Motorcycle Turning, Part 4 - Hanging Out

Hanging out is most probably a technique which the average rider would have never done, heard or even seen before. It is a cornering technique which requires the rider to shift its butt out for weight shifting inorder to possess a greater leaning angle. Thus, the term, Hanging Out. It might even look like a monkey hanging off a branch or somethin' to you...

First of all, I do not encourage hanging out riding in city streets. Why?

Due to the complexities of this technique, it is not very helpful to the everyday rider in avoiding accidents. Secondly, you are most likely to be taken off your rear brakes when executing hanging out, thus not very efficient for street riding (though front brakes take up most of the braking power). Thirdly, and I hope it's the most common sense, you do not need to take corners so fast on public roads.

Hanging out simply means that you've reached the maximum leaning angle of your motorcycle's capability, thus you need to create more leaning angle by shifting your body weight. In a street riding context, hanging out disorientates your vision and, the off-synchronisation of your body and the chassis might cause problems when facing critical situations. Conclusion? Do you really need to go that fast on city streets, to the point of hanging out? I believe it's already quite notorious to scrape your foot pegs.

Ok enough of the crap. However, hanging can be useful @ times (very unlikely though), but it's most often used on the track. Let's get on to the technique.

-unfinished-