Read that wikipedia article (it seems nicely concise and well written), and see if what you said about using your body weight to lean and pushing the inside bar mid-corner to stop it turning any sharper still seems accurate.

K, so I gave it a shot today on both my dirtbike and my friends moped.

I didn't realize how minute the required movement is. After doing it over and over, i've noticed that it's nothing I haven't been doing before, but that once you're actively aware of it, you don't really need to shift body weight at all

(yes, I did read that article on how using body weight is bad).

I noticed it's allot more effective on my friends moped though. I'm assuming that it's just as the article says, and that it's because his moped has a tonne more grip on-road than my dirtbike.

Quote from Thorvertonian :

Until you are used to your bike (and even when you are), changing speed while conering can be very dangerous!

Had this bike since '03

I meant correctional braking anyway though :P

Quote from sinbad :

It's near impossible to lean a bike over without the front wheel deflection that c/s gives you.

If you're aware of it, it becomes very useful. Someone that knows that if you give the left hand grip a tug (active c/s) the bike will pitch over hard to the right is going to be better off in a swerve to avoid situation than someone that thinks they should just try to lean to the right (passive c/s).

Don't worry about which way the wheel is pointing mid turn, just remember to change your path (or tighten the line mid-corner) deflect the front wheel in the opposite direction.

btw: post a link to the vid of the guy turning the bars fully to the left and bike not doing anything please.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8IdTq3_3WI

I'm getting really freaking confused now. What I was doing on my friends moped, was turning the wheel away from the turn, and keeping it there through the whole turn.

Should I be using CS to my advantage to just initiate the turn? Because i've found it works just keeping the wheel faced opposite through the whole turn, although it's difficult. I figured that it's only difficult because i'm not used to it though.

I don't think countersteering is as important on light bikes with narrow tyres like mopeds and dirtbikes. Get on a 180-200KG sportsbike and the thing will hardly turn with all that weight and big wide tyres unless you get your weight positioned and countersteer.

Quote from Gentlefoot :

I don't think countersteering is as important on light bikes with narrow tyres like mopeds and dirtbikes. Get on a 180-200KG sportsbike and the thing will hardly turn with all that weight and big wide tyres unless you get your weight positioned and countersteer.

I'll try to get better on my bike then so that when I have the money to upgrade to a sportsbike or a dualsport, I won't be left staring down the face of an irate learning curve.

Quote from sinkoman :

I'll try to get better on my bike then so that when I have the money to upgrade to a sportsbike or a dualsport, I won't be left staring down the face of an irate learning curve.

Just be careful mate and remember the golden rule:

"Always be able to stop in the distance you can see"

Quote from swingkid :

then you push against the inside steer bar so your bike doesn't steer more in the corner then you want.

Please.

Don't do that.... Unless you want to explore another motorcycling term: "lowside".

Quote from Gentlefoot :

I don't think countersteering is as important on light bikes with narrow tyres like mopeds and dirtbikes.

it doesnt matter even a mountain bike (you know the kind without a motor) is hardly steerable without countersteering
just accept it as soon as youre moving your weight means diddly squat to where your bike goes

Quote from Shotglass :

it doesnt matter even a mountain bike (you know the kind without a motor) is hardly steerable without countersteering
just accept it as soon as youre moving your weight means diddly squat to where your bike goes

Clearly you've never riden a large bike then mate?

When I got on a GPZ500 after my GSX600R I almost dropped it onto the floor the first time I cornered on it. And you're saying the tyre size and weight of the machine makes no difference. I've owned 3 different bikes all with different tyre widths and weights. You'll just have to trust me on this I'm afriad.

Also, you don't countersteer at slow speeds. When riding through traffic jams, weaving between cars to find the gaps you use the steering in the normal way i.e. turn the bars the direction you want to go. Same on a push bike.

Quote from Gentlefoot :

When I got on a GPZ500 after my GSX600R I almost dropped it onto the floor the first time I cornered on it. And you're saying the tyre size and weight of the machine makes no difference. I've owned 3 different bikes all with different tyre widths and weights. You'll just have to trust me on this I'm afriad.

what i meant was that the position of your body weight has no bearing on when the bike will turn in ... once its leaned the cog and lean angle obviously has an effect but thats an entirely different situation

Quote :

Also, you don't countersteer at slow speeds. When riding through traffic jams, weaving between cars to find the gaps you use the steering in the normal way i.e. turn the bars the direction you want to go. Same on a push bike.

yes you do you just dont notice it if you wouldnt countersteer your bike would never lean into the corner in the first place and no matter how slow you are you need some lean to corner

try teaching a kid how to ride a bike and tell him how to countersteer and see how much faster he learns irregardless of the fact that he will be driving very slowly
the fact that most of us took quite a while to figre out how to balance a bike is that most of our fathers simply didnt have the slightest grasp about countersteering and much like us learned the technique over time without realizing what theyre doing

Quote from Shotglass :

yes you do you just dont notice it if you wouldnt countersteer your bike would never lean into the corner in the first place and no matter how slow you are you need some lean to corner

Sometimes while I'm manouvering the bike in traffic I actually run out of steering lock so you can't tell me I don't turn the bars in the direction I want to go! Yes, there is a tiny bit of lean too but hardly at all as at 5 mph or less you have no gyroscopic affect to keep you upright.

