Cornering on a Road Bike.

[Young Un]

have read all this thread a couple of times and still dont understnad what counterstearing is and how you do it.

someone help me lol

 

[dodgy]

Try this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersteering

Dave.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Countersteering is really quite intuitive - if you try to think about it too much you overdo it in my experience.

 

[bonj2]

like Joe says you need a very relaxed grip with a road bike, almost fingertip the opposite to off rioading I should imagine.
.If you grip tightly you'll prevent the bike making essential minute adjustments for bumps and surface irregularities.
Remember to choose your line through the corner well in advance and get into the correct position before you start entering the corner.
The last thing you want to do is make any sudden change in the steering whilst cornering or you will definitly come off ,especially in the wet.

Off road you have lots of room to go wide if you get your angle or speed wrong. On the road you'll be on the wrong side facing oncoming traffic.

Whilst your steering angle and speed and surface stay the same you are quite safe its when one of those factors change due to braking, steering, or change in surface that you run the risk of losing it as the `slip' angle of the tyre changes.

er... unless there's a rocky river 6 feet down, that you really don't want to end up in, or an even bigger drop off the side of a hillside...

It's a fascinating subject. Ask most people what happens when you turn the handlebars to the left they'll tell you that the bike will turn left. We do it so often that we don't think about it. What we actually do is turn the bars to the right to turn left. It's this dynamic which is the biggest hurdle people have when learning to ride on two wheels. To turn left we turn the bars to the right which moves our centre of gravity away from the centre line of the bike and we lean into the corner. It's called counter steering and the faster the corner/ tighter the bend the more we have to counter steer. Not enough counter steer will find us drifting to the outside of the bend, ultimately running out of road as your centre of gravity moves back towards the bike, known to motorcyclists as 'highsiding'. Really understanding the dynamics of counter steering is the key to fast cornering and the ability (and courage) to apply more in a corner the sign of a great bike handler.

i thought 'highsiding' was when the back wheel drifted out, skidding, until a certain point when it suddenly regained grip and 'flips' the rider off?

It's easy to demonstrate the principle, with a clear space and at a moderate speed push on one side of the bars. push on the left grip, you'll move to the left. Do the same in a corner and your turn radius will tighten up.

The thing is, it sounds counter-intuitive that you push on the left bar to turn left, but you're actually pushing it DOWN, rather than forwards.

 

[bonj2]

where's jacomus these days when a thread like this crops up...he knows quite a lot about such matters

 

[mickle]

When you turn the bars in the opposite direction, it tips the bike onto the edge of the tyre. This reduces the rolling radius of the wheel and that pulls you back in the opposite direction.

Utter utter bollocks.

 

[mickle]

have read all this thread a couple of times and still dont understnad what counterstearing is and how you do it.

The fact is Young Un you already do it. You can't ride a bike without it.

 

[Nick1979]

The wikipedia article pointed earlier has a good point: it's not necessary to know how to do it because you do it instinctively anyway! But it's very useful to KNOW you do it to avoid silly accidents (when riding in a peloton and trying to steer away from the wheel of the guy in front of you for example!).

 

[LLB]

Utter utter bollocks.

Feel free to substantiate.........

 

[John the Monkey]

A degree of consciously employing the technique does seem to help though - a corner I regularly have to swing fairly wide on was done much tighter yesterday, fwiw...

Bonj, as far as I know Jacomus is over on YACF these days.

 

[LLB]

Or another explaination.....

http://www.msgroup.org/tip.aspx?num=048

 

[Smokin Joe]

Countersteering is really quite intuitive - if you try to think about it too much you overdo it in my experience.

Spot on. The first time you ever banked into a corner on a bike you countersteered, you didn't have to use any input because the bike did it for you. If you had the nerve to go round a corner with your hands off the bars the bike would countersteer on it's own - if you doubt me watch a radio controlled model motorcycle lean into a bend, it countersteers itself.

Many so called advanced motorcycle trainers make money by "Teaching" people to countersteer. All they are proving is that they don't understand it themselves, they are just quoting the latest fad from a book. Barry Sheene and Eddy Merckx had probably never heard the term, but they never had any trouble getting round a corner quickly.

 

[LLB]

Tried the counter steering today. Got more confident with it and started to push it abit more. Feels really weird, but could see how it works. Unfortunatly, i didnt do one of the faster courners doing it as it was a red light, might try that tomorrow.

Make sure you are looking to where you want to be rather than anywhere directly in front of you as you ride through the corner, it will give you a lot more confidence, and will allow you to steer the line of your choice without any wobbles!

 

[LLB]

Spot on. The first time you ever banked into a corner on a bike you countersteered, you didn't have to use any input because the bike did it for you. If you had the nerve to go round a corner with your hands off the bars the bike would countersteer on it's own - if you doubt me watch a radio controlled model motorcycle lean into a bend, it countersteers itself.

Many so called advanced motorcycle trainers make money by "Teaching" people to countersteer. All they are proving is that they don't understand it themselves, they are just quoting the latest fad from a book. Barry Sheene and Eddy Merckx had probably never heard the term, but they never had any trouble getting round a corner quickly.

If you can rig up a dummy set of bars to hang onto which aren't connected to the front wheel, why not try it.

better still, watch this if you think that you can steer a bike without any input on the bars. It is called the 'no bullshit bike'

Courtesy of the California superbike school who teach riders to actually get the bike to go in the direction they desire.

 

[Young Un]

im confused still

so is it basically just lean the bike over and you will turn??