Bonneville America Forums Forums Rider Safety Forums Riding Technique Countersteering

here's a link to a good reference on the practice of countersteering.
If you don't know how or never even heard of it, give it a read, it may actually save your life someday.

MCN Article on Countersteering

yeah love that countersteering use it every time i ride ,it tips the bike into corners so much quicker,when you get use to it you wonder how you ever rode without it,just sit on your bike staionary and turn your handlebars to the right....what happens the bike tips left...countersteering also read these articles from thunderbikes founder, http://www.thunderbike.co.nz/workshop/notes/lifeAfterCountersteering.htm
or this one
http://www.thunderbike.co.nz/workshop/notes/eyesAndHorizons.htm

Counterstearing was that one thing in the safety course that, even tho I had heard of it and probably used it without knowing on my mountain bike, I just had to give it the old "oh what the hell" and go for it. PArt of the problem was it is a little scary when going real slow, but now that I use it on a regular basis, it's definitely cool!

i agree once you get your head round the concept your riding just flows especially round some nice twisties up in the hills

Hi Lawn,

Quote:

---

yeah love that countersteering use it every time i ride ,it tips the bike into corners so much quicker,when you get use to it you wonder how you ever rode without it...

---

Believe it, you and anyone who has ever piloted a MC at speed, has counter steered. To try to turn a mc by conventional bicycle steering is next to impossible. In panic situations the rider will steer the way they want to go. Turning in the direction they want to avoid. You can always tell a newbie rider by the way they go round corners. WIDE.

I teach newbies by showing them that a mc can be steered in the direction they want to go, if and only if, their speed is less than 3 mph or so. Anything above that and they are counter steering and will turn to the direction they want to steer away from. About the only time we can steer the mc in an intuitive way is at walking speeds. Thus the emphasis on training. Rider’s tend not to think about the mechanics of piloting a motorcycle. That is until they must avoid an obstacle. Then they try to reason and that reasoning gets them in trouble. Counter steering is counter intuitive. Thus the need to practice emergency avoidance maneuvers.

agreed moe but what im getting at is the speed a bike will tip into a corner as opposed to using body weight to lean in and out of turns,sounds to me like all bike trainers could take a leaf out of your book

Just in case anyone is curious about how it works.
Turning at speed, a motorcycle wheel is a big gyroscope. The rule of gyroscopic presession says that, when you put pressure on the rim of a gyro, it tilts as if the pressure was 90 degrees around the direction of rotation. So, you push on the left handlebar, which is exactly the same as pressing directly on the left rear of the wheel. 90 degrees around the rotation is the top of the wheel which tilts away to the right, taking the whole bike with it. In turn, as the bike leans to the right, the road applied pressure from the right at the bottom of the wheel. The wheel reacts by moving the rear (Again, 90 degrees around the rotation) to the left, turning the wheel and forks into the turn. The nice thing is that this takes but a few ounces of pressure to get a quick, sharp turn. If anyone here has ridden a 3 wheeler, you know how much musclepower it takes to just twist the forks to make a turn, so counter steering on 2 wheels is a lot like having power steering.

Pretty much everyone does countersteer. The difference is if you are initiating the turn with your weight or the bikes. The preference is to use the bikes weight. When making a left turn you push out on the left handle bar, this forces the bike to lean left and turn left, with you following. Inexperienced riders will lean their weight out and then the bike will follow, thus making a wider turn than needed or wanted in certain situations.

on easy or slow turns I will lean with the bike (still countersteering), but on sharpe or faster turns I will countersteer obviously harder, but will not lean my weight with the bike. I will try to maitain my upper body perpendicular to the road. This allows for even quicker turning and enables me to countersteer the bike out of the turn faster. If you have ever ridden the Tail of the Dragon (route 129) in North Carolina you know what I am talking about.

Tom

Tom,
You touch on 1 point that is absolutely necessary when using countersteering... Keep your head upright and look where you want to go, not at what you are steering thru...
If you watch the racers with their padded knees dragging on the ground you will notice how their heads are upright through the turns.. Leaning alone won't get you through a tight turn...

