60 Second Safety 117 - sit if you can, stand if you must

** 60 SECOND SAFETY ** "Sit if you can, stand if you must"
"Sit if you can, stand if you must". I pinched that line from Des, who commented on a video from the 60 Second Science series entitled 'Standing up does NOT 'lower' the CoG', where I looked at the myth that standing on the pegs somehow lowers the combined Centre of Mass (cCoM) of bike and rider.

Des said that "standing on the pegs is a technique that doesn't really have any place on the road". In a perfect world, riding a bike on the road, I'd agree the best way to control the machine is to stay sat in the seat.

Unfortunately, our roads are far from perfect. The reality is that over the last twenty years, the UK's roads have fallen apart. It's not just rural roads - even in London many local roads only offer a 'pick a pothole, any pothole' option where our only choice is which size hole we ride into.

And many residential roads are now blessed with speed bumps, humps and tables.

When faced with the bigger holes and bumps, I almost always stand up - as Des also explained, standing up "allows you to use your legs as shock absorbers, sparing your back". And that's absolutely correct, so long as we keep our knees slightly bent allowing us to absorb some of the impact via our leg muscles.

And by partially 'uncoupling' our own mass from that of the bike, we give the motorcycle's suspension a slightly easier time too - the bike won't crash over the bump quite so hard, and we can also lean forwards and backwards slightly too as the bike rides the bump or pothole.

As Des says: "there's a rule of thumb for off-roading - sit if you can, stand if you must". I'd say that works on the road. too. But just remember - we won't be in a position to brake hard.


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