Motorcycle Ergonomics | Hacker News Reader

Motorcycle Ergonomics

cycle-ergo.com

71 pointsTomte29 comments

I demoed bikes based on data from this site last time I bought a new motorcycle and found that it was spot on.

7 years later, and a R1200GS with a little bit of a bar rise has been a fantastic, comfortable long-range ride (consecutive 500+ mile days on tours) for this 193cm rider.

How do you manage to ride that long? My ass is sore after a few hundreds of km. Did you put a special seat? If anyone can recommend something you could put on a seat and that really helps I'd be glad. Have a BMW r1100r.

It's like anything, you just need to practice and build up to it. If you go out day 1 and try to ride 800km you're going to have a bad time. Being physically fit also helps a lot imo. The r1100r also doesn't have much in the way of wind protection which is tiring. An 800km day on an RS or RT would likely feel significantly easier.

Yes, riding long rides regularly makes it much easier if you also make sure your ride is comfy.

The same is with a car. When I first learned to drive I would get exhausted after an hour. Now I can drive 1000km in one go and still be fine. Over time, your brain learns to do things on autopilot which unloads your brain, you learn to set yourself up in a comfortable position, you learn to not be tense all the time, you learn to predict more things more time in advance which means you can handle them with more ease. And the body itself just learns the new position and things shorten/lengthen to make that position a little bit more comfortable.

The main difference between bikes and cars is that people rarely spend so much time on a bike as regularly as in car. So we get accustomed to driving quickly but it takes time to do the same on a bike.

Fortunately I have a high windshield so it's not so bad in terms of wind. And if anything the wind pressure on the rest of my body makes me forget how sore my bottom is, so I'm not sure that's really linked to the wind.

- A good helmet to cut down on noise.

- Good riding posture.

- Stretching and walking around for a few minutes at gas stations.

- Stretching on the bike: standing on the pegs for a few minutes every so often, switching riding positions, putting your feet on the passenger pegs.

- Walking, standing up, lying down... anything that isn't sitting when not on the bike.

Yes I do all that but still it's very uncomfortable after a few hours. But I am not used to sitting in my daily life so I guess that doesn't help.

The app is interesting.

Who here rides? Dirtbikes in particular? I have a trials bike (Gas Gas TXT 250), and an enduro (husqvarna TE 150). I couldn't find a trials bike in the app, but it doesn't matter since trials bikes don't really have seats.

I would like to see a measure of standing at a stoplight. (interesting for high seat heights).

Also it would be neat to see a more aggressive dirtbike style arm position with elbows ups.

Kawi ZX25R, small & fun 4cylinder 250cc screamer sold in Asia. Im quite tall, but its still comfy without any mods and I use it daily. The riding position is not that aggressive (cant find it on the site unfortunately).

In saying that - the first time I took it on a long ride out I couldn't sit down for 24 hours afterwards I was in so much pain, but I attribute that to being a stiff old fart. Since then plenty of long rides, perhaps my joints have adapted...

I ride... agree with you regarding the standing position and elbow ups position. KTM 300 XCW enduro bike and a BMW R1200GS Rallye.

On both bikes I have slightly lowered pegs, and on the KTM I have a slightly taller handlebar. Not risers, as they normally place the handlebars closer to you rather than further away.

I am pretty tall at over 6'5" (198 cm to be exact) so ergonomics to me is a bit trickier than for most.

24 zx6r to replace my clapped r6, which had nearly 50k miles. Love it even though the rev limit kicks in at 14k (as opposed to the 17k on the r6). Now that it’s cold I’ll be sending it off for a flash to get that raised to 14.5… Love the ninja, though. That bike only wants to go fast.

Site calculates a 40deg forward lean but the best is full tuck behind the windscreen with the throttle pinned.

2015 HD FLHTK Ultra Limited (Electra Glide). Stance on the site looks correct. Although the stance is important on touring bikes, the seat is really a deal breaker. A good, air-inflated seat pad makes all the difference in the world. And the pad is a lot cheaper then replacing the factory seat with an after market one.

mv augusta brutalte 910R (not listed but any brutale in the app is comparable) so 3/4 aggressive riding stance ... so not super aggressive like a sport bike but great for aggressive city riding. pay for it on highways though because you really have to tuck-in anything over 80 plus don't turn your head

A Royal Enfield Super Meteor 650. Just did over a 1000 km on the way to their annual festival, and kept wondering what the “correct” riding posture was. Either HN read my mind or a a bunch of HN’ers are in Goa now.

I ride an XR600R and am standing basically straight up most of the time.

The options panel lets you place feet on the ground.

BMW K1200RS and R100R, the first of which was in the list. I selected R100RT for the latter and it looked close enough.

The positions looked right.

You can submit reference photo's to the site's webmaster! He's quite responsive to adding new bikes each year.

Yamaha FJR 2006. 13 degree forward for me at 6'2" 30" inseam. Seems about right.

My compliments on the mechanics and ability to expand beyond appropriate factory settings!

Because it works well, I could duplicate my stance on my Honda Grom:

Handlebar rise: -2.50" - +

Handlebar pull-back: -1.75" - +

Seat rise: +0.00" - +

Peg forward offset: -11.75" - +

Peg rise: +3.25" - +

Arm straightness (max): 80% - +

Height: 5' 8 - +

It has a lot of aftermarket parts on it before I got it, the handlebars being the easiest to note. As for the riding position? The front pegs are no more due to one getting snapped off in...adventures...so I took the other off as well. I use the passenger pegs. Or the headlight...hehe #sambassridesagain

On my current motorcycle and body shape it says 0 degree forward lean, 90 degree knee angle and 94 degree hip angle. The most comfortable bike I've owned, Kawasaki KLR650.

I'm vertically challenged and I found this website to be quite accurate assuming a correct inseam measurement. There's a new kid in the block[1] which I used to pick my latest bike (KTM 790 Adventure) as cycle-ergo didn't have it, and I also found it to be very accurate!

[1] https://motonomics.com/

I didn't know this existed and as someone who is in the process of buying a new ride this is great! I can now have a pretty good idea how my position will be on any bike.

However, I have no idea of what I should strive for when looking at the angles? Are there some well-known ideal values I should look into?

I don't know if anyone can prescribe "ideal" hip/knee/lean angles for you. In general you can lay bike ergonomics out on a spectrum from sport bikes on the one end, with aggressive, crouched, forward leaning rider positioning, to cruisers on the other, with laid-back, feet-forward ergonomics that relax the hips and knees but, I would argue, make for a less active riding position. In the middle you have "naked bikes," "sport tourers," "adventure tourers," "adventure bikes" and "touring bikes" all of which feature more or less upright seating positions (or at least more upright than sport bikes and less laid back than cruisers. I prefer a sporty, active riding posture but at my age I cannot sit a sport bike for very long, so I ride a Suzuki v-strom 650 which is relaxed enough that my knees and hips can take it for a couple of hours straight.

I have been riding my ducati monster for years, but I still do not understand what the purpose of this site is. How is this helpful to people? It's cool, nonetheless, but how would I use it to improve my ergo?

Seems to do right by my '18 Triumph Street Twin - a very comfy, upright position, which never gave me any trouble even over thousands of touring miles.

Feature request... a standing on pegs mode. I ride a lot of offroad and gravel and I often stand up on the pegs in technical terrain.

Fun. Is there something like this for lifting to estimate leverages?

Hello to all of the riders on HN!

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