[Nitro]

"Don't think about dragging knees, it's overrated."

No it's not.

Knee dragging accomplishes MAINLY two things: it straigten up the bike and gives you a meter of traction.

When I used to race I knew the NEAR limit of my tires by the position of my knees. Leaning more, hence the knee going in more towards the tank, was calling for skipping or a low side. I had found the sweet spot: touch the ground, push more to retract the knee about 4" and stop.

Place your butt's crack right on the edge of the seat. Anchor the outside knee to the gas tank. Free the other leg and place the ball of the inside foot on the peg. Lean your torso over the gas tank. Lean. If you lean far enough you'll find the knee touching the ground without any effort.

Also I dragg knees on the street as well. Why? When I do so I leave about 1/2 " of fresh rubber on the sides of the rear tire. When I'm tired of moving around the seat I noticed I used the whole patch, not a good thing on the street.

As for the S, not being a race machine, when my knees touch the ground I stop pushing. I found this technique to leave me a decent deal of margin of safety, i.e. I could lean a bit more or hit a bit the brakes in case of an emergency.

By the way the S is spectacular at high lean angles! As solid as it gets.