Instep, balls?

[The Prospector]

Cornering is a combination of many different acts, of which the only one of any real significance in actually making the turn is, counter steering.
Without that, all the other acts do diddly squat.

You sure about that, go counter steer without leaning or moving your body weight - can't be done, just accept that you need to do several things at once to corner effectively be it leaning ,throttle control, weighting one side of the bike, trailing a little brake , counter steering, looking ahead where you want to go. You're trying to make out counter steering is some great modern invention, bike riders have been doing it for years, most subconsciously.
IMHO the most effective and important skill in cornering a motorcycle is to look where you want to go, because where you look is invariably where you will end up.

 

[cookie]

Counter steering subconsciously is one thing. Doing it deliberately is quite another.

 

[Nutty]

What a load of old guff! I haven't got a clue if I counter steer, pull the bars, push the bars or go round corners with my feet steering the bike. All I do is look where I want to go, and ride the bike round the corners, sometimes even getting the panniers to touch down. Job done.

 

[Beemerman59]

What a load of old guff! I haven't got a clue if I counter steer, pull the bars, push the bars or go round corners with my feet steering the bike. All I do is look where I want to go, and ride the bike round the corners, sometimes even getting the panniers to touch down. Job done.

Me to! First time I heard the term "Counter Steer" was 30 years after I passed my test. How on earth did I manage to survive until the phrase had been explained to me.....?

 

[Giles]

It's all pretty relative! Bimble round a corner at a leisurely pace and merely looking at where you want to go will get you round. Drive into a corner at three figures and you'll need more than just your eyes to turn the bike ..
Your speed will play the biggest part factoring in how much effort is required to turn the bike, and it's only then really that huge pulls or pushes of the bar against weighted pegs comes into effect ...

 

[GC6269]

Knowing how to actively use counter steering is one of the best things you can do.

Of course you can ride your whole life and never give a moments thought to it, but your riding will benefit from learning how to use it. Personally I think it's more relevant to GS riders as I've never ridden a bike before that relies so much on upper body input.

Just saying.

 

[Poshtosser]

Countersteering and rear braking

Rather than read some of the very misleading posts on here regarding the use of counter steering and rear braking go on the Californian Superbike Course where you will learn the facts, practice them and come to understand them. I'd been riding for 30 years when I first went on it and it improved my understanding and riding beyond belief. Best money I ever spent.

 

[GC6269]

^ This.

 

[krytengs]

You sure about that, go counter steer without leaning or moving your body weight - can't be done, just accept that you need to do several things at once to corner effectively be it leaning ,throttle control, weighting one side of the bike, trailing a little brake , counter steering, looking ahead where you want to go. You're trying to make out counter steering is some great modern invention, bike riders have been doing it for years, most subconsciously.
IMHO the most effective and important skill in cornering a motorcycle is to look where you want to go, because where you look is invariably where you will end up.

Yes very sure. Leaning, moving your body, weighting the pegs does b**ger all on its own without counter steering to turn the bike into the bend.
I'm not trying to make counter steering out to be anything. It is, what it is....the reason a bike will go around a corner - its physics.

Most people, most of the time, do it subconsciously - you look where you want to go, you move around on your bike, weight the pegs, say a prayer to the god of corners...whatever....and then subconsciously push\pull on the bars and the bike tips in.

As some else said...go to CSS and prove it for yourself.

 

[The Prospector]

Sorry but you do not need to counter steer to corner, when I was younger and more foolish I used to ride my push bike down the steet with no hands round the corners as well, now please explain how I managed to counter steer with no hands on the fecking handlebars. Now I'm no scientist but the basics of cornering on a push bike will be similar to a motorcycle I'm sure.

 

[GC6269]

Sorry but you do not need to counter steer to corner, when I was younger and more foolish I used to ride my push bike down the steet with no hands round the corners as well, now please explain how I managed to counter steer with no hands on the fecking handlebars. Now I'm no scientist but the basics of cornering on a push bike will be similar to a motorcycle I'm sure.

All correct. Except the bars counter steer without your hands on them. Like someone said, it's physics.

 

[krytengs]

Sorry but you do not need to counter steer to corner, when I was younger and more foolish I used to ride my push bike down the steet with no hands round the corners as well, now please explain how I managed to counter steer with no hands on the fecking handlebars. Now I'm no scientist but the basics of cornering on a push bike will be similar to a motorcycle I'm sure.

I cant be @rsed to try to convince someone of the laws of nature and how and why the physics works as it does.
Do some research on line - there is plenty of info out there.

If you're still not convinced, try it for yourself...

Find a nice wide road with a reasonable corner at the end...get up to a decent speed...put on cruise control or use one of those bar end things to keep the speed steady...take your hands off the bars and then when you get to the corner...lean off the bike and push down on the pegs....let me know how you get on

Oh, and get someone to film it so you can share the results with us

 

[The Prospector]

I cant be @rsed to try to convince someone of the laws of nature and how and why the physics works as it does.
Do some research on line - there is plenty of info out there.

