this is an interesting thread... i've been riding motorcycles literally since i could ride a bicycle (early 70's)... i had never heard the term countersteering applied to cycles until about the 90's... i never really thought much about it but i'd been doing this more or less since day one of riding... I can't imagine riding without countersteering, i'm not sure it is even possible... but after reading this thread it seems a LOT of folks are getting caught up on the terminology...

i'll try to explain using another countersteering technique i'm intimate with: snowmobiles. The physics are the same even if the vehicle and conditions are drastically different i think i can make a solid point...

First i'm going to give you the conditions:

1. You're riding a snowmobile (duh!)
2. you are travelling straight across a wide open field in extremely deep snow
3. you want to make a right turn.

now, here's what happens... you grab your bars and turn your skis to the right... what does your machine do??? well, inertia and momentum (remember the old rule, an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force) try to make the sled go in a straight line, what does that do to the weight transfer??? it will cause your left (outside) ski to dive down into the snow and the sled will try to roll over to the outside (much like how you see a car lean to the outside of a turn - body roll)... hmm, how do we correct this?? first thought is to lean/lift the sled onto its right side and continue to turn right... but follow the physics of it, now you've got your machine leaned over with the ski pointing down and digging you deeper into the snow and getting you stuck or possibly countering all the effects of the lean... what to do... we're still trying to make a right turn... the answer is to countersteer... you turn the ski left which will over weight the right side causing it to want to roll over as described above, but this time you're gonna let it roll and lean to the inside allowing the skis that are turned left to act as a rudder thru the snow... much the same thing happens with a motorcycle (even though the motions are not nearly as drastic)... if you stand a motorcycle straight up (like with training wheels) and turn the bike right, the weight of the bike is going to try to make it flip over to the outside of the turn... so what do we do, we use that to our advantage, knowing that the bike wants to try and roll to the outside, we initiate a left turn of the bars to get the bike to fall over to the right and use counter pressure to keep the bike going to far over... its actually a very intuitive action if you've ever ridden a bicycle...

here's a couple longer vids that might illustrate it better on a sled

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IAWBsrHrtig (this one starts slow, go forward to about the 1:00 mark)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-MslAZ1WqMk
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Sq_QfE3LMxA

sometimes its hard to see with the snow flying, but i think it demonstrates countersteering very effectively since it is so drastic compared to the subtleties of street riding a cycle... hope thats clear as mud now!!!!

 

Dude,

Thanks for the link and the heads up on this book. I'm going to go pick it up at lunch.
Gotta love all the knowledgable people on the forums!

 

Another recommendation for Hough's book. It is timeless and worth it's weight in gold. It's in my permanent throne library along with his other works. "Street Strategies" etc.

Mandatory reading and you'll be a better rider. Great descriptions of how to handle twisties,

"go in slow and come out fast"

 

It amazes me how folks get such a revelation out of countersteering. They've been doing it all their lives only not knowing it. Once they realize that's what they're actually doing and concentrate on primarily that their skill and control improve immensely. This has included me. Someone may say they initiate a turn by pushing against the tank with the opposite thigh but in order to be able to do that they're backing up the motion with their hands on the bars. Guess what, they're countersteering. Point that out to them and they drop the thigh thing.

Anyway, there's a lot of speculation in what I've glanced through in this thread. I feel some of it is akin to "using the thigh".

Think about it for a minute. The geometry of the bike, to the extent it's perfectly executed, will have the moving bike always right itself and travel in a straight line. It's the front tire contact patch following the point where the fork pivot extends to the road. The only point where the patch perfectly follows that extended line is when the bike is vertical (when the frame, front end, and/or rear end aren't tweaked), and it wants to get there / do that.

You're going down the road and twist the bars to the left. Front wheel goes left and steers itself out from under the bike. Bike now falls to the right as a result of the center of mass being to the right side of the pair of tire contact patches. This causes the front wheel to flop to the right. The front tire patch is now behind and to the left of the point where the weight should be meeting the road (the pivot axis of the forks) so the tire tries to turn left, to get back behind (and in line with) it again. If it does, the bike will stand straight up again, going straight (not necessarily straight down the road, just straight). You want to maintain the right-hand turn, so you maintain pressure toward the left throughout. Need to tighten the radius? Apply more leftward twist to the handlebars. Need to loosen the radius? Let up on the left twist a little.

Depending on the rate of transition back to going straight (or the other direction), you either let up on the handlebar twist and let the bike go straight on its own, or you gently apply a reverse twist to make it happen sooner.

Never, above *****-footing in the parking lot speeds, do you apply force to the handlebars in the direction you actually want to go.

Best practice I've found is to weave the front tire between the dashed lane lines on an otherwise unoccupied road. See how fast you can steadily go without touching paint (font tire only). At the same time you'll learn what you need to do with your body. (Sport bike riders have it the best. You need to get your weight as low as possible and to do that best you'd stand up on the pegs to put your weight just a few inches off the ground. Sport bikes have the pegs right under you where it's easy to use them that way without pulling on the handlebars to accomplish it.)

Practice produces familiarity which produces instinctive behavior.