"Which way does it go?"
How many times have you asked yourself that question, as you screw your leather motorcycle gloves around and open up your brand new CBR1000RR, and you lose sight of the corner!
Your bike is handling to perfection, you've dressed appropriately; abrasion-resistant knee-pads on these leathers and durable leather motorcycle gloves! I once saw a guy cut the bottom out of two large empty plastic soda bottles for his hands, cut the neck out big enough to fit over the handlebars and kept his hands warm and dry from the rain. He was over the moon when his mom bought him his first pair of leather motorcycle gloves!
If it's not a corner that you're familiar with, then how do you know if it's constant, or has an increasing or decreasing radius?
How you come out depends on how you go in!
Your hands are sweating inside your motorbike gloves as you change down and adjust your speed in anticipation of the corner. Don't stare at your new motorcycle gloves. Look ahead! You are looking for the "vanishing point" - the point where the road disappears from view. When that happens try to follow the line of the road with your sight. It could be a line of trees or posts. Pay attention, not to your motorcycle gloves holding the grips, but to the speed limit signs just before the curve.
If the vanishing point remains pretty much the same throughout the curve, relative to the position of the bike, then you're in a constant radius corner.
If the vanishing point comes closer, the corner is tightening and this is a decreasing radius corner. These can be nasty! This is when you have to know your back brake because you're gonna run out of room, BUT, if you keep your throttle on at the same time, the bike will tighten its line and you'll make it out! The curve in your leather motorcycle gloves has never felt more useful!
Always expect the unexpected on blind curves. A road-killed deer can take up a full driving lane and the oncoming 18-wheeler can take up the other. There's not much room for your motorbike gloves to fit!
However, if the vanishing point of the corner gets further away and you have maximum view all the time, this is an increasing radius corner. These types of corners are what riding a bike is all about. You've throttled into the first stretch of the corner, motorcycle gloves ready to react, you can see that the road is open ahead, then you open 'er up as you exit, the bike wants to straighten immediately because of the centre of gravity and the geometry of spinning wheels and if your motorbike gloves are warm and your tires are the right pressure, you'll have a lot of fun discovering the next corner!
Discover leather motorcycle gloves and other varieties at:-
http://www.leatheronhand.com/motorcycle_gloves/
