Total Motorcycle Community Forums

Noob question here. Is there a way to determine the maximum lean angle of a particular bike without finding out the hard way ?

Is there a rule of thumb that a noob getting the feel of a new bike can follow or am I getting ahead of myself?

Btw did my first two riding lessons ever this weekend... what a blast!!! Even though it was a teeny scooter in a parking lot "graduating" to a 125 wt shifting tomorrow then up all the way to a 400cc which will be the final test bike. Can't wait! D***! Where have I been all my life?

on many bikes, the max lean you want to be at is when your pegs start scraping. i rarely get that far over unless i am doing low speed stuff but some folks have fun grinding when riding "in a spirited fashion"

xk wrote: or am I getting ahead of myself?

Yes.

bok wrote:on many bikes, the max lean you want to be at is when your pegs start scraping. i rarely get that far over unless i am doing low speed stuff but some folks have fun grinding when riding "in a spirited fashion"

That's usually ok with cruisers. If you can drag your footpegs on a sport bike or supermoto then you've got some real skillz.

It took me about 2 months of riding to finally drag my footpegs and it was a scary moment. I still do it and more often and it still is suprising each time I do it...

xk wrote:Noob question here. Is there a way to determine the maximum lean angle of a particular bike without finding out the hard way ?

Is there a rule of thumb that a noob getting the feel of a new bike can follow or am I getting ahead of myself?

Yes, you're getting way ahead of yourself. As a noob, the maximum lean angle of a bike will be irrelavant for quite awhile. Even after you have some miles under your belt, it'll still be irrelavant.

So what you guys are saying is that under normal conditions I would rarely need to find the leaning limit of a bike... unless I am riding agressively (definitely not on the cards for now)

I'm asking coz tomorrow I'm going to try to make the tightest turns possible as everyone's telling me that turning radius is a real issue for cruisers and I'm kinda "leaning" towards a cruiser after I get my license.

xk wrote:I'm asking coz tomorrow I'm going to try to make the tightest turns possible

You're going to try to make the tightest turn possible tomorrow? What do you mean?

If you're going to be doing a slow-speed tight U-turn, you're not going to get anywhere near the lean limit I'd think..

turning radius is an issue depending on what you are comparing it to. but for the most part a cruiser handles fine. you give up some cornering for more stability at speed so depending on the riding you will be doing it's a bit of a wash.

a big raked out cruiser will not corner like a sportbike or a standard will, but it is still possible to do the figure 8's on a large cruiser like the vtx1800 (although you have to be pretty darn good i reckon).

tight u-turns need counterweighting which is a different concept from normal leans

Normally you can look up the specs for a bike on their website... I believe most tell you the max hard/soft lean angles.

Many bikes have feelers under the footpegs or floorboards that will scrape to warn ya.