I was being serious. I never took the course. Just wondering if I should go ahead. I have no ego when it comes to saving my life.

 

Find a curved back road with no traffic, practice countersteering at slow speeds like 35 MPH or so

 

Lol well I dont know that word you used but I am talking about the effect that keeps the motorbike from falling over. this is also the same effect that will assit you in a turn. take a bike tire and get it spinning fast while holding the hub, now turn it jsut a little. you will feel the pull. that is the force i am talking about. Hard to say that that force has no influence on counter steering. Seeing its what keeps your motorbike from just falling over and killing you and a whole slew of small animals

 

No, it's really easy to say. And nicely illustrated by the fact that when a lighter wheel, or one with less polar moment of inertia is used in place of heavier stock wheels, turning effort is reduced (resistance to turning the bike) even though the ligher wheels exert a decreased gyroscopic precession. This is very easy to demonstrate, easy to say, but a little harder to explain to someone who might not have some physics background. Gyroscopic precession exerts a force 90 degrees to the direction of wheel spin, which many people attribute to the reason countersteering works. For example, consider the front wheel of your motorcycle rotating in the forward direction as you are riding down a straight road. As you push on the right bar, to initiate a left turn, gyroscopic precession would exert a force that would cause the tire (and by virtue of the contrained nature of the front end of the bike to the rest of the motorcycle) to lean to the left. And vice versa. So, it is understandable why so many people attribute countersteering to the effect of gyroscopic precession. But clearly, in practice, it has a negligible influence on countersteering as can readily be seen by the opposite effect when light wheels or those with lower polar moments are substituted.

 

I go to a bar called the Long Horn. It`s a very long bar & the bartop or counter is in the shape of a Texas Longhorn. Once a year , after 4 free drinks we lift our bikes up on the bar & counter steer. Then we all drive home & never think about counter steering till the next year`s contest.
The class I suggest some people take is called "If you`re writting a scientific paper, take the riding class & write a thesis on it " class.
Malcom Forbes of "The Capitalist Pigs" gave me this pin of one of his hot air balloons. I believe it`s 250 feet long. The protrusion on the bottom is the gondola where one would ride in. He didn`t worry about counter steering. He rode with the wind.

 

Take a MSF course. They will teach you what you need to know

 

I'm not a physics professor but I do know that thecentrifugal force and resultant gyroscopic effect of the spinning wheels and tires is what keeps the motorcycle up at speeds faster than feet on the ground and careful balance.

Once you impart a force against the motorcycle, the centrifugal force/gyro effects of the wheels will try to right themselves That is where the "magic" of countersteering occurs. Many a rider has gotten away with steering by the weight of his pants through mere counter-balancing and hes probably gotten away with it for so long that they feel as htough they need to know no more. That's all well and good until a dog runs out in front of them,a car pulls out unexpectedly or they find themselves too hot and too deep into a curve. These will typically result in the "Had to lay 'er down..." line.

Countersteering is the proper way to ride once the centrifugal force/gyroscopic of the wheels and tires is greater than the gravitational force required to tip the bike over.

 

Wow old thread!!!

Heres a pic from about the age I started racing

 

Countersteering occurs independantly to gyroscopic force. However, you are correct when you say that gyroscopic effect tends to maintain the motorcycle upright. But it's not just the gyroscopic effect of the wheels, but also spinning parts in the engine and transmission, when they are oriented in-line to the motorcycle.

 

Here's how they countersteer in the suburbs

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