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supermotard riding techniques from supermotocanada.com

**If you just ride your 'motard on the road then you can simply ride it like any other bike, but if you want to get the most out of your bike, or you want to go racing, then there are some basic techniques that are worth practising. 

The first one is just where to sit. Under heavy acceleration, especially on wet or slippery surfaces, you need to get as much weight over the rear wheel as possible. To do this sit as far back on your seat as possible. Obviously this means you're taking a lot of weight off the front of your bike, but as the front wheel has little to do while accelerating this isn't a problem. Going into a corner, on the other hand, is another matter entirely. Just before you hit the brakes, slide your body right up to the tank so that you've got as much weight going into the front tire's contact patch as possible. Yes, this can mean you're more likely to pull a 'rolling stoppie' into the corner but just as the front tire does very little under acceleration, the rear tire does very little under braking. This seating position should also be used on aggressive standing starts. 

Now we come to the best thing about riding a supermotard bike - sliding it into corners. If you ride a two-stroke 'motard you'll find this technique very difficult indeed, but on four-strokes it's actually pretty easy ... once you've got over the fear of sliding a bike around, anyway, as it goes against every road rider's idea of how to ride. The first thing you need to do is find a nice quiet road with little, if any, traffic that, preferably, has a side road for you to slide in to. Now, ride up to the corner and take the racing line into it. Hopefully this corner is a first or second gear turn. If it isn't take a line in to it that makes it one as you don't won't to be going too fast at this point. When you're happy with your racing line, again race up to this corner, but this time leave your braking until pretty late so that you're taking the turn in a racing manner.

As you approach the turn you want to be in at least one gear higher than you need. As you hit the brakes (both of them, not just the front) select the gear for the corner and then release the clutch lever - no going through each separate gear or blipping the throttle between changes ala road racing - and you should feel the rear start to slide controllably. 

You shouldn't need much rear brake as you want the wheel to continue to turn as it slides sideways. If you feel the rear wheel juddering (you'll instantly recognise the feeling if/when it happens) then you're in too low a gear for your entry speed - feather the clutch slightly and it will go away. And that's it. Overcome your fear of sliding, add a little practise and you too can look like Stephane Chambon. Hey, I said look, not be as quick as... 


There's one more thing to talk about now and that's how to stick your foot out while cornering. Yes, I know it seems stupid but there are a couple of things to remember if you do it. The first thing is not to dig your foot into the floor as you corner - your foot should be above the surface and only touch down if the bike slides. You also want to make absolutely certain that your foot is pointing the same way you're travelling, which is the same direction your front wheel is pointing. If you do have a slide you want

your foot to kick the bike up, but you also want your leg to only move in its natural plain of travel. If your foot's pointing slightly sideways then, if you're unlucky, your foot could grip the surface and twist in an unnatural direction that can end in anything from a sore ankle or knee to utterly shattering your leg. And because the break's caused by a sideways force you're not just looking at a bad break, but a spiral break which is the type of injury that almost cost multi World GP500 Champion Mick Doohan his leg. And don't forget to make sure your toes are hard against the engine casings when you put your foot back on the pegs as you don't want them digging into the tarmac if you loose control just after the apex or if you hit one of the conveniently placed tire/hay bale walls as this could also result in your foot being spun sideways with the same possible results as mentioned above.

Learn the secret of doing a stoppie!

Everybody's doing it. Ethan Hunt did it in Mission Impossible 2, Laurence Fishburne did in in Biker Boyz, Mike Metzger did it in the X-Games at the end of his rides. What is it? The reverse wheelie, or "stoppie". Here you'll learn how to get the rear end up on your bike without ending up on your rear end!

But before you try anything mentioned below, be informed that motorcycle stunts are very dangerous and illegal on public roads and car parks. If you really have to, then try it only if your home has a driveway as long as that of the Istana!

And of course, be prepared to pay for the repairs and injuries that will surely follow... The owners of this website will not be responsible for any property damages, injuries or loss of life due to actions taken by readers after reading this page.

So you wanna do a stoppie? Geezzzz....how? Actually, it's easy, if you know the secret.

And the secret is... go slow and apply the brake smoothly! Why?
• 40mph stoppie = sliding/skidding the front end and
• 10 mph stoppie = easy trick. Apply the brake smoothly, not instantly!

That's what does the trick - simply trying it at 10-15 mph. It's just because at 10 mph, we have a lot more confidence. And it's much safer. Doing it slowly and smoothly are the most important, but there's more to it:

Try it at 10 mph. Find an open parking lot (or a dirt field if you are on a dirt bike) and do a couple runs, more aggressive each time so you get comfortable with it.

You grab the front brake slowly at first and apply progressively more brake until the front end is fully loaded. On your practice runs (before you actually start doing stoppies), let go of the front brake before you stop completely - get used to keeping your balance after you release the front brake.

