Went riding yesterday on a few of the very curvy mountion roads that we have here in Southwest Virginia. Pushed on the left bar grip to enter a steep left curve, lifted my hands off the bars and damn if the bike didn't start straightening up and head for the opposite lane. Did the the same thing on the right curve that followed and had the same results. Seemed everytime I was in a curve I had to hold the bars a little in the opposite direction of the turn to continue to turn. Come to think about it, I've had to do the same thing on every bike I've ridden over the last forty years.

Countersteering isn't anything new. Riders were discussing it forty years ago and some riders were arguing you had to turn the bars in the direction of the turn even then. They were wrong then and they are wrong now.

The front tire is a very big gyro, twist it and it precesses and pulls the bike over. Let the front wheel straighten up and rake and trail make the bike stand back up, real simple.

 

This thread has confirmed what I suspected for a very long time. There are a lot of riders on the road that have no clue what the heck they are doing and they really should either take a class or park it. I suspect there are more than a few self taught riders that think of themselves as knowledgable experts on riding and believe they know what they are doing.

 

I will leave it that I've been to three riding schools, and this is not what they teach. By all means post up a video demonstrating what you are explaining.

Try this experiment. In a flat parking lot, turn your bike around while upright. You can turn the bars to full lock and the radius of the turn will be many parking spot widths, especially in a cruiser with a large rake angle.

Now try the same thing only with the bike heeled over. You will find that the more the bike is leaned into the turn, the smaller the radius of the arc.

Lean angle is what gets the bike through the corner. When the bike is upright, it's stable, so you have to disrupt it to initiate the lean. You do this with a quick countersteering maneuver.

If you are having to make lots of bar inputs in the turn, I suspect you are trailing the throttle so the bike is slowing down as friction and other forces increase and you have to widen the arc by steering out, which would correspond to pressure on the low side of the bars.

But this is not "countersteering" - the bike is turning in the direction you turn the bars.

So, there is a difference between "countersteering" which is done to initiate a turn, and the bar input that you use in a turn. You may have pressure on the bars, and it may be "countering" other forces, but it's not "countersteering."

 

I'm sitting here thinking that the reason you have a smaller radius of the turn when leaned over in your parking lot, is because you are now riding on the inside of your tires, which have a smaller circumference.

Countersteering is not done at slow speeds. Turning the handlebars, like a tricycle, is what turns your bike at slow speed, as you just described, and you can turn the bike with it upright, not leaned over.

 

Seriously, demand your money back. I have only been to MSF courses... the beginner course, the advanced course, and the course I had to take to become an instructor.


A) This isn't what we are discussing. A very low speed turn such as this is handled very differently from negotiating a curve or turn while you're moving.

... and yes, I lay my WG way over to do a figure 8 inside the box on the MSF range.

B) You don't put the bike over and it magically stays there. If you quit countersteering in a curve, the bike will stand up. Period. That is a fact.


So close. We agree on everything there until you get to the "quick countersteering maneuver". Going through a curve, it is a constant countersteering maneuver until you want to stand the bike back up and go straight again.

I only make one input - countersteering to lay the bike over and keep it there. In a decreasing radius turn, you have to increase your countersteering input as the radius decreases. In a constant radius curve, if you look through the curve, your input is constant through the curve. In an increasing radius curve, your input diminishes as the radius diminishes. It should not be a bunch of inputs - doing that means you are looking right in front of you rather than through the curve - but rather a constant, steady input that is adjusted to match the curve.

You will prove reality to yourself simply by letting go of the bars in a curve. Try it somewhere safe.

 

I am pretty sure the reason behind the confusion is some are thinking of turns at speed and others are thinking of slower turns.

The gyroscopic effect only occurs once a certain speed is reached. I would assume that speed is different for different wheel/tire combos. In a parking lot you turn the wheel to turn. On the highway, you counter turn to turn.

Not really sure why the need to argue. We can choose to argue about the law of gravity also. But that won't make **** stop falling.

 

The difference being that I have taken the MSF "Advanced Rider Course" but I don't believe you have taken the Total Control I and II courses?

I never say anything bad about the MSF courses because they have demonstrated some efficacy in reducing riding deaths. But about half the people taking the TC course with me were MSF instructors who wanted to improve their skills.

I highly recommend the Total Control courses to anyone who wants to ride better. If you take it let me know how your perspective on cornering has changed. Lee Parks has also written a book of the same name (Total Control) which includes some of the drills in the course. I dropped my lap times 7 seconds after taking the first one and 3 more after the second one: huge improvements. The guy in the first clip was in my class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9WzYQb-zM4

Wanna see a full-dress Valk dragging hard parts? Later the guy cornered so hard he ground the bike on the exhaust pipe, lifting the rear wheel of the ground. So he just stopped - not something you see every day!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFZ3QGK5BHY

 

Man... I've dragged plenty of hard parts on my sport bike days, and, yes... even buried a peg enough to get the rear wheel off the ground and have the bike pivot on the peg for a split second... at 90 mph ...

I don't see how the video makes any case for someone not countersteering through a curve.

No amount of discussion can demonstrate reality. It's as simple as getting yourself into a long sweeper, letting go of the bars for a second, shitting your self when the bike starts standing up and heading straight for the shoulder (or oncoming traffic), correcting the problem by countersteering until you complete the curve, then saying "No ****".

 

This has become not much more than a pissing match. Got videos of baggers scraping pipes or dragging a knee. Come on, how many are gonna do that? MSF instructors telling me if I don't read the books or take the classes I won't know how to ride, people riding down the road w/ no hands and bragging about it. Give me a ****in break. Yeah you need skills that are honed by riding, ability to assess situations and adjust as they happen, but in my mind the most important tool is a very large dose of "common sense". Yeah, **** sometimes does just happen and when it does it is unfortunate and stupidity while riding will get you killed, in a heartbeat, a damn sight quicker than anything else.

 

12 pages and not one gets it exatley right. mnpgrider is close but you do countersteer at low speed.(or counterbalance which is different.)
midnitevil has it wrong.
picture a bike with no rider standing still. turn the bars to the right. now push it from the back. with no input the bike will fall LEFT. it needs to either lean to the right or be counterbalanced by the rider.