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Article On Countersteering


Crafty

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Good point about your video. In that case the steering force was hard enough to steer the wheel out from under the bike. So now explain how progressively harder steering force produces progressively greater countersteering turning even after the turn is initiated.

Let me make a couple of distinctions to keep the discussion as clear as possible. Pressing the inside bar harder makes the bike change lean angle faster. Pressing the inside bar farther produces a greater change in the bike's lean angle. Applying that to your request above, I would restate the request: "So now explain how pressing the bar farther produces greater lean angle even after the turn is initiated." That's the request I'll answer and if I've misunderstood you, I trust you'll say so.

 

I'm still kind of asking you to take this on faith, but here's my assertion: A motorcycle changes its lean angle to the opposite direction the rider steers the tires. The lean angle change results when there is a change in the lateral relationship between the path the contact patches are following and the path the bike's center of mass (CoM) is following. If the motorcycle is already leaned into a righthand turn and you want to make it lean more, you steer the front tire to the left. The tires take a path that diverges from the path the CoM is on, which is another way of saying that you're steering the tires farther out from under the CoM. The bike leans over more.

 

Here's a little bit of a whacky example, but if you were to try it (and were really coordinated), very similar principles would apply. Let's say you're walking straight ahead and balancing an eight foot pole vertically in the palm of your left hand. Your hand is directly in front of your shoulder. You decide to turn gradually to the right. As you began to turn, you would need to move the hand you're balancing the pole on a little to the left to keep it in balance. This is an exact analogy to steering the tires of a motorcycle left to initiate a lean angle change to the right.

 

Let's now say you want to tighten the righthand arc you're walking on. As you tighten the arc, you must move your hand a bit more to the left to keep the pole in balance.

 

Now you want to walk straight again. As you straighten out your path, you must now move your hand to the right to restore the pole to vertical.

 

All of these hand movements are similar to the lateral movements of your tires in relation to your motorcycle's CoM as you enter and exit turns. In the walking example above, your body provides a fixed reference from which you can more easily tell that you are moving your hand in and out. When you are riding or watching someone else ride, there is no similar reference, which makes the observation so much more difficult.

 

Referring back to the video you saw of the guy countersteering abruptly, we can see that the bike rolls around a point somewhere above the tires as the tires swerve to the left. It's easy enough to observe this when the rider turns the bike quickly but it's more difficult to observe when the rider turns the bike slowly. When turning slowly, the bike will begin to enter an arc the instant it goes off vertical, even though the rider is still adding lean angle. Since the bike begins to turn, it's not as easy to observe the point around which the bike rolls over and it's also not as easy to see the tires veer out from under the bike's CoM. The faster a rider steers the bike, the better you can see the tires moving laterally to the outside of the CoM's path of travel because there is more movement over a given period of time. Here's my thinking on that:

 

Let's say the turn above is a 60 mph corner. At that speed the bike is covering 88 feet per second. The rider is about to steer the bike to a 35 degree lean angle. The height of the CoM of the rider and the bike is 21 inches, so this means the tires would need to deflect out from under the CoM a total of 12 inches during the time it takes the rider to steer. Note that this does not mean the tires will move 12 inches to the right before the bike ever begins to turn left, as the bike will bend into the arc the instant it leans over. However, if you're looking at the bike head on at the turn entrance, you might see the tires veer to the outside of the turn as the rider initiates countersteering, as we did in that video clip.

 

Two Scenarios

 

Scenario 1: If the rider takes 2.5 seconds to lean the bike from vertical to 35 degrees, he will cover 220 feet before he reaches full lean and in the first 20 feet of travel the front tire will deflect 1.1 inches to the outside of the bike's CoM. In this first twenty feet, the rider has achieved only about 3 degrees of lean angle and the bike has barely entered an arc. If you look closely, you might detect the tires veering to the outside of the turn, but the amount of movement would be very small. Once the bike did bend into the turn, observing the tires veering outside the current path of travel of the bike's CoM is much harder because your viewing angle changes.

 

Scenario 2: If the rider takes three quarters of a second to lean the bike from vertical to 35 degrees, he will cover 66 feet before he reaches full lean and in the first 20 feet of travel the front tire will deflect 3.7 inches to the outside. In this first twenty feet, the rider will achieve 11 degrees of lean angle and the bike will turn into the arc more quickly. You should be able to detect the tires veering to the outside of the turn, as they should visibly move at least three inches to the outside, even taking into account that the bike will begin to turn.

