My TZ is 206 pounds.
The weight of the bike has nothing to do with cornering effort. Once the CofG isn't on top of the contact patch, the bike is traveling in an arc. That's just basic physics.
With breaking, the correct way to go fast is to trail brake into the corner. Basically, when vertical and about to enter a corner, you have 100% of available traction that can be used for cornering. When you get to your brake marker, it's full on the brakes. At the turn in point as the bike leans over you have to allocate some of the braking traction to cornering. As you get closer to the apex, the braking traction has decresed to 0% as the cornering now has all 100%. At the apex, you're full off the brakes and starting to crack the throttle. As the bike returns to vertical, more and more throttle can be applied as you need need less cornering traction. The bike will also help with that as the diameter of the rear tire is much smaller on the sides compared to the middle. So as you stand the bike up, it's like a change in rear end gears so to speak.
It sounds complex at first, but it's natural if your practiced and trained to corner correctly. In my racing school handbook in the cornering chapter that's a quote that says ''If you're smoking the front tire going into every corner, sliding both tires through ever corner, and spinning the rear tire out of every corner.... YOU MIGHT BE COMPETITIVE''.
It's not the ''ballet'' it looks like on TV where the bikes are just floating back and forth through the esses. It's actually pretty violent. Even when done right. Tires really take a beating as they're the only component that has to handle all 3 facets. Acceleration, braking, and cornering. (another quote from the handbook... ''if yer tires are crap, yer bike is crap'').
And the MOST HATED thing I ever encountered on a track were those POS Buells. (you know the ''fast Hardleys that corner") It's literally impossible to ride at any speed safely with those rolling chicanes in the way.
it's utterly befuddling how you can come out of turn and see a bike 1/8 mile in front of you and in the blink of an eye having to do evasive maneuvers to keep from rear ending it with about a drastic difference in speed. I rarely got scared on the track, but those damn things are the reason for at least 85% of my 'oh shit' moments.
As another interesting facet, practice sessions are usually broke in to ''big bike'' and ''little bike''. 600cc is the difference between the two. Buells practice in the little bike sessions. They're just that damn slow (and that's their ''fast'' sport bike versions of those antiquated POS engines).
On my TZ I could ride in either. My 250 has the performance/lap times of a big bike, but I would sometimes ride in the little bike class so I could practice my lapped traffic when I needed to slice through the slow guys under race conditions.
It got so bad, I'd get off the track if there was a Buell out there. That's why if you ever catch a road race with Hardleys on there, they're usually racing in a class that only allows Hardleys. ...for good reason. Usually it's billed as something specific like ''American V twin''. That way some guy with an '88 GS500 can't show up and clean their clock.
....and tell your buddy ''counter steering'' isn't a thing. He needs a new front tire that isn't cupped. (or in his case, a chassis with rake and trail that's geared towards performance). Once you shove the handlebar and put the suspension in motion, you don't have to hold the bike down unless there's a problem. Normally that's a feathered front tire from underinflation
. Or just a shitty chassis.
Bikes naturally want to do what they're supposed to do. The only thing that can screw them up is the loose nut behind the handle bars. ...or in this case a bench racer that doesn't know any real data about two wheeled chassis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
