Someone please explain counter-steering to me

[Sev]

The tire flattens out at the contact point. So that doesn't really hold true.

[MidSSouth]

Even if it flattens the overall diameter is still smaller than the 'bottom' of the tire.

[Skier]

don't worry about counter steering.

just look where you wanna go and you'll steer the right way w/o you realizing it... or at least that how it worked for me when i was learning the basics.

Perhaps this is why you took that spill....

As for countersteering, the most intuitive way to think about it for me is this:

When you're at speed, say, 25 MPH, you push the right hangrip. This points the front tire to the left, which causes the bottom of the bike to go to the left. The top, you, wants to keep going in the same direction, so the top of the bike leans to the right. Then the bike corrects itself so the front tire is going straight again, but the bike is leaned over so it moves to the right. Think of it in the same manner as an ice skater: when they're leaned over, the ice skates are pushing back against their legs, causing them to be pushed away from their legs. Your tires do the same thing.

Hopefully that helps explain it. Time to go party it up with some old friends!

[< I Fly >]

This isn't offended as offense, Cam, but how have you been riding without counter-steering?

I'm thinking you haven't.

I remember a while back I was riding along and because I'd been doing my high speed turns just by leaning and, like they said, looking where I want to go, I decided to see what the bike would do if I just pushed the handlebars as I went down the road at 35 mph.
Well oddly enough, I saw that as I swung them right, the bike leaned left and the lightbulb went off in my head.

Countersteering!

[Shiv]

Well actually you were turning the bike already with counter steering. You can't turn a bike by just leaning.

Like verm said, it's an intuitive thing that you don't notice that you're doing.

[camthepyro]

< I Fly >
PostPosted: Sat Apr 22, 2006 9:35 pm Post subject:
This isn't offended as offense, Cam, but how have you been riding without counter-steering?

I'm thinking you haven't.

I remember a while back I was riding along and because I'd been doing my high speed turns just by leaning and, like they said, looking where I want to go, I decided to see what the bike would do if I just pushed the handlebars as I went down the road at 35 mph.
Well oddly enough, I saw that as I swung them right, the bike leaned left and the lightbulb went off in my head.

Countersteering!

Correct, the only riding I've done is around my neighborhood at 20-30mph.

[Sev]

Actually, the whole reason people don't realise they are counter stearing is because the handlebars provide feeback through the turn, making it feel like pushing the incorrect handlebar out will turn you the opposite direction. Basically if you're at speed and trying to turn left and push out on the right handlebar the bike will fight you in turning left.

That's just the way it works, you might not even realise that you're turning the wheel in the opposite direction. Next time you're riding try forcing the turn. The bike just fights you the whole way.

[scan]

I don't remember ever thinking about counter-steering until after I was already doing it - so for me I conclude without the knowledge most of us would be doing it anyway. Then again, every season I hear of a few people driving off a curve or something. I wonder if we just need to hear about counter-steering so we don't fight what is natural. Our logic says right to go right, but if you push right your forcing the wheel left, so that makes no sense to the brain. It is explained so we don't fight what is natural - my guess.

[Kim]

Steering a motorcycle at low speeds is a straightforward process. The rider simply turns the handlebar in the direction he wishes to go. This only works at speeds below five miles an hour. If a motorcycle is traveling any faster, the rider must use a different kind of steering, known as counter-steering. This type of steering may seem counterintuitive. That's because motorcycle riders must push the handlebars to the left to make the vehicle turn right and vice versa.

Here's how it would work out on the street. Imagine that you're riding a motorcycle on the interstate. In front of you, blocking the right half of your lane, is a wreck or some other obstacle. If you're a novice rider, you might be tempted to push on the right side of the handlebar, thinking this will turn the bike to left. In reality, this will steer the bike to the right, directly into the obstacle. Instead, you should push on the left side of the handlebar, which directs the front wheel to the right but steers the vehicle to the left.

Ok, that quote was taken from the HowStuffWorks website. I really just don't get the concept of counter steering, or when it applies. It says you need to counter-steer when going faster the 5 mph, that just seems ridiculous, I was riding around the neighborhood at like 20-30 and I don't remember counter-steering (unless I did it intuitively, and didn't realize). So is this correct, or did they just get it wrong?

And either way, how do you counter-steer, and when should you do it?

If you were going 20-30 mph it was most likely instinctive, otherwise you would have gone the opposite direction that you intented to go...does that make sense?

The basic premise of countersteering is to push on the handlebar of the direction you want to go; push right, go right, push left, go left. I know it sounds a bit foreign at first, but you'll get the hang of it.

[yoda731]

This is based on the info in "Proficient Motorcycling" (at a very high-level). And it builds on what MidSSouth and Sevulturus each said earlier.

Per Sevulturus, the tire flattens out at the contact point. At slow speeds where the lean of the bike is negligible, tire behaves more or less like the doughnut-shaped object it is, and the flattened contact patch is essentially perpendicular to the frame of the bike.

At higher speeds, when the bike leans noticably, the tire still flattens out, but now the wheel is leaning at an angle. So the contact patch is no longer perpendicular to the frame of the bike, but is at an acute angle. That flattened contact patch is where the bike is shaped like a styrofoam coffee cup, and that flattened contact patch is constantly moving around the wheel as the bike moves forward (although it look stationary since it stays on the ground, it is moving around the wheel as the wheel spins...). Effectively the entire tire behaves like a rolling coffee cup when the bike is leaned at speed.

And, as we know, coffee cups don't roll straight, but rather roll around their small end.

Countersteering comes into play because, at speed, when you push on the right hand grip, the weight of the bike drops/moves towards the right, compressing the tire to the right as described above, causing the temporarily-coffee-cup-shaped-tire to roll to the right. And vice versa for the left.

Or at least that's how I understand the "Proficient Motorcycling" explanation...