The online racing simulator
Quote from tristancliffe :What about at 1km/h? Or when pushing it out of a garage? In that instance you turn INTO the turn. So at some point there must be a change over?

which would be as soon as you feel safe enough to rest your foot on the pegs and gyro forces and automatic countersteering through caster have taken over
even when you push it out of the garage you will have to either bump it into a very minute lean first (which you could theoretically achive with counter steering) or keep it from not falling to the outside with the help of your feet on the ground

if riding a bike where that simple at any speed learning how to as a kid wouldnt be as hard
Quote from Motordirex :The debate has been body steering. Some say yes, you need your body to steer, some say no. I have said no, you dont need or use your body to turn a bike and there have been many arguments to that.

Firstly, you do not NEED to use your body to steer, but by ek does it help.

Quote from word. :Eg. to stop the back wheel of a bike sliding, you don't do anything with the steering. You apply weight to the foot pedals. To stop the back wheel from locking up under braking, you lean backwards. To stop the front tucking in, around a corner, you lean forwards. Pretty much all these rider inputs cannot be simulated with simple controls like a car can. Its just not possible.

Don't know if your explainations are coming across wrong because of the way they are written, but.......

Quote :Eg. to stop the back wheel of a bike sliding, you don't do anything with the steering. You apply weight to the foot pedals.

Err......no you don't, if the back wheel is sliding, apply the rear brake will only make it worse, depending on why the back wheel is sliding in the first place, you take different actions.

Quote :To stop the back wheel from locking up under braking, you lean backwards.

Quite why anyone would ever lean backwards when riding a bike is beyond me, anyone whos knows anything about fast riding, knows that you rarely use the back brake, if at all.

Quote :To stop the front tucking in, around a corner, you lean forwards.

? huh?, don't even know where to begin with that one.

P.S, I sorta know what I am talking about

http://trackdaydigitalimages.c ... 30807/pages/page_238.html

As for the "arguement" of bikes in LFS, untill there is a proper controller then it doesn't work, end of story.
Danowat, don't wanna split hairs, but you do get to use the rear brake in fast riding. I'm a bit hosed, but off the top of my head, quite a few pro racers say they use the back brake to counter the front getting up on their way out of corners. Telling Nicky Hayden the rear brake is useless is probably not the best way to start a conversation... And we do act like Haydens in cars already, trailbraking into turns and flogging the cars in LFS for all they're worth. Maybe not as well as pro racer prodigies would, but with no restraint in using any and all control inputs as binning it in reality would entail, if we did it wrong.
I haven't ridden much, but it's not rocket science.. Maybe you need quite a lot of innate talent/experience to exploit it, but it's obvious that using the rear brake will be more useful than the front in at least a few circumstances.. E.G. I know as a kid, riding a bike down steep slopes, I'd lock up the rear if the front slipped out, so that the bike would sort of equalize both wheels into a slide, and I'd have an easier time getting back into gripping. This was on sandy tarmac, but I think it's analogous enough.

As for arguing that bikes in LFS wouldn't be true to the game's spirit, because they aren't modeled so that the player has 100% of the controls at his disposition as they would be in reality, and in a car, as we have in LFS.. It sounds more like a cop-out than a good reason to keep bikes out of the game.
Like Sinbad says, some automation wouldn't lessen the fun and realism of riding a bike (hard) in LFS, not by much more than a negligible amout. Of course, if too many things are automated, it starts feeling really synthetic and very bland, no fun at all. The real question is whether any controler on the market now, or feasible by anyone with some ingenuity and entrepreneurship, could provide an interface intuitive and transparent enough, in combination with just the right amount of automation, to make controling a bike (with some degree of automation, by clever algorithms as Tourist Trophy had, for example) as fun and realisticaly bound to the range of possible inputs in real life.
Never once said it was "useless" did I?

It does have it's uses, and "some" racers do indeed use it, but a large portion don't even touch it.

Bottomline, you don't want any wheel to lock when riding fast, a locked wheel means you have lost a lot of traction.

The only time I use the back brake is if I have gone into a corner too fast and I want to scrub speed off, because a locked rear wheel is easier to get back than a locked front.

Also, some racers "back it in", sometimes they use the rear brake to do this, sometimes its just spirited downshifted to lock the rear wheel, but it's certainly not a widespread practice nowadays.

But to say you lean back to stop the back wheel locking under braking is ludicrous
Just splitting hairs..
Who is? you or I?

Riding a bike fast is probably one of the only things I am good at, or know anything about LOL
I was.. Yeah "leaning on the rear to stop the rear locking" is pretty funny, but that's not enough to say the rear brake is rarely used.
Even by average riders All it takes is a bit of understanding and discipline.

Anyway, I think LFS getting bikes, even with as much automation as Tourist Trophy had, with LFS' phsyics, would make for a ton of fun. It would be the best bike racing sim of all, by far. This would mean a lot of new players, whether or not they're segregated the same way any other carset (bikeset in this case) is already, by the server filtering system. This influx of players and renewed market interest in virtual bikes and bike controlers would make better bike controlers (which we don't have yet) more feasible.

It has to start somewhere.. If all it takes is one click to not see servers you don't care for (cruise/drift now, bikes then), it's really not so hard to accept, is it?
Quote from Motordirex :blah blah blah

Sorry, but what has rocket science to do with bikes? OK they are sometimes called crotch rockets and there are drag bikes that use jet engines. But I still don't see why you are including rocket science into this debate.

I believe LFS is a racing sim. So it's about racing. Racing is about going as fast as you can. To be fast as possible with a bike you need to steer with your body too.
Quote from word : Eg. to stop the back wheel of a bike sliding, you don't do anything with the steering. You apply weight to the foot pedals.

