Motorcycle Turning, Part 2 - Countersteering
Have you ever tried putting the weight of your whole body on the inside of the turning chassis but the motorcycle doesn't budge? This is especially true at the moment of hard acceleration. When you are hard throttling your bike through over 150km/h, you can barely bank, even if you did, the bike wobbles to get down on its side. How do you overcome this? The art of countersteering lies within...
Defying Logic
As mentioned before, travelling at speeds above 25km/h would result the handle bar and front wheel to stiffen up and any movement on the handle bar would cause an unexpected wobbling of the machine. But how true is the movement unexpected?
The fact is that your bike is moving towards an opposite direction of travel from your handle bar. Most of us try very hard to push the bike down hard and move the handle bar towards the direction of travel, but the outcome is often undesirable and sluggish. That is because you are working AGAINST physics.
The proper technique to initiate a cornering/banking on high speeds is to actually perform a countersteer. In which, we turn the handle bar away from the intended direction of the corner. By turning your wheel/handle bar, it helps your bike to lean faster towards the opposite direction thus initiating a faster turn. E.g turn handle bar right when you want to corner left, and vice versa for cornering right... turn your handle bar towards left.
Why the phenomenon?
It is the end result of momentum forces actually, the centrifugal force.
When at high speeds, if we push the handle/wheel towards the left, the chassis and the rear wheel of the motorcycle will be led towards the direction of the front wheel. However, due to the massive inertia force created by the high speed travelling of the motorcycle's weight, the initial left turning led by the front wheel will cause the body to be pushed towards the opposite direction of the turn. The reason being that, the strength of the gyroscopic(turning wheel) and momentum force(weight) of the moving motorcycle attempts to upright and correct the angle of steering and push/bank the chassis to the opposite direction of the moving handle bar/front wheel. So you end up turning right than the intended left turn on the handle bar.
So the movement of the countersteering in a nutshell is actually a travel to the direction of the front wheel then followed by the banking towards the opposite direction. This is especially significant on slower speeds, and the banking happens almost immediately on faster speeds.
Knowing It
The reason why most riders find it sluggish to corner at high speeds is because they try too hard to turn the steering bar towards the intended direction while leaning. This action causes a counter-reactive effect by which the steering towards the intended direction initiated the lean towards the direction, while the rider consciously tries to pull the bike down to the intended direction. The machine ended up not going anywhere and wobbling down.
Countersteering is a motion that should be done consciously in the initial stages of practice as it is an uncommon technique not logical to the amateur rider. It should be done to the point where a rider chooses to use it instinctively. Countersteering is used to initiate the banking. While the chassis has reached a desirable angle of banking/turn, the rider eases the countersteering and maintain the angle through the corner. When the rider needs to retrieve the bike back into an upright position or even the opposite banking, he merely has to turn the wheel down by pushing the outer side of the handle bar to allow the bike to flip back upright.
Countersteering is especially effective when you need to dodge something which is most unexpected...
Defying Logic
As mentioned before, travelling at speeds above 25km/h would result the handle bar and front wheel to stiffen up and any movement on the handle bar would cause an unexpected wobbling of the machine. But how true is the movement unexpected?
The fact is that your bike is moving towards an opposite direction of travel from your handle bar. Most of us try very hard to push the bike down hard and move the handle bar towards the direction of travel, but the outcome is often undesirable and sluggish. That is because you are working AGAINST physics.
The proper technique to initiate a cornering/banking on high speeds is to actually perform a countersteer. In which, we turn the handle bar away from the intended direction of the corner. By turning your wheel/handle bar, it helps your bike to lean faster towards the opposite direction thus initiating a faster turn. E.g turn handle bar right when you want to corner left, and vice versa for cornering right... turn your handle bar towards left.
Why the phenomenon?
It is the end result of momentum forces actually, the centrifugal force.
When at high speeds, if we push the handle/wheel towards the left, the chassis and the rear wheel of the motorcycle will be led towards the direction of the front wheel. However, due to the massive inertia force created by the high speed travelling of the motorcycle's weight, the initial left turning led by the front wheel will cause the body to be pushed towards the opposite direction of the turn. The reason being that, the strength of the gyroscopic(turning wheel) and momentum force(weight) of the moving motorcycle attempts to upright and correct the angle of steering and push/bank the chassis to the opposite direction of the moving handle bar/front wheel. So you end up turning right than the intended left turn on the handle bar.
So the movement of the countersteering in a nutshell is actually a travel to the direction of the front wheel then followed by the banking towards the opposite direction. This is especially significant on slower speeds, and the banking happens almost immediately on faster speeds.
Knowing It
The reason why most riders find it sluggish to corner at high speeds is because they try too hard to turn the steering bar towards the intended direction while leaning. This action causes a counter-reactive effect by which the steering towards the intended direction initiated the lean towards the direction, while the rider consciously tries to pull the bike down to the intended direction. The machine ended up not going anywhere and wobbling down.
Countersteering is a motion that should be done consciously in the initial stages of practice as it is an uncommon technique not logical to the amateur rider. It should be done to the point where a rider chooses to use it instinctively. Countersteering is used to initiate the banking. While the chassis has reached a desirable angle of banking/turn, the rider eases the countersteering and maintain the angle through the corner. When the rider needs to retrieve the bike back into an upright position or even the opposite banking, he merely has to turn the wheel down by pushing the outer side of the handle bar to allow the bike to flip back upright.
Countersteering is especially effective when you need to dodge something which is most unexpected...
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