Counter steering

[Vivo]

Counter steering....   The art of safe riding....

[de-dee]

safety counsel is starting to show us that, in the riding school, the first coarse I took 25 years ago did not,

[Vivo]

safety counsel is starting to show us that, in the riding school, the first coarse I took 25 years ago did not,

Right... even 10 years ago they don't teach this...

[Peters]

But... If I steer left the bike should go left 

Just kidding. As usual, awesome post Vivo.

Vivo For President!!! 

[Vivo]

[CosmoKorny]

I was taught countersteering in 1987 at my first MSF course in San Diego... about time the rest of the world catches up.   

To muddy the waters a bit, on the xc with the longer "cruiser" style rake you must pull the opposite handgrip to accomplish countersteering, i.e. while "pushing right to go right" at the same time pull the left handgrip.   

Great post, Vivo, with excellent illustrations!

[Vivo]

 

[Vivo]

Sorry, but the entire "counter-steering" nonsense should be exposed as just so much 2-wheel baloney.  The photos here show the extreme BS involved.  Counter-steering is a term to describe certain high-speed dynamics in high-powered superbikes.  The average rider should not even be thinking of this high-tech stupidness.  All it does is spread confusion amongst normally safe bikers going about their daily rides to and from work.  I suspect that some 2-wheel instructors may be trying to puff up their already overblown egos by shoving this crap onto unsuspecting riders.

Huh? I do this all the time especially at higher speeds... Do you ride? How do you steer? corner at 50 or 60mph?  Maybe you ride slooow because one cannot counter steer at 10 or 20 mph...

[houndguy]

It's sort of a hard concept to grasp.  I have to steer the opposite way???  It's just something you have to experience and experiment with. 

[Stig / Major Tom]

OK, just to clarify.....

In muddy water I push right to go right, pull right to go right and when you factor in high speed dynamics and slow speed stupidity and a couple slices of Overblown Baloney --- a simple fellow can get mighty confused. However, now I can explain clearly to Bernice why it is a 16 mile ride to my work place which is 3.5 miles distant. As a scooter rider I cannot turn left, or I am going too fast for the slow speed dynamics to kick in, or I have a touch too much rake, or not enough Baloney !

I make 43 rights, in increasingly wider arcs - until I see my boss standing on the sidewalk, OR I see a Tim Horton's donut shop!

[Peters]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersteering
http://www.wikihow.com/Countersteer-%28Motorcycle%29
http://www.cycleworld.com/2012/07/23/land-of-the-lost/

Experience?... ehhh maybe. To quote my second source there, "Anyone who has turned a motorcycle at anything above idle speed has used counter steering - you just don't realize you're doing it." My guess is lack of knowledge of basic riding techniques by some unnamed members. A little reading will do amazing things. But in the end, most US scooter, especially full size scooter, riders are extremely lacking riding techniques and etiquette. Lots of tree hugging, save the planet pus...., hippies if you ask me. The kind that use words like baloney.  Might piss some people off...  . What it boils down to is if you think you might not know what you're talking about, you probably don't.

[Calothrix]

Counter steering is very counter intuitive.  When the subject was first brought to my attention by an instructor in an MSF motorcycle safety class about 15 years ago, I thought that can't be right....you push on the left handlebar to go to the left?!  So, the next time I was on the motorcycle, I focused on which way I pushed/pulled the handlebars as I entered a turn....and by gosh, the instructor was right!  So, even though I was using counter steering all along, I was not conscious of it until the instructor described it.

[Vivo]

It's sort of a hard concept to grasp.  I have to steer the opposite way???  It's just something you have to experience and experiment with.

It's actually more of pushing the handlebar down....left down... right down...

It's a hard concept to grasp if you havent done or tried it.... really...

[johnson]

I first tried it on my 125 Cali.  A couple of fellow riders with BIG scooters said I needed to do it to keep up with them in some twisties they were going to show me.  I thought, "yeah right!", cause I could always go faster than they could in the slow twisties we'd been on up to that point during several group rides.  10"-12" wheels will let you do that flick through the turns thing and you can go faster than the big bikes.   So. . . push down left, go left, etc. etc.  Faster and faster we went and suddenly I was outside the city in nowheresville.  I had to keep up with them to get back to civilization.  And around 30 mph it started to sink in.  You can't turn your front wheel at that speed.  Whadduhido?  Lean and push on the handlebars to keep them from buckling.  The side diameter of the tires is smaller than the center of the tires.  So you turn.  That last part I looked up after I got home and changed shorts. 

When I got the PS250 with 16" wheels I had to relearn it cause 16" gyroscopes don't want to turn once they start spinning.    I went straight for 3 or 4 blocks before I could turn a corner at speed to get to the first group ride with the new bike.   An extra 120 lbs and 5" of wheelbase make a big difference in how you maneuver a scoot.   

[johnson]

This discussion is a mute point unless you're riding a 110cc + scoot.  If I get my Honda Metro up to 30 (at the top of it's curve) I can maybe counter steer on a corner but that's the only time.   I'd have to scrape the lower panels to counter steer slower than that.   And it'd probably just lay down midway through the turn.