Wow, lots of great info. Much appreciated.

So I took her out today and came up with a system for identifying pre-peg scrape lean levels; I just moved my foot back on the peg to where my heel was lower than the peg. As I would lean into turns my heal would touch first letting me know I have an inch till contact; helped to familiarize myself with the "sense" of leaning.

I also messed around with "leaning my body more, so the bike doesn't have too so much" as i think Gyrobob mentioned.  Could anyone talk some more about that?  If im going 20mph and about to approach say a normal left turn that's perpendicular to the street im on, if i want to maintain speed, or even increase around (this is all for curiosity sake btw, I'm really not careless) the turn, should I lean my body over than push hard on the left side of the handle bar, while maintaining a safe peg distance...?  blah blah blah...hope im making sense.  For the record, and generally speaking, i can handle my sh## out there, just a details guy.    

Ok so i need some help on the nomenclature here guys:

What's a "cager"?

Also,

Posted by: BuckHMCC Posted on: Today at 16:45:52
My Ryca kit arrives next Tuesday. When I get that put together with the elevated rearsets instead of those stupid forward controls I'll see what it can do. I suspect the bike's max lean angle will be greater than the rider's max lean angle.  

-I would love clarification on all of that above. Ryca? Elevated rearsets? etc

-"..as the bike seems to be a bit underdamped and gets very light on the front when it hits a dip when leaning low."  Underdamped?

-ha, and what constitutes a bug up the butt?

-cheers

Most folks i ride with slow down on approach to a 90* left hander, lean in turning their heads to the exit, and as the bike falls to its left, goose the gas and accelerate out of it (that is the 20mph left  hand turn mentioned).

Enjoy yourself as you learn, it is great fun.

DVnewrider wrote on 06/02/11 at 19:30:57:

............I also messed around with "leaning my body more, so the bike doesn't have too so much" as i think Gyrobob mentioned.  Could anyone talk some more about that?  If im going 20mph and about to approach say a normal left turn that's perpendicular to the street im on, if i want to maintain speed, or even increase around (this is all for curiosity sake btw, I'm really not careless) the turn, should I lean my body over than push hard on the left side of the handle bar, while maintaining a safe peg distance...?  blah blah blah...hope im making sense.  For the record, and generally speaking, i can handle my sh## out there, just a details guy.    

Ok so i need some help on the nomenclature here guys:

What's a "cager"?

...............


-I would love clarification on all of that above. Ryca? Elevated rearsets? etc

-"..as the bike seems to be a bit underdamped and gets very light on the front when it hits a dip when leaning low."  Underdamped?

-ha, and what constitutes a bug up the butt?

-cheers

Clarifications:

Bug up the butt -- a curious thing that happens to those of us here,... we do things like buy and ride motorcycles,... sometimes for no reason at all, we ride around on twisty roads trying to find out how far we can lean before strange things happen,... occasionally we take a very well engineered piece of machinery and rip it apart so we can put it back together in a way that might not resemble the well-engineering bike we started off with,...  Bug up the butt is one of the rungs on our DNA ladder that makes us do something just because we think it would be some sort of a thrill to do so

Underdamped -- not enough damping on spring compression and recoil.  IOW, the "shock absorbers" are not slowing down the springs enough.  It makes the bike feel like it is bouncing up and down repeatedly rather than just soaking up a bump and going back to neutral.  The cure is to slow down and stop having so much fun (not advisable) or to put heavier oil in your forks or to upgrade your suspension stuff front and rear to the tune of hundreds of bucks.

RYCA is an acronym for Ryan and Casey.  see any of several threads here.  Mine is "Double RYCA Build."   also see www.rycamotors.com

Elevated rearsets -- reengineering where the foot controls are located so they are under your butt and higher off the ground, rather than under the headlight with your heels in the dirt.  For canyon-carving, the bike is transformed from feeling like a wheelbarrow to feeling like a weapon.  RYCA does supply this stuff in their CS-1 kit.

Cager is a pejorative term for those who only care to drive around in Smart-for-twos, Silverados, Lexii, and s**t.

I didn't mention anything about leaning over more or less than the bike.  Unless you intend to do some SERIOUS road racing, fuggedaboudit.  Just stay seated normally, so your body doesn't move at all relative to the bike (except for your head, which should be pointed to the area you and your bike will be traveling through in literally about two seconds).

As for countersteering, fuggedaboudit as well.  If you start thinking about which way to push the bars to get to bike to lean this way or that, you'll stop concentrating on important stuff.  It doesn't do any good at all.  If you are driving down the road in your Lincoln, and your hand is on the bottom of the steering wheel, do you need to think about pushing your hand to the left to get the car to turn right?  Fuggedaboudit.

@DVnewrider: Take a class. There is no amount of online advice that will make up for sitting on a bike and having a pro show you how it's done. They have basic classes to knee sliding advanced and everything in-between. If you're adamant about getting as low as possible, this is the best way to do it.

Like Gyrobob said,.. body lean is a technique mostly reserved for racing...
... but, since you are talking about learning to push the limits, it's a good thing to know.

When your bike leans in a turn, it is balancing the forces of centrifugal force against gravity to keep you on the road.  Shifting the total weight of you and your bike to stay on the road.
The distribution of the weight of your bike is fixed and the only way for it to balance is to lean more and more as the turns get tighter.  Your body is not fixed on the bike... you can shift your weight from side to side.
This shifts the balance point of the bike.  If you lean your body in a turn,... the bike will go more upright to correct the balance point.
This is particularly good to know when the pegs start scraping, because, once the peg is down, the next thing to touch will be solid and will put you down...  lean your body while a peg is touching and the bike will go more upright and the peg will stop scraping.
I rarely scrape pegs, because as I feel that point approaching, I lean my body into the turn.
My shocks are also 2" taller than stock, so my scraping point is much more extreme than on a stock bike.  
Because the stock bike scrapes fairly easily,... knowing that you can lean in to stop it is even more important...  
I wouldn't recommend riding at that extreme as matter of habit,... but if you find yourself caught off guard by a decreasing radius turn,... knowing to lean your body into it can save your skin...



This guy takes his practice seriously... ...



PS...
a cager,... is a car driver with no awareness of motorcycles...
a bug up the butt,... is an irresistible urge to do something stupid...
...