Leaneology - by: mustangkiller

      So, you wanna wear your big boy pants huh? O.K. go get em and let Daddy show you how to put them on.This is gonna sound very basic to alot of people, others will see this as the holy grail of riding tips. I never had anyone show me how to throw a bike side to side like I'm Indiana Jones dodging saw blades thrown from a Nazi truck. This is a skill I had to learn all by my little self. So, in the spirit of brotherhood I shall now share the basics of this maneuver with you, my huddled masses.

      Step one: ride out to a place where you are pretty secluded from other traffic. If you do something stupid and go down do you really wanna take a bus load of nuns with you? Also bring a buddy along just in case something goes awry as your arms are 20ft away from the rest of body and thus unable to call for help.

     Step two: counter steer the hell out of your bike. Even if you don't know what the technique is called you know how to do it. Push the left bar forward and the bike leans and turns left. Same thing for the right. The wheel is actually turning slightly to the right but for reasons I'm not going into the bike goes left. (you should have learned this in high school folks) The harder you push the faster the bike turns. Try this a few times slowly. Make your steering inputs small. If your some kind of lunatic and hit it as hard as you can don't blame me; I warned you. After you've gotten the hang of going side to side you can change you body position to make these effects more dramatic.

     Step three: look like a bad ass. About a half a second before you add your next steering input lean your rear end off the side of the bike in the direction you want to go. This will make the bike lean farther, faster and harder. Why in the hell would you wanna do that? Well,the faster you are traveling the harder it is to lean that bike over to one side, so the forces of gravity and centrifugal force need to be bypassed. By leaning your body to one side you change the bikes center of gravity thereby forcing the bike into a lean/turn. The faster you are going the more you need to shift you weight. It feels a little weird at first but you will get used to it and come to really enjoy it.

   "Why do I need this skill oh wise Mustangkiller?"you ask. Because the day will come when the 18 wheeler in front of you shreds a tire and these evasive maneuvers will come in handy. It happened to me, it can happen to you.

-Ryan Grover