BHS and countersteering

[Sheba]

Hey, have probably a very silly question, but thought I'd throw it out there anyway.

I'm looking to do my BHS soon, and also reading a bit about the NZ road code. In it they mention very briefly about countersteering and pushing the handle bars in the direction of where you want the bike to go, and it seeming like the 'wrong' thing to do but being the most effective means of changing direction and controlling your bike.

I rode pillion with someone once in a parking lot who let me feel how he made turns by countersteering. It was very weird and I don't quite understand how it works. So my questions are: Is this something that is 'taught' or gone over in a BHS class? Or does it really come naturally when you start riding more? I'm a little concerned that when I start learning to ride, or even during my BHS, that I'm going to make turns and just topple over.

Thanks guys for any advice or info.

[Ronin]

Hey, have probably a very silly question, but thought I'd throw it out there anyway.

I'm looking to do my BHS soon, and also reading a bit about the NZ road code. In it they mention very briefly about countersteering and pushing the handle bars in the direction of where you want the bike to go, and it seeming like the 'wrong' thing to do but being the most effective means of changing direction and controlling your bike.

I rode pillion with someone once in a parking lot who let me feel how he made turns by countersteering. It was very weird and I don't quite understand how it works. So my questions are: Is this something that is 'taught' or gone over in a BHS class? Or does it really come naturally when you start riding more? I'm a little concerned that when I start learning to ride, or even during my BHS, that I'm going to make turns and just topple over.

Thanks guys for any advice or info.

Never had it mentioned when I did my BHS. A conversation on CS can turn rapidly into a "is there a special KB wave" type of thing.

It sounds counterintuitive but once you have it sussed your fine. Jump on a pushbike and give it a go, the same principles apply. I found it easier to just accept that it works rather than try to understand how it works :2thumbsup

[paddy]

Hey, have probably a very silly question, but thought I'd throw it out there anyway.

No silly questions - only silly answers!


I'm looking to do my BHS soon, and also reading a bit about the NZ road code. In it they mention very briefly about countersteering and pushing the handle bars in the direction of where you want the bike to go, and it seeming like the 'wrong' thing to do but being the most effective means of changing direction and controlling your bike.

Firstly, forget about it for your BHS - you won't be going fast enough. You're going to have enough on your mind anyway. If there was one REALLY important piece of advice for your BHS it would be: TURN YOUR HEAD AND LOOK WHERE YOU WANT TO GO.

In the longer term, there seem to be two schools of thought around countersteer:

1) It's something that just happens naturally. You lean your body which leans the bike - or maybe you lean your body and it shifts your weight onto your inside hand which countersteers and leans the bike.

2) It's a concious decision. Steering isn't achieved by shifting your weight - but my pushing on the inside bar. This causes the bike to lean - then you can shift your weight if you need to (i.e. if you are going REALLY fast and need to move your centre of gravity).

I subscribe to the second theory - the reason being that in the event of an emergency, the person who consciously uses (2) is more likely to correctly countersteer and be able to swerve rapidly. Having said that, my personal opinion would be brake. It's choosing between: do I reduce the likelihood of a crash by swerving (but therefore increase the consequence) or do I reduce the consequence by braking (and therefore increase the likelihood). Risk is a measure of likelihood X consequence. (R=CL).

Anyway, that's opening a whole other can of worms. Do you ride a push-bike? Get yourself on a moderate hill - maybe going around 30 KM/H and push on one side of the handle bars and see what happens.

P.

[Jantar]

At the BHS stage of your riding, do not even give counter steering a thought. It will happen and you won't even know that you are doing it. Just look where you want to go, and that is where the bike will follow.

As you get more experienced come back and ask the question again. At that point we will explain what is actually happening and why.

[sleeqe2000]

I echo what Paddy is saying - don't worry about countersteering. I only started playing around with it when I went up to my full and got a bigger bike.
You start trying it at first and then gradually it becomes more natural over time until you do it without even thinking.

Get your learners and have fun !

