Counter Steering

[Dragonrider]

This is part rant, part riding tip. Take it for what it is worth.

Let's talk about a riding skill called Counter Steering. Do not know what I am talking about? It would not surprise me. An amazing number of riders do not. It scares me.

Maybe you know it by another name. If so, great. Get out and ride.

If not please, listen up. Read and practice. Now. If you do not know counter steering you will die on your bike, sooner or later.

Counter steering is the method you use to turn a motorcycle at speed. Those that say "I lean and it turns" do not know counter steering.

In a nutshell, if you are at speed and want to turn right, you turn the wheel left, usually by pushing on the right handlebar. This causes the bike to lean right and make the corner. This is how the racing bikes can pull the bike over until thier knees drag ground. It is a gyroscope thing. Do not worry about the physics, just get out and try it.

To turn left, you turn the wheel right, again, usually by pushing on the left handlebar.

If you do not believe me, go for a ride and try it. It is easily demonstrated.

If you do not use this method for turning, you cannot turn the bike to its full potential.

The # 1 type of single vehical motorcycle accident is folks running off a curve they should have been able to make. This is because they did not use counter-steering.

If you do not use and practice this method, you will eventually run off the road, or when faced with an emergency manevour you will jerk the wheel the direction you need to go to live, and you will promptly go the wrong way. I've seen it happen. It results in death.

Why the sudden rant?

AGAIN, today I met another long term rider that had no idea how to turn his motorcycle. Came up in a discussion, and he had never heard of it. The licensing test usually does not address it (making the motorcycle endoursement completely pointless).

This happens all the time now. I meet riders that really do not know how to ride. I feel like a "counter steering" preacher, traveling across the country and quoting hell and fury if you do not counter steer.

Thou art condemmed to a short life, and a brief "Oh sh!t" if thou doth not practice the art! So goest thou forth and . . . uh . . doist . . . it.

Please(ith)?

[Mike Hart]

Keith Code

Hi Danny

New York has (had? that was in the 80's, ha!) a bit about 'pulling outward in the direction of the turn', so there's one state that at least hints about countersteering.

Keith Code is probably the most vocal proponent of countersteering over body-steering.

I posted some links on the Links forum.

[MartyA]

I was fortunate to have a patient teacher in NJ back in the 60's who gave me three lessons right after I bought my first:

1st lesson: Shifting with your foot and hand, braking with your other hand, not stalling by forgetting the clutch, and not hitting the church at the end of the parking lot.

2nd lesson: Up shifting and stopping (again).

3rd lesson: Turning by pushing the handle bars - push right turn right, push left turn left.

I love telling folks about pushing the bars. I did run into one guy who argued about it not being the end-all, mostly about an emergency braking on a curve causing a high-side fall.

Waiting for my driver ID in PA several years ago, I was reading the motorcycle How-to and it did state push right turn right method.

[Mike Hart]

Originally posted by MartyA
I did run into one guy who argued about it not being the end-all, mostly about an emergency braking on a curve causing a high-side fall.

Better to still countersteer and lowside, if you really can't make the turn.

A related issue: target fixation! Whatever you are looking at, there you will go!

[REFFI]

Countersteering

Countersteering was a class topic, along with the discussion of "coning" in classes taught by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation when my wife and I took them in the mid-70's. I know if I'd known about it in 1971 it would have saved me a broken bike (and leg). 2.5 accident-free days on my new/used Honda 750.

Motorcycle Consumer News (formerly Road Rider) magazine often discusses/mentions countersteering. Apropos of riding tips, this month there is an article discussing delayed apex cornering for ensuring the greatest amount of "slideout" room on a turn.

[sixtysix]

It is also the only way to swerve a bike at speed. Take an MSF course, it is the only way you will make it through the swerve exercise. Once long ago I was a disbeliever. I read the counter steering crap in a magazine and laughed. Then I went out and tried it, and it works, you can't lean a bike very fast or far at all. You need to counter steer, just push on the grip on the side you want to turn to, it's that easy. But if you are like me it will take years and year of practice to make second nature. It is for me now, I just hope I can use it i an emergency and won't revert back to leaning.

[Dragonrider]

Hey Mike,

Thanks for the links. I forwarded them to the Valkyrie list too. I am always amazed about the huge numbers of folks that do not know this, and will argue with you about it too! The current trend of absolutely everybody suddenly up and buying motorcycles is making it worse. Anybody can ride, but they really need to know how!

Bottom line is the bike will not turn without countersteering, so you are doing it even if you do not know it. Problem is that if you do not know it, you cannot use it to its full potential.