 

I had previously said:

 

Tim, Cobie was making the point that to catch a fall to the right, you steer the front wheel farther to the right to make the bike stand up. That is definitely an example of countersteering.

You replied:

 

I completely understand the first sentence. I totally disagree with the second sentence. In this case you wanted to steer to the right so you turned the wheel to the right. If countersteering you would have applied force to turn the wheel to the left.

Here is our disconnect: In the example of trying to catch a fall to the right, I am already in a right turn and find that I am leaning too far. By steering into the turn, I am not attempting to negotiate a right turn, I am attempting to produce a lean angle change to the left of where I am right now. If I am at 35 degrees to the right and feel like I'm about to fall into the turn, I may want to bring the bike to 25 degrees right, for a net change of 10 degrees left. Turning the front wheel to the right will accomplish that. That is countersteering.

 

You're trying to make the point that you countersteer at all speeds. I'm arguing that you don't countersteer at slow speeds, but that when the speeds increase then gyroscopic precession comes into play and countersteering rules. There's a transition zone also, such as parking lot speeds.

If the bike is moving forward, countersteering will work. Despite that statement, we are closer to agreeing than not on this point, at least if we can leave precession out of it for the moment. At parking lot speeds, you can initiate lean with upper body movement and then maintain balance by steering into the turn. You could also countersteer.

 

The reason I belabor this point is that if you believe there is a speed below which countersteering does not work, it presents you with the problem of knowing what speed that is. It can result in confusion over which way to turn the bars in an emergency.

 

I'm not gonna tell you that you must countersteer at five MPH, but I will insist that you can.

 

I'll be convinced that you're right and I'm wrong when I see if a bike countersteers at speed with no precession, such as with the counter-rotating rotors. The rotors would have to have the same angular momentum as the wheel to eliminate precession, as well as being in the same plane and on the same axis.

This isn't a counter-rotating rotor, but how about video of a single track snow vehicle with a front ski? No precession in play here:

 

At the 10 second mark, there is a head-on shot that shows the rider steer the ski to rider's right, which snaps the bike over to rider's left. You may have to advance this frame by frame to see it.

 

As an aside, I want one of these things!

 

What do you think?

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Here is our disconnect: In the example of trying to catch a fall to the right, I am already in a right turn and find that I am leaning too far. By steering into the turn, I am not attempting to negotiate a right turn, I am attempting to produce a lean angle change to the left of where I am right now. If I am at 35 degrees to the right and feel like I'm about to fall into the turn, I may want to bring the bike to 25 degrees right, for a net change of 10 degrees left. Turning the front wheel to the right will accomplish that. That is countersteering.

If we define countersteering as applying a turning force opposite the direction we want the bike to tuirn, then applying a turning force to the right to make the bike go further to the right is not countersteering. The fact that you wanted the bike to turn harder to the right to cause a lean to the left is irrelelevent to the discussion. In your case you applied turning force in the same direction you wanted the bike to turn. I don't see what difference it makes why you wanted it to turn.

 

I watched the video several times and was not convinced either way.

 

Can one of those things be ridden by countersteering? In other words can steering at speed be accomplished solely by pushing on the handlbar in the direction you want the thing to steer. I will be surprised if the answer is yes, and will re-consider my countersteering opinion.

 

Once we get this settled, I guess we can start on global warming and evolution. <_<

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I watched the video several times and was not convinced either way.

 

Can one of those things be ridden by countersteering? In other words can steering at speed be accomplished solely by pushing on the handlbar in the direction you want the thing to steer. I will be surprised if the answer is yes, and will re-consider my countersteering opinion.

 

Here is a single frame from just after the 10 second mark where the rider is in the process of steering the bike to rider's left. Note the ski tip pointing to rider's right, as well as the angle of the lower triple clamp in relation to the body of the bike. I have placed a red circle around a small black vertical feature sticking out of the top of the ski. That feature is a grab loop, which can be found in the center of most snowmobile skis. The ski is pointing to the rider's right.

post-6-1168056436_thumb.jpg

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If we define countersteering as applying a turning force opposite the direction we want the bike to tuirn, then applying a turning force to the right to make the bike go further to the right is not countersteering. The fact that you wanted the bike to turn harder to the right to cause a lean to the left is irrelelevent to the discussion.

