Riding: Proper Body Positioning In Turns With Justin Soule - Dirt Rider Magazine

Stand on the sidelines at any race and the difference in style between riders is evident. Faster guys (and girls) are not only aggressive, they are more precise. This includes body positioning, the basics of which we asked Monster Energy Kawasaki's Justin Soule to demonstrate. As you'll see, proper body positioning is characterized by moving around and adjusting where you are on the bike relative to where you are in the turn. Slower riders tend to simply plant their butts in one place-often towards the rear of the seat-and stay there.

**1. Stand while approaching the turn under braking. "In this turn I stood up a little bit longer just for the sake of that last braking bump at the start of the rut," he begins. Standing, after all, lets the bike move around underneath you without throwing you off balance. Since the approach is downhill, he's semi-crouched with weight back farther than normal.

2. Soule sits at the front of the seat as he starts to turn, his inside foot thrown way forward for balance, he's trail-braking with the front brake and of course his elbows are up. "As soon as I got in the rut, I didn't totally just let off the gas; I kept a little bit on...just to keep the bike tracking through the rut. If you chop the throttle, sometimes the bike will want to climb out of the rut or cut under the rut. I made sure I was straight up and down on the torso just to stay even on the bike and stay neutral-not weighting the inside, not weighting the outside, especially with a rut...."

**3. As he exits the turn, Soule leans forward a bit to counteract the thrust of being hard on the throttle. He's starting to bring his inside leg back to the footpeg. "Once it's tracking again, I'll kind of push myself back to get the weight on the rear wheel just to keep that traction going," he relates. "If you jump back too soon, the bike's just going to wheelie out of the rut and you're going to end up having to tap the clutch, and you're going to be losing time."

**
Keep Up with Justin at www.justinsoule.com.