Hi smarties,

Finance guy here, always loved Physics (fav class in high school) and really respect people in this field. My questions is not very abstract but could be difficult to quantify: I want to know how much a turning radius is affected when a motorcycle rider hangs off of a bike versus just sitting normally on the seat.

Motorcycle racers lean off their bikes (cant post in order to use the same amount of traction, but have a tighter turn. This allows them to go faster around corners without compromising traction.

I want to really understand how this works so that when I am at the track, I can be confident because I know how the physics of the turn works.

fyi most motorcycles weight 400 pounds, my weight is 175lb, a good lean angle is ~45 degrees and when leaning off riders try to align their shoulder with the center of the bike.

thanks in advance

I know what you mean. The thing I would look at is once more of the side wall of the tyre is contacting the track there are multiple radii to this contact "foot print". So that would mean there would be parts slipping at the same time as another section of the foot print had traction. Once this happens the overall traction is lessened as the effective foot print is reduced in area.
With going off to the side the bike remains effectively more up-right. Although the centre of mass is effectively lowered that when just sitting squarely on the seat.

So does it not really matter how you distribute your weight once leaned off the bike? by this I mean does putting more weight on the outside peg (outside of the turn) reduce the COG in any way? or is it more mass-oriented? I suspect that putting more weight on the outside peg does not matter too much. an issue I am having is that I will put too much weight on the inside peg, and get fatigued, because I think the bike will turn in faster.