The rider’s posture on a motorbike is directly related to his/her safety. Besides posture, it’s also important to add attitude. Any journey, even the shortest ones, must be undertaken with all the possible concentration. All the riders must always be aware of their actions but also very important, what other riders and vehicles do.
Getting back to the posture, we can talk about the position of our feet on the footrests. Sometimes it depends on personal comfort but, with a few corrections, we can help ourselves to reduce the feeling of risk.
Brief but chaotic actions can lead to danger if they are not corrected on time. For example, can you imagine the situation of touching the ground with your foot because you had only your toe resting on the footrest and it slid? Those seconds of distraction and loss of concentration can be crucial in cases of imminent danger.
For this reason, we are going to give you some useful tips when resting your foot on this part of the motorbike:
Your feet (with the right footwear) should be parallel to the bike and the ground, maintaining this angle all the time.
Keeping your toes turned out, beside being unsightly, it can also be a potential factor to get caught with external elements. Also if you put your heels out, you’re placing the foot and the ankles in an unnatural position, which can cause contractures as well as tiredness. Keeping your toes down reduces the distance between the footrest and the ground. When leaning the bike in a curve, if the foot rubs the ground, it can bend the instep backwards, throwing off the rider’s balance. The consequence could be a crash.
The foot, in its correct position, must be firmly supported, placing the footrest in the hollow of the heel, exerting a support on it.
From this position, we can move the foot, settling it on the toe if the angle of the curve requires freeing useful space between the ground and the footrest, and calculating its degree of inclination.
In this case, the foot that remains on the other side must keep its position firm and parallel to the bike, exerting an equivalent force to counteract the force of gravity pushing you down the line of the curve.
The rider’s feet on the bike must match his posture. They must also put enough pressure to feel we’re in control of the lower part of the bike.
By observing these little details, we bring safety to every ride!