This is how countersteering works when riding no-hands. In order to turn left, a rider applies a momentary torque, either at the seat via the legs or in the torso that causes the bike itself to lean to the right, called counter lean by some authors.[3] The combined center of mass of the bike and rider is only lowered, of course. However, if the front of the bike is free to swivel about its steering axis, the lean to the right will cause it to steer to the right by some combination of gyroscopic precession (as mentioned above), ground reaction forces, gravitational force on an off-axis center of mass, or simply the inertia of an off-axis center of mass, depending on the exact geometry and mass distribution of the particular bike, and the amount of torque and the speed at which it is applied.[1][9]
This countersteering to the right causes the ground contact to move to the
right of the center of mass, as the bike moves forward, thus generating a leftward lean. Finally the front end steers to the left and the bike enters the left turn. The amount of leftward steering necessary to balance the leftward lean appropriate for the forward speed and radius of the turn is controlled by the torque generated by the rider, again either at the seat or in the torso.
To straighten back out of the turn, the rider simply reverses the procedure for entering it: cause the bike to lean farther to the left; this causes it to steer farther to the left which moves the wheel contact patches farther to the
left, eventually reducing the leftward lean and exiting the turn.
The reason this no-hands steering is less effective on heavy bikes, such as motorcycles, is that the rider weighs so much less than the bike that leaning the torso with respect to the bike does not cause the bike to lean far enough to generate anything but the shallowest turns. No-hands riders may be able to keep a heavy bike centered in a lane and negotiate shallow highway turns, but not much else.
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Originally Posted by rok-the-boat
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