Loading the front forks is important, because it transfers the forces from the bike's weight onto the front before you bring the rear up. You can't just get a stoppie by instantly applying full front brake! That'll just slide the front (even at 10 mph if you pull too fast).

Why? Without the bike's full weight on the front tire, the braking force will be greater than the tire's stopping power and it will start to slide. This is because stopping power (friction) is proportional to the force pushing the tire onto the ground (vertically). When the front end dives, the bike's full weight is holding the front tire onto the ground.

Keep going further with the brake lever each pass until the rear end comes up. Be ready to release your front brake as soon as you feel uncomfortable with how high the rear end is. It'll be a good idea to release the brake as soon as the rear tire got off the ground - better to get used to it in stages.

Don't use any rear brake and don't expect the rear brake to keep you from going over like it does with wheelies. In fact, if you apply the rear brake while the rear wheel is up in the air, it'll make it harder to balance when you come back down.

Balancing is pretty important to pull off the trick without embarassment. Usually, a fouled stoppie will simply make you put your foot down. If you are going straight when you do the stoppie, it'll be a lot easier. Even when going straight, you'll find the back end could come down as far as 30 cm (a foot) from where it'd be if it were straight.

Keep the bike in 1st gear, because you'll want to accelerate once you come down to stabilize the bike (and leave the spectators behind !).

A stoppie done right will have you in the air for a good 2-3 (or more) seconds, and landing firmly on the pegs - ready to go again! Landing a little crooked, but still perfectly balanced looks even cooler for some reason.

There are more subtle tricks like standing up on the pegs a little before braking to make it last longer, but I wouldn't try that for starters.

Have fun and ride safe always! - DirtRodders.com -

Supermoto Cornering - Why All The Sliding? Does It Help Or Hinder?

This is something that I've been thinking about on and off for a while.... is the supermoto "leg out/backing in" style really the fastest way for those guys to get around a track? I haven't yet tried to get into this discussion on a supermoto forum or with SM riders in real life, but I am guessing it would be quite an... interesting discussion. 

Some things I've noticed that seem to be a recurring theme:

• Supermotos "turn faster than sportbikes". This one I can understand as being confused for "easier to turn". IMO if a SM (supermoto) rider can't turn a sportbike equally as fast as their motard, they either aren't putting in enough effort, or just need to develop their quick turn ability to a higher level.
• Supermoto requires some kind of special rider training. On a couple of SM forums I visit there have been threads asking about SM training. Most have a section dedicated to supermoto riding technique as well - as if the physics of a two wheeled single-track vehicle and other basics don't apply to supermoto? It's almost as if new SM riders try to skip the basics of cornering and go straight to corner entry, specifically backing it in as the key SM skill. Which leads to the main point...
• "Backing it in" is required for fast lap times on a supermoto.

So what is the story behind this? Why don't SM racers just use the good 'ole quick turn technique and a later corner entry? From what I have seen it always looks like they're sliding for quite a long distance - is this because a SM is a tall bike and regular vertical braking isn't as effective because it would lift the back wheel off the ground too easily? If they weren't backing in I would straight up label it lazy cornering...  Or would a quick turn upset the bike too much because of soft & long travel suspension (don't forget they take some sizeable jumps as well). The other thing is that maybe backing in allows for safer trail braking? (AFAIK "proper" backing in relies on using the front brake and engine compression, not locking the wheel with the rear brake.)

I also read an interesting bit of info that said putting your inside foot forwards can add an extra 20lbs of weight/traction/grip to the front wheel when cornering. Does anyone have thoughts on that? Initially I put it down to a habit being carried over by dirt bike riders, but maybe the light weight of the bikes could make extra weight transfer towards the front more of a necessity? Or maybe it also makes it easier to control the rear slide that way? There seems to be a general idea among SM riders that it doesn't matter where your rear wheel goes, as long as your front tyre has enough grip. Part of me thinks that they slide the rear whenever they can, just for the fun of it.

The other thing I notice is that the way a corner is ridden depends on whether it's a hairpin (usually foot down, backin in) or a fast corner (knee down or foot out depending on preference), or esses (usually feet up on the 'pegs from what I've seen). Supermoto tracks are also much smaller than road race circuits, maybe backing it in is more effective at slower speeds than higher speeds? They don't move around on the bike much either, maybe because of the short distances between corners? Or maybe they figure that there's no point since the bikes have so much lean angle available?

I have an XR400 motard that I've only ridden on the streets, but definitely no problems with front wheel traction there. But a quick turn does feel kind of awkward because of the tall seating position. For example there's much more movement (measured from the seat & handlebars) going from 90 to 45º than doing the same thing on a sportbike. Not sure how much the situation would change when ridden faster on a track though... I am currently building a KTM supermoto and I'm going to be doing supermoto track days (a quarter the price of a regular track day!) so I plan to experiment with some different techniques and see what answers I can find to all these questions. But I'm interested to hear any other thoughts. Has anyone here ever raced supermoto? Or have any of the Coaches had students on supermotos? - shared from california bike school

                                         

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