Tight cornering at below countersteer speeds?

[maxp]

Hi guys.

I know lots of people have different opinions on techniques for cornering, but this has been playing on my mind;

For the sake of discussion, lets say my bike will countersteer upto 10mph.

So, just below this threshold, when approaching a very tight bend, is the correct technique to steer the handlebars towards the corner, whilst shifting my weight to the inside of the corner?

I find it hard when approaching a slow corner to decide which way to steer (if that makes sense). I.e. at 15mph, i will be pushing the handlebar away from the corner and 8-9mph I will be pulling it, which given that these are totally opposite actions concerns me a bit.

Also, has anyone got any cornering books they can recommend? So far Im considering 'a twist of the wrist' and 'Total Control: High Performance Street Riding Techniques'

Thanks

[Pete.]

Below countersteer speeds?
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a.k.a 'Geri'

132.9mph off and walked away. Gear is good, gear is good, gear is very very good

[maxp]

[biker7]

The important thing at slow speeds is to keep on the throttle to help keep your balance a bit like your u turn. Roundabouts are good practice when the road is quiet. Hug the curve, stay on the throttle a bit and the steering should come naturally. As for the 'twist of the wrist' - you can start carrying too many do's and don'ts around. It's good but take bits of it, get it right and dip in to it again. If you are not careful you will get cornering overkill. Corner within your comfort zone and as your confidence grows you will be ready to master slightly more advanced skills. Most of all, try to arrive home thinking 'I rode well today' - you will become more confident and skilled in time - relax a bit and don't worry too much about what you should be doing. If the corner feels comfortable - you must be doing something right. All the best and remember, we are all learners, no matter how many years we have been riding!
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Swansea area
Fat Bob (2019)

[AyrshireBiker]

There is a transition speed where the bike will go from normal steering to countersteering. Messing about, I found on my bike it is about 20mph - 24mph. If you go round a fairly tight roundabout about 10 mph and gently accelerate to about 25 - 30 you will feel the bars pulling from steering to countersteering. This will give you an idea of this transition speed.

The bike will tell you what it needs... I honestly don't even give it a second thought... go by what the bike is telling you. Don't over think it.

[Sload]

You are overthinking it, if you want to turn right, then just turn right, whatever speed, you will do what's needed without excessive preplanned thinking
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Honda Varadero >> Triumph Speed Four >> Honda CBR1100xx

[Pete.]

[Hefty]

As a new rider the best thing I picked up from Twist of the Wrist was keeping the throttle open and steadily, slowly increasing it throughout the corner. My cornering instantly improved keeping that in mind.. Applies to very tight bends at low speeds as well.

There were a couple of corners on my commute to work that I used to dread. So I went out at 2-3am when the roads are quiet and just went round the block over and over, taking the same bends again and again until they became second nature.
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'13 Honda CBF125 // '99 Suzuki SV650s // '98 Honda CB600F Hornet

[Pigeon]

maxp, possibly when you push on the bar at slower speed, it turns the bar rather than tips the bike, just because your wheel speed is slower so the gyroscopic force is less.

At slower speeds you do tend to move the bar
eg to turn left, you pull the left bar towards you and push the right hand bar outwards.
But that tends to be really slow, as you say, sub 10mph manoeuvring around town / traffic.

[Slacker24seve...]

1. Your over thinking it. Just look where you want to go at slower speeds.

2. Don't buy Twist of The Wrist there's lots of copies out there and both the videos are widely available in full for free.
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Triumph Daytona 675 track bike + girlfriend's Honda Hornet 600
Selling a hack/winter bike for less than a grand? PM me.
Banger rallies are ace

[barrkel]

For very tight corners at low speeds (e.g. "corners" like U-turns) leaning the "wrong way"off the bike helps, as bikes can turn more tightly the more they're leaned into the corner, but you'd be going too slow for centrifugal force alone to be enough to keep the bike from falling over.

Countersteering[1] works at all speeds. If you start falling into a turn, even at 3mph, a bit of throttle will keep you up, because the handlebars are turned into the turn and the acceleration causes a countersteer effect to roll the bike upright. When you see people practicing slow riding - as slow as they can possibly get it - they often steer a bit madly as they hover on the point of losing their balance. The reason they're steering so much, even if they're not conscious of it, is because steering is directing the countersteer effect, even though they're almost stopped. When they start falling to the left, they steer to the left, etc.

[1] What I mean by countersteering is the way the roll angle a bike is at is primarily controlled by the torquing effect of the front wheel on the ground. Steer to the left and the bottom of the front wheel wants to move to the left, and this pull to the left from the bottom of the bike imparts a clockwise roll on the bike, looking at it from behind, and it rolls to the right; steer to the right, and the bike rolls anticlockwise, to the left.

This torque effect of steering is also the means by which "centrifugal force", the convenient fictional force, is imparted on the bike. If a bike isn't leaning in the direction of the turn, this force will cause the bike to roll all the way over and crash. So in order to turn on a bike, the bike needs to be rolled towards the centre of the turn.

Put these two together and you can see why you need to steer right a little bit to eventually turn left, and vice versa.

The roll angle a bike is at has a huge impact on getting around corners; (a) the angle has to balance the bike + rider's weight against the centrifugal force of the corner, and (b) as mentioned earlier, bikes have a smaller turning circle when they are leaned into a corner. (a) is important at higher speeds where the centrifugal force is large, while (b) is important at lower speeds where the turning circle is the priority. You can get a good fraction of the roll needed in (b) just from shifting your weight on a light bike, but countersteering is still faster.

Every morning I do a right-hand u-turn on my SH300 in a box about one car length wide and one car length deep. I do that by rolling the scooter underneath me while I lean away from the centre of the turn. I initiate the roll with countersteering (steering to the left), and then maintain throttle and steering (right) into the corner until the u-turn is finished, then use countersteering again (steering to the right) along with a bit more throttle to bring the scooter back upright. I don't wake up the ABS in this manoeuver, so I know I don't exceed 10kph (6mph).

But at the end of the day, most of the above is unconscious. You can't ride a bike at all without using countersteering; you already know about it in muscle memory. It's just that if you start analyzing something that's going wrong, you may start overthinking it with other bits of your body that don't actually know what's happening. If you continuously analyze what you do wrong, this stuff will sort itself out over time.

In other words, just ride more.
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Bikes: S1000R, SH350; Exes: Vity 125, PS125, YBR125, ER6f, VFR800, Brutale 920, CB600F, SH300x4
Best road ever ridden: www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2MhNxUEYtQ