[White trash]

Counter steering is how two wheeled vehicles go round corners unless travelling very slowly. If you've ridden anything motorized or otherwise chances are you've already done it without noticing.

[Paddi Irishman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVa2Ax-Dins

Good clip to explain it for you...

[Supermac Jr]

I find the 'why' CS happens quite interesting (gyroscopic effect).

Do Ride-Right Ride Safe - they explain it in english. When I did it they had a rim that you hold and you can feel the effects of moving/applying force to the rim. Very cool!!!:cool:

[paddy]

I find the 'why' CS happens quite interesting (gyroscopic effect).

It is actually - sorry I couldn't resist. You should stop reading now if you are easily bored. :-)

It's caused by an effect called gyroscopic precession. Basically, any force applied to a rotating body will be "precessed 90 degrees in the direction of rotation". So, if you had a spinning disk with the flat side facing you, and it was rotating clockwise, then you pushed the top of the wheel away from you, you would actually expect the top of the disk to stay reasonbly in place, but the right hand side of the disk would move away from you. That is to say, the force that you apply would appear as if you had applied it 90 degrees away in the direction of rotation.

So, if we apply that to handlebars, turning the bars to the right you are moving the front of the wheel to the right and the rear of the wheel to the left. These forces are precessed 90 degrees in the direction of rotation. That means that (assuming you are riding forwards) the top of the wheel is going to try and move to the left, and the bottom of the wheel is going to try and move to the right (although in reality this is prevented by friction with the road surface and therefore just has a levering effect adding more force to the displacement at the top of the wheel).

The wheel isn't spinning fast enough for the forces of gyroscopic precession to overcome the weight/momentum of the bike until you are moving at around 15 - 20 KM/H.

It used to be fun when we where kids to take our push-bike wheel off. Hold them on both sides by the axle and have someone spin the wheel by hand. You could then tip the wheel in various directions and feel the precession (not that I knew it's name or nature back then).

If we have any resident helichopter pilots they will be able to expand more, the main rotor disk suffers a lot of precession effects.

There. Got that off my chest.

[Paddi Irishman]

It used to be fun when we where kids to take our push-bike wheel off. Hold them on both sides by the axle and have someone spin the wheel by hand. You could then tip the wheel in various directions and feel the precession (not that I knew it's name or nature back then).


There. Got that off my chest.

best done sitting on a swivel chair for maximum effect...:cool:

[bogan]

It is actually - sorry I couldn't resist. You should stop reading now if you are easily bored. :-)

.....

There. Got that off my chest.

Hmmmm, I didnt really understand that, will now wiki it, i just thought countersteering was the quickest way to transfer weight to one side of the bike to lean into a corner.

[paddy]

Hmmmm, I didnt really understand that, will now wiki it, i just thought countersteering was the quickest way to transfer weight to one side of the bike to lean into a corner.

Here's an oversimplification: when you turn the bars to the right, gyroscopic pression causes the top of the wheel to move to the left with the same force that you apply to the bars (hence the bike leans).

[YellowDog]

Hey Sheba, I'm going to make this really easy to stop you worrying about countersteering. Like has already been said, you probably do it already.

Everytine you come to a corner or a bend, just swing out before you actually take it. The faster you go, the smaller the swing.

If you always swingout, you will always take great bends.

Countersteering, it's as easy as that!

[bogan]

Here's an oversimplification: when you turn the bars to the right, gyroscopic pression causes the top of the wheel to move to the left with the same force that you apply to the bars (hence the bike leans).

hmmm, yeh i see what you mean now, but the bike also leans cos the wheel track has gone off to the right, while the center of mass is still traveling along the same path, thus creating a rotation that way.

[paddy]

hmmm, yeh i see what you mean now, but the bike also leans cos the wheel track has gone off to the right, while the center of mass is still traveling along the same path, thus creating a rotation that way.

It's probably both then. But that's where you have departed my gamut of knowledge. :-) My knowledge of precession comes from aircraft props.

