Oh I have so done that one ..lol ... I had a small Suzuki A100 when I was 17 and my lace was around gear lever ... I had already started to lean that way ... it was too late ... yes it really hurt ..lol

Jules

 

now that ive read this, i find myself overanalyzing it when cornering. im paying too much attention to somthing ive done subconsiously for year....its wild

 

Oh ... sigh .. I was waiting for someone to say this ..lol .. don't over analyze it ... just be aware and practice, practice practice :-)

Jules

 

Thanks for this, I just started riding and this is going to help me out a lot

 

:-) :-) :-)


Jules

 

The wayI remembered what to do before it felt natural is "push on the side you want to turn towards"

IE - If you want to go right - push on the right bar, if you want to go left - push on the left bar

And YES - it has saved my *** a few times too

 

You can look at it anyway you like so long as you are "aware" of it... that's all that really counts here .. for myself I naturally just counter steer by applying the force evenly to both bars ... and yes the whole point of this post is to try and save asses :-)

Jules

 

I try to use countersteering in very corner I can. The bike leans itself. I've been doign this for years as well and for those that commented that it feels like you're thinking about it too much, it will come natually as long as you keep doing it in the beginning

 

I have a quick question...like I said I'm new to riding. When you come up to say, a stop sign...and take a 90 degree turn to the right, do you counter steer since you're not exactly going that fast? I feel like an idiot asking but I feel i have to since just paid 4,000 bucks for this beautiful machine and I really don't want to mess it up :-P

 

Please don't ever feel silly asking me any questions about this stuff ... I know it can sound confusing and the science of cornering is complicated and an exact one.

It's like if you describe how to drive a car ... it sounds more complex than actually just getting in and driving ..

At low speed a bike handles differently to how it does at high speed ... we can define low speed as sub 20mph here .. so if you are actually stationary and pull out of a turn to go right you will simply steer or turn the bars to the right and very noticeably so too ..there are no gyroscopic effects at these speeds and you are balancing the bike yourself ..

It's when you are over say 15-20 mph that there is a natural switch over between normal turn to steer and counter steering ... once the wheels are at a certain speed the gyroscopic effects start to take over ... so we can safely assume that by 30 - 40 mph you are using pure counter steering to turn your bike ... the gyroscopic effects are what help to keep a bike upright at speed too .. this is why you can take your hands off the bars and the bike continues to track straight ahead ... get a bicycle wheel and speed it up really fast and hold the spindle between your fingers to feel this effect ..also this is a good way of demonstrating counter steering to yourself .. try turning the spindle to the right and feel a force push the wheel to lean left ...

Another point to make which has been said earlier I am sure is that once you have counter steered into a bend and the bike is now leaning over you do not continue to apply force to the bars .. once you are at the desired lean you relax on the bars and let the bike track naturally around the bend.

A pointer set up demonstrates this well and once in the lean mode you will see the bars are in fact steering slightly into the bend and not as some people think that the bars are dead straight and it is the lean causing the turn ... the lean is just a result ..

Jules




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