do you guys actually think about all this stuff while you're riding?

don't get me wrong, I love physics and I understand what is being talked about (It's all pretty basic stuff) but seriously, I don't think about a bit of it while I'm riding.  I just ride.  The bike goes where I want it to.  I don't think about pushing or pulling on the bars.  I don't think about shifting my weight.  I just decide when and where I want to go and my body does the rest.

is this not how it is for others?

You can't simply rely on instinct to save yourself in an emergency situation.  Courses in motorcycling fundamentals as offered by the MSF are highly recommended.  I can't speak for others, but I'm fairly conscious of my own rider input and conscious of feedback from the bike and road most of the time.  Concerning the subject of "pushing" or "pulling" when countersteering, it's not something most riders are going to worry about when casually putting around.  It becomes more important when the rider begins pushing the envelope in a sporting fashion.  At that point, the rider needs to learn to "push" to countersteer; you don't want one hand to be fighting the other.  Pushing also allows for finer steering inputs.  Like any sport, you have to acquire new skills to move to the next skill level.

Quote from: PhilI.e., if you want to turn right/lean right, you push on the right grip, but if you are tense you may unconsciously also be pushing on the left grip, cancelling out the steering input and wondering why you are running wide.

You got me thinking about this. maybe my pulling was holding me back or was a bad habit...so I was conscious of it today when I hit the canyons. Had a last minute cancelletion leaving me free to ride so I hit Angeles Crest Hwy today (I did 120 miles of uninterupted, stop-free, little traffic, good weather, twisty roads. Only stopped a few times throughout it all. Managed 120 miles in 2 hours.

The whole time I was trying to JUST push on the appropriate side and relax my other side grip. And to my amazement it worked fabulously. Started seeing faster turning, more lean angle, more comfort in turns (felt like I hit a few turns too hot and just pushed more (and relaxed more other grip). Really made a difference. I still pulled a bit but only when I had to flip-flop the bike in some tight esses. This, combined with putting my weight onthe outside footpeg really made a huge difference.
Thanks.

I guess no one care but I do. Are we going to allow this site to become a porn site when poeple can post anything they want. I am surprise no one had said anything but AR5ENAL your avatar is not appropiate (in my opinion ) for this site. We have lot member that my get offended by that. This site is for exchanging info on the GS not to post porn stuff.

My 2 cents!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gino

I don't believe that the Pull/Push steering technique is appropriate for a two wheeled motorcycle at any speed above a walk.  If you were driving a sidecar or three-wheeler, then you would "steer" those types of motorcycles by a Pull/Push movement.  Two-wheeled motorcycles are "countersteered" by pushing left to go left, and pushing right to go right.  This is more or less a downward/forward motion on the appropriate handlebar grip.  At low speeds while countersteering you may find that the front forks turn-in somewhat, but nonetheless you are countersteering.  If you are manuvering the bike at walking speeds or less, you may very well then be "steering" the bike by actually turning the handlebars.

If I understand the dynamics of "countersteer" correctly; when pushing on the handlebar there is a momentary weave in the opposite direction before the motorcycle falls into the intended direction.  Example: when pushing right, the front wheel actually weaves slightly to the left before it falls to the right.

Quote from: ginovegaI guess no one care but I do. Are we going to allow this site to become a porn site when poeple can post anything they want. I am surprise no one had said anything but AR5ENAL your avatar is not appropiate (in my opinion ) for this site. We have lot member that my get offended by that. This site is for exchanging info on the GS not to post porn stuff.

My 2 cents!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gino

what the hell are you talking about!? The Anime' avatar is not appropriate for what?

You can't simply rely on instinct to save yourself in an emergency situation.

Well...  I think you have it completely backward.  The only thing you have to rely on in an emergency situation is instinct.  Granted you have to build that instinct with practice, and thinking about how you ride when you're not riding is a great idea. But focusing on just pushing and not pulling (or any other specific task) takes concentration away from where it needs to be:  on the road.

Riding a motorcycle is just like any other sport.  When i go to hit a forehand in tennis, I don't think about placing my feet right, or turning my hips at the proper moment, or keeping my wrist and the perfect angle.  I just think, "Hit the ball."  And my body does the rest.  Because I've practice and done the same action over and over again, I don't have to think about it.  I just do it.  

Riding a motorcycle should be the same.

mrslush50, your point is exactly right, if you don't practice you'll never get it right when it's important.  Practicing the correct riding techniques is most important to accomplishing the task when instinct needs to take control.