Quote from danowat :
Err......no you don't, if the back wheel is sliding, apply the rear brake will only make it worse, depending on why the back wheel is sliding in the first place, you take different actions.

I'm pretty sure he meant to say footpegs. Loading inside or outside more/less affects (pretty minimally) the handling of the bike on the raggedy edge, as you know.
Quote from Bob Smith :Funny, that's not how it worked in LFS last time I checked. Nor on a real bike.

It did here. I'll show you when I have time.
Radio control motorcyles don't use any "body" lean, they just counter-steer, on a small bike with a lot of trail, and a servo with enough give to allow the self-correcting geometry of the trail to maintain a lean. The use "training" wheels to limit the lean when the bike is moving too slow.

The old (1970s) European GP (formula 1 500cc two-stroke motorcycles) riders stayed tucked and didn't use any body lean when turning either.
Quote from JeffR :Radio control motorcyles don't use any "body" lean, they just counter-steer, on a small bike with a lot of trail, and a servo with enough give to allow the self-correcting geometry of the trail to maintain a lean. The use "training" wheels to limit the lean when the bike is moving too slow.

The old (1970s) European GP (formula 1 500cc two-stroke motorcycles) riders stayed tucked and didn't use any body lean when turning either.

Exactly! That "should" be enough evidence in itself to prove you DONT need your body to steer a bike.

Yet so many experts on the subject, most of whom I BET havent even ridden a bike or raced a bike on track seem to think yes you do.

Word - I dont think you have any clue what your talking about, sorry mate.
Like I said, you don't NEED to, but in doing so, makes you faster
Quote from danowat :Like I said, you don't NEED to, but in doing so, makes you faster

you dont steer with your body though all it does is alter the cog position
Quote from danowat :Like I said, you don't NEED to, but in doing so, makes you faster

Agreed. Its more a comfort thing to me when I race to judge lean angle and it just feels better hanging off then sitting straight up and down.

For a controller, it would be nice if you had some sort or left and right input, but I dont think not having it would kill the feel. People who havent been on a track dragging their knee wouldnt notice.

From the mucking around Ive done using my wheel and EA SBK 2001, the riders weight transfer from back to front is more important.
- Tucking is obvious, to make the rider streamlined to the bike and to keep the front tyre on the ground under power: lean forward.
- Sitting up would transfer weight to the back making the bike wheelie under power, but under braking assists like a parachute to slow the bike down to make the turn: lean back.

Those two inputs for body positions should be included at the very least as a start...IMO!
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I can steer a bike with my hands on my lid. Body lean is a major factor. If you think that you can take a real bike out and just use the handlebars to steer you will learn the hard way.
Quote from Rdcranno :I can steer a bike with my hands on my lid. Body lean is a major factor. If you think that you can take a real bike out and just use the handlebars to steer you will learn the hard way.

I bet I could drop a motorcycle (at speed) into a corner 5 times quicker with the bars and keeping my body totally still, than you could with your hands off. Probably more. If you think the bars aren't the primary means of steering, you'll learn the hard way.
Quote from March Hare :Yeah, right.

I quess this isn't an RC motorcycle.
http://www.kyosho.com/eng/prod ... il.html?product_id=100396

From what I gather from that page the lean is the steering. The servo isn't even connected to the front fork.

I have one of those, the Suzuki model and yes, the servo is attached to the forks to turn it and if run it without the rider.

There is an RC bike that only steers with the body lean of the rider, but the front wheel is loose so it can mimick counter steering to whatever way the bike is turning.
Hehe lol I drive a 250cc trials bike (minuscule in comparison to the superbikes being discussed), and as soon as I leave 3rd gear, it absolutely WILL NOT turn unless I lean. Trying to steer with the bars alone will just result in a painful and and embarrassing stoppie-style epic fail

It is entirely more possible to steer without turning the bars at all...

Take a bicycle for example...it's easy to turn even using no hands, just lean into the bend. But try and turn and the same pace without leaning at all. It's quite simply impossible. If you even manage to not lean (which is actually incredibly hard, you will lean no matter what you do...), you will either fall off or go straight on...
I use the bars as a lever when riding fast, I pull on them quite hard actually to make the bike change direction, even though the bars themselves don't move much (at all?)
Quote from sinbad :I bet I could drop a motorcycle (at speed) into a corner 5 times quicker with the bars and keeping my body totally still, than you could with your hands off. Probably more. If you think the bars aren't the primary means of steering, you'll learn the hard way.

Obviously, I was just using that as an example how much you can steer with just using your weight. More leaning than steering though, well thats how I ride.
dougie-lampkin - Are you talking about rider leaning or bike leaning?
Quote from dougie-lampkin :Hehe lol I drive a 250cc trials bike (minuscule in comparison to the superbikes being discussed), and as soon as I leave 3rd gear, it absolutely WILL NOT turn unless I lean. Trying to steer with the bars alone will just result in a painful and and embarrassing stoppie-style epic fail

It is entirely more possible to steer without turning the bars at all...

Take a bicycle for example...it's easy to turn even using no hands, just lean into the bend. But try and turn and the same pace without leaning at all. It's quite simply impossible. If you even manage to not lean (which is actually incredibly hard, you will lean no matter what you do...), you will either fall off or go straight on...

They are talking about leaning relative to the bike, not by trying to stay vertical relative to the ground.

Get back on your bike. Keep your body absolutely rigid on the machine (so you lean with it), and steer using the bars - you will steer (and lean as one) very quickly. Now do the same with no hands, and see how SLoooooooooooooWLY you turn (and lean as one).
Bicycles don't countersteer right?

If that's the case, then why not? Shouldn't a bicycle steer the same as a motorcycle?

And does the countersteering thing only apply to sports bikes, because that's the only context in which I see it discussed. What about mopeds? Trials bikes? Do they countersteer?

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