It's spring time (Well, almost) and many of you young whipper snappers out there will be heading to the track with one thing in mind, "Getting that knee on the pavement". If you have never experienced that warm rush of the first time your knee slider lost its virginity, here is a little info on making that chore become an easy achievement.
Dragging your knee comes down to one very simple but important fact, your body position. Of course you need a certain degree of lean angle. However, getting your knee on the floor has more to do with how you hang off than it does with lean angle. Although the length of your leg has some determination as to the lean angle you’ll need to touch down?
The biggest problem most riders face is when they push their knee towards the ground, they normally end up rotating around the back of the tank and push their leg up along the fairing. Your leg should be relaxed so it drops towards the floor and to achieve this, you need to have a good anchor position on the outside of the bike with your other leg. Stomp Grip tank pads will help with grip.
This is my suggestion to get you started. Put your bike on a rear stand or side stand if a rear stand is not available. Have one of your buddies steady the bike from the front while you mount up into your normal riding position. Your buddy’s sole purpose is to keep the bike from tipping over as you hang off.
Now hang off in your normal position. When you are there and feel comfy, turn loose of the bars. If you fall to the garage floor like a wounded duck, then you didn’t have a good anchor with your outside leg. You should use your outside leg to anchor yourself into those indentations on your tank, that’s what they are there for.
Make sure you don’t rotate your boys around the back of the tank. You may get enjoyment from that but it forces your inside leg forward and in towards the fairing. If you want to be fast, attend Jason Pridmore’s race school and he will tell you to rotate your hips and don’t worry about dragging your knee. If it’s getting your knee on the pavement for the first time you seek, forget about being fast and concentrate on achieving that sweet sound that only comes from a slider touching down.
You need a little room between the tank and the wedding tackle. Don’t crowd the tank, leave three or four inches of room between the tank and the goods. Now practice this procedure until you feel comfy, then go out and give her a try. If you feel a lot of tension on your outside leg, that’s okay. It means you are using that leg for its intended purpose, to hang on with.
Now just add lean until your knee finds its mark.
Oops, one other thing, place the ball of your feet on the foot pegs. Do not place the foot peg in the arch of your foot! Place the ball of your inside foot on the foot peg towards the outside of the peg. What you are looking for is to be able to rotate the foot to the outside as you push your knee down. If your foot position is right you’ll find the point of your foot peg poking into the center of the ball of your foot. As you push your knee down your inside foot should rotate and point towards the far inside point of the corner and the heal will be back against the heal guard.
Your upper body should be low with your head out over the inside hand grip and pointing your chin towards the inside of the corner, shoulder down with the outside forearm either against the tank or close. However, this is not mandatory to get your knee down. Until you get your knee down, don't get excited about your upper body. You can work on that after you are comfy with you knee sliders getting scuffed.
With a little practice you’ll be dragging your knee in no time at all. Add a set of sparky knee sliders and you’ll be turning heads on every thing in town wearing silk underwear!
The author of this post is liable only to the extent of the amount you paid for this information!