I define countersteering as turning the front wheel the opposite direction of a lean angle change that I want to cause in the bike. My definition and yours above are not the same.

 

Also, by steering the bike's front wheel to the right, I am not making a tighter right turn, I am relaxing the lean angle so it's more appropriate for the arc I'm already on.

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When I start googling the subject of countersteering I find that Wikepedia seems to agree with you, while some other sites agree with me. I for now remain loyal to myself.

 

We can't even agree on the definition. Doesn't seem to be much point in debating further?

 

One more comment on slow speed turning, however. The following comment addresses how turning the wheel to the right will cause the bike to lean to the right, because the front contact patch will have moved to the left. Also, if you haven't already noticed, the rake of the front wheel actually leans the front wheel in the direction of turn relative to the plane of the rear wheel and the rest of the bike.

 

If you sight along the rake of the front wheel it intersects the ground at an point somewhere in front of the contact patch and remains in a plane with the rear wheel no matter which way or how much the front is turned. It's the contact patch that moves. When the bike is going straight ahead with no lean and the handlebars are turned to the right, that moves the contact patch to the left and the bike is now tending to fall to the right, the wheel is already turned to the right to allow centrifugal force to compensate and everything is happy. That's not countersteering.

 

Why am I the only one arguing that precession is the driving force? Could I be wrong? NAH!!!!!

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We can't even agree on the definition. Doesn't seem to be much point in debating further?

 

Why am I the only one arguing that precession is the driving force? Could I be wrong? NAH!!!!!

 

On the definition of countersteering it does sound like we have a logjam. Here's a related question: When the bike is leaned over and you need to quickly stand it back up to vertical, how do you do that?

 

I'm curious given your current view how you decide whether to countersteer or not. At what speed does countersteering begin to work?

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If a bike leans over, it counter-steered to get there.

 

If I try to turn without leaning (at very slow speeds) I find myself wobbling around trying to stay upright and balanced and feel constantly in danger of falling because the bike wants to lean over or counter-steer to a lean angle and I don't feel like the bike is going fast enough to balance or carve at lean.

 

In my mind, the concept of non-counter-steered turning at slow speeds is a misnomer as you chase the balance point around trying to turn without leaning.

 

So, how do you define "turning"? For all practical purposes and, in my opinion strictly speaking, it only happens byleaning, hence by countersteering.

 

Cheers.

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I'm going through a step by step turn at low speed to illustrate and maybe prove that you don't countersteer at slow speeds. You can obfuscate the issue all sorts of ways by claiming the need to steer opposite the desired turn to induce the required lean and call that countersteering, but please go through these points and tell me where I'm wrong.

 

1. The bike is balanced and going straight ahead at slow speed. I want to turn right.

 

2. I pull on the right handlebar to steer right.

 

3. The wheel turns right thus allowing the rake/trail to move the contact patch to the left. This induces a force at the contact patch to the left and the push to the left causes the front wheel to go right. Similar to an ice skater pushing off to the left to make a right turn.

 

4. The wheel steering turn also causes a slight lean to the right in the front wheel due to the rake of the front forks.

 

Conclusion: The steering input caused the front wheel to turn right, displaced the front wheel to the right by moving the contact patch left, and leaned the front wheel to the right and is now steering to the right. I think this completes the turn initiation.

 

A bike with no rake or trail will not handle this way and would have to be balanced and turned by just moving the cg around.

 

Refute these points for a bike with rake and trail (with the rear wheel fixed in a vertical plane for reference)

 

a. A right turn moves the contact patch to the left

b. A right turn leans the front wheel to the right

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Tim--just to clear this up, what is your understanding on how you steer a motorycycle, from the practical standpoint, what do you do. Lets say at 30 mph.

 

Cobie

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Tim,

 

You are wrong on point number two.

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As Andy pointed out, what happens when going very slow, motorcycle or bicycle, and one starts to fall/lean to the right? The correction is pushing forward on the left bar to catch the fall. In other words, countersteering was used to change the direction/lean of the bike.

