Here are the two findings in the Hurt report that relate to countersteering, or rather, the rider's inability to do it.

4. In single vehicle accidents, motorcycle rider error was present as the accident precipitating factor in about two-thirds of the cases, with the typical error being a slideout and fall due to overbraking or running wide on a curve due to excess speed or under-cornering.

28. Motorcycle riders in these accidents showed significant collision avoidance problems. Most riders would overbrake and skid the rear wheel, and underbrake the front wheel greatly reducing collision avoidance deceleration. The ability to countersteer and swerve was essentially absent.

http://www.clarity.net/~adam/hurt-report.html

Many also believe that you can turn a motorcycle by "Leaning," or moving your body off center. You may be able to cause a turn to one way or the other, but I challenge any of you to try and navigate an "S" curve with your hands off the handlebars. You are imputting countersteering whether you know it or not when leaning your motorcycle.

One of the advanced training schools equipped a motorcycle with a second set of grips fixed to the frame to prove this, and no rider could do an "s" manuever with their hands on those grips. Anybody here ever hear of Keith Code? Here's a link on his "NO BS" bike that proves that countersteering, not body language, causes turns.

http://www.soundrider.com/archive/sa...s/nobsbike.htm

I first "discovered" countersteering on my first trip at the age of 19, when, dealing with monkey butt and cramped muscles, Ileaned over the tank of my Bonneville and crossed my arms, grabbing the opposite grips. I was instantly all over the road! Even though I thought I was not "steering" at all, I was imputting countersteeringbackwards, causing me to go exactly opposite of where I wanted to go. It was years later, when I took instructer prep for MSF, that I finally knew what had happened and understood what countersteering was.

 

I learned to 'countersteer' by riding on the back of my cousins bike 30 years ago. I was worried that he'd lay it down when he took his hands off and he laughed and took his hands off thebars and threw it around with his legs to show mehow stable it was. Then he showed me how you can 'oversteer' by getting on the bars too much. Momentum will keep youfrom going down,if you don'toverdo it.
I practice this technique almost every time I ride, doing evasive sturns. People look at me like I'm an idiot, but I make sureI get the feel when I ride, and also make sure the bike is ready for it, that it doesn't have any steering problems that I'm not aware of.Plus I get more milage on the less usedsides of my tires I figure I get a couple more miles out of a set this way
If you watch flat track bike racing you see these guys counter steering like crazy on curves, not just to make up for the tail end sliding out.
I had to lay my bike down in a deep curve cause I failed to counter-steer. I was doing 40 in 20 mph curves thinking the speed limit was too slow, till I was going to hit a guard rail and went off the road, almost over a cliff. If I had thrown into a good countersteer I would have made it, then the next corner would have been coming, but I'd rather have gone into it than off the cliff.
My point is, learn to countersteer without thinking/worrying about it, and look through the turn so you know when to let off or get on it enough.
Don't tighten up when you do this procedure, it will keep you from following through properly.

I'm no teacher, but thought I'd share my experience with you. I could have avoided the down if I'd counter steered and not froze up in that curve, and that was after my dirt biking for years and knowing how to do it. That DVD did increase my confidence, especially for riding a big *** ultra with all it's weight.

 

LOL, azhole, on that same first trip, I also discovered that when you are in the mountains, a road sign that says 15 MPH means 15 MPH !

A lot of riders don't have the confidence to believe that, on good pavement, they can lean their bikes over until parts are scraping, and the tires will hold.

Edit: I just found a video commercial for Keith Code's school, featuring his No BS bike. Note at the beginning, with his hands on the fixed handlebars, no matter what he does with his body the bike continues to go straight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nRUeEkS644&NR=1

 

After watching the Ride Like a Pro video I started trying to scrape my boards, and do a pretty good job of it
I have been cautious though, cause the only real road rash I've had was when I layed my dirt bike down on a paved street and it broke loose and I helicoptered across the road and had a scouring pad like scab on my knee and my whole bottom forearm was nothin' but scab, so I was cautious, till I watched that video and worked into the techniques.
My sporty actually feels like a toy now after getting used to, and riding properly on the ultra.

 

I'm finding some pretty good demos on U-Tube. These three are shot from the front, and you can easily see the countersteer at slow, intermediate, and fast speeds. Note the first one is at only 3 miles per hour.

This is what the MSF instructor hopes to see when he stands behind the swerve box during the test. More than one instructor has had to jump out of the way (myself included) when a student sight fixated on the instructor and came right at them. But the instructor can see the deflection of the front tire, and know if the student is doing it correctly.

Slow speed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLzB5...eature=related

Medium speed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1A7o...p;feature=user

Faster speed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C848R...p;feature=user

Edited for correct link for medium speed.

 

IMHO....thats a perfect analogy.

 

You MSF types tickle the schit out of me sometimes.

You latch on to stuff like "countersteering", and "friction zone braking" like nobody else has ever figured that stuff out before.

I will readily admit though that us old farts never had the cool terminology that you guys do.

 

Zipper, someone who has never ridden before, doesn't have a clue about anything to do with motorcycles or the terms used. That's why it's call a "Basic" Course. Many students have never driven a manual transmission on a car, much less a motorcycle.Many city kids have never driven a riding lawnmower, much less a mini-bike. But even old shitts like you that know it all usually learn something in the course, and readily admit it at the end of the class.

Most MSF instructors will also tell you that the best students are those with no experience (no bad habits to break), and female (they are there to learn, not to prove a point like us guys).

Tickled or not, there is nothing funny about teaching people skills that can save their lives. The act of swerving through countersteering is one of the most important skills to know.

 

You may have missed my point that practices such as countersteering and friction zone braking aren't recent innovations, but just the terminology is.

No big thing, though.

I will certainly admit that any education or practice for the proliferation of new riders are better than the alternative. After all, insurance rates are high enough already, and the soccer Mom in the SUV withthe cell phone growing out of her ear is dangerous enough already. Anythingthat mightsave my rear from Mr and Mrs Harley fighting to maintain control coming around that curve towards me has got to be helpful.

 

Is this simple!!!! Duhhhhh!!!!





Mimo.