"As far as shifting to the high side of seat to counter lean the bike, opposite of its natural position, would be counter productive. "

Totally wrong. You are not "counter leaning," you are "counter balancing." It keeps you from falling over when making tight, low speed turns. A tour model Harley can easily be turned around in a lot less space than the width of a two lane road, which is 24 feet. I can do it within two parking spots, plus two feet, which is a total of 18 feet.

In the Ride Like a Pro Police Rodeo video, a cop ground off the fork stops and dented in the front of his gas tank on both sides. Without watching the video again, so don't quote me on this, but if I remember right, he could turn his cop glide around in 16.5 feet.

 

I trust my life to counter steering. If the bike leans, it is because I am counter steering. If my speed is at max and the curve tight, I may slide slightly to the inside and keep the throttle positive. I don't race but I do ride hard.

 

Cant take this "expert" advice anymore. Motorcycles only turn one of two ways. When you go really slow "parking lot speed", you steer it like a bicycle (turn the wheel where you want it to go). When you go faster, counter steering takes over. Bike is going to lean in a turn regardless. You might think leaning is initiating your turn but lets say you lean to the left, your right arm automatically turns your front wheel to the right and you initiate a left turn. Next time try sitting upright and pulling the right handlebar towards you and the same thing will happen. The way you ride can determine the best body position when doing turns, for most street riding, staying firmly planted in the seat and feet solid on the foot pegs is the best way to go. Now if you have ever wondered why race bike riders drag their knees and hang their butts over to the edge of the seat, its because at those speeds, it changes the combined center of gravity of the bike and rider and the bike leans less at a given speed through a turn. But that's nothing to do with normal street riding.

 

Ahh... but it does. On a Harley or other cruiser with limited lean angle (cornering clearance), shifting your weight to the inside of the turn can allow you to carry more speed through a given curve without the bike leaning as far, thus preserving cornering clearance, and possibly preventing pegs/floorboards/exhaust etc from dragging. You don’t need to hang all the way off or be riding warp speed to see the effect. just shifting one butt cheek off the seat to the inside, and leaning your upper body toward the inside mirror will make a difference in how much the bike needs to lean to negotiate a curve.

 

I just go with the bike and don't think about it.

Good question though...I've noticed a few riders recently that look like they are trying to get more bike lean in the corners by "counter-leaning" their bodies away from the turn. I guess its one way to scrape your pegs at just 30 MPH on a wide turn.

 

16.5 is doable on a stock HD touring bike with some practice. I realize that this particular video doesn't prove anything, but you can see the marks on the pavement where the 10" or 12" base of the cones should be for a standard 18' keyhole. We kept moving them in until I crashed. This attempt was somewhere around 16'. I still think I could have made it if I'd entered better. Waited way too long to start my turn. You can also see me "counter-leaning"...just before I crash!

http://http://s151.photobucket.com/user/stro1965/media/A8DCCE1E-4A6C-4F9A-8E5B-F8DEC2D15EBA_zps4ujcchiq.mp4.html

 

I understand the counter leaning while doing low speed, tight radius turns. I was referring to riding through curves, turns, twisties and normal cruising, not parking lot maneuvers, obstacle courses and rodeos.

I was agreeing, 2 Lane road u turns should be a cake walk on any 2 wheeler.

 

I us the counter steering method all the time. Never heard of counter leaning. Sounds like a major problem to me. JR

 

Bingo! There's a couple really tight circling on-ramps near where I live that I like to shift my weight to the inside.



Never stop learning.

 

Maydaymike, what a great set of pictures! I'm definitely saving them.

For the OP, (never stop learning! ), and for most of the posters, everybody pretty much has it right, but the confusion is coming from some misleading or not correctly used terminology:

Countersteering: this is what everybody does when you go around curves at "normal" road speeds, whether you're on a motorcycle or a bicycle.

Counterleaning or counterweighting (both terms are interchangeable): this is what you do when you're in a very low speed maneuver, such as a u-turn, or precision exercises like Stroh's video.

When you countersteer you turn the handlebars the "wrong" way. In other words to curve to the right you turn the handlebars to the left. This technically does NOT make the bike turn, it makes it lean. Then, (without getting into too many details), when it's leaning, it's no longer in the center of the tire's contact patch, it's a little off to the side where the patch is no longer an oval, and that's why it turns. As a side note, this is taught in riding classes as "Push right to go right". That makes sense, but in reality you should ALWAYS use both arms. Push and pull at the same time. That makes taking the curve very smooth and you're in total control all the way around. Why on earth would you try to turn 1,000 pounds of bike and rider with one hand??

In order to go around curves safely and in control, particularly if you're having some fun, it's very important how your body leans while the bike is leaning. Again, without getting too technical, your tires only have a certain amount of traction. The more you're leaned over the more of that traction is dedicated to not sliding, and the less traction is available for braking. What does that mean? It means you always want to lean just enough for the curve, and not more. Always minimize lean. Take a look at Maydaymike's pictures:





The left picture is a "neutral" body position, and is fine if you're not pushing it. The center picture is very, very bad. This is excessive lean, it is caused by having your body leaning less than the bike, or by having your body "above" the bike, and this is precisely what makes you drag parts in curves. Even worse, you're using more traction to keep from sliding than you need to, and that means if you hit the brakes at all you have a high probability of lowsiding. The right picture is ideal. Your body should be inside the curve, inside the bike, leaning more than the bike, however you want to think about it.

An expert rider told me: "Just lean your torso into the curve and try to put your chin toward the inside rearview mirror". HUGE note: You cannot do this if you're tensed up. You MUST be relaxed: soft core, soft shoulders, soft arms, soft hands. You're enjoying this, right?!?

Here are two more pics I have, the first one very bad (sparks!!), the second one good:








Slow speed maneuvers: The tricky part here, for a beginner, is that everything is backwards from a normal speed turn. You don't countersteer, you turn the bars where you want to go. Here's the weird thing: in the first moment you try to turn to the right, if you turn your bars to the right, that's a countersteer, and the bike will fight you and try to turn left. That's why beginners wobble around a u-turn. So, you have to already be leaned a little bit before you turn the bars. Since you're going so slow, you can indeed just lean your body to the right and then turn the bars and it will work, since you're going so slowly that the gyroscopic effect of the spinning wheels is easy to overcome. (Won't work at 70, though.) However, there is a trick that makes entry into a tight low speed turn a little smoother: just before you start to turn to the right, give the bars a little nudge to the left. What does that do? Why, that's a tiny little countersteer and it makes you start to lean to the right, of course. Then just swivel your head around, turn the bars to the right, and go with it. You'll swing right around.

Body position in low speed turns: The opposite of road speed curves. In a low speed turn you're leaned over quite a bit, but you may not be going quite fast enough to keep from just falling down. So, you need to counterbalance the weight of the bike by leaning ("counterleaning") the other way. If you're turning to the right, the bike is leaned way to the right, but you need to lean "backwards" so that your body is more upright. Sense more foot pressure on the left peg than the right. Keep your chin up. This really, really helps to keep the bike steady and in the tight turn without simply falling down.

(Stro, if any of what I said is not clear or confusing, please let me know and I'll correct it.)

I think is stuff is absolutely fascinating and I enjoy learning about it. As if you couldn't tell.