Camber all over

The best situation for a motorcycle going around a corner is for the road to be shaped like a bowl. Think wall of death. And you should be able to guess why. The fact that the road surface drops away to the inside of the turn means you have less chance of dragging hard parts and/or levering yourself off and crashing. And in terms of pure physics, the fact that the road surface inclines upwards on the outside of the turn means the contact patch can handle more loads before giving. That means you can push harder, get on the throttle earlier, and generally fool around a lot more mid-corner safely. Now consider the exact opposite situation. Now, the situation reverses itself. Suddenly, you can't lean all way over because things will scrape easily. And, if you push it too hard, the surface dropping away from the contact patch on the outside will cause the tyre to slide and hasten a fall. Welcome to camber.

Road surfaces are never flat. Public roads are usually designed to be helpful and superelevation (the official transport planner's term) is meant to help cars and bike get through curves with less effort and in greater safety. This is on-camber. However, sometimes the road will have a crown in the middle and will slope down to the outside to let rainwater drain. For us, this camber and a right turn mean a off-camber turn. In other words, a place to relax and be cautious.

I remember reading in Keith Code's Twist of the Wrist about trying to remember corners that make your uncomfortable. And identifying why you felt that way. In most cases, he said, and I have to agree, the reason why we're uncomfortable is the camber. Which didn't register until I started noticing it.

The book's first chapter is about being able to read the road and in hindsight, that's such an obvious thing, it's a wonder many of us still don't notice it.