I have a friend in his late 60's who recently took the Experienced Riders Course for the first time.  He was utterly amazed that you don't pull on the handlebars to make it turn.  He had learned a bad habit 40 or 50 years ago that persist to this day.  If he were pushing on the handlebars, he would be able to swerve around that obstacle in the road, much faster than if he had been pulling on the handlebars.

my Dad said the same thing when he finally took the basic MSF course.

he'd been riding for 20 some odd years and found out about all kinds of bad habits he had.

Wow, I hadn't looked at this thread for a few days

One small note, on my original post when I talked about pulling I meant in the sense of "Pull left, go riight" as a compliment to "Push right, go right."  I paid more attention and realized that while I DO do this sometimes, it is slight and never isolated; it is always in conjunction with "pushing" the understood way.

My understanding of countersteering is this (from Proficient M.)   The Bike has forward momentum.  Pushing right makes the front wheel turn to the left slightly and move to the left of the rear wheel track.  The bike is unstable at that point, and starts to fall to the right.  The front wheel "tries" to track back in line with the rear wheel.  As long as the push is continued, the front wheel is prevented from realiging and the bike turns.  Centrifugal force keeps the bike from falling over, balancing against gravity.  When you stop pushing, the front wheel is allowed to realign and the bike goes upright and straight.

Is pulling on the left while pushing on the right superfluous?  Not sure.  Two arms in concert have more strength than one, I would think, therefore it ought to be easier to turn using both arms.  But I could be insane    I think the answer from generations of riders, though, would be that it's not necessary EVEN if it is effective.  

Thank you for helping me along my journey of self-discovery

Trev

Are we talking about the same little bike? It seems to me it takes less  effort to push the handgrip for a turn than it does to lift a helmet over your head. (Doing it to check . . . yep.)

Phil,

 Yeah, you're right  :mrgreen: This is more theoretical I guess; on the practical side it's probably a "who cares" navel-gazing kind of thing.

 Sharper turns at higher speeds do require more force, though.  Any advantage, by definition, is an advantage  

Trev

QuoteSharper turns at higher speeds do require more force, though. Any advantage, by definition, is an advantage  

You may be rationalizing a bad habit.  I thought the original post was searching for some clarity.  Of course, everybody has to learn for themselves.   That's bad grammar, but it works for me.  At any rate, I posit that the off hand shouldn't pull because it has the job of metering the amount of countersteer initiated by the lead hand.

Quote from: Gisser

QuoteSharper turns at higher speeds do require more force, though. Any advantage, by definition, is an advantage  

You may be rationalizing a bad habit.  <snip> At any rate, I posit that the off hand shouldn't pull because it has the job of metering the amount of countersteer initiated by the lead hand.

Good point.  I really don't know.  I should search more carefully in books by the masters like Prof. Moto. or Twist of the Wrist and see if they mention anything about this.  Defer to experience.  I did read one interview with a racer that mentioned balancing push and pull; whether he was talking about the same hand or not I don't recall.  It was certainly subconscious, though, until he set out to document how he was riding.

Trev

I know that with Harleys and Triumphs that had a higher set of bars I always pulled. When I started riding the Baby G, pulling felt clumsy so I found that pushing worked better. I think it all depends on the type of riding and the type of bike. Whether you push or pull the reaction is the same, but with low-set bars it becomes more difficult to pull than to push. Love the little White Owl, Africa (the mother continent?), and this forum.

C.......

This is a strange thread. In terms of the physics of countersteering, Wingbolt was right about gyroscopic precession. Try this: get a bicycle wheel and hold it straight in front of you by the axle. Get it spinning good and fast, and then try turning it left or right while keeping it vertical. It can't be done. It doesn't matter if you can bench 300 lbs, when you turn the wheel you won't be able to stop it leaning the other way. Okay, so not everyone has a bicycle wheel around. But my engineering teacher in high school brought one in and showed it to us. It's a very cool effect, I think MSF courses should do the same demonstration to help new riders understand counter steering.

So precession makes the bike lean; and the lean is what causes the direction of travel to turn (I'm less clear on how this works).

Whether you've got risers on a chopper or clip-ons on a sportbike, whether it feels like you're pushing forward on the bars ot pushing down on them, what you're really doing is turning the front wheel to the outside, along the axis of the forks. The spinning wheel then leans over from the top (along the axis of the road), taking the bike's center of gravity with it.

Again in terms of physics, it doesn't matter whether you push on the inside bar or pull on the outside bar. The wheel will still lean. But like everyone else I was taught to push on the inside. I suspect that either a) this is just a more natural movement for our bodies and it is easier for us to apply and control the force from that direction; or b) the geometry of motorcycles is designed such that it is the most efficient way to turn it.

