The ‘Knee Out’ Riding Style

I have been a regular reader of your great magazine for many years. Every time I return to India, the first thing I do is buy the latest issue for a concise update on all things two wheels. I have just finished reading the August 2016 issue and enjoyed your coverage of the World Ducati Week.

I must say it would take a brave (or extremely well-informed) man to state that Paul Smart was the rider who introduced the ‘knee out’ riding style; nicely qualified by stating ‘knee out’ rather than ‘knee down’. For years we have debated who introduced ‘knee out’ or ‘knee down’, and we are yet to get a definitive answer. I remember getting my knee down for the first time at the Siberia Corner at Phillip Island, going home and telling it to my father. He said he remembered a bike meeting that he had attended in New Zealand in

the 1950s where a rider was riding with his knee out and bum off the seat, and the crowd laughing at him for his strange riding style. Some credit the demise of Dustbin fairings for the start of the ‘knee out’ style, as my father recalled seeing it at the Isle of Man TT in the late 1950s. Who knows?

For years the likes of Jarno Saarinen and King Kenny have often been credited with starting the ‘knee out and down’ style, but this is still up for debate. So if you have cracked the inner sanctum of knowledge, please could you reveal your source? I could eat out for free for a year or more with such valuable information in my pocket.

Keep up the great work. Jim Gannon, by e-mail