Thats what I tried to explain with my previous posting too. This style is more comeing from speedway I think.
Also this pic shows the difference good, front wheel heads in “wrong” direction while sliding with the back wheel throught the corner:
It just looks like what I did racing motocross. Important thing is that all the weight is on the outside footpeg as the bike is thrown over and acceleration applied then the front wheel seems to take care of itself with more or less slide doing the steering. I never recall using the front wheel to steer while in this position. Funny thing is I raced for years and I never recall considering what caused the bike to corner. It just did.
The shot below looks to me like the guy stuffed it up and did not get the back end out. Either that or he just likes it like that.
After riding sports bikes for the past decade. Hopping on a supermoto is a bit discerning. But starting to get the hang of. With a psorts bike I would put my weight over the front of the bike leaning into the turn. With the DR-Z400SM I’m leaning back, putting weight more to the rear, leaning less of my body into the turn, and pushing the handlebars down and towards the opposition I am turning. I find steering is so much quicker doing counter steering. I just push the bars down a bit and the bike leans over. On a sports bike I would need to lean my whole body to get the same results. Now, sticking my foot out is another story. I still feel odd. I was taught to keep my body parts close to the bike on sport bikes.
Great thread – fascinating stuff. Keep it coming.
Welcome Mingshah! Nice photos.
Mordeth, sorry – for some reason I thought you were originally talking about the BIKE’s lean angle, not the rider. Yes the bike leans more than the rider and the handlebars are constantly countersteering. That’s actually what I’ve been going on about for a while: Plasmatron’s explanation about the deliberate loss of traction and the prevention of high-siding makes a lot of sense.
Any speedway fans here? My dad has a season ticket for Exeter and my uncle is involved with the Glasgow Tigers. Great to watch.
Somebody mentioned Yamaha DTs. They’re still making them now though I think the new ones are much cleaner.
I’d love to have the chance someday to mess about with a ratty old dirt bike on a dirt track. I’m even scared of skateboarding so I think that getting used to and learning to control the loss of traction on a two-wheeler would be a good experience.
[quote=“coolingtower”] #1 I became familiar with SatelliteTV’s supermoto in such a short time that it means that I’m a good rider (or most likely a very pussily safe one 
), or
#2 There are a lot of things I should have known, but didn’t and got lucky that I didn’t crash.[/quote]
Well let’s see now CT, you rode pretty safely cause you had your GF with you. Thats the most important thing on an unfamiliar bike, and we were riding with no helmets so were not playing silly buggers on day 1. On day 2 when we went down to Shan Mei we were helmeted but were also on the main road where we could zip past the traffic. But we rode safely and not like lunatics.
Good thing with the long travel suspension as you found out even 2 up is you don’t have to slow down for much. As for going around corners, I’ve surprised a few of the road bikers that come up here to play. A few things in my favour…
1: I know the roads fairly well and I know where the dips, cracks, gravel, and other nasty bits are.
-
I have a road rear tire and a trails knobby front. At any speeds below 80kmh those tires have pretty much unlimited grip on bitumen, and the bike has unlimited ground clearance.
-
The front and rear disk brakes on the Hartford give me great control. I can use the front / rear brakes thru a corner and induce the rear to slide out and point in the direction I want the bike to go as I squirt on the power ( not a lot I know ).
-
I know how my machine handles and have adjusted the suspension settings to my liking. I will go out and practice emergency braking stops on both asphalt and dirt. I like to get the bike to do it’s damndest to spit me off ( which it has ) and then recover from those situtations.
-
So what if I deck it, the bit’s bend back out and I’m off and riding again. The road bikers need to think about their pretty toys getting scratched.
Curves with knobbies are not a problem. You would be just as nervous on a road bike due to the lean angles.
Like any bike tire combo you need to learn the limits of your machinary. You need to know how it’s going to react in different situations. You need to know what your tires and bike behaviour will be when it slides. You also need to learn your own behaviour patterns too. With the Hartford you just have to let it wobble and drift about. You get used to it.
