As already stated, you countersteer to basically throw your balance off on purpose. This sets your lean angle. Next, whether you realize your doing it or not, you turn the front wheel INTO the turn. You turning the wheel into the turn is what actually makes the bike turn. If you did not do this you would keep leaning the bike until it fell over. Turning the wheel into the turn serves 2 functions. First, it enables you to hold the bike at whichever lean angle you desire by turning sharper(righting yourself) or by turning less(more lean). Second, a byproduct of holding your lean angle is change of direction.
If you want to see it for yourself, walk alongside your bike with the front wheel straight, then lean the bike over. It will continue to go straight even though it is leaning. Next, go to a parking lot or somewhere else safe and do some slow controlled circles(riding the bike). The slower your speed, the more the wheel will be turned and the least amount of lean you will have. This is because there are hardly any g-forces to through you off balance into a high side. The faster you try to go around that circle, the less you will have to turn bars to the inside, but you will have to lean more. This is because the g-forces are higher to make you highside so you need to lean farther inside. The reason you dont have to turn the bars to far off center at speed is because you have a greater lean angle at higher speeds than when you went around that slow circle. When your bike leans and you turn the bars, the clock position of the tire where it contacts the ground changes. Example: Think of your front wheel as a clock looking at it from the left side. Top is 12, front is 9, rear is 3, and where it contacts the ground is 6. When in a lean going around a corner the point at which the tire contacts the ground has moved to about 7 o clock. Now, since a tire is round, and its contact patch is more forward as your leaning, your bike wants to follow the curve of the tire. Im sorry I know this is hard to understand from reading this. Its better demonstrated. To see for your self, stand your bike straight up. Mark the tire where it touches the ground. Then have someone lean the bike over as far as safely possibble with the bars slight turned inside. Now mark again where the tire touches the ground. You will notice it is farther forward even though the bike has not rolled(becasue your buddy was holding the brake the whole time). Now if you take a good look at the contact patch on your hands and knees at this new spot with the bike still leaning and bars turned, you will see that part of the tire is actually facing farther into the turn than the 6 oclock position due to the roundness of the tire.
To answer the last post, the reason your bars want to turn inside is due to the caster angle of your forks(alignment). The closer this angle is to 0 (forks straight up and down), the harder the bars will want to turn inside. The greater the angle(like a chopper), the more the bars will want to stay straight. Higher caster angles are good for high speed stability, but hurt turning(why choppers cant turn). Lower angles turn better, but sacrifice high speed stability. This is why racers adjust how far the forks come through the trippleclamp for different tracks, it adjusts the casterangle. You should not let your bike due whatever it wants. YOU are the one in control of it. Most sportbikes will drive themselves around a corner after you set the lean due to their alignment setup and the gyro affect of the wheels spinning which i wont get into right now unless asked. If you have a bike that is more for cruising than the track, the bars will want to turn more than they should. My roomate has a Buell Lightning and his does this. When I ride it around a corner, I have to actually keep pressure on the inside bar all the way through the turn to keep the bars from cutting to the inside and highsiding(this might be what happened to you). When I ride my gixxer, I can go around a corner without any hands whatsoever. All I do is lean and the bike drives itself through the corner. Just boils down to alignment.
Bottom line, all bikes are different. You know how far you should be turning the bars to stay at a certain lean angle. If the bike wants to go past it, dont let it. What I did to practice countersteering was finding a barron road with passing lane stripes painted in the middle, and weave in and out of each one. In notime you will notice you can go faster and faster and not touch the lines. I am at a point where I can go about 60 and not touch the stripes. Of course my bike probably looks like a paint shaker from behind flicking back and forth so fast. For safety's sake do this with no cars around. Desert road or dead end. Once you get comfortable doing this you shouldn't even have to think about countersteering when going around a corner. It might be better that you dont anyway. I know it messes me up. Make it a natural thing, then when you going around a corner, do whats natural and your wont even have to think about it.
Sorry so long guys.
Happy riding!
Ken