 

 

I think you need to think about that one again. Fall to the right and steer to the right by pushing on the left bar. Thats the opposite of countersteering. You were falling to the right so you steered farther into the right to correct, allbeit to make the bike fall back to the left. You're steering in the direction you want the bike to go. Countersteering is steering force applied in the opposite direction.

 

Again you must think of the steering as to where the wheel needs to be pointed to keep the balance as the new center when moving slowly, and not the true center of the wheel being straight ahead.

 

with the bike falling to the right as cobie pointed out a counter steering to the left has already occured and now to chase the balance and catch the bike a counter steering input to the right would be reqired, going past the point that would balance the bike in the arc is where counter steering starts not past where the front wheel is centered but far past it.

 

The balance point is the center of steering when going slow, no matter how far off the True center of steering (wheel pointed straght ahead).

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1. The bike is balanced and going straight ahead at slow speed. I want to turn right.

 

2. I pull on the right handlebar to steer right.

 

 

Conclusion: The steering input caused the front wheel to turn right, displaced the front wheel to the right by moving the contact patch left, and leaned the front wheel to the right and is now steering to the right. I think this completes the turn initiation.

 

A bike with no rake or trail will not handle this way and would have to be balanced and turned by just moving the cg around.

 

Refute these points for a bike with rake and trail (with the rear wheel fixed in a vertical plane for reference)

 

a. A right turn moves the contact patch to the left

b. A right turn leans the front wheel to the right

 

 

Tim please go get your bike and get it going in a 10' diameter circle to the right at about three MPH. Now you will have a few degrees of lean and the steering turned to the right keeping the bike balanced.

 

 

First question is what would you do stand the bike up out of the arc?

 

Answer; turn the bars more to the right and it will stand up.

 

Second Question; why would this not work in reverse?

 

Third question is what would you do to tighten the arc?

 

Answer; turn left.

 

This is completely demonstrable and it goes to tracking, you are either steering the front wheel out from under the bike or back under it.

 

This point is why the snow track works with counter steering; you are simply driving the contact patch out from under the ski. Very interestingly they simply put a wheel on the front and it worked just like a bike? The wet bike worked the same way, it is also the reason I suck at Jet Ski’s THEY DO NOT COUNTER STEER. They go the way you point them and I will ride one until I get tired of picking myself out of the water.

 

I understand what you are saying but I simply do not agree that anything less than the action of driving (forward motion) the wheel from one side of the balance to the other is what creates lean angle or manages it.

 

Will

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I'm going through a step by step turn at low speed to illustrate and maybe prove that you don't countersteer at slow speeds. You can obfuscate the issue all sorts of ways by claiming the need to steer opposite the desired turn to induce the required lean and call that countersteering, but please go through these points and tell me where I'm wrong.

 

1. The bike is balanced and going straight ahead at slow speed. I want to turn right.

 

2. I pull on the right handlebar to steer right.

I won't obfuscate the issue. If you do these two things and ONLY these two things, your bike will lean left. Period.

 

Try it. Sit perfectly still on the bike as you do it.

 

 

 

I should stop right here to avoid tangents that make this more confusing than it is. You asked me direct questions though and I'll respond.

 

3. The wheel turns right thus allowing the rake/trail to move the contact patch to the left. This induces a force at the contact patch to the left and the push to the left causes the front wheel to go right. Similar to an ice skater pushing off to the left to make a right turn.

The other thing that makes the wheel go right is it's pointed to the right and it's rolling. If it has traction, it's gonna go right. I'm not disputing that the wheel will go right; I'm disputing what the rest of the bike will do in response.

 

4. The wheel steering turn also causes a slight lean to the right in the front wheel due to the rake of the front forks.

 

That is true, the wheel does lean slightly right. It doesn't mean the *bike* also leans.

 

Conclusion: The steering input caused the front wheel to turn right, displaced the front wheel to the right by moving the contact patch left, and leaned the front wheel to the right and is now steering to the right. I think this completes the turn initiation.

 

In this narrative, you have not indicated when the bike itself leans. You have accounted for changing the direction the front tire is going, but are drawing a wrong conclusion about what the bike itself will do in reaction to that.