I rode a lot on the farms as a youngster on off road bikes then moved over to road racing at 18. Ironman has a lot of racing experience too.
He’s right in one sense, you don’t think about it you just let the bike do it’s thing and you do yours. hopefully the two go together well. 
Satellite TV - I’ve seen a few of those VRs around in the last week and I was thinking, are they really enduro/supermotos bikes? I woulda thought they were just dirt bikes (street legal of course)?
Incidentally I would probably call such a trail bike back home. You’re Aussie too aren’t you? Is trail bike a misnomer?
Cheers
kamiwaza
Trial bikes are much much lighter and have also lighter and less powerfull engines. You can see that very good in the thread regarding trial bikes (don’t know how to link on that).
They need to be really light so that you are able to do the stuff they do. Their frame is also completly different. They are quite low to bring the “centre of gravity” (don’t know how to call that in english) down and make them easier to control for balancing on it. The seat is quite down too as they drive them while standing on the footrest. Such bikes, real trial bikes, are not really for dailly use or for driving in a common sense. They are most time just for the off-road riding or for going ofer special barriers. They usually are without number plates in Europe, you bring theam on a trailer to the spot where you wanna drive.
But maybe it is just us strange Europeans who do this and who name things like this…
So any americans, aussies, taiwanese or what ever with different oppinion? 
Thanks mingshah, but I said trail bike, not trials bike. I know what a trials bike is.
Anyway the main point of that post was that I didn’t think the Hartford VRs are actually Enduro or Supermoto but just plain ol’ dirt bikes. Am I right?
Cheers
kamiwaza
[quote=“kamiwaza”]Thanks mingshah, but I said trail bike, not trials bike. I know what a trials bike is.
Anyway the main point of that post was that I didn’t think the Hartford VRs are actually Enduro or Supermoto but just plain ol’ dirt bikes. Am I right?
Cheers
kamiwaza[/quote]I think that some of these terms overlap a bit and there are “shades of grey”. For example I was talking to my brother today about the Baja and he pointed out that there are bikes which are even more pure-dirt oriented, and that he managed to tour for five days on one.
The VRs come in couple of different “flavours” so I wonder whether that would make a difference in terminology. I can’t remember seeing a real supermoto among them though. There’s one you might call an enduro (dual purpose) and a more pure-dirt/trail bike.
The motorbike section of the Hartford site seems to be down and has been so for a while. I can only access the machine tools section.
Sorry kamiwaza for the missunderstanding. So you have difference between trial and trials because in Austria they are just called “Trail Motorad”. Seems that’s just my language problem than
Regarding the Hartford VR. I am not familiar with this bike and I am also not sure which one Sattelite TV owns. I just found the 125, 150 and 200 in the Versions H, X and Z on internet. I am not sure if there are bigger and stronger ones so I am more guessing now.
The types I saw and had a look at were in my opinion more like light Enduros, mybee the 125X even going a bit into Motocross. I say light because I just found this ones, if there are stronger and heavier ones than might be differ.
What we in Austria call Enduros are usually bikes with 450 cc to about 650 cc, abouve they are called Adventure Enduros as they are to heavy and to strong for normal Enduro (off-road) driving but for desert runs (like Paris-Dakar) you need that sice. Just have a look on the KTM sortiment.
The pure motocross bikes are lighter (from 125 to max. 500 cc), have longer suspension ways and a different body look. The whole body looks thiner (to save weight to make them easier to handle in off-road) while Enduros are a bit stronger/thicker (don’t know how to describe better) looking and are usually for longer runs.
The Supermoto usually is very much like the Enduro but some parts from a pure Streetbike. Most of this are tires (thicker but most time smaller, different profile and rubber mixture), than the ground clearance (Cross has most, Enduro a bit less but and Supermoto the lowest) and some details in the area of engine, electronics and so on. As the Supermoto will go more on streets so you can adjust it a bit to that, that’s all.
