This is a translation of an article from the German “Welt” newspaper. Translation by me, original article can be found at http://www.welt.de/data/2006/04/15/873985.html
“On your knees!”
Why it is the highest pleasure for every motorcyclist to scrape the corner on one knee
By Johannes Riegsinger
Those were the days. When spring didn’t start under the heading “Safer through the Season - gentle training units for born-again bikers”. But more like “Get it down like Kenny – knee dragging in two hard hours”. Oh yeah. Sigh.
These days down at the biker haunt named “Sunflower”, you must make your apologies for too agressive turning angles in the sharp turn in front of the car park. Back in the day you would have been run out on a rail for turning up without sufficiently ground down knee pads. But back then the joint wasn’t called “Sunflower” either.
Sadly the safety-concious motorcyclists of the new millenium don’t even seem to know what they are missing: there is nothing more beautiful than a corner mastered elegantly, with steam. The corner in all its variation is the crown of motorcycling, no matter if its long or tight or decreasing in radius. The deciding factor is – much like the hard chewing involved in eating an oyster – that you actually feel the corner as well. If you putter around with a clenched ass and a horror of angled positions, you’ll never get it. Motorcycle riding without an angle is like drinking wine watered down with Coke. Like watching a horror flick with your hands over your eyes. Worse. Total heresy! Even though the slow bumbling oftens wears the cloaking veil of responsibility, of safety-conciousness.
That’s all bollocks. Because it’s a long way from the feeling the dynamics of one-track-transportation to no-holds-barred high-speed foolery. And this is the divide the scared rider would have to cross first. Who will want to argue that unsure and slow drivers run a much bigger risk to land on their nose? And if they do, they don’t even know why they went off road. They always explain it with the same, only reason: I was too fast.
But – Too-Fast is no real Measure. It’s a relation. Too fast for the turn? Or too fast for the helplessly jittering panic circuitry in your brain? Too fast for gravel, cow shit or oncoming traffic also doesn’t have an iota to do with the objective Too-Fast. More with subjective experience and reaction. Back in the day you looked at it like this: when another rider made it past the cow-dung in the same corner as you then he was Just-Right. And you were just blind. Too-Fast? What’s that?
OK, so now that we’re basically philosophically aligned, we should now attend to the essential. The Lust. The Cornerlust.
Stuff for beginners, but always amazing: tight corners sliced with good pressure on the rear and the bike pushed down in an angle. Creates a great power arc. Then the indulgent consumption of the angle itself: leaning in a harmonic line with the silhouette of the bike, feeling how the rubber is scanning the asphalt, grip, centrifugal force, easiness, resting-in-yourself - motorcycling is meditation, sensibility. Compared to this mode of transport driving a car is like watching TV. Riding – There is nothing better. Period.
And here we are with the angle: Down with the bike. Deeper. Until the brain screams for help, the muscles in legs, back and arms become rigid, and everything becomes forced and fearsome. At this point whole motorcycle clubs of ambitioned sports riders turned to touring bikes or even choppers. And now loudly complain about the “knee dragging wankers”. It’s easy to stink with full knickers.
How it’s done? The trick is the mental set-up. Knee draggers need a mentor. Like Luke Skywalker had Obi Wan Kenobi. A wind-worn face that tells you quietly and in all seriousness that the rubber normally grips until you can scratch your ears on the road. And that the overcoming of the personal angle limit is a matter of practice, and mainly a matter of properly guiding your eyes: Look far ahead, that takes the distortion out of the horizon. And then just push your body’s center of gravity next to the machine. No crampy motions. But instead just treating the bike like a part of your body. Knee out. And let it fly.
Then at some point – and race tracks are incredibly helpful at reaching it – the knee will dip just randomly against the asphalt. Electrifies you. I got it! That’s it! It’s soooo easy!
Once you’ve been there, it’s easy to reproduce. You just have to know how far it goes down. It’s like back in the day, when sneaking out of your girlfriends parents house at night: you just knew how many steps it were to the door.
And then? It’s not just fun but it also begins to make sense. As angle-detector. As third support wheel. As balancing rod. The first time brushing along a long sweeping turn at 200km/h, tucking into the screaming machine, gunning towards the horizon explosion-like, and all the while surfing gently with your knee-pad on the asphalt – an experience that will make even timid natures have feelings of all-powerfulness.
He who experienced this, knows how motorcycling works. Doesn’t have to go too fast to get his kicks. Doesn’t have speak one word about it. But just does it, again and again. Just like Kenny.
Needless to say, I didn’t follow in his tyre marks!