 

If you literally did ONLY the things you have written above, your front tire would veer right and your motorcycle would lean left. If your motorcycle is leaning right, you are doing something other than what you've written here.

 

A bike with no rake or trail will not handle this way and would have to be balanced and turned by just moving the cg around.

The front wheel of a bike with no rake or trail would have no tendency to center itself on the path of travel and would be miserably hard to control. But if you could control it, such a contraption would also countersteer.

 

Refute these points for a bike with rake and trail (with the rear wheel fixed in a vertical plane for reference)

 

a. A right turn moves the contact patch to the left

b. A right turn leans the front wheel to the right

No need to refute these things; they are true. The statements stop short of describing what the motorcycle does in response.

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Turning the handlebar to the right moves the contact patch left. This moves the cg of the bike to the right of the line between the two contact patches, causing the bike to lean right. If this is done slowly, the bike should (I'm not too sure now?) keep turning right. If done quickly the right turn will definately cause the bike to lean left and that will have to be corrected and a compensating turn to the left will be required.

 

My point is that at slow speed, inputting a right turn to the handlebar makes the bike turn right and that at high speed inputting a right turn to the handlebar makes the bike turn left. Restating, at slow speed the bike responds directly and immediately to your input and at high speed the bike responds exactly oppositely and immediately to your input.

 

I agree that slow speed maneuvering is a balancing act and you have to induce the bike to lean in the direction of the desired turn.

 

Your points are all well taken and I dont have time or daylight to experiment now, but in a few days I'm going to go out and apply what I stated above.

 

We may be close to agreeing on everything except the definition of countersteering. I may be wrong about the slow speed slowly induced turn and will be happy to admit that after I get a chance to try it again.

 

In the words of 'whats his name' , "I'll be back".

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Tim,

 

You are wrong on point number two.

 

The bars do of course move right, but the bike leans left, as soon as the bars are relaeased it will stay at that angle and go through the turn. If the bars aren't released, the bike will keep leaning.

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We may be close to agreeing on everything except the definition of countersteering. I may be wrong about the slow speed slowly induced turn and will be happy to admit that after I get a chance to try it again.

 

In the words of 'whats his name' , "I'll be back".

 

Excellent. Not everyone is willing to do the experimenting. I did my own on a bicycle a few years back, that's when countersteering came to light for me. Letting go of the bars, leaning hard right, the first thing that happened was the bars countersteered (turned left). Intesting thing was, while going around a right turn, I couldn't turn sharp enough, and had to reach down and countersteer more, as I was going to hit the oppostite curb.

 

Let us know what you get!

 

Best,

Cobie

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Hey Tim,

 

I got timed out at the library yesterday before I could elaborate on my last post.

 

I would suggest that you cannot accurately analyze or fully understand a dynamic process like steering a motorcycle by referring to static pictures of rake/trail and contact patches in your mind.

 

That said, consider the forward motion of the two wheeled vehicle. Whether one wishes to think of it as the front wheel being steered out from under the machine and the bike "falling" in due to gravity or forward momentum carrying the bike over or even a combination of gravity and forward momentum...

 

the bike will fall to the left when you pull on the right handlebar steering the front wheel to the right.

 

Definitely go do it. There is nothing like the real thing. Naming isn't knowing. Intellectualizing will not help you to truly "grok" the reality of countersteering...

 

 

Cheers,

R

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To continue, elaborate, expand and hopefully clarify...

 

The forces involved with steering a bike feel the same to me as steering a car or any other vehicle with two or four wheels.

 

As passengers, we're all familiar with being pushed up against the car door or against the person next to us when a driver corners at high speed. If I steer my car to the right, the car's and passenger's weight attempt to continue in a straight line and we feel "pulled" toward the outside of the corner (or to the left). This feeling of being pulled toward the outside of the corner is known as a centrifical or centrifugal effect and is sometimes called lateral g force.

 

The car will also tilt or lean toward the outside of the corner (left). However, with four wheels and a wider wheel base, the car is a fairly stable platform and tends to track in the same direction as the initial steering input through a corner. It requires a high degree of force to completely roll a car over but it can be done and is done by many drivers everyday. A top heavy vehicle like a van will roll over even easier. If you could balance the "rolled" or "tilted" vehicle on two wheels you would lean and countersteer just like a bike. In fact a skilled stunt driver can do exactly that in a car.