[AxN]

I am sure centrifugal force also come into play somehow.

http://www.vf750fd.com/blurbs/counter.html

[bogan]

I am sure centrifugal force also come into play somehow.

http://www.vf750fd.com/blurbs/counter.html

well yeh, centrifugal=centripetal=going round corners

[AxN]

well yeh, centrifugal=centripetal=going round corners

hmm... actually centrifugal and centripetal are action/reaction paired forces

[magicmonkey]

I read this a while ago:

http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~fajans/pub/pdffiles/SteerBikeAJP.PDF

it's a bit over the top from a physics point of view but it's well explained and cleared up my idea of how the pricipals work ...

[CookMySock]

It doesn't matter how it works, nor should you be bothered with the internal workings of it.

In a car, you can grab the steering wheel and yank it. On a bike, you can't... Well, you can - and that's countersteering, but many, if not most motorcycle license holders can't do it, because they don't have their brain configured that way.

The critical thing with biking is, you must be able to steer with the bars and in the event of an emergency, you must instantly and authoritively revert to bar-steering (countersteering), and firmly take evasive action. If you don't, or you can't, then you are going to die.

Once you have mastered putting around town at 50 km/hr, find a section of straight road and get up to about 70-80km/hr, and experiment with pushing alternately on one bar and then the other. Get skilled at authoritively placing the bike precisely where you want with a firm push on the bars. Now try some corners doing the same.

For the next month at least, your self-training will be to ride everywhere only using this method for steering. The goal is firmly embed this into your brain. In an emergency you will revert to the countersteer to swerve - this will almost certainly save your life.

Steve

[Qkchk]

Firstly, forget about it for your BHS - you won't be going fast enough. You're going to have enough on your mind anyway. If there was one REALLY important piece of advice for your BHS it would be: TURN YOUR HEAD AND LOOK WHERE YOU WANT TO GO.


Right on the money.

[Maha]

Countersteering is not for everybody, Arron Slight does not beleive there is such a thing. Its such a slight (scuse the pun) pushing movement, more of a 'weighting the bar' really, you hardly even notice you're doing it, just lean and go around the corner, the bike will do that.

[paddy]

Countersteering is not for everybody, Arron Slight does not beleive there is such a thing. Its such a slight (scuse the pun) pushing movement, more of a 'weighting the bar' really, you hardly even notice you're doing it, just lean and go around the corner, the bike will do that.

Yep - and that fits into the first school of thought I mentioned in my first post. I am defnitely in the other camp though. I think both ways work - but if you're doing it conciously then you are much better equiped in a emergency situation as DB alluded to above (although my personal thinking would still be brake rather than swerve in that scenario). While I am well aware that my riding experience isn't even the tiniest of marks on Aaron Slights - I do wonder if his track focus biases his thinking.

Oh, and Sheba - you should ignore all of this debate. It's not going to be helpful to you at this stage. Just remember: look where you want to go. Let us know when you are doing your BHS. Enjoy it.

[Sheba]

Whew...yeah, that was a lot of information. But really helpful, I find it fascinating.

I do agree about just focusing on the BHS and keeping it simple. You all are a fountain of info. Awesome. Thanks for helping us newbies out. I guess you'd want to though, if you'll be sharing the road with some of us in the future. :D

[CookMySock]

if you're doing it conciously then you are much better equiped in a emergency situation as DB alluded to above (although my personal thinking would still be brake rather than swerve in that scenario).Well you can use braking, or you can swerve, but you can't do both together. In a car - brake, since it's unlikely there will be a usable gap. On a bike, there is always a usable gap - more usable than the back of a truck anyway.


Just remember: look where you want to go. Let us know when you are doing your BHS. Enjoy it.I think that very first brain embedding thing is imperative. Once a biker trains his brain steer with his ass - its all over rover. Emergency procedure is now a forced/concious decision. Not good.

Initial training must be to bar push - and nothing else. In a panic, the rider reverts to his initial training - the bars, and ignores trivialities like scraping sounds from the pegs. Rider stays alive.