If you're still not convinced, try it for yourself...

Find a nice wide road with a reasonable corner at the end...get up to a decent speed...put on cruise control or use one of those bar end things to keep the speed steady...take your hands off the bars and then when you get to the corner...lean off the bike and push down on the pegs....let me know how you get on

Oh, and get someone to film it so you can share the results with us

Well there you go I was obviously a phenominon riding my push bike down the hill outside our house with no hands, and then 44 years of riding motor bikes and now some fecking Yanks have decided that it can't be done my way
Trust a Yank to feck it up

 

[krytengs]

Well there you go I was obviously a phenominon riding my push bike down the hill outside our house with no hands, and then 44 years of riding motor bikes and now some fecking Yanks have decided that it can't be done my way
Trust a Yank to feck it up

I blame Newton and his Laws of Motion and associated forces.

 

[Giles]

Sorry but you do not need to counter steer to corner, when I was younger and more foolish I used to ride my push bike down the steet with no hands round the corners as well, now please explain how I managed to counter steer with no hands on the fecking handlebars. Now I'm no scientist but the basics of cornering on a push bike will be similar to a motorcycle I'm sure.

To answer your question, I go back to the speed thing. putting effort into the bars is relative to how quickly you want to ride. As a kid at 15 mph, yeah - you could steer yer bike no hands round a corner.
I can put the cruise control on my bike at 50 and steer that with no hands - bit of body movement here and there, Hell, I can even do it creating drag in the wind with my arms.

But now lets say do a 110 mph down the Craner curves at donnington



To move the bike about, when the gyroscopic forces make it want to go straight, just looking and a bit of leaning ain't gonna make the bike turn quickly enough. These blokes are on the balls of their feet, and are putting a lot of effort into the bars to move the bike about.

There are stories of Freddie Spencer bending his handlebars through the sheer amount of force he was using to steer his bike.

Is that relevant to you on the public roads ???? Depends on yer riding style and what you want to do on yer bike and what you want to get out of it.
I accept unconditionally, that if we're all going to behave ourselves and do no more than 60mph then the whole conversation is probably a bit over the top. Personally, I like to have a bit of fun on my bike, and part of that fun is knowing how to throw it about down a twisty road.

 

[Beemerman59]

Giles has it pretty much spot on although the dynamics are different on a cycle than a bike. I managed perfectly well yesterday morning going round a corner on my pushbike, hands off the bars at about 30mph on a downhill stretch. My uneducated opinion is that thats down to the narrower tyres and the lower amount of counter steer required to get the smaller diametre section of the tyre on the road compared to a motorbike.

The fact is that some of us were never taught how to ride a bike - we bought one, got on it and rode it. Sometimes we fell off and othertimes overcooked a corner not to make it round. My own experience was riding out of the showroom on a brand new 250 Honda with the mechanic on the back shouting at me what to do! You learnt how to ride and corner intuitively. Nowadays, you're taught by an instructor who tells you what to do and to do that they use the technical terms.

On my '08 GSA, its easy to go around a gentle curve at say 20mph simply by leaning, hands off the bars. Not so at 50mph. This just seems to me to suggest there are multiple ways of invoking the counter steer, or in my language, cornering. Push/pull on the bars is just one of those ways but is by far the one with the greatest effect. Interesting also for me, on my GSA with high wide bars, I never conciously counter steer on the bars (although I must be), however on my K1100RS, if I'm wanting to corner fast then I have to actively hank on the bars to make that possible. That makes it more of an involved ride. Bugger the physics, if you can learn to corner fast, you will be countersteering whether you want to put a name to it or not, and you will be using a number of actions to do so.

 

[cookie]

i think that when you lean a push bike to go around a right hand corner no hands, you don't initially lean it to the right, but give it a small lean to the left first, then right.

i reckon that qualifies as counter steering.

i counter steer on my GSA almost all the time. great for pitching it into bends, setting an angle of lean and then to pull it back up again quickly

takes practice though

 

[Beemerman59]

i think that when you lean a push bike to go around a right hand corner no hands, you don't initially lean it to the right, but give it a small lean to the left first, then right.

Nope.... just lean it nothing more

 

[cookie]

I think you're wrong, and I think that's the way a motorbike steers as well.

When you initiate a right turn, the wheel first goes left, the contact patch moves back and to the left causing the bike to lean and turn right.

 

[Beemerman59]

I think you're wrong, and I think that's the way a motorbike steers as well.

When you initiate a right turn, the wheel first goes left, the contact patch moves back and to the left causing the bike to lean and turn right.

I guess we will just have to differ then... I know what I do when leaning and I certainly don't start the turn by going in the opposite direction. Remember, this is both hands off the bars. Its really easy to tell on a pushbike - do you have one?