Counter steering at speed >100k's

[Zapf]

There is this thing I am trying to understand. Was at BRONZ's riding course a week ago and they taught us counter steering, all very well doing it at 60k's on the runway. But I was trying to pratice it when there no cars around on Sunday night, and I was trying to push the handle bars @ 100ks but they were solid as.

Now, am I doing something wrong? Or am I not pushing hard enought? Or is it just my bike?

cause I am scared of pushing too hard and going over. :spudwhat:

[loosebruce]

There is this thing I am trying to understand. Was at BRONZ's riding course a week ago and they taught us counter steering, all very well doing it at 60k's on the runway. But I was trying to pratice it when there no cars around on Sunday night, and I was trying to push the handle bars @ 100ks but they were solid as.

Now, am I doing something wrong? Or am I not pushing hard enought? Or is it just my bike?

cause I am scared of pushing too hard and going over. :spudwhat:

You won't tip over zapf so don't worry bout pushing too hard k. The faster you get the more input you will have to put in, start using your upper body to and you should be sweat mate. Plus the VTR's bars are alot wider than more sportier bikes so i'd imgaine you'd need to put a bit more effort in, correct me id i'm wrong.

[Mr Skid]

cause I am scared of pushing too hard and going over. :spudwhat:

Harden up mate! Naked bikes are designed to be thrown down the road!

Someone knowledgeable will no doubt be able to offer a better explanation, but I would think the caster angle would have something to do with it. I can't find the specs on the vtr250 but I'd guess from sitting on yours that it'd have more conservative geometry than my cbr250. I understand this would assist with straight line stability, but would require more effort to tip into a corner..

[Mongoose]

You won't tip over zapf so don't worry bout pushing too hard k. The faster you get the more input you will have to put in, start using your upper body to and you should be sweat mate. Plus the VTR's bars are alot wider than more sportier bikes so i'd imgaine you'd need to put a bit more effort in, correct me id i'm wrong.

I would have thought the wider the bars the lesser the input from the rider needed. Wider bars= more leverage?

[loosebruce]

I would have thought the wider the bars the lesser the input from the rider needed. Wider bars= more leverage?

I am corrected, thanks.

[Vagabond]

There is this thing I am trying to understand. Was at BRONZ's riding course a week ago and they taught us counter steering, all very well doing it at 60k's on the runway. But I was trying to pratice it when there no cars around on Sunday night, and I was trying to push the handle bars @ 100ks but they were solid as.

Now, am I doing something wrong? Or am I not pushing hard enought? Or is it just my bike?

cause I am scared of pushing too hard and going over. :spudwhat:

You musta been ing when they told you to push on the bars cause you can push as much as you want, most that'll happen is maybe your ass will slide backwards on the seat
Never been on any riding courses myself but I do know that it's a push and pull on either side of the bars
Well thats my 2cents worth !

[sAsLEX]

its all to do with gyroscopic forces that get larger as speed increases, this is why it is harder at high speed, and why sometimes you see race bikes continue around corners(GP in SA) without rider due to the resistance from the gyroscopic forces against falling over.

Torque= force X distance long bars less force

Oh and couter steering works because of a thing called gyroscopic progression, thinks back to 7th form physics, in which inputs on a gyroscope are expressed 90 degress further around. Ie you push the bar left and the bike leans in the vertical plae rather than the horizintal plane.

ps. up late doing uni work so this could all be dribble

[Firefight]

its all to do with gyroscopic forces that get larger as speed increases, this is why it is harder at high speed, and why sometimes you see race bikes continue around corners(GP in SA) without rider due to the resistance from the gyroscopic forces against falling over.

Torque= force X distance long bars less force

Oh and couter steering works because of a thing called gyroscopic progression, thinks back to 7th form physics, in which inputs on a gyroscope are expressed 90 degress further around. Ie you push the bar left and the bike leans in the vertical plae rather than the horizintal plane.

