Could you have avoided this?

[SuperMac]

Bike with no (or poor) headllight hidden in the shadows between the tall trees perhaps? Get a brighter headlight. Put the fucker on fullbeam except when it's not appropriate.

That bike will have been sold with AHO - i.e. the headlamp hard-wired on, no 'off' switch.

Even then, dipped beam is to illuminate the road ahead and to the left verge, not high and right where the HGV driver was sitting.

Slow down in closing or convoluted environments where there is traffic crossing.

Is [part of] the right answer.

[Drew]

What the fuck is wrong with you dumb shits, that think the high beam function of your headlight is there to notify other traffic of your presence?

"Let's make the road a more dangerous place, for everyone else". Use your fucking head, cunt!

[R-Soul]

How many of you guys could of avoided this? (this rider really did face plant)

Thsi guy was being a freaking idiot and got everything he was looking for...

[R-Soul]

I've got a couple of problems with that.

First, countersteering isn't counter-intuitive like the dude says, most of us did it the very first time we slung a leg over a bike of any sort.

I've got a problem with that. It took me two accidents, a few years of wondering, and a month of toying with a 250 before I clicked. So maye not so intuitive for some.

If some dude had just said "steer left to go right" at the start, it could have saved me a lot of headache...

[Drew]

I've got a problem with that. It took me two accidents, a few years of wondering, and a month of toying with a 250 before I clicked. So maye not so intuitive for some.

If some dude had just said "steer left to go right" at the start, it could have saved me a lot of headache...

If you have to think about couter steering, you are a fucking retard.

Give up motorcycles now, for the sake of anyone who loves you!

[onearmedbandit]

If some dude had just said "steer left to go right" at the start, it could have saved me a lot of headache...

Not being a smartarse, but didn't appear obvious that was happened? No one told me about it but from the moment I first rode a pushbike at speed that's how it was. Wasn't until years after riding I found it was called 'counter-steering'. Like I said, not trying to be smart.

[Brian d marge]

Two big trucks on a pissy uk rd ..... I would almost be stationary , sod em if they get bent out of shape for going to slow through that junction,,,

trucks win every time and pain hurts

Stephen

Ps I also was suspecting the red truck !

[Drew]

Ps I also was suspecting the red truck !

When I saw the trucks, that's what I thought was gonna become a road block too.

[Berries]

I've got a problem with that. It took me two accidents, a few years of wondering, and a month of toying with a 250 before I clicked. So maye not so intuitive for some.

Did you not have a pushbike as a kid? My five year old doesn't know it, but she can counter steer. She can't count for shit, but she can definitely counter steer.

[Ocean1]

Did you not have a pushbike as a kid? My five year old doesn't know it, but she can counter steer. She can't count for shit, but she can definitely counter steer.

According to a dude called Bernt Spiegel, (behavioral psychologist, university professor, senior instructor of Motorrad magazine's Perfection Training program at Nurburgring, ergonomics consultant to Porsche) it's hard wired behaviour derived from the part of your brain that controls running, (but not walking).

When, while running, you want to turn left your footsteps step over to the right of your body's centre of mass, keeping you ballanced through the turn left. It's such a natural translation to two wheeled control that you don't even notice you're doing it.

Something else he points to that's obvious only in hindsight: beginer riders are absolutely happy to lean their bikes to turn them... up to 20 degrees. Every degree beyond that causes an increase in anxiety to some point where they can go further only with continued practice to overcome that instinctive reluctance. The anxiety's rooted in the same running co-processor in your brain: it's the natural limit of traction between dirt and bare feet.

The Upper Half of the Motorcycle. Good read.

[G4L4XY]

That was a nice looking left hander he could've got his knee-down on! Guess he prefer the taste of a Mack

[R-Soul]

If you have to think about couter steering, you are a fucking retard.

Give up motorcycles now, for the sake of anyone who loves you!

I dont have to now that I know how it works, and have ingrained it.

[R-Soul]

Did you not have a pushbike as a kid? My five year old doesn't know it, but she can counter steer. She can't count for shit, but she can definitely counter steer.

