Advice: Get some traction action

Get some traction action

Traction: It's rated highly in every rider's vocabulary, and very high on their list of importance when cornering.

Traction: Something that the best riders seem to use when they want it and abuse when they lack it.

Traction: A treatment for severely broken bones, quite often gained as a result of not understanding traction!

We all have a sense of what our tyres are doing on the road surface. We 'feel' whether the bike will hold the line, or handle the lean angle. Our seat, hands and feet give us feedback as to what is going on and give us important information about what is possible with the controls ie. How much lean? How much throttle? How fast can I steer?

Interesting... We are now entering the area of 'feel' once more. What two riders 'feel' may be totally different things. Ever been absolutely on the limit through a corner, feeling that there is nothing left, only for another rider to pass you easily and pull away? You're 'feeling' that there is no more traction. Your body is telling you that you can't

Yet someone goes past you and appears to do both with relative ease. How do they do that? Are their tyres are better? Is their suspension is better? Do they have an overly developed piece of anatomy that you don't?

The reality is that you may be creating a different level of traction than they are. Even if they are on the same bike, with the same tyres, you may find that one rider loses traction earlier than the other. How can this be? Surely there is a limit of what that tyre can do through that corner on that day in those conditions? This is true - to a point.

There are a host of different things you could be doing to the bike that can affect the amount of traction available. Those that have done one of our schools will be aware that just by holding on to the handlebars too tightly, you can actually cause the bike to lose traction and run wide. By trying to carry too much speed at a particular point in the turn, you can lose traction. By overusing the brake or throttle in a turn, you can lose traction. By moving your body while in the turn, you can lose traction. By rolling off the throttle while leaned over, you can lose traction. And on and on it goes.

Interestingly, as you try to go faster, there is something strangely reassuring when you feel the tyre start to lose traction. It's like you know you must be doing your job if your bike is moving around and you can feel the tyres slide. I've seen this over the years when dealing with riders that come off dirt bikes, particularly those that have been successful as dirt-track racers.

An example of this is when current World Supersport rider Chris Vermeulen first came to the schools as a student several years ago. He was riding an 80cc Moriwaki as a junior rider and was attending a course at Victoria's Broadford circuit. The day happened to turn out a wet one and he proceeded to use his dirt-track skills by inducing a slide with a body movement as he steered the bike into the turn. This made for extremely impressive looking corners, but didn't help lap times or indeed safety levels. After quizzing him on it, he said he didn't really know why he did it, but it just felt good! (Sliding the bike on purpose in the rain... and that feels good? Perhaps we should have recommended therapy...) Anyway, after bringing it to his attention he managed to get a more composed turn entry, and his lap times dropped considerably - as did our instructor's heart rate!

What is important is that you firstly recognise if you are feeling like you have less available traction than you would like, and then to figure out what is causing it. Before you start calling the tyre technicians you may want to get out a mirror and some Viagra eye-drops, so you can take a long hard look at yourself...

Good luck with your riding.

Steve Brouggy is the owner of the

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Knoxfield, VIC 3180
Australia

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