 

To say it directly, a two wheeled vehicle such as a motorcycle is an inherently unstable platform that doesn't take much force to tip or roll from vertical. Any steering input will create lateral g or angular acceleration (just like the car) causing the bike to lean, tilt or fall in the opposite direction as it doesn't have another set of wheels to hold it up (like the car).

 

At very slow speeds, the forward momentum and, hence, the lateral g force, is small enough that a rider can compensate with his/her weight (distribution) to stabilize the bike and prevent it from tipping in the opposite direction from the initial steering input ... thereby causing or allowing the bike to continue tracking in the direction of the initial input.

 

But make no mistake...a slow moving bike will indeed countersteer and fall the opposite direction if a rider doesn't compensate. AND...that same slow forward momentum and, hence, lack of lateral g force, might not be enough to balance against gravity and maintain a lean angle. Boom.

 

Questions?

 

R

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Nice avatar! Anyway, I learned something from you article! I never thought about the two different size radiuses forming a cone! Very nice, and your video serves well to back up your statements. Personally, I don't counter-steer as aggressively as you video shows...I am a very smooth, fluid rider. Was your video 'over-acted' for demonstration purposes? Thanks.

 

Can some of you clever people help out with this article I wrote. It is based on lots of research from books and all over the net, but I still don't have the confidence that it is 100% correct. It is based on the camber on the actual wheel. Using the cone/paper cup symbology to explain. Some reckon that with counter steering you form a camber between the front wheel and back? Can any one help me out with this?

The Original article can be found at http://www.my2wheels.co.za/index.php?optio...=1&Itemid=6

 

Thank you in advance!

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I'm back.

 

I rode my bike around at walking speed to experiment with countersteering at slow speed. I found that whenever I applied force to turn the handlebars right, the bike steered to the right. That's the opposite of countersteering, which would have caused the bike to steer left. Obviously, at slow speed, you have to maintain the balance of the bike with body weight shift. If you turn hard to the right the bike will fall to the left, but if you turn slowly to the right and maintain balance, only force to turn the handlebars to the right is required.

 

I can't agree with the definition that steering the bike toward the c.g. to maintain balance is countersteering, when in fact you are actually applying force to turn the wheel in the direction you want the wheel to turn.

 

So I now bid a fond adieu to this discussion. I feel like the one juror who hung the jury and have become a pariah in the motorcycling community, maybe a veritable outcast and and a heretic. O well.....

 

Regards to all and ride safe..

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Tim,

 

I hope you're not really gone from the conversation. In case you're not, good for you for trying this out. A comment or two about your findings:

 

I rode my bike around at walking speed to experiment with countersteering at slow speed. I found that whenever I applied force to turn the handlebars right, the bike steered to the right. That's the opposite of countersteering, which would have caused the bike to steer left.

 

If all you did was turn the bars, I would have to agree, but...

 

Obviously, at slow speed, you have to maintain the balance of the bike with body weight shift. If you turn hard to the right the bike will fall to the left, but if you turn slowly to the right and maintain balance, only force to turn the handlebars to the right is required.

 

You accompanied turning the bars with a body weight shift. Did you have a chance to try turning the bars without shifting your body? If you do that, I think you will have a revelation.

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To continue, elaborate, expand and hopefully clarify...

Excellently put, Racer.

 

 

Thanks Woody! It's OK for a quickie first draft I guess but definitely needs some work IMO. Always room for improvement.

 

However, we've certainly come a long way since ... the last time we were on this side of the solar system together discussing this subject. Like about 600 million miles or so...haha.

 

I've changed a few words and added a few for now. Check it out, dude!

 

I'll be back.

 

Cheers,

Racer

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And...

 

Since this time last year I've thought a lot about Cobie's comment that started me off on this whole trip. Something to the effect that Kawasaki had raised the engine on the new ZX-11 to give gravity a longer lever and enable the bike to turn in faster. I jumped on that and people started talking about mass centralization and center of roll, etc.

 

After watching the awesome videos on this thread I find myself still less than clear about where that center of roll is. And just exactly what happens between flick and carve.

 

Maybe I should start another thread for that. Gotta run now. BYE.

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