Quote from Gentlefoot :

Sometimes while I'm manouvering the bike in traffic I actually run out of steering lock so you can't tell me I don't turn the bars in the direction I want to go! Yes, there is a tiny bit of lean too but hardly at all is at 5 mph or less you have no gyroscopic affect to keep you upright.

like i said earlier a bike goes where you steer it so obviously you steer into the corner while going round it but im confident that you still use an ever so slight countersteer to initiate the lean

No, at speed you remain countersteering (with the lean angle, the front of the wheel points slightly skyward). At slow speeds you don't countersteer (e.g. walking pace). The change over point has always confused me though - what happens exactly in between the two points? No steering = lots of turning!?!?!??

Quote from tristancliffe :

No, at speed you remain countersteering (with the lean angle, the front of the wheel points slightly skyward). At slow speeds you don't countersteer (e.g. walking pace). The change over point has always confused me though - what happens exactly in between the two points? No steering = lots of turning!?!?!??

im pretty confident that this is confusion caused by seemingly pushing the bar into a countersteer which is actually caster and the shape of the tyre at work trying to steer more
you can observe that behaviour if you take a bike and push it forwards without a rider on sooner or later it will lean into a corner and you will see the front tyre will steer more and more the more the bike leans

so unless im very mistaken on this one a bike generally does the opposite of a car during a corner (a car tries to steer less a bike tries to steer more) which if youre coming from a car backgorund appears to be that youre steering out if the corner while youre actually just keeping the bar from steering more

I'd highly recommend not worrying about it. The vast majority of the time I don't think about it, just like you wouldn't think about pressing the clutch to change gear in a car - you just do it. Your brain soon wires it in as "this is how I turn".

Even when really pressing on, and trying to flick the bike through a right-left s-bend at speed, I've not thought about it. There's more than enough things to worry about, so why add another one?

Quote from Christofire :

There's more than enough things to worry about, so why add another one?

quite simply because you have 2 options when an obstacle turns up right in front of you
1) countersteer and avoid it
2) waste time (which is running out quickly) hopelessly trying to steer the bike with your weight and crash right into it

I have nothing more to say.

Quote from Shotglass :

quite simply because you have 2 options when an obstacle turns up right in front of you
1) countersteer and avoid it
2) waste time (which is running out quickly) hopelessly trying to steer the bike with your weight and crash right into it

If you have your hands on the bars, you'll countersteer. In 10 years of riding bikes I've never had the bike turn the wrong way because I've pulled/pushed the bars in the wrong direction. Even when riding in France.

I'd rather just (counter)steer out of the way rather than sit there thinking "oh, an obstacle, now, on the lfs forum, did they say push the left or pull the lef"<BANG>

Have you ever steered a bike in the wrong direction because you didn't think about countersteering, and just let yourself do what came naturally?

If you're talking about obstacle avoidance then target-fixation is a far bigger problem than countersteering. If you look where you want to go, not at the obstacle, then you're far more likely to go there.

Quote from Christofire :

If you're talking about obstacle avoidance then target-fixation is a far bigger problem than countersteering. If you look where you want to go, not at the obstacle, then you're far more likely to go there.

thats another thing and i think it drives home my point
you have to be consciously aware of how to react correctly at first to be able to train it often enough to react in time when it matters

and if you actually believe that you steer your bike with your body rather than with the bar chances are youll find yourself in the scenario i described where you fruitlessly try to lean the bike away from the obstacle instead of simply doing it

Quote from Christofire :

If you're talking about obstacle avoidance then target-fixation is a far bigger problem than countersteering. If you look where you want to go, not at the obstacle, then you're far more likely to go there.

Very good point that. This is so true.

i always thought you dont really need to steer bikes , you lean into the turn and use the throttle to pull you back up...

Quote from theirishnoob :

i always thought you dont really need to steer bikes , you lean into the turn and use the throttle to pull you back up...

There is absolutley nothing wrong with the statement you just made in my view. Ron Haslem once told me to use the throttle to stand the bike up so you're in good company there.

Quote from theirishnoob :

i always thought you dont really need to steer bikes , you lean into the turn and use the throttle to pull you back up...

and how exactly does the bike turn then ?

Quote from Gentlefoot :

There is absolutley nothing wrong with the statement you just made in my view. Ron Haslem once told me to use the throttle to stand the bike up so you're in good company there.

But the idea that you can just lean a bike over like you would one of those arcade game bikes is so, so wrong.

@ Christofire: I agree with what you're saying, you don't need to be aware of countersteering. There are no doubt thousands and thousands of riders who don't have a clue what it is, and they steer just fine.

I believe being aware of it is advantageous, though. Bikes feel so much more nimble if you're actively pulling or pushing "the wrong way".

Mate just sent me this piccy from Supermoto at Lydden totally by concidence!

Quote from Gentlefoot :

Mate just sent me this piccy from Supermoto at Lydden totally by concidence!

Nice pic, but don't give the impression that this type of "into the skid" steering is the same as "deflect the wheels to one side and bike will lean the other way" countersteering