I rode a pushbike more than most in my teens. I guess I was relying on weight steering, or was somehow doing it inadvertently (albeitly very inneffectively) when I moved my body weight around on the bike. Its one thing to do it on a pushbike when the bike weighs 10kgs and you weigh 6-8 x that (as a teenybopper anyway ). but when you start moving at higher speeds, with heavier wheels creating a stronger gyroscopic effect, then there is no room for inneffective steering. Nobody ever told me about it or mentioned it. It never occurred to me to consciously push the bars in the opposite direction I wanted to go. No Interweb then...

And I never had my own bike to get used to the new forces on, so when a mate offered his bike, I was off and thinking I could control it like my pushbike - NOT.

And frankly there is STILL a lot of bullshit floating around about what the most effective steering method is, and the best technique is. Some STILL say that they "push down on the foot pegs", and some push DOWN on the bars (as opposed to forwards, like they should).

So the idea that it is intuitive is definitely NOT a given for many. Yes, most kids can balance a bike, and that is effectively by countersteering, but I always recognised that as part of the act of "balance" and not as part of "steering" - not all kids recognise that that is how they are actually expected to STEER the pushbike.

[R-Soul]

According to a dude called Bernt Spiegel, (behavioral psychologist, university professor, senior instructor of Motorrad magazine's Perfection Training program at Nurburgring, ergonomics consultant to Porsche) it's hard wired behaviour derived from the part of your brain that controls running, (but not walking).

When, while running, you want to turn left your footsteps step over to the right of your body's centre of mass, keeping you ballanced through the turn left. It's such a natural translation to two wheeled control that you don't even notice you're doing it.

Something else he points to that's obvious only in hindsight: beginer riders are absolutely happy to lean their bikes to turn them... up to 20 degrees. Every degree beyond that causes an increase in anxiety to some point where they can go further only with continued practice to overcome that instinctive reluctance. The anxiety's rooted in the same running co-processor in your brain: it's the natural limit of traction between dirt and bare feet.

The Upper Half of the Motorcycle. Good read.

Intersting comment on the bare feet/dirt threshold... built into us from millenia spent running away from animals...

But unfortunatley while I knew that I had to lean, I was not blessed with the intuitive gift of knowing what I had to do to make it lean more.

[Drew]

I dont have to now that I know how it works, and have ingrained it.

I rode a pushbike more than most in my teens. I guess I was relying on weight steering, or was somehow doing it inadvertently (albeitly very inneffectively) when I moved my body weight around on teh bikle. Its one thing to do it on a pushbike when the bike weighs 10kgs and you weigh 6-8 x that (as a teenybopper anyway ). but when you start moving at higher speeds, with heavier wheels creating a stronger gyroscopic effect, then there is no room for inneffective steering. Nobody ever told me about it or mentioned it. No Interweb then...

And I never had my own bike to get used to the new forces on, so when a mate offered his bike, I was off and thinking I could control it, like my pushbike - NOT.

And frankly there is STILL a lt of bullshit floating around about what teh mmost effective methid is. Some STILL say weighting pegs is how they steer, some still say that they push down on the foot pegs, some push DOWN on the bars (as opposed to forwards, like they shouldl).

So the idea that it is intuitive is definitely NOT a given. Yes, most kids can balance a bike, and that is effectively by countersteering, but not all kids recognise that that is how they are actually expected to STEER the pushbike.

Intersting comment on the bare feet/dirt threshold... built into us from millenia spent running away from animals...

But unfortunatley while I knew that I had to lean, I was not blessed with the intuitive gift of knowing what I had to do to make it lean more.

Seriously dude, how much do you think you have to turn the bars to effect a direction change in the wheels? Gyroscopic forces do play a part, but fuck all when the degree of turn is so minimal.

Lets put it another way. Do you realise that riding in a straight line on a bike, you are actually weaving from side to side slightly. Espescially at low speed. This is done by counter steering. Did you have to teach yourself to stay upright in a straight line on a motorbike too?

Please, warn all motorists that you intend to ride, so they have the option to stay home. You're doing it wrong!