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I was tooling around on my new bike today. It is an 05 GS500F. I tried to counter-steer. And it was really snappy. If I tried not to do it but to take the turns normal I was really smoothe. Is it biend very responsive or do i need to get used to the whole thing of conciously counter-steering.

I don't understand your question completely but you need to practice counter steering until it becomes a natural thing to do and does not require even thinking about it. Be aware however, that the practice only works at speeds above 5 or 10 MPH.... or at parking lot speeds. At those speeds handlebar steering is needed.

Whether you consciously do it or not, you are counter-steering when you take turns at speed.

It is good to get used to doing it consciously though, as that way in an emergency swerve situation, you will instinctively counter-steer to get the bike to react quickly. The conscious drilling will help to ingrain the action into your subconscious so that it becomes natural.

A couple months ago, I actually noticed that I had started to take my riding skills for granted and consciously went back to drilling myself on basic riding skills to build them back up to where they should be. I had gotten complacent, and that's not a good thing.

Drilling yourself on basic riding skills every so often is a great way to maintain your skills and keep yourself alert.

sounds like you pushed the bar too much when you tried to countersteer intentionally. It only takes a light touch to get the bike to lean over via countersteering.

A good practice for countersteering is to practice weaving using just the bars, keep your body upright and just weave back and forth. just give a very light push on the bar and the bike should lean over and turn, let up on the bar and the bike should come back up.

find an empy street, set up some cones

If you have a bicycle you can practice countersteering on that rather than crashing your motorcycle if something goes horribly wrong.

DieMonkeys wrote:If you have a bicycle you can practice countersteering on that rather than crashing your motorcycle if something goes horribly wrong.

So far I have only gotten my bike (pedal powered) to counter steer once. That was downhill with a hungry bobcat chasing me. Wouldnt wan anything to go wrong during those circumstances.

jmillheiser wrote:sounds like you pushed the bar too much when you tried to countersteer intentionally. It only takes a light touch to get the bike to lean over via countersteering.

A good practice for countersteering is to practice weaving using just the bars, keep your body upright and just weave back and forth. just give a very light push on the bar and the bike should lean over and turn, let up on the bar and the bike should come back up.

If I'm scanning him right, i think he means that purposelly counter steering, *pushing right to go right* feels alot more abrupt than just leaning to the right would. But they're right. practice practice practice.

Before I took the MSF course I didn't even know what counter-steering meant... however, I had been doing it unintentionally the whole time. One day I finally figured out what it was when I saw I was pushing the handle bars in the direction I was going. Then I tried doing it again intentionally and totally messed up. The amount of counter-steering to do needs to perfectly match the turn you're in... which is something my unconscious effort can figure out much better.

Sounds like you just shoved out a little too far on the bar. Try to smoothly press it out while looking where you want to end up. Ie. not at the ground, but around the corner and down the street. Bike should fall into line quite smoothly.