Why do we do bends so badly?

Last Sunday morning, I did a talk based on the UK Police System of Motorcycle Control to a group of about 40 bikers getting ready for their RoSPA Advanced Riding Test. It was interesting to hear the various reasons why the riders had signed up for this 6 Sunday morning course. Naturally, 'being safer', 'more confident', 'more in control' topped the bill, but one girl's comment caught my attention. She said rather exasperatedly that she wanted to 'crack' bends and corners. It sounded like she really had tried everything and was getting nowhere. This got me thinking. What is it that stops people doing corners well or better? Is it fear, lack of method or lack of confidence?

I think lots of people jump on a bike and expect everything to just happen. It's probably to do with the fact that we all rode bikes as kids and expect it all to be natural. We wouldn't take off in an aircraft though, or take over its controls mid-flight without being certain that we had a thorough knowledge of how to land, how to deal with fog, an oncoming aircraft etc etc. Taking on a 120+bhp bike with 200 mph capability is not just like my aircraft example, it's worse! We are now, in aircraft terms, at the controls of a Tornado or an F-16 fighter jet. Yet we expect our childhood pedal-bike abilities to help us do complicated high-speed manoeuvres on powerful machines.

There is a method to cornering which needs to be applied rigorously. That's what I will cover next time broken down by Position, Speed, Gear and Acceleration.