike you can keep your balance and turn without putting your feet
down at any speed you want, regardless of how big is your bike and how much it weighs.
Sometimes, instead of learning how to use the clutch correctly, riders try to cheat
and just make their u-turns faster, relying on faster speed to keep their bike in balance.
That’s ok in certain situations, but this method has 2 major flaws.
First - it is dependent on pavement quality.
If we try to do our u-turn really fast, to keep it compact we have to lean our bike really
far.
It’s ok on dry clean pavement, but if we, let’s say, hit a sand patch, or some rough
spot, or simply make a mistake and lean a bit too much - we’re going to find our bike
lying on the floor.
Going slow, using the friction zone and keeping our bike more vertical we can no longer worry
about pavement.
We can turn on wet surfaces, on sand or gravel - it doesn’t matter, we have more control
over our balance.
This control also allows us to stop and abort the u-turn at any moment.
If, for whatever reason, in the middle of a u-turn we change our mind - we can just
stop like this, at any moment.
With higher speed and bigger lean angle we can’t just stop suddenly.
This is the second flaw of this method.
So, don’t try to cheat - learn how to use your clutch properly, it’s important.
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Next mistake is not using our head and eyes properly.
If you try to really turn your head very far during a u-turn and almost look behind your
back - your u-turns instantly will become better.
But why is that so?
There is a very common explanation that you can hear from almost every instructor, which
tells you that your arms just naturally follow your head and eyes and therefore your bike
follows your vision.
That’s not entirely correct.
Here is the demonstration, which shows it.
As you can see, I can easily turn my head one way and my bike will not follow.
Of course, my bike is not a sentient being with telepathic abilities, it has 0 idea about
what I am looking at.
There is a much simpler explanation.
The reason why in this particular situation I can look one way and go another - is because
I already know for certain what I have under my wheels, that I have enough space, there
is nothing in my way, etc.
Normally I can’t just know all this without looking at it first.
So, I have to turn my head and look at my line before I make my u-turn.
And if I turn my head really far, look and plan my line in advance - my brain will have
all the necessary information to make this u-turn flawlessly.
If I am lazy and look under my front wheel - my brain will have to calculate my line
on the fly, which is a far more challenging task.
And that’s it, it has nothing to do with my arms naturally following my head, that’s
not the case.
It’s just in this situation my brain has enough visual input to plot the line correctly.
And here it has to readjust each second.
It’s that simple.
So, remember to turn your head really far, force yourself to not look down no matter
what.
Turn your head, plot the line and only then commit to the u-turn.
And another thing which goes hand in hand with our head and eyes - is the line itself.
Be mindful of where exactly your bike goes during the u-turn.
Use all the available space.
Here is an example.
Let’s say I want to perform a U-Turn in this space, it’s rather tight.
If I just start turning in a random place - I will run out of space.
So, what I have to do is to use all available space.
Now I am planning to place my front wheel as close to the edge as possible, like this.
And now, I have all the space available for me and I can easily fit my bike, no problem.
This is tied down to how I use my head and eyes, like we already discussed - I look and
plot my line in advance and then just execute it.
Those were 5 mistakes which riders often make during u-turns.
And I also promised you a little secret mistake, which is rarely talked about.
It can royally screw up your u-turns, and the most interesting thing is that it is not
even related to our riding skills.
And this mistake is very common, I can bet that even some of you, guys, are doing it.
Remember that in the video about self-steering we discussed how the front wheel always corrects
itself and provides stability for our bike, and we have to keep our arms pretty loose
and relaxed to give enough freedom to the front wheel?
All this goes straight into the bin when our front wheel doesn't have enough air pressure
in it.
When the front tire is underinflated - our handlebars will just dive inside the turn,
forcing us to manually keep them from turning too much, which messes up our u-turns completely.
So, get yourself a small air pump like this one and just make yourself a habit to check
your tires pressure each time you go for a ride, and if necessary, to pump it up a little
bit.
Our tire pressure always changes itself either due to temperature change or due to minor
air leaks.
Don’t think it will stay the same for months just because you don’t have a couple of
nails in your tire.
Check the air pressure regularly and your tires will live longer and your bike will
behave much better.
On this positive note it’s time to finish this video.
Subscribe to the channel, and check out my course to become a safer and more confident
rider.
See you soon, bye!