now by no means do I claim to be an expert but I have been riding on the track for over seven years and for the last three we have been putting track day weekends at tracks in the southeast (USA) where we provide instruction to track day newbees.. we do an average of six weekends a year.

below are two pics one is my riding style and the other is one of my instructors. He is on my Duke, funny thing everybody wants to try her at the track.

Anyway as we tell our students, you have to be smooth and consistant. A lot of folks get on the track and want to put a knee down right away... that's cool and all of that but what they need to concentrate on is being smooth and predictable. Smooth and consistant brings speeds. Another major area of discussion is body position, everyone has some advice on it but in the end you should ride in the position that makes you the most comfy on the bike. Yes YOU DO HAVE TO GET OFF THE BIKE! if you dont as you get faster and your lean angle increases you will run out of tyre and CRASH........... How you get off and how your upper body is, well like I said what makes you comfy. We tell our students to kiss the mirror, and some do and some dont... are they wrong not really as it shows in the two pics below. If you notice I ride with a little more vertical position, I'm all the way off the bike but I'm not totaly laying on the tank resting my forearm on the outside of the tank.

My buddy if you notice rides a little more lower and head down... The lean angle is still the same for the most part but he looks to be in a more agressive riding position. So like I said there is no hard and fast rule IMHO that outlines how you should or not position your body... The rule of thumb we teach is get YOUR ARSE OFF the bike till you feel the edge of the plastic stuck in y9our crack, dont hold on for dear life on the bars, breath and use your legs to transition from side to side not the bars.... Once again not an expert by any means just speaking from experiance...


My Buddy notice his head down position..



Me a little more vertical but my arse is all the way off the bike... and I'm not holding on to dear life...



BTW the type of bike you ride also has a lot to do with your body position... as well....

here is my body position when I ride my Hyper, notice I'm almost vertical but also notice that my arse is all the way off the seat...




and this is on my GSXR race bike.... very small diff on BP as compared to the Duke but you can see the small changes...




hope this helps...

This is a couple of me, I'm no expert either but I'm sure you lot can see that from the pictures





this is my best mate, he's pretty handy on the SD, the bastard!

- particularly the Donnington testing and Mallory gallery images

those mallory pics are good around the right hander some serious lean angle............

one butt cheek off the seat, point your inside shoulder into the turn and look where you want to go.

Most convential wisdom about the outside arm position is rendered defunct due to the wide bars.