2006 Connie http://community.webshots.com/user/Lateck?vhost=community
1990 Aint she a pretty Tomato (the bike ofcourse) wedshots albums http://community.webshots.com/user/sawfiler64/albums/most-recent
My '73 Nova wasn't the definition of grace by any means, but she could certainly burn her tires off without much effort. That doesn't do you much good when you fly off the road though. The principles of the road are fixed though the abilities of the vehicles are very different when comparing motorcycles to cars and cars to cars. Your objective when going through curves should be to find the path that provides the lowest, constant level of centrifugal force so that there are no sudden changes to lateral force while you're in a state of reduced traction that would cause a loss of control. That's the outside-inside-outside path, or 'straightening the curve'. Rearwheel drive cars tend to oversteer, so when taking a curve improperly or at too high a speed, the rear end will lose traction first and slide to the outside. At extremes, the rear end will come completely around and the car will be traveling backwards. This can be corrected by counter-steering at the apex, causing the car to regain traction in the rear and making the car appear to 'drift' or go through the curve sideways. Frontwheel drive cars tend to understeer, in the same situation the front end will simply slide, taking the car on a path toward the outside of the curve or, at extremes, completely off the road. Motorcycles are rear wheel drive vehicles which means they tend toward oversteering BUT when they lose traction in the rear, once they regain that traction, if the rear wheel is not inline with the front wheel they tend to flip the vehicle causing a high-side fall. This is very bad. If you lock your rear wheel and it comes out of line with the front wheel, leave it locked until you've come to a complete stop. When they lose traction in the front they lose control almost instantly, go down and slide on their sides which is a low-side fall. This is also bad but not as bad for the rider as is the catapult affect of the high-side fall. Braking requires at least a portion of available traction, so braking in a curve is ill-advised. If you're traveling too quickly for an upcoming curve, you always want to brake before you enter the curve while your steering is neutral (both wheels inline with one another). This allows the maximum traction possible while braking. Accelerating slightly through the curve will increase downforce on the bike and improve your traction, so accelerating slightly through the curve is the best course of action on bikes and in cars. I should note that I briefly had a 1990 Eagle Talon Turbo w/AWD, 4 cylinder engine producing 195hp. In cases where it began to lose traction, the means of correcting it was dropping it down a gear and kicking it in the ass. Having four drive wheels on the ground makes for fun driving to be sure.
