Compare front wheel drive hub systems with rear wheel ones

I actually made it through the entire summers riding without breaking a spoke or bending a rim on that dirtbike. Not for lack of hard riding though. But man, you can really hear those spokes talk back there riding hard. I've learned to keep em tight, but on the loose end of tight. But once in a while a really loose one develops, and i've had spokes punch into the tube. How the rim bounces back round from that beats me. Clearly the rim bends some to have the spoke get that long. Just stock rims from Ebikekit too.
 
whups.
This was supposed to be a PM to dogman! :oops:

-JD
 
d8veh said:
I high-sided three times on my bike, which has the same result as motor lock-out except you get a good idea when it's coming, and,if you're quick, you can throttle back and avoid it.
Just a note on this coming from an ex-motorcycle club racer.
Completely cutting the throttle actually makes a highside much more likely.
As you mentioned, the problem comes when it grips again.

If you wanted to be sure to avoid a highside, you could of course do so by provoking a low side and throttling ON harder - guarenteeing the rear wheel shouldn't regain traction.
Of course that's a tad counter-intuitive and still doesn't lead to a great result.

Generally what's needed is either to keep the throttle in the same place (presuming it's not wide open), as a rear slide on a bike is naturally self-correcting, or come off a little bit to correct.
Comming off all the way tends to mean that when the rear regains traction it's now going much slower than the road.

I've been lucky in that while I've had a few highsides while club racing, only one I've actually 'crashed' from and even then I'm not sure it counts - the bike threw me up and I landed on front of the tank/bars. I then rolled off to land on the floor. The bike, oblivious, carried on in a straight line and came to rest against a hay bale - so technically didn't actually manage to 'crash' despite disposing of the rider :). (Other ones have been small enough that while I've been thrown up, I've landed on the tank and just had to take a second to recompose myself.)
 
Good tip. Performance riding can be really counterintuitive. At slower speeds and power, keeping the throttle on all the way though the corner is the ticket. That worked great for me on a slow bike at the DR. It's still how I corner my commuter, at 20 mph on the street. Coast up to the corner, throttle full on, lean, and the front hub pulls you through the corner beautifully. That worked on the race bike too, at 35 mph top speed.

Once my race bike was going 47mph, the entire thing changed, I was going way too fast towards the corners for my skill level, braking hard with crap brakes. Then at some point, I had to deal with getting back on the throttle. With front hub, if I did that too soon the tire would spin and the front wheel would start tracking to the ouside just like a spinning rear tire does. To avoid a laydown, I had to induce a possible highside by leaning back to vertical with throttle off, or just track straight off into the dirt. I wasn't good enough to just back off throttle and slide it till the tire grabbed.
 
I have enjoyed FWD for about 18 months before switching to 2WD: The Front was fine in almost all conditions except dirt & gravel roads cos the weight will shift to the rear and the front couldn’t get proper traction; this was the only time I regretted FWD. Last winter I ran studded tires F & R, and the FWD did fine to pull me through the slippery spots and in the light snow. I don’t think a RWD would have performed as admirably in the same conditions, however I wished I had it on that durned dirt & gravel road.

My 5S1P LiPo, KF
 
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