Why are tight left turns harder than rights?

[madisongrrl]

I am used to leaning my body to turn and barely moving the handlebars at all. That doesn't seem to work on singletrack! I guess I need to turn the handlebars more, but why would it feel so much harder/scarier /impossible to the left than to the right?

Emily

I was just at a Norba and took a skills camp with Alison Dunlop. One of the things we spend a significant amount of time on was cornering. She said it is a misconception that you lean your body into a turn (especially tight switchbacks).

The four components that we focused on were:
1. Counter weighting the outside foot.
2. Moving our handle bars & arms/hands as we enter the turn (hard to accurately describe over the internet).
3. Not leaning into the turn, keeping our weight over the back tire so we keep traction. Possibly sitting back or forward on the saddle depending if the switchbacks are up or downhill.
4. As we enter the turn, focus turning our head to the exit.

Before I took this clinic, I always leaned into (all) turns. Now I realize that it is not always the thing to do. This is probably why I have so much trouble with technical switchbacks....something to work on for next race season.