Cornering help

[matt6950]

Hey.
Few months back I came of my bike broke my wrist in 3 place had to have surgery to fix it. I am now finally able to ride my bike again. Truth be told I'm shit scared of getting back onto it..

Now I used to push the left handle bar and pull the right handle bar to turn right. and visverser for left.

I have just watched this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFm3honeTQo and he says push left handle bar to go left and push right to go right. Surly the wheel of the bike is then opposite so surly that won't work?

Just to clear things up I have been riding less than a year.

I am struggling with corners and my crash was me not taking a corner correctly. I just can't under stand how the bike will turn to the opposite side the wheel is facing.

[NJD]

Ah.. countersteering

Tef ?

It basically works at anything above 10mph or slow speeds.

Push right to turn right and push left to turn left. It really is as simple as that. When I first tried it it was one thing that made me think "I'm glad I've got my head around this, it's going to improve my riding". I have no idea how I was taking corners before hand.

Get out on the bike and try some slow control to steer the "normal way" and then you can practice at about 20mph going up and down an empty road with small inputs of pushing on the right grip to turn right and left grip to turn left.

One after the other will make you zig zag, possibly try that and get your self into the motion and how much input is required.

More speed more input.

[CaNsA]

Download and watch all the vids in this thread
Pay particular attention to Twist Of The Wrist.

https://www.bikechatforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=286410

[matt6950]

Thanks guys just one last question can you counter steer though the whole turn? say like it's a t junction and your turning left?

[NJD]

[matt6950]

[pinkyfloyd]

Counter steering is a strange thing. Believe it or not you do it without thinking about it. It is the only way to get a bike turned at anything more than slow speed. Actually thinking about it and putting it into practice is a battle between head and bike. Your head tells you it is wrong.

A little experiment for you. Get to a quiet bit of road, when I say quiet I mean empty apart from you, find a nice straight and get up to around 30mph, sit in the middle of your lane and gently push one of the bars, left or right it matters not, note which way the bike dips. I emphasise the word gently because you'll find yourself in a ditch or something if you are not.

And watch the vids Cansa has supplied.
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[MCN]

To ride a bike you have to balance between the left side and right side.
The bike is never in 'perfect' equilibrium as it is always either falling left or falling right and passing through a neutral central between the two states.

To steer one only has to push the bike 'more' off balance to fall over to the direction want to steer towards.

As stated, you counter steer all the time even just to ride straight. You probably learned to 'ride' (balance) a pedal bike by wobbling between left and right until your muscles and senses are trained. The corrections you make become imperceptible. The science behind the technique un-important so forgotten or ignored.

At higher speeds the mass of the rotating wheels keep the bike balanced (like a gyroscope) and you must apply more effort to change the 'balance' of the bike. The steering angle is an important part in the control of that part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0
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Disclaimer: The comments above may be predicted text and not necessarily the opinion of MCN.

[WD Forte]

Yeah, what Pinky said.
Its a strange, subtle, counterintuitive thing but true.
Before you do the quiet road experiment check you're relaxed
and not gripping the bars too tight before gently and subtly
adding just a smigeon of pressure to one side or the other
to see the effect.
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[deadwolf]

Frankly IMO countersteering hasn't been explained very well in a lot of instances for some reason. Please correct me if I'm wrong but these are my thoughts on countersteering:

1. At ordinary road speeds like 30-40mph it's quite a minor movement that you'll not likely notice because your attention is focused instead on the road/taking a corner/etc. Not to mention that it'll be lumped in together with your body's lean and other movements.

2. In most cases, you only do the whole 'push bar etc' at the beginning of the turn, after which the front wheel goes back to following the direction of the turn. Once again its usually a minor action so you won't notice it.

3. Countersteering during a turn would occur if you wanted to change how much your bike is leaning/change your line and go wider or go narrower.

If you really want to feel obvious countersteering in action, go fast enough to the point that you actually have to fight the bike to make it turn. Try pushing on the bars while doing this and you'll find that you need way more effort, but pushing on the left will make you bank to the right and vice versa. Saw a video recently of some noob in the USA trying to tighten his line on a corner on his sportbike. He didn't know how to countersteer and was trying to turn the wheel in the direction of the turn, which counterproductively caused him to go wide and collide with traffic

HTH.
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[Teflon-Mike]

What people talk of as 'counter-steer' would probably be better called 'conscious perverse bar loading'..... it's not a bar 'movement' as in turn the bars the wrong way to the way you want to steer, but apply 'force' to the bars WITHOUT making them move the wrong way... to INITIATE a turn.

Chap called Keith code, an american journalist has made a fortune 'selling' the principle via his twist-of-the-wrist books and video's and American super-bike school 'master-classes', as the 'Only' way to steer a motorcycle.... It isn't.. and a hell of a lot of the 'science' he uses to sell the idea is more his 'Scientology' religion, than it is actual Newtonian Physics. TREAT WITH MUCH SEASONING!

It 'works', and works especially well for Yanks, who never really have to learn to ride to get a motorbike licence, and tend to learn on stuff over 600cc.... while it may be 'useful' for others, on larger bikes, in SOME situations. IF you actually know what you are doing and don't simply try turning the handle-bars the wrong way to the way you want to go... especially on anything much under 500cc, or traveling at much under 50mph.. when it's likely to simply do exactly the opposite of what you want, and do exactly what you'd expect; make you turn the wrong way!

