Static Balance Techniques

[mototag]

I took the trials riding course from Ryan Young a few years ago and one of the tips that he gave has really helped me. He said to use the handlebars for fine control. A large movement of the bars has less influence on the position of the bike. A small movement of the pegs has more influence on the position and can lead to over correcting. If you have the bars turned to one side and are close to the balance point, small movements of the bars can get you back in balance. I try to only use the pegs when moving the bars is not enough to get me back to the balance point.

[bikerpet]

Here's my 2c worth.

• As previously mentioned, start with a brick or something for the front edge of the front wheel to nudge onto, or a wall if you're really having trouble - it'll save so much on-off-on-off and you'll progress faster.
• Put a crate or something next to the bike so you don't have to step down to the ground - you'll not get so worn out doing step training, so can practice longer.
• As you've picked up, knees out, elbows out, shoulders more or less parallel to the bars. I'd also suggest keep your head up, but some people find it easier looking down, some forward. If you can balance with your head somewhat erect you'll probably find it easier to learn to hop later.
• Both brakes locked. You can play with brakes off once you've got some decent basic skills.
• Front wheel not quite to full lock - you want a bit of steering movement. This isn't what most people say, but spend time with it before discounting it.
• Use small turns of the bars to correct - this is important and often seems to be neglected when people talk about balancing.
• With front brake locked you can also tilt the bike L & R which will roll the front wheel under the bike, moving the base you are balancing on. Both turning the bars and tipping the bike are ways to move the base - like balancing an umbrella standing on your hand. This is what you really balance with most of the time - as you said, Newton gets a solid say in what happens if you try to move your body one way or other.
• If your weight is more forward you'll get more response from your corrections, if you are more rear you'll be more stable but harder to correct imbalance. Practice both. Most people spend too much time forward biased.
• Practice turning from one lock to the other and staying balanced. There's no point standing balanced on full lock if you can't straighten up and make the bike go where you need to go next!
• The leg-out move is a bit of a mixed bag. It can really help and is definitely useful - especially if you can't afford to turn the bars much (riding along a skinny log perhaps). Waving your leg in the air is moving a whole lot of weight around which is itself going to make balancing harder. For what it's worth, the leg goes out as a counterbalance, to the side you are falling away from, but good luck doing it consciously at first! It'll sneak up on you

For those coming from bicycle track stands, the big difference is that you're not going to move a 70kg moto around like your 9kg pushy! On a pushy we often balance with tiny little rolls back and forth. You also only need tiny little movements to move the bike quite a lot. On a moto you need bigger movements to get the bike to move, and you're not going to be rolling it on it's wheels. The bigger movements and slower reactions make it hard to transfer bicycle trackstand to the moto - it's a matter of timing. Once you "get it" then your trackstand skills suddenly start to payoff.

Hope that helps in some way.

 

[phiggs]

When I was a youngster, I used to deliver newspapers on my push-bike, at each stop I would lay the bike onto the ground before stepping off the pedals.  As my paper round was quite long I used this technique many time a day.   I could also step onto the pedal and lift the bike, to continue on my way.  So theoretically you should be able to lay your trials bike all the way to the ground and back up, without dismounting...  It's worth a try... hi hi

 

[bikerpet]

9 hours ago, phiggs said:

When I was a youngster, I used to deliver newspapers on my push-bike, at each stop I would lay the bike onto the ground before stepping off the pedals.  As my paper round was quite long I used this technique many time a day.   I could also step onto the pedal and lift the bike, to continue on my way.  So theoretically you should be able to lay your trials bike all the way to the ground and back up, without dismounting...  It's worth a try... hi hi

 

You probably weighed around 5 times what your bike weighed and the pedal was much closer to the ground than a trials bike foot peg, so there is an immense difference in the magnitude and location of the forces involved. I'd need to weigh around 350kg to get a similar mass relationship to my bike, and drop the foot pegs to within a few inches of the ground to have a similar mechanical relationship.

I dare say it might be possible to pick up a trials bike from the ground like that, but I imagine you'd be standing on the spokes or tyre and be heaving both hands on the upper handlebar grip to do it! There's probably a video of someone doing it on YouTube if you looked hard enough!