Steve

[modboy]

Aaron Slight is on record saying it's a bit of myth. I tend to agree although it could be semantics.

I think of it like this - when turning (at a bit of speed) you are actually applying a sort of downward pressure to the leading handle bar - so if you are turning left, leaning the bike over by pushing down on the left hand handle bar.

If you were riding a trike (or god-forbid) a bike with a sidecar, you'd actually have to turn the handlebars (so turning left, you'd push turn the right hand handlebar), with countersteering your not really turning the handlebars in the conventional way. So your applying pressure to the (intuitively) opposite handlebar to what you'd expect.

That probably makes no sense whatsoever - don't worry about it. Someone said earlier at the BHS / Learner stage most important thing is to look where your going - keep your head up - look at the solution (the gap) not at the problem (the oncoming truck). And just ride within your ability - what is that, it's when you are riding feeling comfortable and safe.

Good luck

[Maki]

Well you can use braking, or you can swerve, but you can't do both together. In a car - brake, since it's unlikely there will be a usable gap. On a bike, there is always a usable gap - more usable than the back of a truck anyway.

I think that very first brain embedding thing is imperative. Once a biker trains his brain steer with his ass - its all over rover. Emergency procedure is now a forced/concious decision. Not good.

Initial training must be to bar push - and nothing else. In a panic, the rider reverts to his initial training - the bars, and ignores trivialities like scraping sounds from the pegs. Rider stays alive.

Steve

Countersteering is not so hard to grasp, just ride in a straight line and push one bar or the other and see what happens. It's steering with the ass that I struggle with. How does it work?

[CookMySock]

Countersteering is not so hard to grasp, just ride in a straight line and push one bar or the other and see what happens. It's steering with the ass that I struggle with. How does it work?Just move your shoulders slightly and tip your weight from one bum cheek to the other and note the bike tips gently into the corner. It's fine for humming along in a straight line and taking gentle bends, but a bar-push it is emphatically not, and for a sudden swerve it will do nothing.

It's all to do with how your ass gyroscopically progresses. I should start a wikipedia entry about it. ;)

Steve

[Shagz]

I found this Youtube video cleared things up for me.

Although, like the others have said, I wouldn't worry about it at the moment.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iEKdFNpsz48&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iEKdFNpsz48&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

And if you don't like embedded videos, here is the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEKdFNpsz48

[Jantar]

..... It's steering with the ass that I struggle with. How does it work?
It doesn't. The only way in which a motorcycle can turn is when there is a force applied at an angle to the direction of travel. This force can be from gravity, or from a change in direction of the front tyre (friction).

At very low speeds we turn by changing the direction of the front tyre and we balance the turn by leaning with our body. This is actually very tricky to get right, and why most "drops" happen at very speed.

As the speed increases we get to the stage that the gyroscopic forces (centrical progression and centripital reaction) come into play. There is a speed that will differ from bike to bike where the gyroscopic forces will overcome any attempt to lean with the body, and this is where CS begins. We all do it, although for many riders they don't recognise that they are doing it. Moving the arse only helps position the center of gravity and hence the angle of lean. It doesn't change the total forces acting to cause the bike to change direction. Moving their ass only gives their donkeysomething fresh to eat.

When people talk of steering with their ass, it is actually their donkey that is doing the talking for them.

[Jantar]

Just move your shoulders slightly and tip your weight from one bum cheek to the other and note the bike tips gently into the corner. It's fine for humming along in a straight line and taking gentle bends, but a bar-push it is emphatically not, and for a sudden swerve it will do nothing.

It's all to do with how your ass gyroscopically progresses. I should start a wikipedia entry about it. ;)

Steve

Please do. All this does is change the position of the center of gravity, it does not cause the bike to turn unless there is also a corresponding centripital force.

[Maki]

Just move your shoulders slightly and tip your weight from one bum cheek to the other and note the bike tips gently into the corner. It's fine for humming along in a straight line and taking gentle bends, but a bar-push it is emphatically not, and for a sudden swerve it will do nothing.