It is hard to talk to another rider about it, even if you have seen that they really are not doing it. It is somehow insulting to them, and for some reason, despite the obvious "art" involved in riding, they seem to think they were born knowing all the secrets.

For the record, I am an excellent rider. But I was not born knowing all the secrets, I was taught. AND I am still learning.

Countersteering is counter-intuative. Try saying that 10 times fast. You must be taught it or practice it in order to take full advantage of it.

Was following a bike once, one I had come up behind on the highway, not somebody I knew--we were in the left hand lane, and had a concrete wall to our left.

A car somewhere right of us blew a tire and carreened into our lane, smashing hard into the concrete wall and basically completely blocking our path. The only out was a HARD right. A peg dragging, chrome damaging, pipe scraping, boot destroying, terrible noise making, HARD right. There were only a few feet to spare. Anything else was death.

I went right. No problem. Little adrenelin, some chrome left on the road, another scrape in my pipes, but no problem. The other rider jerked the wheel and went hard left. He hit the wall first, then the car. All because he did not countersteer conciously, and thus jerked the wheel the wrong direction when an emergency came up.

And so, another stranger dies in my arms. Crap. That has got to stop.

Sometimes I feel that I have seen too much . . . but that is the price you pay for getting out there and really living, and participating in life.

Jackson Brown says it best:

Doctor my eyes have seen the years,
and the slow parade of fears
without crying . . .
Now I want to understand . . .
I have done all that I could,
to see the evil and the good
without hiding . . .
You must help me if you can.

Doctor my eyes, tell me what is wrong,
was I unwise . . .
to leave them open for so long.

Doctor my eyes, I cannot see the sky . . .
Is this the price,
for having learned how not to cry?

Ride hard. But keep the shiny side up. Please?

[strom]

OK just a hint to those who still don't get it...
while riding in a wide, empty lane, try briefly jerking the handlebars left/right... and be amazed

LP

[sixtysix]

Don't jerk them ....gently push on the handlebar to the side you want to turn, jerking the bars at speed would make for an amazing wreck.

[strom]

Well, 66... I was counting on the good sense of the riders reading this... but I guess that with americans u never know

LP

PS: If this post damages your eyes, the author cannot be held responsible. If it offences you... too bad.

[nashville_bill]

I've ridden MCs for almost forty years and had never heard of this. I guess I never THOUGHT about turning the bars when turning. Next time I ride, I'll give it a push!

[rlindsay]

I've always done this. Well, not always, after I dumped a BMW 750 I decided to learn how to ride properly. Good boots, good leather, slow speed, and a helmut allowed me to see another day without too much damage.

[Wayne]

Having started my riding career im motocross style riding as a kid, I have learned many of the nuances of riding that only experience can give. Like getting off the seat when hitting a big bump or pothole, that one will really freak out a new rider!
In making a curve I have also found something else that is important.
While making the curve it seems many look directly ahead of the front tire. But if you will keep your eyes further ahead (about 20 to 25 yards) into the curve you will find it easier to follow the turn. You will naturally follow where you eyes are leading you. It may take a little practice but it works.
Just a suggestion.

[Scootstado2]

You cannot ride a MC without counter steering. You may not know you are doing it but you are. Keith Code has a bike set up with a fixed steering bar mounted above the normal handle bars. The fixed bar will not turn the wheels. He lets non belivers take the bike for a ride and try to turn by leaning alone. Keith and the gang line up to watch and laugh as you quickly reach for the normal handle bars as you find out you can do nothing with the fixed bar. Racing and accident avoidance just requires more push on the bars than normal riding but counter steering is always with you when riding wether you know it or not.

[beechfront]

????????????????

i am just curious to how this works...

when traveling at a slow rate, if you push the
right handlebar forward and lean left, the bike
will go left.

but i can definitely see at a higher rate of speed by
pushing the right handlebar forward it will cause
the bike to lean right - so having never done this,
i would assume that to make a sharp right turn
you would do so by pushing the right handlebar
just enough to get it to quickly lean to the right -
now my brain is telling me that this right handlebar
'push' would have to be brief simply to get the
bike to lean right quickly - then the handlebars
must be turned back the opposite way (right
handlebar back) if for some reason you wanted
to hold this turn.

am i looking at this correctly? because now i am
imagining driving clockwise in one huge 80 mph
circle - i can't see how this would be possible by
pushing (and holding) the right handlebar.



perhaps this is just my inexperience talking.
but the only thing i disagree with on this thread is that
you cannot turn a motorcycle without countersteering.