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Comment by somerandomqaguy | Hacker News Reader

This test? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9hE8GUVUWM

... could you explain why this is nearly impossible on anything but a small cruiser? I'm having trouble understanding what you mean.

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Sports bikes in particular don't have much steering angle to work with, so at slow speeds - on a course designed to test slow speed manouvering - they can have wide turning circles.

It is possible to turn more tightly but it requires leaning much more into the turn. That needs a lot of skill and confidence to do smoothly at low speed when the bike has a high center of gravity. The bike will crash if you brake or stall, and on a sports bike there often isn't a huge amount of torque at low engine speeds, so you need to be very adept at clutch slipping and modulating the rear brake.

The course in the video isn't that bad though. A U-turn on the road, a mandatory part of the UK test, is done with a tighter radius than anything on that video.

Maneuvering at low speeds is all in the rear brake. It smooths out the power delivery and reduces latency when you need more/less power. I took the test on an SV650 and barely passed. Years later, once I learned to use the rear brake, I did it on my 848 easily.

Interestingly enough my bike was a SV650 as well (and came very close to purchasing an 848 as my next)

Ah. You were saying that it was nearly impossible which didn't seem right at all. Needs a few weeks of practice to become competent at yes certainly, but nearly impossible on anything but a cruiser just seemed wrong to me.

Should have worded as very difficult for a new rider.

I’ll guess that anything other than a small cruiser is going to be some combination of higher center of gravity + more weight, which just gets harder and harder to learn farther (accurately) at very low speeds.

Also gearing and turning radius. Putting along at 3mph is much harder on a liter bike.

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