It's all to do with how your ass gyroscopically progresses. I should start a wikipedia entry about it. ;)

Steve

Thanks for that, it had me wondering. If anyone has any doubts about the effectiveness of ass steering, try steering with no hands. Yes, just take your hands off the bars and see what happens if you lean this way or that way. The bike will turn gently...

I agree that countersteering is a more powerful way to steer your bike and you need to do it to change direction suddenly.

[marty]

If we have any resident helichopter pilots they will be able to expand more, the main rotor disk suffers a lot of precession effects.



they don't 'suffer' from it - it's just the way it is. in fact they have to account for it in all inputs to the main rotor head.

the early rotary engined aircraft (sopwith camel for eg) DID 'suffer' from presession - so much in fact that at high RPM, the forces due to precession from the rotating engine was higher than the aerodynamic forces, and the only way to turn the aircraft was to pull or push on the stick. killed a lot of pilots. rudder or aileron input would cause it to climb or descend. took a bit to figure out what was happening....

now imagine if one piece of the rotating mass was fixed to the ground - (the tyre contacting the road) how much force would there be at the top of the wheel?

[Jantar]

Thanks for that, it had me wondering. If anyone has any doubts about the effectiveness of ass steering, try steering with no hands. Yes, just take your hands off the bars and see what happens if you lean this way or that way. The bike will turn gently.......

"Gently" being the operative word. What is happing is that all you done is shift the bike's CoG. The bike appears to take on a bit of a lean, but your body is compensating, so the the CoG is still upright. However there are two other effects that come into play: Because the tyres (particularly the front) are not square, there is a slight conical effect which means part of the contact patch of the tyre has a slightly different rolloing radius to the part closest to the center of the tyre. Hence the bike will gently change direction.

The slight lean taken on by the wheel will cause a gyroscopic precession, in the opposite direction to that which is desired. This causes the front wheel to move off line slightly (also part of the counter steering effect) and the corresponding shift in balance will also tend to turn the bike gently.

Now try hands off and shift your arse at low speed, say 20 kmh, and see how long before you hit the ground. There is not enough speed for precession to work, and you will be likely to come off.

[paddy]

they don't 'suffer' from it - it's just the way it is. in fact they have to account for it in all inputs to the main rotor head.

Bad choice of word on my part - I was just trying to indicate that precession was a significant element in all elements of helicopter flight operations.

(Having said that, as a fixed wing pilot, I could possibly hold the opinion that helicopters "suffer" from all sorts of issues. Lets start with way too many moving parts...) :-)

[Maki]

Now try hands off and shift your arse at low speed, say 20 kmh, and see how long before you hit the ground. There is not enough speed for precession to work, and you will be likely to come off.

http://www.break.com/usercontent/2008/6/R6-crash-526486.html

[Jantar]

http://www.break.com/usercontent/2008/6/R6-crash-526486.html
I went to your link, but its a video. I'm on dial up so I've no idea what its about or what point you are trying to make.

[paddy]

http://www.break.com/usercontent/2008/6/R6-crash-526486.html

The problem with links like this is that they are addictive - I moved on from the R6 crash to "How not to scale columns" to "Painful leap of faith over river" to "Emo kid can't breath after fall" to "Angry Roady Tries to Fight Band Onstage" (I love how the guitarist keeps going in that one) to. . .

Ahhh...I can't seem to stop. :-)

[Maki]

I went to your link, but its a video. I'm on dial up so I've no idea what its about or what point you are trying to make.

No problem. It shows a guy riding with no hands at a slow speed and dropping the bike.

You wrote: "Now try hands off and shift your arse at low speed, say 20 kmh, and see how long before you hit the ground." The video shows exactly that happening...

[Jantar]

Thanks for that. :niceone: I'm always amazed at the number of people wh think they can defy the laws of physics.