Ah yeah, what he said,... I think,... or you could just go out and ride the dam bike ! and see what happens... Fuck Alex, maybe you could bring a black board/white board to the AB on saturday and give me a quick lecture, so I can have a better ride...

F/F

F/F

[James Deuce]

Once you are doing more than 20km.hr or so all steering on a bike is countersteering, whether you realise it or not. Just relax when you are attempting to conciously countersteer and you will feel it going on. If you are tensed and unhappy you won;t have any preocessing power left over to monitor steering inputs.

[toads]

This countersteering thing is something I understand but am reluctant to try at speed, ( for me this equals over 60km) mainly cos I am scared of getting it wrong and losing control. I know this is ridiculous but I am still too chicken to do a rapid swerve around an object on the road, Pete has it down to a fine art and thinks it's cool. The same goes for getting the knee down a bit, on a tight corner, I think it's kinda tragic looking on a cruiser, but who knows one day I might have to try it in order to get around the bend, the scary thing is just how much lean can you have before losing it?, you really can't tell until you do can off can you?

[Zed]

...the scary thing is just how much lean can you have before losing it?, you really can't tell until you do can off can you?

A good rider will get to know his/her motorcycle's capabilities, this most definately includes how far over it is able to lean in a corner. There are several ways of obtaining this knowledge, for instance you can lean the bike over while it is stationary (with the help of another person) and see how far it will lean before any parts touch the ground! One day you may need to lean your bike far into a corner for emergency's sake and if you don't know the bikes limits you will probably bin it.

In saying all of that, if you ride like an absolute granny and freak out when the bike leans over & brake heavily on every corner you approach - forget about it! Leaning the bike over is supposed to be the fun part.

[riffer]

Wkid_one offered some advice on this a while back, which I tried and found most useful. I'll try and repeat what he said (apologies wkid if I've misinterpreted it).

An easy way to get the countersteering going is by leaning forward with the shoulder ie if you want to go around a left hand corner just lean a bit forward with the left shoulder and you'll find yourself going left.

I'm not too sure why this works for me, I guess its because of a combination of countersteering and weight transferance.

I found the best way to get countersteering sorted was to find a road with a lot of reasonably gentle sweeping bends and really just try and relax, lean forward and feel the bike move where you want it. I practice my countersteering on the road between the bottom of Haywards Hill (Whitby) and Paremata - it winds around the sea shore and has some great corners. You can practice getting your knee down there too.

I've never had to concentrate too hard on it - maybe it came naturally. Or maybe its because I'm a bit of a fatty - 5 foot 10 and 95 kgs...

[tuscan]

Somewhere easy in central Auckland to practise cornering is the domain but sometimes there's quite a bit of traffic.

I go through there everyday on my way to uni and am slowly beginning to realise what I can do on the bike...

[vifferman]

An easy way to get the countersteering going is by leaning forward with the shoulder ie if you want to go around a left hand corner just lean a bit forward with the left shoulder and you'll find yourself going left.

Yeah, and another thing (in the same vein) is to lead with your chin. I can't remember who said this (some racer, I think), but it works!
Whether you are consciously counter-steering or not, it's probably happening anyway. Having developed aaaarrrrrrRRthritis in the last few years, I now notice more how much pressure is on my wrists, and hence noticed that I'm countersteering without any conscious effort, but also on some corners the interplay betwen the bike's geometry and the corner's geometry (hill slope, camber, radius, etc) mean that the bike's wanting to run wide a bit and extra effort is required.

The most important thing is to be relaxed, smooth and gentle. Subtle inputs are key.

[Zed]

Somewhere easy in central Auckland to practise cornering is the domain but sometimes there's quite a bit of traffic.

I go through there everyday on my way to uni and am slowly beginning to realise what I can do on the bike...

Yes, that entrance at Stanley St by the tennis courts there is a nice small stretch of twisties into the domain.