Some great advice guys! I've always thought of it this way... When you pus the left handlebar, effectively turning the wheel to the right, you are physically moving the tire contact patch out fron under the center of gravity of the bike thus initiating the lean to the left. Make sense? Looking thru the turn was possibly the hardest part that required the most faith in yourself when learning.

Another thing that may be hard to overcome for those of use who have had years of dirt bike riding is the tendancy to want to throw the old leg out on a steep turn. Works really well on dirt bikes but not worth a dam on the street.

Pat,

Thanks for the post. I will admit that this issue is still one that confuses me. I had it explained to me at MSF course, YOU explained it at your house or somewhere and I believe from what I've been told by people who watch me that I do it. However, I still cannot "get my head around" how it works. I read, and will reread the article. Thanks again...

Tad

Here is an illustrated explaination as applied to helecopter rotors and navigation gyros. Just imagine the picture stood up on edge. http://www.copters.com/aero/gyro.html

Part of how I understand it is that by turning the bars to the right (pushing on the left bar) you are effectively trying to move the contact patch of the tire and road out from under the center of gravity, which effectivly leans the bike to the left, the leaning actually doing the turning... That make any sense?

The effect is more exagerated on a bicycle, the center of G being much higher. Go kinda slow on a bicycle sometime, and tirn the bars to one side, you'll lean the other way in a hurry!

It's very easy to learn, you just have to try it!

As you are going around a corner, begin to push forward slightly on your inside handle (in essence you are "turning" out of the corner). This will cause the bike to lean in more and you will turn tighter. The reverse action, pulling on your inside handle, will have the opposite effect and will begin to upright the bike and you will turn less sharp.

It's easy - just do it slowly and you will instantly feel the effect. You have to trust that it'll work.

You can even do it going straight down the road. Just push on your right handlebar, and your bike will begin to veer off to the right side of the lane, then push on the left side and it will come back. This is a safe, fast, and accurate way to change lanes. It's quicker than just "leaning over" and having the bike drift into the next lane.

Here's apuzzle -

I was riding my bicycle on a camp site in France wiith a bread batton under my arm as one does. This meant that I was riding one handed. I pushed with my right hand to turn left(conventional). I then tried counersteering. I pushed with my right hand to turn right - hang on a minute - didn't I turn left last time I did that? If the steering control input is the same then how did my bike know when I was conventionally steering and when I was countersteering? Get the point?

Sprocket

You probably actually leaned left to make it initiate the lean then followed with the hand to turn the wheel. Also I can imagine if you were holding a baguette you probably weren't going very fast. Try it again really pedaling fast. Different story.... The point of countersteering is to replace body leaning as the means of initiating the lean of the bike. Make any sense?

Here is a great example of some poor bastard that was on a bike that was vastly beyond his capabilities. If you watch the crash you'll see he did exactly the wrong thing, steered the handlebars the way he wanted to go and wound up going off the road in the other direction. Been there, done that, in 1973 on a Honda 350 at about 40 mph. Luckily no one filmed me doing it. :-)

http://www.btinternet.com/~bodman1/crash.mpeg

Ouch!!! That had to hurt.

For a great example on how countersteering actually works, check out this video below. You simply cannot turn this quickly by leaning:

http://www.vsa.cape.com/~wayg/mrep/pics/csteer.mpg

yow his helmet came off too!!!!

and did you hear his head go "thump" when it hit the pavement?

...and Murphy's law would have him bouncing back into the road too (after his off-road venture)!

I've found that I like to feel the wieght of the bike on the inside bar end when I 'm turning, it gives me greater control though the turn. It's just kinda odd pushing away from where you want to go...

I dont use it all of the time..it did save me from dropping the scoot last summer tho.I was turning into a shopping center..doing my usual lean till it scraps,my foot got caught between the floor board when it was raised in the turn and the shifter..the back end moved about a foot or so because of the pivot point..simply counter steer and got where it needed to be

Tony