In 'Real-Science' what perverse bar loading is doing, is exploit Newtons 3rd Law of motion... "Every action has an equal and opposite re-action".. so, if you put a force on your handlebars, to say turn left, the bike inherently 'reacts' with a force steering towards the right, tring to counter the force you have applied.... but, there's a 'delay' in the reaction.. for want of a better way to describe the complex chain of actions and reactions that happens, known cumulatively as 'Progression Effects'... BUT, net result IS... if you put a load on the bars the wrong way to the way you want to go.. bike 'reacts' to resist that change, but if you relax that force almost as soon as you have applied it.. bikes still trying to 'catch-up' and the reaction force comes along to 'help' steer the bike the way you really want to go.

It sort of 'destabilizes' the bike to over come the initial resistance to a steering input and can get the 'reaction' force to your steering input to sort of 'servo' the steering, making it easier / quicker to steer the way you do, by applying an initial FORCE in the opposite direction to steer, not an opposite movement.

NO you do NOT use it all the way through a turn.. you use it momentarily, at the very beginning, to get the turn started.. IF the bike needs it, and you want it, to turn that bit quicker.

It is, as said NOT the 'only' way to make a bike lean or steer, and it is far from essential in all situations.. its just one 'tool' of more advanced riding that MAY be helpful in some situations; and is significantly NOT that 'helpful' to riders of lightweight machines, and newer riders on them, other than to give them some very dangerous 'half' ideas...

If you want some more 'useful' suggestions; forget 'counter-steer'... try these;

1- DON'T turn your corner before you are IN your corner.....

2 - Ride for Sight

3 - In slow - Out Fast

Most people are far to eager to start steering, and turn in far too early, trying to take a much wider line through a bend, thinking that a wide line is a fast line.... it isn't. Take your time, don't RUSH the bends. Hold the bike upright, in a straight line, and slow down, RATHER than rushing to tip the bike over and take a wide line... head up, use that time, slowing in a straight, to LOOK as far through the bend as you can, and ride as DEEP into the bend as you can, before you 'commit' to it, and turn-in. Make the bend as SHORT and TIGHT as you can, not as wide and sweeping... extra time in the straight, and extra distance in the straight, means you will have seen more of the road through and possibly beyond the bend BEFORE you start turning; going in 'slower' will, make the bike 'easier' to turn and negate a lot of 'need' for 'quick' steering (hence making perverse bar loading less helpful); THEN making the turn as tight and short as you can, far FAR less chance that there will be anything to catch you unawares, the coner tightening up, the bike trying to run wide, etc, that needs you to make any change after you have committed to the turn... and you'll have got the turn over with, in shortest time.. so you can come out 'earlier' and faster... as well as having gone in 'safer' and more securely. Make it tight, make it tidy...

All elements of evolving a 'Predictive' riding style, rather than a 'reactive' one.. in which 'smooth' is the objective; avoiding sudden changes, and high 'dramatic' forces, that de-stabilise the bike, and make it more of a 'handful' to keep in check, while avoiding anything that might catch you by surprise.

Worry about THAT, getting the bike round the bend as neatly as you can, as smoothly as you can, as safely as you can... and at some point in the future, using conscious perverse bar loading to help make the bike steer a bit quicker, with a tad less effort might be useful, and might make a bit of sense... but till ten, far bigger fish to fry...

Trying to 'master' 'Code counter steer', is to my mind a cop out to good riding; it offers a 'one trick fix' to let folk 'get away' with not reading a road, not planning a bend, using the servo effect of code-counter-steer to simply work ten times harder constantly correcting stuff they did wrong to start with, and needn't have done, if they had JUST watched the fucking road, not the video!
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[Polarbear]

I was riding for20 years quite happily before I'd even heard of it. I wouldn't worry too much about it
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[Marclev]

[Val]

[CaNsA]

Most people in this thread should watch the videos I have linked to on the 1st page.

[Val]

[pja8]

Go to or watch Speedway on TV, I assume that is countersteering at its most visable.

Don't watch it much these days but back in the early 80's used to love going to Foxhall stadium to watch it.
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[rubyhorse2]

Arent you just over thinking things, just get on the bike and ride it.

[talkToTheHat]

Just find a bit of quiet road and practice. Short gentle pushes. There's a god chain of roundabouts not far from me that ive been using of late becasue really quiet at night and i can work on getting a good left right left direction change at a decent lean angle. Takes a more assertive shove, particularly with cruiser geometry.

Practice. I crashed. I hurt myself. As soon as i could hobble unaided i was on another bike chasing my list confidence. You won't find many cuddles here, so go and do the riding. If you have buddies that ride, take the slowest of them along with you.
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[techathy]

Can you ride a TT/Tri bicycle? If so, borrow one if needed, then get your self to a section of road that has lots of open sweeping corners & is slightly down hill. Ride down that road, keep pedalling (to defeat the in-side hand out-side foot balance mechanism) & concentrate on moving only the hand you need to steer onto the horns. This works even better if the bike has very long aero bars as you become more aware of the twist being inputted into the bars. While this won't help with you learning better motorbike handling skills directly it will give you a much needed illustration on the mechanics of steering a single track vehicle.

[SpencerJ]

Hi.

Sorry for jumping in on some-one else's thread.
Not really.

I've not been riding long, or done many miles, but would the info in this thread be applicable to riding a cg125?

Are the videos linked above useful?

Thanks.
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[Howling TerrorOutOfOffice]

Yes and yes.
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