So but that’s just general terminology, as I sad I have never seen this bike nor do I know the exact type and technical details but for me the Hartford VR seems to be what I said, a light Enduro bike.
OK, now all specialist may come and put me (and my poor English) into peaces please…
PS: a link to the comparesite somebody mentioned here before with comparing the KTM 640 LC4 in the SM (Supermoto) and the Enduro version:
http://www.motorbikes.be/en/compare/4934/4913/
Oh, forgot, of course one important part is the different transmission settings, you can see that on the comparison page well…
Ok, I found one bike where they have all 3 types so I try to show you on that example what I mean:
The bike is the Husqvarna 450 in the versions Cross, Enduro and Supermoto:
Cross:
Wheel distance: 1472 mm
Length over all: 2172 mm
Weith over all: 820 mm
Height over all: 1280 mm
Sit height: 980 mm
Ground clearance: 340 mm
Weight (without fuel) 106,5 kg
Tank: 9,2 Liter
Enduro:
Wheel distance: 1472 mm
Length over all: 2212 mm longer
Weith over all: 840 mm wider
Height over all: 1290 mm higher
Sit height: 980 mm
Ground clearance: 340 mm
Weight (without fuel) 113,3 kg heavier
Tank: 9,2 Liter
Supermoto:
Wheel distance: 1495 mm wider
Length over all: 2190 mm longer than Cross but shorter than Enduro
Weith over all: 845 mm widest
Height over all: 1250 mm lowest
Sit height: 915 mm lowest
Ground clearance: 270 mm lowest
Weight (without fuel) 119,2 kg heaviest
Tank: 9,2 Liter
Ok, don’t know if this helps but at least it is another nice point to discuss about. [/b]
Great comparison mingshah!
I can’t help but think that the biggest difference is the weight… the rest just seem to be suspension set up and fairing differences. Why is the Supermoto the heaviest? Where does this weight come from (and is it just because it has road tyres that it looks the coolest?)?
Cheers
kamiwaza
The wheel rims are smaller and wider on the supermoto. Don’t know where the weight difference comes from though.
Smaller rims should mean less weight… but it explains the lower clearance. 
have a look at the breaks. the tires are heavy, too
Ah. Thems the brakes.
Thank you turkey_dinner.
kamiwaza
Just some guessing about the weight:
- The tires are much wider and thicker, should be some weight
- It seems that the break discs are much bigger (regarding to higher speeds).
- Maybe some differences in the transmission too than.
- Maybe some metal parts on the frame more which makes it more stable on higher speeds but which are unnessesary weigth in off-road.
The difference between them is about 6 kg per step so it is not very much.
You also can’t see the differences in the shape of the frame very well (if there are some).
Well, 6kg is not much but I think the tyre/brake thing explains it pretty nicely. I wouldn’t expect much weight different in such minimal fairings.
Cheers
kamiwaza
I notice that the sork tubes are of a different color on the motocross and the Enduro model…it could be fork size+internals that make some of the weight…further research about this could surely make some sense as to where the KG’s are being switched around…it’s probably a mix ofa few things here and there…
-forks
-engine bash plate
-wheels
-hand guards and such little plastics
-beefed up frame sections?
-possibly a larger fuel tank on the Enduro?
as subtle as they may be, that’s probably where the differences are!
Cheers
[quote=“kamiwaza”]Thanks mingshah, but I said trail bike, not trials bike. I know what a trials bike is.
Anyway the main point of that post was that I didn’t think the Hartford VRs are actually Enduro or Supermoto but just plain ol’ dirt bikes. Am I right?
Cheers
kamiwaza[/quote]
Yep basically dual purpose for road and off road use, made street legal with use of lights. And sure in Oz we call them trail bikes. Common name for these machines.