From: ivan@erich.triumf.ca (Ivan D. Reid)
Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles
Subject: Re: Leaning
Date: 1 Sep 92 16:56:00 GMT
Organization: TRIUMF: Tri-University Meson Facility
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Sep1.143421.8440@serval.net.wsu.edu>,
	 bill@wsuaix.csc.wsu.edu (William E. Johns;S23015) writes...
>In article <la4nrgINN10o@cronkite> gaijin@ale.Japan.Sun.COM
>	 (John Little - Nihon Sun Repair Depot) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug31.193402.7230@porthos.cc.bellcore.com> mf@dancer.uucp \
>>(24241-fusco) writes:
>>%
>>%	I thought the trouble with turning right (vs. left)
>>% had to do with the side of the road we drive on (e.g. what we can see,
>>% how we set the line....).
>>%
>>
>>   No, I don't think so.  I'm a Brit and I live in Japan (both places  are
>>   "wrong  side"  drivers  according  to  you  colonial  chappies)  and  I
>>   definitely have the same  feeling about -tight-  turns.  I'm  certainly
>>   more comfortable in a left than a right.
>>
>>   Now for many years  I wasn't really aware  of countersteering and  used
>>   telekinesis to get round  corners ( =8-O ),  but even then the  lefties
>>   were easier  than  the  rights  (does this  mean  that  all  bikes  are
>>   socialists, or what?!?).  So  what's the answer?   Is the left side  of
>                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
>Obviously, all these observations were made in the northern hemisphere.  In
>the southern hemisphere, right turns are easier.  :-)

	I don't think so.  I spent my first (mumble) riding years in Oz, where
the right side is the left side.  I recall when I first got my GS550B, the
"hot" style was to hang your knee out while cornering (way before Mamola
started hanging the whole body) and I just couldn't make myself do it as hard
to the right as the left.  Wore the front tyre much more on the left than
the right (starting to notice that on the 600 now, too).  Even more noticeable
when I started racing (and there there _is_ no centre-line) but then the
speedbowl at AIR is a _killer_ corner (literally :-().  

	I think I just don't feel safe with any body English that gets my foot
too far from the brake.  E.g. my 2nd race was a 100 km endurance race for 250
proddy bikes and they used the shorter AIR track with a hairpin part-way down
the main straight.  Here I would brake and change down to 2nd and pitch it
over till the brake lever scraped, then let off the brake and lean until the
footpeg scraped, then get off the front brake and onto the throttle.  That
particular right-hander didn't faze me, but my foot was right where it should
have been.

	I do recall when I first started riding (A100-II) I was more scared
of left-handers because a spill would throw you into the oncoming traffic.
I fell down a lot in my first year, almost always lowsiding.  I don't usually
feel that fear these days.
> 
>It has to do with the direction that gas swirls into the petcock tube.
   No, it's the direction that the petrol swirls into the gascock tube :-).
> 
Ivan Reid, Paul Scherrer Institute, CH.     			ivan@cvax.psi.ch
GSX600F, RG250WD.	SI=2.66     "You Porsche. Me pass!"	DoD #484
"noematical -- a. Obs. rare;  Originating, or existing, in thought, or in the
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