[Sheba]

Thanks for those who included the videos. I found them very helpful. It also gets me itching to try that someday and get on a bike soon....after a BHS course, of course.:msn-wink:

[Markw336]

dont worry the instructor tells you how to do these sorts of thing i found it easy it would be quite hard to fail

[R-Soul]

It is actually - sorry I couldn't resist. You should stop reading now if you are easily bored. :-)

It's caused by an effect called gyroscopic precession. Basically, any force applied to a rotating body will be "precessed 90 degrees in the direction of rotation". So, if you had a spinning disk with the flat side facing you, and it was rotating clockwise, then you pushed the top of the wheel away from you, you would actually expect the top of the disk to stay reasonbly in place, but the right hand side of the disk would move away from you. That is to say, the force that you apply would appear as if you had applied it 90 degrees away in the direction of rotation.

So, if we apply that to handlebars, turning the bars to the right you are moving the front of the wheel to the right and the rear of the wheel to the left. These forces are precessed 90 degrees in the direction of rotation. That means that (assuming you are riding forwards) the top of the wheel is going to try and move to the left, and the bottom of the wheel is going to try and move to the right (although in reality this is prevented by friction with the road surface and therefore just has a levering effect adding more force to the displacement at the top of the wheel).

The wheel isn't spinning fast enough for the forces of gyroscopic precession to overcome the weight/momentum of the bike until you are moving at around 15 - 20 KM/H.

It used to be fun when we where kids to take our push-bike wheel off. Hold them on both sides by the axle and have someone spin the wheel by hand. You could then tip the wheel in various directions and feel the precession (not that I knew it's name or nature back then).

If we have any resident helichopter pilots they will be able to expand more, the main rotor disk suffers a lot of precession effects.

There. Got that off my chest.

I never really thought about countersteering that way. I always just thought that what you are doing is steering the bike out from under your weight. When the bike is off to the side, leaning towards you, and your weight is pushing it further over, then this counterbalances the forces acting on you in a corner, keeping you upright. But I guess teh gyroscopic explanation helps explain why it does not work as well at low speeds.

And regardless of what anyone says about small bikes, the concept is just as useful and relevant, and gives you a HELL of a lot more control of your bike. Trying to control a 150kg bike with a 60-90 kg bodyweight is dificult at best. The day I figured it out was teh first day I felt I had true control of my bike.

SO: If you want to go left, push FORWARD (slightly) on the left bar, and vice versa.
But this only really applies to speed 20km/h and over.

[R-Soul]

Countersteering is not for everybody, Arron Slight does not beleive there is such a thing. Its such a slight (scuse the pun) pushing movement, more of a 'weighting the bar' really, you hardly even notice you're doing it, just lean and go around the corner, the bike will do that.

I started consciously pushing on the bar, but at speed I like pushing my shoulders and weight to to the inside while keeping my arms straight. This automatically pushes the inside bar away frm me, and induces counter steer.

When you have it ingrained, you can actually move your body weight to the outside while countersteering, and make the bike lean over further (to scrub off the sissy strip). when you use this technique, you realise how little effect or control your body weight actually has on the bike's movement.

[proseuche]

Drove Akld-New Plymouth-Akld this weekend, very fun ride. My first open road ride too, tackled Mt Messenger and Awakino Gorge no probs (then nearly got crashed into in Remuera, 2 blocks from home, *(&@#*@).

Anyway, about mid-way through the return trip I realised it was easier and quicker to take the corner by looking into it and sort of swivelling your hips so the bike moves over and leans, while keeping your upper body sort of in the same position. Anyway, i wondered whether I was teaching myself a bad habit, but seems not.. thanks for the info :]

[Zuki lover]

well, this is the place to put silly questions - and you'll get some silly answers too :rofl:

[paddy]

I'm looking to do my BHS soon, and also reading a bit about the NZ road code. In it they mention very briefly about countersteering and pushing the handle bars in the direction of where you want the bike to go, and it seeming like the 'wrong' thing to do but being the most effective means of changing direction and controlling your bike.

Hey, you've been quiet since an initial flurry of activity. Did you ever manage to get your BHS done? How'd it go? Done your learners? What did you think of the computerised test - they were still scratchies when I did mine.