After a decade of absence from LFS I recently discovered that it's possible to ride bikes. With the latest test patch it already gives a pretty good experience, however I have some wishes to make it even better.

I often drop the bike and then have to reset it. Sometimes I get stuck in the gravel, sometimes with the front wheel to the wall and not being able to move. Being stuck in gravel is actually pretty realistic, but it hurts the playability imo. It would be great if we could ride (slowly) out of the gravel and continue our way without having to go back to the pits. Then with regard to the front facing the wall it would be nice to have the ability to walk back and then steer the other way to continue.

When we drop the bike it's possible to press reset and then the bike is straight up again. I noticed that this resets the tire temperature and also the odometer (on the Reaper X1). I think it would be better that this doesn't get reset.

Further I would love to see a separate rear brake.
Traction Control not coupled to Anti Wheelie, so different settings for TC and AW.
Being able to go through the gears while stationary. When stuck in the gravel you can't go to second gear for example.
Not sure how the effect is called, but when leaning in to a corner with constant speed, the rpm rises due to a smaller circumference of the tire compared to riding straight.
Gyroscopic effect of the rotating wheels/tires. Not sure if it's already implemented, but sometimes with a small wheelie the front drops to either side, where I would think it would be more stable (going straight) due to rotating mass of the wheels.

I may think of more at a later stage. I'll add it to this post...

Hi, these are all very nice suggestions, but it must wait. Scawen already spent a lot of time on bike improvements, but it can only go so much with the current physics. He said that he needs to focus on releasing the intermediate versions of lfs that includes gfx and multithreading. After that, he will only have one version of lfs to work on, as now every change he makes he must do twice (public version and intermediate). Also, he can then finalize the new tyre physics, release that and only then new bike improvements will make sense.

At the moment gyro forces from the front wheel are not simulated, but there is a plan to do it in the future. In my oppinion this is the crutial part for a correct simulation of bike physics. At the moment, what driver input does is make a set point for a bike lean angle and then lfs tries to do what ever is neccessary to achieve it. There is no direct connection to a steering handle bars at the moment, in a sense that exists already for cars. This model is good enough for now, but will eventualy be upgraded.

Once done, many players will realize that one has to do countersteering in order to balance centrifugal force and gyro forces from the front wheel which will make the bike lean at a certain angle, enabling the bike to steer due to difrent tyre radius at the contact patch. This is exactly one of the points you mentioned.

Thanks for your reply! I kind of dropped in the middle of development I guess and have no idea what the plan is. Thanks for explaining to me and I do understand that there are other priorities. In a way LFS works like GP Bikes where the player gives input to a virtual rider who then does what is necessary to steer the bike. That works already pretty good I must say. Anyway, thanks and I'm looking forward to what's to come to LFS!

No worries, all your suggestions are very good points for improving the bikes in lfs and I'm sure that Scawen already has some of them in his notes. But these about help to geting unbogged in the sand are quite usefull.

I have a question regarding bike steering, is it possible to force direct/realistic 1:1 steering all the time without steering models switching depending on speeds?

I'm coming from using direct steering in GP Bikes and was wondering if its possible in LFS as well.

not possible

Can't be done at the moment. When Scawen include gyro forces from front wheel and with new tyre physics it will be possible. There is a plan for it, but it's in somewhat distant future.

Quote from rane_nbg :

Can't be done at the moment. When Scawen include gyro forces from front wheel...

It is coming soon? or how it is going the process?

Unfortunately, all lfs developement has ground to a halt due to recent ddos attacks. It forced devs to focus on making internet side of things more robust in lfs.