Posted by: syncro
Posted by: taprider
@andy-eunson I've seen people use "counter steering" to mean different things. One would be turning the bars in the opposite direction you want to go like in the first video, with some purposefully turning extra rather than just intuitively.
The other thing would be to aggressively lean the bike into a turn then turning the bars the opposite way to maintain an oversteer (drifting/skidding rear wheel/flat track motorcycle style) turn.
Anyway we don't even need to think about "counter steering" since we will do it intuitively.
As well, for normal turns the rear wheel will take a tighter radius than the front wheel (short cutting inside), for drifting turns the rear wheel will take a larger radius than the front, and for a carved turn on gravel or dirt then the rear wheel follows and front wheel in the same arc (leaving a single narrow rut rather than two tire tracks). And for whatever style turn you want, you are better off thinking about your speed, how much you lean the bike, edge the tires, and where your body centre of mass is relative to the centre line of the bike (inclination and pressure control).
I think the biggest reason most people don't grasp the idea of counter steering is that it happens intuitively and people usually don't go fast enough to really see how it works. At slow speeds it seems like you're turning the wheel in the direction you, and at really low speeds (walking pace) you are so this is probably what throws people off. On a motorcycle, you can easily get up to enough speed where you can see (and feel) the effect of counter steering quite easily. And it's not about pulling the bars in the opposite direction, it's about pushing the bars in the same direction - push right to go right and push left to go left.
Totally agree with you. You don't have to ride a motorcycle very long to understand this concept and use it to improve/ speed up your cornering. Plus it's super fun countersteering at speed!