As far as speed goes: the force with which the bike will lean over is directly proportional to how fast the wheel is turning. So at high speeds, turning the wheel even slightly to the outside will cause it to lean hard. (And yes, countersteering continues to work as you go faster and faster.) As you go slower, you need to turn the wheel farther toward the outside to make it lean with enough force to make the bike also lean. My understanding is, at speeds that are too low this simply becomes untenable - to make the lean in you'd have to turn the wheel all the way out, and you'd just fall over. So below 12 mph or so you don't countersteer and don't lean in, you just steer it like you would a trike.

Wow ... way to revive a 2-year-old thread, C!

Especially considering the slice of history contained in first post on this page by panta "Mr. Track Day" blo  

From my understanding, gyroscopic precession plays little role in the process of countersteering.  The most important factor is the steering geometry, while gyroscopic precession facilitates it, it is not necessary (say, you have weightless wheels).

When you applied a torque to the handlebar, the front wheel turns (let's assume left), at a rate determined by the fork assembly around the steering head (forks, front wheel, handlebar etc.)  The wheel translates the force and leans the wheel (to the right, gyroscopic precessession, not all that much) as the contact patch of the front wheel moves (forward and to the left, much more important than gyroscopic precession, trail and rake), causing the body of the bike to fall (to the right).  As the bike leans (to the right), it exert force on the front wheel and attempts to lean it (to the right). The wheel (gyroscope) responds by turning (right), proceed pass zero (straight ahead) and turn in the opposit direction until the forces balance... and there you have a countersteering turn.  There are also contributing factor from camber thrust etc.

Break it down into point form:

1. Steering torque, wheel turns left (push on right handlebar)
2. Centrifugal force (convinient plot device) leans the bike right; the change in contact patch forward to the left also leans the bike right (try this, straddle your bike at 0km/h, and try to steer, and see how this leans the bike in the opposite direction), plus help from gyroscopic precession
3. Increase lean leans front wheel to the right, which counteracts the this torque by steering itself right against steering torque, thus stopping the steering angle from increasing
4. Torque exerted by the lean overcomes steering torque => front wheel starts turning right, while lean angle continue to increase
5. Front wheel passes zero and the centrifugal force reverse direction and halts the lean.
6. System stabalize when gravitational torque balance the centrifugal torque....

my $0.02...

My understanding of countersteering evolved like my understanding of putting the bike on the centerstand.  Reading most descriptions still left me scratching my head.  That's because I was "passively countersteering."  My first bike didn't need much to lean, and the front tire would easily go where you wanted it to because it was getting old.

Now, for me countersteering is how you _start_ (a.k.a. "initiate") a turn, but certainly my bars eventually are pointed in the intuitive direction for the turn.  When I first started riding I kept wondering how I was supposed to keep the bar turned the opposite direction throughout the turn and it made no sense.  I was not reading the descriptions correctly I guess.  I didn't feel like I was even doing it to initiate a turn.  Then I got a new front tire.....and it was so grippy compared to the old one I had to more actively countersteer to start a turn.

Now I think one can benefit from practicing this, so you can do the right thing immediately and not struggle with the bike's direction in an emergency.

The experiment which brought the dynamics home to me was--similar to what scratch wrote--where I would be riding straight and just give a little-jerk push forward on the right grip and notice how the bike would go right.  First it would tug slightly left, making you lean right, and then really go right.  It happens very fast even at 25mph.

This got me thinking even when riding casually.  In fact, it made riding casually more interesting because I could add this one little component to my conscious inputs onto the bike, and it became more and more smooth with practice.  I feel much better about  my chances for dodging road obstacles now that I trained myself to more actively countersteer.

I also find myself doing some pulling on the other grip.  It's not yet obvious to me that this is a bad thing if it's all in a balanced, smooth operation.  Then again I don't "push the envelope" much.  When I'm thinking about it I skip the pull and just go with the push.  I may practice that "open hand" technique now that it's been mentioned.

FWIW,
Mike D.

I think what's happening with countersteering is that the geometry of the forks and steering stem are such that as the bike leans, the front fork assembly naturally points into the lean. This is something the engineers have fine-tuned to the point that the bike just constantly corrects itself at all times. Even at creepy-crawley speeds, the bike is trying to compensate for the lean. Just sit on a bicycle and walk it forward, then lean it. The front wheel will always turn into the lean. Gravity must have something to do with it, also the caster/camber of the front wheel and fork angle.