Dual Sport Motorcycle Skills - Steering w/ Feet & Knees

Many riding skills can be learned well in a parking lot, before they are needed on the trail. Information on such skills is to be found in Skills documents like this one. These articles present more detailed breakdowns of specific skills mentioned in the Challenges document, along with thoughts on how to teach yourself those skills. For more information on why / when this skill is required, see the Challenges post.

Remember to check the "Links: Riding Technique" section in the sidebar for more thoughts on how to handle your motorcycle off pavement. As I find pertinent links or they are sent to me, I will add them there.

Keep in mind that however definitive the text may come across, this is just some blog and I am just some guy. Neither of us knows all there is to know about riding motorcycles, and some or all of what we know may be dangerously wrong.

Last Update: 12/08/06

As long as you’re just standing there (see previous Skills post -- Standing on the Pegs), try some easy turns – the usual way, by leaning, and working with the handlebars, if you like. It works, but leaves you wondering why bother standing. Next, on generally straight roadway, try shifting your weight from one peg to the other. No, don’t bother. Everybody says to do that & it’s totally unclear what is meant. Do you shift it by leaning to the side, like you just did? Do you try to stand mostly on one side of the bike? Huh?

No. You don’t shift your weight from peg to peg. You push one peg down toward the pavement, then the other. And while you are doing that, you keep your body in the same place. Try it this way: Find something approximating a straight road with a line in the middle of it. Ride along the line while standing. Alternate pushing the left and right peg toward the pavement, and keep your head – though not necessarily the bike – over the line.

My metaphors and descriptions are generally based on personal experience, but I wrote this document while laid up after my gnarly death-defying wreck, and so haven’t double-checked myself on the bike, as I usually do, because the bike – no longer exists. So – don’t try that bit above. I think it’s right, and after I go try it and find that my description is clear and adequate (er, to myself), I will take out this paragraph and you can carry on…

Imagine you are standing on the pegs, pushing down on the right peg, and trying to keep your body upright. It will help you do this if you push your left knee against the bike. I find that thinking about what I’m doing in different ways has a strong influence on how what I am doing actually works. If that’s you, try one of these two ways of thinking about this maneouver: 1) You are pushing the bike down into the right turn with your left knee. 2) You are pushing your body out of the turn (counter-steering) with your outside knee against the bike. If you ski, this will make a lot of sense to you (if not – well, muddle through like me [I don’t ski]).

12/08/06:

I have recently come to the conclusion that standing up and steering with the feet, and especially the knees, is far more important than one might think. Even sitting, you can use your outside knee to push the bike down into a turn. This automatically leads you into counter-steering, since by pushing the bike down in one direction you effectively push your body up in the other direction. In s-curves on pavement, I have had the experience of leaning the bike into one turn after another without my (standing) body leaning much at all. It's fun on pavement, but it is incredibly useful on unpaved terrrain. It opens the door to steering with the rear tire, which seems to be the only way to handle curves in dirt at speed, and happens -- once you learn it -- to be a BLAST! This is a fundamental off-pavement skill that will really open a lot of doors for you. Once you get steering while standing, using your feet and knees, a huge chunk of off-pavement control will just fall into place. Give it a shot.

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